It was founded in 1866 on the initiative of Jan Tadeusz
Lubomirski and was chartered on June 5 1875. Among its notable co-founders were philanthropists count
Feliks Sobański, Józef Zamoyski, Karol Dittrich and
Hipolit Wawelberg, the Polish-Jewish banker. From 1881 it was located on
Krakowskie Przedmieście in a former guardhouse and
Bernardine monastery. It contained archives of the history of Polish industry, agriculture and crafts. It ran temporary exhibitions and opened permanently to the public in 1905 but was destroyed in 1939 during
World War II. It housed a physics laboratory run by
Józef Boguski where the future double
Nobel laureate,
Marie Curie, began her scientific career in 1890–91. After World War II, the work of the Museum was divided among three other institutions: • The Museum of Industrial History in
Opatówek • The
National Museum of Agriculture in Szreniawa •
Warsaw University of Life Sciences ==Notes==