All political complexions became involved in the common aim of social improvement through the museum, and over sixty leading scientists lent their support as honorary members or vice-presidents.

During these first years the museum gained national repute under its second president (1850–61), Revd Professor John Stevens Henslow, who had been Charles Darwin's mentor at Cambridge University.

In 1851 the British Association for the Advancement of Science met at Ipswich, and the museum was inspected and greatly admired by HRH Prince Albert, who became its official Patron.

[5] After a financial collapse in late 1852, a referendum was held in the town which voted overwhelmingly to support the museum through the provisions of the Public Libraries Act 1850.

He also made a lecture-tour of Australia in 1885, and wrote several popular books including 'Half-Hours at the Seaside', 'Half-Hours in Green Lanes' and the celebrated title 'The Sagacity and Morality of Plants'.

The project was undertaken with the help of public subscription, and was largely sponsored by Suffolk county benefactors but with many smaller contributions from Ipswich townsfolk.

The principal sponsor was the museum's then president Sir Richard Wallace of Sudbourne Hall, Suffolk, creator of the famous art collection at Hertford House.

In 1895 the Tudor house in the park on the north side of Ipswich, Christchurch Mansion (built for Edmund Withypoll in 1548–1550), was given to the town by Felix Cobbold and eventually became the art and local history department of the Borough's Museums.

Prehistoric archaeology owed a special debt to Suffolk since it was at Hoxne during the 1790s that John Frere recognised humanly-worked flints together with the remains of extinct animals, and the general realisation of the greater antiquity of humankind first began.

At the same time archaeology of various periods (but especially the Prehistoric) in Ipswich and East Anglia was strongly developed by Nina Frances Layard (1853–1935), who in 1920–21 was among the first women admitted as Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Collected in Suffolk and Scotland, they represent the long collaboration of Fergus Menteith Ogilvie (1861–1918) with the Norwich taxidermist Thomas Gunn.

Woolnough also acquired gorillas shot by Paul du Chaillu, a stuffed giraffe in glass case, and an overstuffed rhino (known variously as 'Gladys' or 'Rosie' by generations of Ipswich schoolchildren), and he completely re-stocked the former lion case with African animals obtained from Messrs Rowland Ward Ltd. Another noted acquisition was a collection of Western Australian aboriginal material acquired from Emile Clement.

[11] Maynard and Reid Moir made a team interested in archaeology and developed this work strongly on behalf of the museum, excavating in various parts of Suffolk.

Reid Moir succeeded Lankester as president until his death in 1944, and through international contacts developed representative collections of implements from most sites published by the Prehistoric Society.

Guy Maynard continued Woolnough's work in the area of Fine and Applied Art and Local History assiduously.

After 1934 the museum's work in practical archaeology became centred on the employment of Basil Brown (1888–1977), who with Guy Maynard first conducted three years' investigation of a Roman villa at Stanton Chair in Suffolk.

During World War II Guy Maynard had the responsibility of packing up the most valuable collections and transferring them into safe storage, and afterwards of reinstating them.

Through a succession of post-War curators (Norman Smedley, Patricia Butler, Alf Hatton, Sara Muldoon and Tim Heyburn) the museum has passed into a more contemporary pattern of staffing which has varied in number and roles according to perceived priorities and financial restraints of different times.

[13] The Victorian Society, a registered charity founded in 1958, has objected to preliminary visualisations of the interior as betraying the historical character of the space.