The museum's first collections were assembled by the Manchester Society of Natural History formed in 1821 with the purchase of the collection of John Leigh Philips. The society established a museum in Peter Street, Manchester, on a site later occupied by the Young Men's Christian Association, in 1835. In 1850 the collections of the Manchester Geological Society (founded 1838) were added. By the 1860s both societies encountered financial difficulties and, on the advice of the evolutionary biologist Thomas Huxley, Owens College (now the University of Manchester) accepted responsibility for the collections in 1867. The museum in Peter Street was sold in 1875 after Owens College moved to new buildings in Oxford Street.