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.