Society Secretary Dominic Curran visited the Yorkshire Museum on Saturday 15th March 2025.
He couldn’t find the Middlesbrough Meteorite, and had to ask a member of staff. “It’s on the third floor” was the reply
I don’t think visitors know that there is a third floor. There was very little on the third floor other than the meteorite looking rather lonely all on its own.
Yorkshire Museum; I’m sure you could do something better !!
The Middlesbrough meteorite is classified as a chondrite. It is approximately 6 inches in diameter, weighs 3 pounds 8.75 ounces (approximately 1.5 kg) and has a crust of unusual thickness – it was recovered in one piece.
On the afternoon of 14th March 1881, a booming sound was heard over north east Yorkshire. A few seconds later, at 3.35pm, workmen at a railway siding in Middlesbrough heard a ‘rushing or roaring’ sound overhead, followed by a thud, as something buried itself in the embankment nearby, just yards away from where they were working.
They went to investigate and found a vertical hole in the ground with the meteorite at the bottom. Victorian scientists, including the famous astronomer Alexander Herschel, recognised the importance of the meteorite and it was carefully excavated and preserved in a box.
The British Museum apparently wanted it for its collection. But the North East Railway company deemed the meteorite ‘lost property’, because it fell on their land, and insisted that it stayed in Yorkshire.
