In 1955 Mr R Lyons donated a collection of African curios to the Armidale Teachers College. These items included animal skulls, horns, tusks and some manufactured items taken in a hunting trip some decades earlier. These items were exhibited by the College in the hall outside the science laboratories on the basement level of the main building. This followed the long time College practice of exhibiting the Hinton Art collection in the halls of the upper levels. Generations of student teachers were being deliberately exposed to both art and science even when not in class.

Professional technical staff such as Mr C. W. (Toss) Frazier curating until his retirement in 1976. Other museum technicians have included Ian Archibald (1976-1979) Glen Hodges (1979-1985) and Zoltan Enoch. The longest serving curator was Pat Watters who looked after both Zoology and the Antiquities Museum until his recent death.

It was not until 1997 that the Lyons collection was added to the Zoology Museum as all education teaching of the now amalgamated UNE was consolidated into the northern campus of Armidale.

– Written by William Oates, University of New England Archivist