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The collections in the care of Aberdeenshire Council’s Museums Service are an amalgam of several independent collections, the earliest dating back to 1828 in the case of the collection once resident in Banff Museum. Consisting of some of the finest archaeological objects in Scotland, including the Iron Age Deskford Carnyx and the Gaulcross Hoard of Pictish silver, the collection was complemented by donations of arms and armour from the Duke of Fife and the natural history collection of noted Scottish naturalist Thomas Edward, who was also the former curator of Banff Museum.

Adam Arbuthnot, a merchant from Peterhead, began collecting archaeology, numismatics and objects from world cultures in the first half of the 19^th century, and James Kerr of Inverurie was an avid collector of archaeology and ephemera.

Aberdeenshire Council’s Museums Service also holds a collection of agricultural material purchased in 1994 by Banff & Buchan District Council from Adamston, Huntly, and collected by the late Hew McCall-Smith. This was supplemented by the purchase and relocation of Hareshowe Croft in 1990, to form the core collection located at Aden Country Park, Aberdeenshire. The collection was awarded Recognised Collection of National Significance status in 2008.

The enthusiasm of Aberdeenshire collectors has resulted in an eclectic and diverse collection that encompasses the length and breadth of the history of north-east Scotland, including farming, fishing, whaling, archaeology and the county’s unique contribution to cultural and economic development world-wide.

In 1975, all museums were transferred to local authority control, and in 1996 became the responsibility of Aberdeenshire Council. Live Life Aberdeenshire (LLA), the Council’s new and innovative way of delivering high quality cultural and sports services, including museums, was created in 2019. All reserve collections have been relocated to Aberdeenshire Council’s Museums Service Headquarters in Mintlaw since 2004, allowing ease of access by staff and communities alike.

The collections have been available to the communities in which they were collected since their creation and have long been appreciated and accessed by those communities, an ethos which Aberdeenshire Council’s Museums Service is committed to uphold.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2020

Licence: CC BY-NC

Fine and Applied Art

For ease of consideration the Art collection has been divided into sub-headings:

a) Fine Art – includes paintings (oils and watercolours), drawings (pencil, ink, charcoal and pastel) and prints.

b) Applied Art – includes sculpture, silver, glass, ceramics, furniture, horology, metalwork and some miscellaneous domestic and religious material.

Fine Art

The core of the Fine Art collection largely comprises the former burgh collections. While there are four pre-19th-century portraits, the greatest concentration is on 19^th– and early 20^th-century Scottish painting, particularly portraits, maritime paintings and a few landscapes, and some contemporary 20^th– and early 21^st-century material by Aberdeenshire artists.

Oil Paintings

This group comprises portraits (mainly of former Provosts), maritime paintings, landscapes, still life and some genre paintings. Important names in this group include Sir David Wilkie, Robert Brough, Joseph Farquharson, James Giles, George Sherwood Hunter, R. Gemmell Hutchison, Norman Macbeth, John Phillip, Sir George Reid and George Fiddes Watt. Aberdeenshire Council’s Museums Service holds the only collection in public hands in Northern Scotland of works by the Peterhead artist James Forbes, the teacher of John Phillip. Several contemporary paintings by Aberdeenshire artists were acquired pre-2015.

Watercolours and Drawings

This is a small group, the most significant of which are the 18^th-century portraits by James Ferguson, and the series of watercolours of Peterhead painted in 1795 by Montague Beattie. There is a small number of contemporary watercolours and drawings by Aberdeenshire artists.

Prints

This group falls into two distinct sections. One group is of 19^th-century prints, largely landscape views, nearly all of which are of Aberdeenshire scenes. The other group is a larger collection of late 20^th-century prints, mostly by contemporary artists from the North East.

Applied Art

The Applied Art collection covers a wide variety of objects and materials, of which the silver sub-collection (especially that of Banff) is of national importance.

Silver

This group of artefacts includes material produced in , Peterhead, Ballater and Stonehaven. The collection of silver is the largest in . Half of the known Banff silversmiths are represented in the collection. There is an important series of silver prize trophies associated with the mid-19^th-century Volunteer movement in Aberdeenshire.

Sculpture and Ceramics

There is a small number of sculptures and ceramics, some of which are by contemporary Aberdeenshire artists.

Furniture and Horology

This is a small collection, the most significant items being several 17^th-century chairs, the chair of Inverurie poet William Thom, and a few longcase clocks.

Metalwork

This group of material includes brass, copper, pewter and plated wares. It incorporates secular and religious material such as presentation gifts and trophies and community plate, mostly of local manufacture and association.

Natural Sciences

For ease of consideration the National Sciences Collection has been divided into sub-headings: the collection is composed of Vertebrate Zoology, Invertebrate Zoology, Botany and Geology.

Vertebrate Zoology

Taxidermy and Skeletal Material

This collection consists largely of British birds, mammals, some reptiles and fish, with some foreign species. Much of the material represents what survives of 19^th-century collections. Some 20^th-century specimens have been acquired for display purposes.

Bird’s Eggs

This is a small collection, largely of British birds, with some exotic species (e.g., ostrich). Legislation now prohibits the collecting of eggs of British birds; this collection will not expand in the future.

Invertebrate Zoology

This is the largest collection in Aberdeenshire Council’s Museums Service comprising several thousand specimens from various sources. The two principal components are mollusc shells and insects.

The mollusc shell collection is largely of foreign species; much comes from historical collections, and there is an extensive and high-quality late 20^th century collection. The historical collections reflect scientific collecting during the 19^th-century period of “Scots abroad”, while the modern collection has good accompanying data.

The insect collection derives from historical collections; no recent additions have been made to this section.

Botany

The botanical collection mainly consists of a small herbarium of Arctic plants collected by Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier who accompanied Sir John Franklin on his last expedition, and a small miscellany of algae, plant specimens etc., collected in the 19^th century. There is a small collection of seeds, nuts and dried plant material collected in the 19^th century.

Geology

The collections of rocks, minerals and fossils are variable in quality.

Rocks

The rock collection consists of a few hundred specimens from Aberdeenshire, Britain and Europe. There is patchy coverage of local rock types, though there is a representative collection of granites.

Minerals

This collection contains a fairly representative group of minerals, suitable for display, education and research.

Fossils

The fossil collection includes representative specimens of the major fossil groups and has important Old Red Sandstone fish material. Much of the material, however, is not of display quality, although the Old Red Sandstone fish material has been the subject of research work in the past.

Human History

For ease of consideration the Human History Collection has been divided into the following sub-headings:

Farming; Social History; Archives; Costume and Textiles; Archaeology; Numismatics; Ethnography; Arms and Armour; Photography

Farming

The agricultural collections of the Aberdeenshire Farming Museum were awarded Recognised Collection of National Significance, designated by Museums Galleries Scotland, in 2008.

The collection is based on the original agricultural collection amassed at Adamston, Huntly by the late Hew McCall-Smith and purchased by Banff & Buchan District Council in 1984. The original collection was augmented by further acquisitions by the former North East Scotland Agricultural Heritage Centre (NESAHC), including the relocation to of the Hareshowe croft in 1990. The NESAHC collections were supplemented in 1996 by the agricultural collection of North East Scotland Museums Service (NESMS).

The collection presents an extensive view of farming and country life in North East Scotland over the last two to three hundred years, with a strong focus on the 19^th and 20^th centuries. The collection includes some important items such as the early wooden ox plough from the NESMS collection. The range of larger agricultural implements demonstrates the importance of the local burgh foundries to farming in Aberdeenshire.

Archives relating to this collection include some rural farming business material such as Barclay, Ross & Hutchison of Turriff. There is a good, though incomplete, run of the Transactions of the (Royal) Highland & Agricultural Society of Scotland from 1872 to 1968, as well as Clydesdale stud books and catalogues of important breeders and their herds of Aberdeen Angus cattle.

Social History

The social history collection covers a wide range of material including bicycles, prams, shop fittings, industrial machinery, ship models, medical, musical and scientific instruments, commemorative and ornamental items, toys and games, weights and measures, photographic and textile equipment, and everyday domestic material.

Much of the material has a specific association with Aberdeenshire, such as civic regalia and weights and measures. In particular, the maritime collections relate to the herring fishing, the whaling trade and harbour development.

Archaeology

The archaeology collection comprises material from North East Scotland, with a small collection of Egyptian and classical Greek material. The material from the North East is generally confined to individual items from Aberdeenshire.

In the past, individual finds came to the collection mainly by donation. The Scottish Archaeological Finds Allocation Panel (SAFAP) has allocated copious items to the collection in recent years.

The collection is strongest in Neolithic and Bronze Age material, with a large collection of flints of various ages, a significant collection of beakers and cinerary urns, and an important collection of carved stone balls. The most important parts of the archaeology collection comprise the Neolithic Ardiffery jet necklace (part of the Ardiffery/Greenbrae assemblage), the Iron Age Deskford carnyx, and the Pictish Gaulcross silver hoard (the latter two, on temporary loan to National Museums Scotland, are of national importance). The medieval period has been augmented by several excavation assemblages.

Arms and Armour

This is a varied collection of British and foreign firearms, swords and daggers, shot and powder flasks, and some armour. There are two significant sub-collections: (a) the arms and armour donated by the Duke of Fife; and (b) the Anderson Bey collection of North African and Afghan militaria formerly held by .

Costume and Textiles

This collection comprises costume, textiles and accessories. The collection comprises mainly ladies’ costume with some notable 19^th-century dresses, including a fair sample for the period 1850 to 1920, and for the 1960s and 1970s. There are also several banners, most notably the banner of the Banff Hammermen.

Numismatics and Paranumismatics

The core of this collection is the Arbuthnot Coin and Medal Collection. This is a representative collection which includes Greek, Roman, English, Scottish, and British coins, and 18^th– and 19^th-century commemorative medals, together with associated archive material related to its acquisition by Adam Arbuthnot. There is a more general collection which includes trade and church tokens, as well as miscellaneous material including beggars’ badges. The church tokens form a representative collection across Scotland.

The core of the commemorative medal collection is the Arbuthnot collection. There is a collection of military medals representing the Boer War, the First and Second World Wars, as well as a Waterloo Medal.

Photography

This collection holds over 17,000 catalogued images, as glass negatives, lantern slides, original photographs, postcards and flexible sheet negatives. Over half of this material relates to the Peterhead area.

The glass negatives primarily derive from the Shivas collection (959 images) of Peterhead and provide a record of the area between about 1860 and the 1950s. Original photographs and postcards provide a record up to the 1960s, supplemented by flexible negatives. The Broughall collection comprises 2,200 35mm and medium format negatives from the Peterhead area during the last two decades of the 20th century. The Morrison collection comprises 670 glass negatives and 45 black and white prints of farming scenes in the Foveran area between 1890 and 1920.

There are also two large collections from the Banff area: the Bodie collection of late 19th- and early 20th-century glass plates (1,500 – 2,000) which include rare glass plate negatives by Banff photographer George Bremner, and the Ritchie collection of early- to mid-20th-century roll film negatives with an excess of 500 glass negatives totalling approx. 8,500 images. Both collections are in the process of being catalogued to item level.

There is a need to maintain dialogue regarding the collecting of photographs with Aberdeenshire Libraries, Aberdeen City & Shire Archives, and various community heritage groups.

Ethnography

The Ethnography collection is based on the Arbuthnot collection and on other 19^th-century collections. The most significant section in the collection is the Inuit material, brought back by whaling ships in the 19th century; other items come from Africa, the Americas, Australasia and China.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2020

Licence: CC BY-NC

The National Museum of Wales was founded by Royal Charter in 1907. The first collections were those of the Cardiff Municipal Museum (originally founded in 1868) which were transferred to the new National Museum in 1912. The Cardiff Museum held some significant collections, particularly the Menelaus collection of contemporary European art and the Pyke Thompson collection of art and European porcelain. The collection also contained a set of casts of early medieval Welsh stonework and other archaeology, art, social and natural history items.

Since its foundation the Museum has been active and innovative in collecting and in developing its collections as well as creating a portfolio of museum sites across Wales in which to display and make its collections accessible. The original Museum comprised six collecting departments: Antiquities and History; Geology and Mineralogy; Botany; Zoology; Art; Industries. Collecting aimed to be encyclopaedic in its nature during these years with early significant collections acquired through donation, bequest and loan. Some exceptional collections began as loans to the Museum, including the internationally important collection of impressionist art and sculpture lent, and later bequeathed, by sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies. Other collections include the John Dillwyn Llewelyn collection of early photographs and the Rippon collection of insects, shells and minerals acquired in 1918. In 1930 the Museum of Antiquities, Caerleon, and its important Roman collections were transferred to the Museum by the Monmouthshire Antiquarian Association.

The 1940s and 50s were an exceptional period of growth with the Museum accepting some major donations and bequests. Significant was the donation in 1946 by the Earl of Plymouth of St Fagans Castle, its gardens and parkland, for the creation of an open-air Museum. The Llyn Cerrig Bach hoard of Iron Age metalwork was recovered and donated during construction of a wartime airfield on Anglesey. Major bequests including Sir William Goscombe John’s collection of paintings, drawings and sculpture and the Melvill-Tomlin collection of molluscs, associated library and papers. In 1958, the Museum also established its archive of oral testimonies, traditions and dialects based at St Fagans.

The 1960s saw the re-erection of several historic buildings at St Fagans, including the farmhouse from Kennixton, Gower. Since then collections have been developed through Museum research projects. Amongst these are the significant Neanderthal fossils from excavations at Pontnewydd Cave and finds from the discovery and excavation of a new Viking Age site on Llanbedrgoch, Anglesey and the Bangor University insect collection. Natural Science collections have developed in areas including marine and off-shore habitat mapping. Research into the Welsh Lower Palaeozoic palaeontology and the hard rocks has also resulted in new items being accessioned into the Museum collections.

In 1984 the Museum was lent the Derek Williams collection of twentieth century art and money from his estate was used to establish a trust for its continued development and enhancement. This has resulted in the acquisition of significant new art works into the Museum and the development and strengthening of the contemporary art collections.

Other key acquisitions have been purchased following their designation as Treasure Trove (since 1996) or Treasure. These include the Civil War coin hoard from Tregwynt, Pembrokeshire and the Burton hoard of Bronze Age metalwork.

In 1999 the Big Pit colliery and its associated collections were transferred into the care of the Museum. This has enabled the existing industrial collections of small coal mining items to be placed back into their original context in displays at the Big Pit.

Collecting for the Museum is increasingly being undertaken by our visitors and members of the public. Some of these come through new discoveries from across Wales, for example, a new species of Jurassic dinosaur Dracoraptor hanigani discovered near Penarth in 2014. A changed remit for St Fagans National History Museum now focuses collecting around new collaborative projects with communities and other third sector organisations. One aim of such projects is to improve the social history collections in specific areas. For example a project with MenCap Cymru is resulting in the recording and acquisition of new items concerning the history of some of the former mental health hospitals across Wales.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2016

Licence: CC BY-NC

Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales is the national repository of three-dimensional material relating to Wales’s natural and created heritage and culture, and of international material that helps to define Wales’s place in the world. It is the leading museum body in Wales; the collections, numbering in excess of 4 million specimens or groups, and the academic standards and scholarship of the staff have a national and international reputation.

The breadth and quality of many of our collections in the humanities and sciences alike make us unique amongst U.K. national museums. Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales differs from the other national museums and galleries in the U.K. by the range of our disciplines – wider than any apart perhaps from the Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland – and by the number of different sites operated. Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales fulfils for Wales the functions of all the London-based National Museums and Galleries, and hold the collections in trust for the people of Wales.

Art

The Art collection comprises works of fine and applied art from antiquity to the present. The emphasis on art from Wales is complemented by strong holdings of other British art and certain aspects of European art, with some wider international representation.

The particular strengths of this collection are:

• Outstanding French Realist, Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, and sculpture by Rodin and his contemporaries.
• Other European oil paintings from the Renaissance to the 20th century (relatively small in number but most of very high quality).
• British art of the 18th , 19th and 20th centuries.
• The ‘New Sculpture’ of the late 19th century.
• Contemporary art.
• A comprehensive collection of art by Welsh artists from the 18th century to the present, including substantial bodies of work by Richard Wilson, Thomas Jones, John Gibson, Penry Williams, Augustus John, Gwen John, David Jones and Ceri Richards.
• Graham Sutherland’s personal collection.
• Work by John Piper.
• Portraits of Welsh sitters in various media.
• Welsh topographical and landscape art.
• A large and wide-ranging collection of works of art on paper.
• Historic photography, including portraiture, and collects lens-based contemporary art.
• Pottery and porcelain made in the south Wales factories between the 1760s and the 1920s.
• Eighteenth century continental porcelain and English-made wares from the late medieval period to the present.
• English silver from the Renaissance to the mid-19th century, including major pieces for Welsh patrons.
• A growing collection of modern and contemporary applied art, especially ceramics and silver.

Social and Cultural History

The Social and cultural history collections range from re-erected historic buildings to oral testimony recorded in the field. Historically the Museum focused on collecting examples of architecture from Wales that represented domestic building types and constructional techniques. Welsh Vernacular furniture, furnishings, items relating to domestic life, commerce, medicine, law and order, and textile collections dating from the 16th century to present all form a significant collection.

Specific collection strengths are:

• Historical buildings: 2 in situ buildings – one of which is a Grade 1 listed building – and over 60 buildings which have been dismantled and re-erected on site. This includes a good collection of farmhouses and cottages, small rural industrial/craft buildings and barns. Also good representative examples of regional (domestic) building types and constructional techniques.
• Commerce: mainly business and trade materials.
• Collections relating to medicine, law and order and ecclesiastical items.
• Vernacular furniture: the finest collection in the UK, as well as a notable collection of horological items.
• Costume and textile collections, dating from the 16th century to the present day, including both fashionable and everyday wear, occupational clothing and accessories of all types.
• Domestic Life: a comprehensive collection of cooking, dairying equipment, household appliances, tableware, ornaments and furnishing fabrics.
• Agriculture: agricultural tools, vehicles and machinery dating from the late 18th century to the mid-1950s, either of Welsh manufacture or with strong links to Wales.
• Craft collections representing the working life of rural and semi-industrial Wales, e.g. woodworking, leatherwork, metalworking crafts, basket making.
• Textile crafts such as quilting, embroidery, lacemaking, tailoring and products of the woollen industry in Wales.
• Cultural life collections, relating to music, folklore and customs, cultural, educational and social institutions, popular culture, sports and children’s toys and games.
• Archival collections which include the definitive archive of Welsh oral traditions and dialects, fieldwork films, manuscripts relating to Welsh ethnology, a photographic archive and oral history projects both internally and externally generated.

Industry

The industry collections include in situ listed buildings and industrial sites comprising a colliery, a slate quarry workshop complex and a woollen mill. These significant sites are accompanied by associated collections that detail their history, operation and production. The collection also contains significant items associated with the coal and other heavy industries of Wales. More recently collecting has focused on contemporary Welsh industry particularly the automotive, toy and computer manufacturing areas.

Collection strengths are:

• Listed coal mine within the World Heritage Site of Blaenafon.
• Comprehensive and internationally important collections of coal mine lighting, hand tools, roof supports, drams, rescue equipment and trade union objects.
• Comprehensive range of models depicting coal mining techniques and equipment, iron and steel plant.
• Wide range of documents covering most aspects of colliery operation and administration, and union material.
• Metalliferous industry hand tools, process samples and products.
• Welsh-made bricks, tiles and refractories.
• Prime movers, particularly oil and gas engines.
• Welsh-made automotive industry products.
• Products of Welsh light industry especially from the toy industry.
• Near-complete range of Welsh-made computers.
• Listed slate quarry workshop complex at Llanberis including original in situ engineering equipment, working water and Pelton wheels, and large collection of foundry patterns.
• Original engineer’s house and furnished re-erected quarrymens’ houses.
• Restored and fully operational table incline.
• Slate hand working tools, early twentieth century mechanised extractors, wagons, locomotives and products.
• Drawings and sketches of quarrymen at work by M.E.Thompson.
• Listed woollen mill buildings at Cambrian Mills, Drefach-Felindre including original machinery and other machinery from woollen mills across Wales.
• Welsh-made flat textiles, samples and flannel quilts, 18th century to the present.
• Collection of documents, notably metalliferous and modern industry company brochures, company newspapers, share certificates and civil engineering documents.
• Archives pertaining to Cambrian Mills.
• Books, journals and Parliamentary Papers; notably a near-complete set of Mines & Quarries Inspectorate publications, early gas and electricity industry journals, and technical works on prime movers
• Large and nationally important collection of Welsh photographs relating to the industries, engineering and industrial archaeology of Wales.

Transport

The transport collection contains over 150 models of vessels that were used off the coasts of Wales and 250 ship portraits. It includes the oldest surviving Welsh-owned car, a 1900 Benz, examples of the Gilbern, the only car made in Wales, a Cambrian Railways coach and a Cardiff horse tram. There is also an extensive collection of 7mm scale railway models, illustrating both pre-grouping and pre-nationalisation railways in Wales.

Collection strengths are:

• Welsh railway carriages.
• Working replica of the world’s first railway locomotive (Penydarren 1804).
• Tramplates and early railway track components.
• Working small boats from around the Welsh coast.
• Hand tools and personal ephemera pertaining to land and maritime transport.
• Nationally important collection collections of Ship models and ship portraits.
• Documents and books particularly railway and maritime, notably a complete run of Lloyd’s Register of Shipping from the mid1830s to the present.
• Large and nationally important collection of transport photographs.

Archaeology

The archaeological collections form the primary ‘first-hand’ evidence on which all interpretations of our material past are based. The collections focus upon Wales’ prehistory and early history, with many originating from archaeological excavations undertaken across Wales. Significant items have been acquired through the Treasure Trove and Treasure processes, particularly Bronze Age metalwork and medieval jewellery.

Collection strengths are:

• Palaeolithic artefacts, Pleistocene fauna and hominid finds, from Welsh caves, including Pontnewydd Cave and Paviland Cave.
• Assemblages of finds from excavations of Welsh Mesolithic and Neolithic settlement sites, Neolithic megalithic tombs and the axe-factories of Graig Lwyd and Mynydd Rhiw.
• Important Bronze Age burial assemblages, early copper, lead and gold mining finds and associated products, particularly the rich collections of adornments, weapons and tools.
• Excavated collections from Iron Age hillforts and defended enclosures from Wales.
• La Tène or ‘Celtic’ art, including the Llyn Fawr hoard, the Llyn Cerrig Bach votive lake assemblage, the Capel Garmon firedog and the Cerrig-y-Drudion crown.
• Internationally important collections of Roman military material from the fortresses of Isca (Caerleon) and its environs and Usk.
• Collections of finds from excavations of Roman auxiliary forts of Segontium (Caernarfon), Brecon, Gelligaer, Caersws, Neath and Loughor.
• Finds from Roman civilian sites, such as Llantwit Major villa, Whitton farmstead and Caerwent – the most important Roman town in Wales.
• Roman industrial and mining sites in Wales, including Holt, the works depot of the Twentieth legion, and Dolaucothi, the only known Roman gold-mine in Britain.
• Early medieval inscribed stones and stone sculpture, including casts.
• Collections from three early medieval sites of international significance, Dinas Powys, Llangors crannog and Llanbedrgoch.
• The early medieval population assemblage of human remains from Llandough.
• Collections from medieval sites, in particular the significant Welsh castles and abbeys.
• The Magor Pill 13th-century boat.
• Stone sculpture including surviving elements from the chapter house door, Strata.
• A collection of medieval and later gold and silver jewellery and individual items of iconic or national significance.

Numismatics

The numismatic collection has been developed through purchase and the acquisition of coin hoards through the Treasure Trove and Treasure processes.

Collection strengths are:

• A general collection of coins from the Greeks to present day. Some areas of national/international importance, resulting from hoards and from focused collecting.
• English and British Isles coinage, especially Saxon, Norman and later medieval coins from Welsh and other mints in western Britain.
• Roman Welsh coinage, notably the Rogiet hoard.
• Coins minted in Wales from the time of Charles I and the Tregwynt Civil War coin hoard.
• Welsh tokens, banknotes and paranumismatica.
• Medals – notably those commemorating acts of civil gallantry – especially those relating to Wales or to the exploits of Welsh people.

Geology

Amgueddfa Cymru is the main repository for fossils from Wales; these are augmented by research collections from other parts of the UK, and from worldwide sources. The collection is therefore of international status and significance, and is one of the major palaeontological holdings in the UK.

The Museum holds the most comprehensive mineral and rock collections relating to the geology of Wales.

Collection strengths are:

• Palaeozoic invertebrates, especially trilobites, brachiopods and bivalves.
• Carboniferous (Coal Measures) plants.
• Jurassic ammonites.
• A definitive and comprehensive collection of Welsh minerals.
• Reference material from almost all mine sites in Wales.
• Welsh gold, Welsh millerite (World-class); British fluorite and World cassiterite.
• A significant collection of native silver specimens from the Kongsberg Mines in Norway.
• A significant collection of British minerals, including some derived from heritage collections, and a research collection of Leicestershire material.
• The Welsh Reference Rock Collection, (consisting of hand specimens and petrological thin sections) acquired dominantly by field collection during the 20th Century.
• Welsh research petrology collections, derived from Ph.D. theses and published papers.
• Welsh Coal Collection; collected during the 20th Century from working collieries.
• Welsh slate collection.
• Shallow borehole collection from South Wales, with associated logs and maps.

Zoology

Collection strengths are:

• Coleoptera, particularly Tomlin and Gardner bequests).
• Diptera (agricultural, host associations and Palaearctic coverage).
• Hemiptera (agricultural host associations and Palaearctic coverage).
• Lepidoptera (British and world-wide butterflies, British moths).
• Foreign collection comprehensive in coverage of insect families.
• Mollusca, particularly the World Mollusca in the Melvill-Tomlin collection and its associated library.
• Mollusca from Britain and Wales, giving an almost complete coverage of the British fauna.
• Non-marine and land Mollusca especially African and the Palaearctic.
• Bivalve Mollusca from the Indian Ocean and world-wide localities.
• Cephalopods.
• World-wide Quaternary Mollusca.
• British and Welsh spiders.
• All British woodlice species.
• Soil mites from Wales and beyond.
• Extensive collections of benthic invertebrates from British waters, and especially Irish Sea.
• Extensive collections of Polychaeta from British and world-wide localities.
• Collections of parasitic worms of marine fish.
• Mounted specimens of most British mammals and many British birds.
• Cabinet specimens of birds, birds’ eggs and mammals.

Botany

Collection strengths are:

• A large collection of flowering plants, mainly from Europe, including the largest collection of Welsh plants in existence, with associated collection of fruits and seeds.
• A fern collection of international scope.
• A small collection of glass microscope slides showing mainly sectioned plant material.
• Large bryophyte collections with special reference to Britain, but of international scope.
• Extensive lichen collection, mainly British, with special reference to Wales.
• Large collection of timber and wood sections from all parts of the world.
• Collection of economically-important plant products, including food-stuffs, textiles and pharmaceuticals.
• Large collection of samples and mounted slides of Quaternary palynological samples.
• Hyde collection of modern palynological samples, acquired from the Asthma and Allergy Unit of Sully Hospital.
• Large collection of prints and drawings mainly 18th and 19th century, charting the development of botanical illustration.
• Large archival collection of transparencies and glass negatives of plants and landscapes, botanists, and diagrams from publications.
• World-wide collection of postage stamps trade cards on botanical themes.
• A unique collection of botanically accurate wax models of flowers, fungi and other plants.
• Blaschka glass models of invertebrates.

Library

The Library holds an archive of rare and historical texts as well as books that support the work of all the curatorial Departments. Particular collection strengths are in the disciplines of Mollusca, Roman archaeology, Flora, Architecture, and Social/Industrial History.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2016

Licence: CC BY-NC

The Museums and Galleries have a wide-ranging collection, much of it acquired by the former Town Councils, all of which were founded during the first half of the 19^th century. Most of the material acquired is of local significance, with Social History, Archaeology and Photography predominating. Less than 1% of the collections are out on loan at any time, mostly for short fixed terms to other Museums or Galleries for temporary exhibitions. All loans are adequately recorded.

From 1^st December 2015 ANGUSalive has the responsibility for providing a Museum Service in Angus under a service level agreement with the Angus Council. The title and ownership of the collections is retained by Angus Council.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2017

Licence: CC BY-NC

Fine art

The Museums and Galleries presently hold over 4000 paintings, watercolours, drawings and sculptures. Significant collections by William Lamb of Montrose, David Waterson of Brechin and James Watterston Herald of Forfar and Arbroath make up a considerable part of the collection. Part of the collection comprises portraits of Provosts of the former Burghs.

The Meffan Winter Exhibition, held annually, adds to our contemporary collections of professional artists working in, or associated with, Angus by means of a purchase prize. The collections consist mainly of works by Angus born or domiciled artists, or works by other artists depicting local views or portraiture of local people.

Applied art

The Museums and Galleries have a small but expanding collection of works by Angus craftsmen. Of particular interest are collections of Arbroath and Montrose silver, clocks and watches by clockmakers from the Angus Burghs and pistols and pottery made in Brechin and Montrose.

Archaeology

The Museums and Galleries presently hold over 5000 artefacts from Angus and have greatly expanded this area of the collection in recent years. Especially strong is a nationally significant collection of carved Pictish Stones. Aberdeenshire Council Archaeology Service maintains the archaeological sites and monuments record for Angus Council under a service level agreement.

Social history

This is the largest collection, including a wide variety of artefacts covering the history of Angus over the last three centuries. The collection already includes some 80,000 photographs, many industrial. Angus Archives within the ANGUSalive Culture, Leisure and Sports Trust strives to ensure that printed local history material and manuscripts are conserved and made available for use. Within the museums, the maritime collections, especially fishing, are of national significance.

The closure of Sunnyside Museum of Psychiatry at Montrose in 2001 meant that all locally significant material from this collection was transferred to Angus Council. This collection is strong in the origins and practice of psychiatry in Montrose and in the social life of staff and patients. Of particular note is a collection of stone carvings by an Adam Christie (the Gentle Shetlander). This collection is important as an early recognition of “Outsider Art”.

Natural history

This is a very large collection with some 10,000 dried plants in the Herbarium and a greater number of animal specimens, notably specimens of invertebrate Molluscs. A large proportion of these are of foreign origin, most having been collected last century. Information is collected relating to local wildlife and sites of importance in Angus.

Geology

There are over 10,000 specimens of Rocks, Minerals and Fossils in the collection, again mostly non-locally collected last century. There are nationally significant Devonian Fossils.

The Museum Service collects information on the Geology of Angus and on Sites of Geological importance in the area.

Numismatics

There is a strong collection of Scottish coinage, medals and tokens. There is a locally significant collection of communion tokens.

Ethnography

There are strong collections of material from the Indian sub-continent, Africa and the Pacific and Antipodes. Further research requires to be undertaken on the significance of the local collectors, where known, of this material. Some of the earliest parts of the museum collections are of this material.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2017

Licence: CC BY-NC

The collection of Birmingham Museums pre-dates all its museum venues. The first items the city collected were the bust of David Cox by Peter Hollins (May 1863), the Sultanganj Buddha (October 1864) and Dead game by Edward Coleman (November 1864). The collection is now one of the three great civic collections of the UK, alongside those of Glasgow and Liverpool. It represents Britain’s former imperial and industrial wealth, assembled over a period of nearly 160 years through a combination of generosity, connoisseurship and curatorial knowledge.

Birmingham took some time to decide that it would have a civic museum. Supporters such as George Dawson and John Thackray Bunce argued that it was essential for the success of Birmingham as a city that its citizens should be exposed to good art and design. The Tangye brothers, owners of the famous engineering firm, finally persuaded the city to build a museum by offering £10,000 towards a Purchase Fund. The Purchase Committee collected art and decorative art, including sculpture, paintings, Japanese enamels and gems. Donations included works by the Birmingham artist, David Cox. In 1883 the Committee bought two drawings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the beginning of Birmingham’s Pre-Raphaelite collection.

The Prince of Wales opened the new Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 1885, with displays focused on art and decorative art. The first Keeper, Whitworth Wallis, actively collected in these areas, making purchasing trips to Egypt, Italy, Paris and Berlin. He encouraged many important donations and added to the Pre-Raphaelite collection, including Ford Madox Brown’s The Last of England, perhaps Birmingham’s best-known work. By the turn of the century the collection had outgrown the 1885 galleries. The city extended them with a bequest from the newspaper proprietor John Feeney, a long-term benefactor who had already donated his collection of Japanese, Chinese and Near Eastern enamel, porcelain, lacquer and arms and armour.

The Feeney Galleries covered a wider range of subjects, including casts, local history and natural history. Wallis’s successor, SC Kaines Smith, had a background in art and classical archaeology, and broadened the scope of the collection, including more decorative arts, local history and archaeology. Additional venues were opened. Birmingham Museums collected actively, primarily through donation, across a wide range of disciplines.

After the Second World War, the eminent Director Trenchard Cox and his successor Mary Woodall formed the outstanding collection of European Baroque painting. They acquired early English furniture to furnish Aston and Blakesley Halls, and purchased examples of silver, ceramics and sculpture to provide an overview of the development of European and English art forms from the Renaissance to the early 19th century.

Mary Woodall’s focus on European Art and ancient civilisations, and her disapproval of `parochial’ Birmingham history led to decisions that are now regretted. Several groups of material were disposed of by sale in the 1950s, including most of the Museums’ collection of South Asian and Far Eastern metalwork and European furniture, together with a significant group of British, mostly Victorian, paintings.

The decision in 1948 to create a Technical and Science Museum stimulated further collecting of the city/region’s industrial history and working life. The Designated collection of science and industry is of international significance, reflecting Birmingham’s role as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and covering the metal trades, jewellery, numismatics, the automotive industry, arms manufacture, machine tools, computing and many other areas.

In the 1950s the existing Pre-Columbian collection were added to by three major acquisitions in 1951 totalling over 1200 items, further acquisitions in the late 50s and early 60s and finally in 1982 by nearly 800 items from the Wellcome Collection. In the 1930s Birmingham had acquired a substantial collection of European, Cypriot and Near Eastern archaeology, including material from important sites such as Nineveh and Ur, and it continued to collect Near Eastern material from sites including Petra, Jericho, Jerusalem, Nimrud, Ur and Abu Hureyra into the late 1970s, making this collection area comparable to the holdings of the Ashmolean.

Much of the World Cultures collection was acquired through individual collectors, most notably Arthur Wilkins, Ida Wench and P Amaury Talbot. As the range and quality of the collection increased, Birmingham became the beneficiary of works transferred from smaller, local museums such as Tamworth, Stoke on Trent, Gloucester, Warwickshire, Reading and Shrewsbury, whose world cultures or foreign archaeological material was considered to be of greater relevance within a more comprehensive collection.

The acquisition in 1965 of the Pinto collection of treen (wooden objects), the finest such collection in the world, brought the museum an outstanding collection relating to everyday life in Britain and Europe from 1500 to 1950. It is frequently cited by the antiques trade.

Birmingham’s works on paper collection now numbers around 30,000 items. It is particularly strong in works by Pre-Raphaelite artists, but includes many eminent British and European artists, Japanese prints and topographical views.

The turn of the 21^st century saw a greater focus on pro-active collecting of local history, particularly contemporary material reflecting the histories, stories and experiences of people growing up, living and working in a young, superdiverse and multi-faith city. Collecting programmes included the Millennibrum project and a post-war Birmingham history collecting programme to support the development of new Birmingham History Galleries at the Museum & Art Gallery in 2012. The Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire Hoard, jointly owned with Stoke on Trent, has great resonance for local people and the dedicated gallery opened in 2014 has been very popular. Birmingham Museums had a policy of collecting material from excavations in the five counties of the West Midlands, and now has a major archaeological archive from the region.

Since the formation of Birmingham Museums Trust in 2012 there has been an even greater focus on collecting Birmingham history, including the HLF-funded Collecting Birmingham engagement-led collecting project, which focused on four inner city areas of Birmingham. This was awarded the Museums Association’s Museums Change Lives Best MCL Project 2018 and the overall Award for Excellence at the Charity Awards in 2019.

In the last two decades there has been a considerable expansion of contemporary fine and applied art holdings thanks to two major acquisition programmes: the Contemporary Art Society’s Special Collection Scheme, supported by the Friends of BM&AG; and the Art Fund International programme, which enabled Birmingham Museums to develop an outstanding collection of international contemporary art jointly owned with New Art Gallery Walsall, in partnership with the Ikon gallery.

The development of Birmingham’s nationally important collection would not have been possible without the generosity and support of donors and, in particular, external grant-giving bodies. The contributions of government funds administered by the Victoria & Albert Museum, Science Museum PRISM fund, Art Fund (formerly National Art Collection Fund), the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Contemporary Art Society, Arts Council England and Heritage Lottery Funds have greatly assisted the development of the collection. The Friends of Birmingham Museums and the Public Picture Gallery Fund have been proactive supporters of acquisitions since their foundation, alongside local and national charitable trusts. In 2020 Birmingham Museums Trust set up an endowment fund to support collection acquisitions, following a very generous bequest in the will of Ivan Witton.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2020

Licence: CC BY-NC

Birmingham Museums Trust has a vast and diverse range of collection of local, regional, national and international significance. The collection areas of Art, Science and Industry, Birmingham History, Numismatics (coins and medals), and the Pinto collection of wooden objects have all been Designated by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport as collections of national importance. The collections of Archaeology, Ethnography and Natural History are recognised as an important regional resource within the West Midlands but also contain many collection areas of national or international significance.

The following section gives a summary of each area of the collection:

ART AND DESIGN

Includes 2D and 3D historic artwork from World, European and British Art; European and British Decorative Art and Design and Dress and Textiles. It is Designated as a collection of national significance and includes many works of art of international significance.

Collection Size: 58, 805 objects and artworks

Fine Art

British Art spans eight centuries, from a 14^th-century Gothic ivory to contemporary art. Outstanding holdings include British 18^th– and 19^th-century watercolours, the finest public collection of art by the PreRaphaelites and their followers in the world and works associated with the Birmingham School. The collection of works by Birmingham-born landscape painter David Cox is unparalleled. The late 19^th-century bronzes associated with the New Sculpture movement and non-figurative contemporary British 20^thcentury paintings is one of the largest and most comprehensive collections outside London. Built up by gift, bequest and purchase, key donors notably include Charles Fairfax Murray, James Richardson Holliday and J Leslie Wright.

European Art broadly traces the major developments in Western European art from around 1340 to the present day, and features a nationally important collection of 17^th-century Baroque painting. It is complemented by important earlier paintings by Bellini, Botticelli, Petrus Christus, Pietro Lorenzetti and Simone Martini, notable 18^th-century works including paintings by Canaletto and Guardi, and prints and drawings by Pietro da Cortona, Dürer, Rembrandt, Vuillard and Picasso. Predominantly acquired by purchase in the post-War period, later acquisitions include the contemporary art collection with significant examples of paintings, works on paper and time-based media by 15 European contemporary artists, acquired through the Art Fund International scheme.

Applied Art

British Decorative Art and Design dates from the medieval period to the present day. It centres on the largest and most comprehensive collection of jewellery, metalwork and glass made in Birmingham between the 18th and early 20th centuries in the UK. Birmingham manufacturers are well represented, from Matthew Boulton’s metalwork to glass by John Hardman & Co and Hardman Powell and F & C Osler & Co. Jewellery, metalwork, ceramics and stained glass by later 19^th– and early 20^th-century British Arts and Crafts makers, particularly those from Birmingham, also feature strongly. Representation of pottery and porcelain factories in the wider Midlands region includes objects from Worcester and Ruskin. English furniture includes 18^th– and 19th =-century pieces, often associated with notable Birmingham figures and produced by famous makers and designers. This includes pieces commissioned from James Newton which comprise the largest holding of this important Regency maker in public ownership.

European Decorative Art and Design dates from the late Middle Ages to the 20th century including some of Birmingham’s earliest acquisitions, purchased as inspiration for local craftsmen. It includes Italian metalwork, furniture and ceramics that were among early purchases for the Museum’s Italian Gallery, alongside later purchases of objects including German stoneware. Gifts and purchases from larger collections notably incorporate jewellery by leading Italian and French makers from the 19th and 20th centuries and an important collection of Northern European silverware dating from the 16th to 18th centuries. These formerly belonged to collectors of international standing, such as Ann Hull-Grundy and Stefano Bardini, making these groups of objects in Birmingham of considerable importance in terms of European art history.

Folk Art is dominated by objects gathered during the 20^th century by Edward and Eva Pinto. This internationally important collection of treen comprises small wooden objects used in everyday domestic, craft, rural, trade and professional settings, dating over a period of 500 years and highlighting many regional variations of usage and design across the world. This area also incorporates Estella Canziani’s collection of early 20^th-century Italian folk objects, which she illustrated and published and is therefore unusually well documented and provenanced.

World Art dates primarily to the 18^th and 19^th centuries, containing objects made in the Middle East, South Asia, Japan and South America. Of particular significance are the Japanese arms and armour and the South Asian metalwork. As a whole the collection is dominated by decorative art, particularly ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, arms and armour, glass, lacquer sculpture and ivory, with objects acquired as inspiration for Birmingham craftspeople (as with European Decorative Art). A small group of modern and contemporary art represents more recent acquisitions.

Dress and Textiles are predominantly British, dating from the 18th century to the present day but also include a small group of international material dating as far back as the 16^th century from Europe, South Asia and the Middle East. The collection demonstrates a range of different techniques including printing, embroidery, weaving and lace-making from Britain and around the world. The collection of Indian and Near Eastern textiles and a range of textiles associated with or made by William and May Morris are of international significance. The Morris textiles include six tapestry panels from the ‘Holy Grail’ series, which are regarded as one of the greatest achievements of Morris and Burne Jones, and the most significant of all British tapestry schemes. The dress collection follows fashionable tastes, particularly in women’s clothing and was formed largely from the 1930s through donations by famous Birmingham individuals or families. It is regionally significant owing to its long chronological span and its diversity in relation to British fashion.

HUMAN HISTORY

This collection area includes material from Birmingham and across the world. It comprises ancient civilizations, British and European archaeology, world cultures (formerly known as ethnography), numismatics and philately, and collections relating to Birmingham and the West Midlands. The Birmingham history and numismatics collection areas are designated as being of national significance, with objects and groups of objects across all collection areas that are nationally and internationally significant.

Collection Size: 230,000 objects

Numismatics and Philately

Numismatics incorporates coins, medals and tokens from around the world, with a focus on Birmingham products. The numismatic collection is characterised by its quality, breadth and depth, covering an extremely broad canvas from some of the earliest coinage to the present day. Of international importance are the British Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman and medieval coins, because of their scope and the rarity of individual pieces. The Greek, Roman and Byzantine collection illustrates the early development of coinage in Europe, North Africa and the Near East. Material made in Birmingham reflects the city’s history as a major centre of coin production for international markets. There are many products of this local industry in the collection, from products of the Soho Mint dating from the 18th and 19th centuries to 20^th-century material from the Birmingham Mint.

The philately collection of largely British & European postage stamps was built over a period of 50 years by one of Birmingham’s earliest philatelists. It is considered to be the best general collection of stamps in public ownership outside the British Museum.

Birmingham History

The collection reflects the globally important history of the people and city of Birmingham from around 1500 to the present and includes material relating to work, trades and industries, domestic and personal life, community life, and personal items associated with political figures such as Joseph Chamberlain. The collection includes a wide-ranging and rich resource of material culture and oral testimonies which contribute to our understanding of how Birmingham became a global city, while also having a strong relevance to Birmingham communities. It continues to develop rapidly through projects including Millennibrum (2000) and Collecting Birmingham (2015-18), allowing it to better reflect and engage the city’s super-diverse population.

Topographical Views and Portraits

The collection was established with the aim of creating a visual resource which documented the changing cityscape of Birmingham, from the earliest known views of the town created in the 18^th century up to the present. Every district in Birmingham is represented. The collection comprises prints, drawings, watercolours, postcards, photographs and paintings depicting Birmingham people and places. Portraits of Birmingham people include artists, political and civic figures, manufacturers and business-people, scientists and medical professionals as well as families, and working people. The collection also includes material depicting parts of Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire and Shropshire, as well as Wales and Scotland, reflecting the wider interests of some of Birmingham’s topographical artists.

West Midlands History & Archaeology

Birmingham has extensive holdings of provenanced archaeological material from across the West Midlands region, including Birmingham, Solihull, Coventry, Walsall, Sandwell, Dudley, Wolverhampton, Herefordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire and Staffordshire. The objects range in date from the Upper Palaeolithic to the post-medieval period, but most are of prehistoric, Romano-British, AngloSaxon or medieval date. Material includes worked flint and other stone, pottery, metalwork, glass, organic material, building materials and documentary archives. The holdings represent both important individual sites, such as Wall, and groups of sites, such as medieval moated sites or prehistoric flint assemblages. There is also a significant collection of architectural fragments and building records, primarily formed in the 1970s-80s. In 2010 Stoke and Birmingham jointly acquired the Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire Hoard, the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure ever discovered. It consists of over 3,500 artefacts and fragments dating from the 7th century, made from gold, silver and copper alloy, decorated with garnet and fine filigree.

European Archaeology

Objects in this collection date from the Palaeolithic to the European Iron Age, with particular strengths in Neolithic material from the Swiss Lakes and Denmark, Spinnes in Belgium and the Eastern European site of Vinca. Palaeolithic sites in the Dordogne valley also feature. Much of the material derives from the collections of individuals who subsequently donated them to Birmingham. Birmingham newspaper proprietor Sir Charles Hyde funded the excavations at Vinca, and also donated material from excavation in Cyprus and Nineveh.

Ancient Civilisations

Sir Charles Hyde also funded excavations in Cyprus and at the Mesopotamian city of Nineveh, and donated material to Birmingham. In the 1930s Birmingham contributed to Sir Leonard Woolley’s excavations at Ur, and acquired material from the British Museum. Sir Leonard donated additional material in the 1950s, including the watercolours produced by M Louise Baker to illustrate the excavation report on the Royal Tombs of Ur. Birmingham continued to collect Near Eastern material from sites including Petra, Jericho, Jerusalem, Nimrud, Ur and Abu Hureyra into the late 1970s. This is, alongside the Ashmolean, one of the two largest collections of Near Eastern archaeology outside the British Museum.

Ceramics, textiles and gold work dating between 1000BC and 1500AD, from the South American civilisations of the Incas, Aztecs and their precursor civilizations, also feature strongly in this collection. Birmingham began to collect Pre-Columbian material before the Second World War. In the 1950s this was added to by three major acquisitions in 1951 totalling over 1200 items, further acquisitions in the late 1950s and early 1960s and finally in 1982 by nearly 800 items from the Wellcome Collection.

Other collection areas include Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. A small group of sculptures from the South Asian religions of Buddhism and Hinduism date from the 2^nd-3^rd century AD to the 10^th-11^th centuries AD.

World Cultures

The geographical strengths of this collection are Oceania (with a heavy emphasis on the Solomon Islands) and Africa, with smaller groups from Asia and the Americas. The collection spans the 16^th to 21^st centuries, with greater emphasis on the mid-late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. It features functional items of daily use such as basketry, tools and utensils, objects of adornment, textiles and weaponry. Most of the material represents the private collections of individuals with a personal connection with Birmingham or the wider Midlands, who travelled overseas for trade, military or colonial service, missionary work and occasionally ethnographic fieldwork.

SCIENCE & INDUSTRY

The collection illustrates Birmingham’s role as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and its claim to be the Second City of the British Empire. For 200 years Birmingham traded globally in raw materials and finished products, and it remains a centre of manufacturing and innovation today. As well as documenting the city and region’s development from a centre of craft production through industrial dominance, postindustrial decline and reinvention, it enables Birmingham Museums to challenge accepted histories of industrialisation, empire and innovation. The collection covers five collection areas: manufacturing, engineering, science and medicine, technology and transport.

Collection Size: 30,000 – 40,000 objects (approx. due to bulk accessioning)

Manufacturing

This collection represents over 200 years of manufacturing history from early wooden lathes and hand tools to self-acting machinery and an important firearms collection, including one of the first fully automatic machines. The Birmingham workshop collections are unique in their provenance and completeness, documenting a history of everyday industrial labour, including a complete silversmith’s workshop, a pearl-button workshop, an optician’s workshop, a file-maker’s workshop, and collection of machinery and tools used by pen makers, gunsmiths, wire drawers, metal workers, watch makers, carpenters, coopers, and coach makers. Examples include Bernard Cuzner’s silver workshop containing all of his tools, fittings, and furniture, an important material archive of his trade.

Engineering

This collection represents 150 years of engine development, with many unique items of local, national and international importance. The Smethwick engine, designed by James Watt in 1778, is the oldest working steam engine in the world and one of the most important and best known objects in Birmingham’s collection. Matthew Murray’s hypercycloidal straight-line motion steam engine was designed in 1802 and is the oldest working steam engine of compact design. The 1844 Woolrich electrical dynamo was the first commercial generator, while Heaton’s 1794 button shank making machine is one of the earliest examples of self-acting production, capable of performing a series of consecutive operations without resetting.

Science and Medicine

This collection reflects the history of instrumentation and scientific research and their applications. The collection includes early plastics, the first pacemaker, a revolutionary prosthetic hip, and an important collection of weights and scales, timekeeping devices and calculating machines.

Technology

This collection contains mechanical, optical, and electronic machines in the everyday world from early telecommunications devices to entertainment technologies such as mechanical musical instruments and computers. Unique components such as LEO 1, the world’s first business computer, and Harwell Dekatron, the oldest digital computer form part of the collection alongside one of the country’s first industrial robots. The collection also tells the story of the Birmingham’s continued scientific importance, represented in the collection by Birmingham-made components for the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable to the large hadron collider at Cern.

Transport

This collection reflects the complete history of British transport covering road, rail, air, and canal. The collection includes Britain’s first self-propelled vehicle, Second World War fighter aircrafts and a comprehensive collection of locally made bicycles, cars, and motorcycles.

There are numerous unique objects of national and often international significance including William Murdoch’s prototype locomotive, the country’s first self-propelled vehicle, and the Napier Railton Mobil Special which held the land speed record from 1939 to 1964. The City of Birmingham locomotive is one of only three surviving LMS Princess Coronation class locomotives. It has been preserved exactly as when it left service. The Peacock is a nationally significant narrowboat made for Fellows, Morton & Clayton of Saltly. It is the only boat of its type never to be altered from its original state.

NATURAL SCIENCE

The collection includes entomology, invertebrates, zoology, ornithology, botany and earth science specimens. It is the largest resource of its type in the West Midlands and parts of the collection are nationally and internationally significant.

Collection Size: approximately 250,000 specimens.

Entomology

This collection is focused on British specimens, incorporating a locally significant record of the region’s biodiversity, alongside a smaller number of specimens from Madgascar, Australia and New Guinea. Specimens of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) and Coleoptera (beetles) dominate forming one of the best collection in the UK. They include the nationally significant The Rev Gorham British beetle collection, which is comprehensive and includes many extremely rare species that are the first records of their type in Britain. While the butterflies from New Guinea are internationally significant as specimens from the collection localities are extremely rare.

Invertebrates

Mollusc shells form the largest part of this collection which also includes corals, sponges, crustaceans and echinoderms. These are mostly dried but some are preserved in fluid. The British land and freshwater molluscs collection contains many valuable records of historical snail distribution, which makes it scientifically important. The marine shells are much more international with specimens from most of the world’s seas and oceans.

Zoology

This primarily consists of taxidermy and skeletal material of animals. It is dominated by the ornithology collection, which is one of the best in Britain representing all stages of life, incorporating taxidermy and clutches of eggs. There are many rare examples of extinct and endangered species from across the World in the collection, which are of great scientific value. These include the Great Auk, Hua, Passenger Pigeons, Phillip Island Parrot, Ivory-billed Woodpecker and Kakapo. The collection as a whole was developed mainly through donations of specimens from individuals and organisations such as local zoos and the incorporation of collection such as that from Tamworth Castle Museum.

Herbarium

This collection is comprised of specimens of flowering plants on herbarium sheets and includes mosses, liverworts, lichens, fungi and wood samples. Acquired through passive collection, it is the largest in the region and contains a unique record of the local flora that is nationally significant. Two significant elements of the herbarium are the Bagnall collection, which is locally significant as it was the basis for the first ‘Flora of Warwickshire’; while the Ick collection is a significant early record of the environment of Birmingham.

Earth Science

The earth sciences collection contains a regionally significant collection of local fossils and minerals that tell the story of the Midlands stretching back hundreds of millions of years. The most significant individual fossils are those purchased for display including the Triceratops, a rare example of an American dinosaur skull in a British museum, the 3-dimensionally preserved ichthyosaur and the almost complete fossil crocodile, Metriorhynchus.

The collection of gemstones is very comprehensive and is the finest outside of the Natural History Museum, London, affirming the importance of the jewellery trade to the history of Birmingham. The Matthew Boulton minerals are a rare example of an intact 18^th century mineral collection and are made more significant by his importance in the history of Birmingham.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2020

Licence: CC BY-NC