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Social History Collection

Included within this subject is the Ephemera Collection of about 14,000 items relating to local government, militaria, education, travel and leisure of the local area. There is also material from the urban, rural and industrial communities, a ship models collection of non fisheries use.

Subjects

Social History

Personalia Collection

The Doughty Bequest is a collection of intricate, hand-made model ships, maritime paintings and ceramics. The collection was amassed by one man: Wilfred Vere Doughty, Director of the Consolidated Steam Fishing and Ice Company, former Proprietor and Editor of the Grimsby Evening Telegraph, which was founded in 1827 by his father, Sir George Doughty, MP for Great Grimsby. The collection is of such value and importance that, when Doughty bequeathed it to Grimsby in 1942, it became the starting point for a museums service in North East Lincolnshire. The ship models include the 12ft long Narkunda – a 16,000 tonne steamer built by Harland and Wolf, ‘The Death of Nelson’ – a diorama believed to date from 1805/6, showing the quarter deck of the HMS Victory at the point of Nelson being shot and the ‘Amelia’, a beautiful model dating from 1899, of the Royal Yacht of Don Carlos, King of Portugal. Made primarily from wood, copper and steel, some of the models were commissioned and made by the shipbuilders, Others were made by Major Raban Williams, who also made many models for the National Maritime Museum and the Science Museum and some were made by sailors and amateur model-makers. William Vere Doughty built the collection on throughout his lifetime – buying most of the pieces at auctions and sales. 19th century English portraiture and marine paintings and 18th and 19th century English pottery and porcelain and some Delft pottery completes the collection.

Biology Collection

Mixed natural history material including mounted animals, insects, British bird’s eggs, some fossils and sea shells

Subjects

Biology

Costume and Textile Collection

Consists mainly of items worn or sold locally especially the Joan Sleigh costume collection of c. 4,000 items.

Subjects

Costume and Textile

Subjects

Personalia

Photographic Collection

The core of the collection is the Hallgarth Collection of 17,000 photographs of Historic Lincolnshire.

Subjects

Photography

Source: Cornucopia

Date: Not known, but before 2015

Licence: CC BY-NC

Militaria Collection

Mixed collection of about 2500 military items comprising uniforms, colours, weapons, pictures, silver and “military curios”, plus some document but soldiers’ personal documents are retained by Regimental and Divisional archives. These collections relate to the Grenadiers, the Coldstream, the Scots, the Irish and the Welsh Guards. The 19th and 20th centuries are well represented but the museum is aiming to strengthen collections from the period after 1920.

Source: Cornucopia

Date: Not known, but before 2015

Licence: CC BY-NC

Costume/Textiles

The Needlework collection of over 2,000 items contains material illustrating specific techniques and includes items from outside Surrey. In particular, the collection of smocks is the largest in any British museum.

Personalia

Local history material includes the cottage life collection made by artist and gardener Gertrude Jekyll, and toys once owned by Lewis Carroll.

Social History

Local history material consists largely of objects associated with daily life in the past and numbers around 12,000 items.

Archaeology

Guildford Museum holds the principal archaeological collection in Surrey, consisting of c.65,000 items of archaeology largely of finds from excavations within the county. A significant part of the collections is on loan from the Surrey Archaeological Society, whose headquarters are housed in the Museum building.

Ancient Egyptian Collection

The museum holds at least 10 ancient Egyptian objects but that number is likely to rise. Classes of objects represented in the collection include: flints; stone vessel; textile; tools/weapons.

Subjects

Antiquities; Ancient civilizations; Antiquity; Archaeology; Egyptology

Photographic

The topographic collections contain photographs relating to the history of Surrey.

Archives

The topography collections include photographs, prints, maps and other 2-dimensional material.

Source: Cornucopia

Date: Not known, but before 2015

Licence: CC BY-NC

Fine Art Collection

Portraits 1670 to present, mostly depicting Lord Mayors, Royalty and other figures connected with government of the City of London but also including a collection of 18th century naval and military heroes presented by Alderman John Boydell in the 1790s Paintings, prints, drawings and watercolours of London subjects c1700 to the present Victorian paintings, landscape and genre subjects, including a group of well-known Pre-Raphaelite related items, most of them being the Charles Gassiot Bequest of 1902 The Sir Matthew Smith (1879-1959) Studio Collection of 175 oil paintings and more than 1,000 watercolours and drawings, presented 1974 by Mary Keene Harold Samuel Collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings, bequeathed 1987 by Lord Samuel for permanent display in the Mansion House.

Source: Cornucopia

Date: Not known, but before 2015

Licence: CC BY-NC

Ancient Egyptian Collection

The museum holds 10 ancient Egyptian objects. Classes of objects represented in the collection include: amulets; faience figure; flints; jewellery (beads); metal figure; pottery; shabtis. Objects are known to have come from the following locations in Egypt (with the name of the excavators and year of excavation given): Ballas or Naqada (Petrie and Quibell, 1895). The cemeteries of Naqada and Ballas were excavated at the same time and it is not clear to which cemetery the objects from graves 1426 and ?1878 belong. Note also ‘a clay Osirian head, found in Rochester’; and ‘a bronze skillet found in a Roman grave at Cliffe which has Egyptian symbols as decoration’- see Archaeologia Cantiana 28 (1911), pp. lxxviii-lxxix, no. 46.

Subjects

Antiquities; Ancient civilizations; Antiquity; Archaeological sites; Archaeological objects; Egyptology; Archaeological excavations

Source: Cornucopia

Date: Not known, but before 2015

Licence: CC BY-NC

Local History Collection

Large collection of material relating to the London Boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow includes a. small group of poorly documented agricultural items b. large collection of domestic items particularly strong for the period 1850 to 1910, including 1830s kitchens in the Large Mansion which houses the museum, c. items related to education locally, mainly late 19th and early 20th century but also material on local pioneers of educational reform such as Buckmasters and Sarah Trimmer, plus toys, dolls and games especially from later 19th and early 20th centuries d. personal items and portraits relating to people connected with the two boroughs, especially if they have made a significant contribution to national or local life or because of a link with items in the collection e. a small collection relatng to personal hygiene and health, strong in late 19th and early 20th century material but now being developed to include more recent material, especially from local manufacturers such as Beechams, Gillette etc f. Weapons from prehistoric, early mediaeval and Civil periods, early 19th century armed associations, civil defence material especially from World War 2. Local trades and industries – craft tools (eg tailoring, coopering, barge-building, parchment and vellum making) p;us large collection of ephemera and photos recording local industries especially those of the Great West Road (A4).

Transport Collection

A small but very fine collection, including two Rothschild carriages (the family owned the Gunnersbury estate 1830s to 1920s), a hansom cab, pony phaeton, bath chair, plus bicycles, harness, tickets, photographs etc.

Fine Art Collection

Topographical paintings, drawings, prints and watercolours of the area that is now the London Boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow.

Clothing and Textiles Collection

One of the finest of the costume collections in the smaller museums in Greater London, but like most such collections it is made up mainly of middle and upper class female clothing of the 19th and 20th centuries. The Museum is trying to collect more recent and contemporary clothing to represent everyday wear, uniforms and protective clothing and clothes worn by local minority ethnic communities.

Archaeology Collection

The collection includes prehistoric flint tools and metalwork from the Sadler, Crooke and Layton Collections, excavated Roman, mediaeval and later material from sites in Brentford, Northolt. Cranford and Bedfont, plus chance finds from the London Boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow.

Ancient Egyptian Collection

The museum holds approximately 110 ancient Egyptian objects. Classes of objects represented in the collection include: flints. Objects are known to have come from the following locations in Egypt: Abydos; Fayum; Gebelein; Hu; Meydum; Naqada; Thebes.

Subjects

Antiquities; Ancient civilizations; Antiquity; Archaeology; Egyptology

Source: Cornucopia

Date: Not known, but before 2015

Licence: CC BY-NC

The Gurkha Museum was established in 1974 and moved to its present location in Peninsula Barracks, Winchester, in 1990.

The collection has developed through a combination of purchases, gifts, loans and bequests, initially largely from regimental mess collections and individual donors. The Museum’s Friends organisation was also responsible for purchasing large amounts of material for the collection.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2023

Licence: CC BY-NC

The collection consists of some 11,700 accessioned items held in a variety of areas, which may be divided into four main divisions:

The public viewing galleries which trace the chronological history of Gurkha involvement in British Arms since the beginning of this relationship in the early Nineteenth Century. This includes: weapons, uniforms, medals, badges, and other related pieces of military equipment. It also includes military paintings, pieces of regimental silver and a number of objects relating to the social, cultural and religious history of Nepal.

The McDonald Gallery (not open to the general public except by prior arrangement) houses extensive medal and badge collections of great value, as well as a number of fine portraits, paintings, prints and pieces of regimental silver relating to the Brigade of Gurkhas.

The reserve collection of weapons, uniforms, books, pictures and other artefacts relating to the period and topics described above. These are housed in three separate storage areas within the Museum: the Silver store, Archival store and Collections store.

The library and research space, which houses the extensive collection of books appertaining to Gurkhas, as well as a mass of archival information contained in correspondence, war diaries, diaries, regimental books, slides, films, videos and photograph albums.

Overall, the collection forms a significant representation of both the Brigade of Gurkhas and of Nepalese life. Areas such as the book and badge collection are particularly strong. The Museum aims to strengthen the other areas of the collection in order to meet its statement of purpose.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2023

Licence: CC BY-NC

When the Service was established in 1986 it inherited a number of existing collections about the local area from internal departments, notably the Arts & Entertainment Service, Library Service, Hackney Archives and the Mayor’s Office, as well as the Chalmers collection. In its desire to build the collection, reflect the Borough’s ethnic and cultural diversity and attract further donations, the Museum team at the time collected extensively and without discrimination to reflect the lives and histories of all the Borough’s residents. Many of the items were a reflection of Hackney at the time such as posters, ephemera and photographs as well as objects. Many of these items were related to the social and cultural history of the borough of Hackney, which formed the basis of the Museum’s permanent displays in Central Hall.

The second Hackney Museum in 2002 worked closely with community collecting panels and gave them support, funds and means to collect objects to represent the experiences of members of specific ethnic and cultural communities in the Borough. These partnerships informed the team’s development of the content for the current permanent displays, which tell a narrative of migration and settlement to Hackney over the past 2,000 years.

From 2002 to 2008 Hackney Museum’s collecting was largely passive and the majority of our acquisitions were the result of unsolicited offers from the public. Since 2008 there has been more emphasis on active collecting, in relation to exhibitions and projects such as Mapping the Change (2009 – 2012) and Our Museum (2012 – 2015) as well as documenting changes in Hackney.

From 2002 onwards a handling collection was developed primarily consisting of a number of ‘suitcase’ resources. Each suitcase tells the story of somebody who moved to Hackney at some point in its history, through replica objects, copies of original photographs, alongside maps and other printed information. The suitcases, where possible, are created in collaboration with the represented person or a descendant, or are based on an oral history account in the Museum’s collection.

The handling collection also consists of other objects relating to specific eras that feature in our programme for schools, such as the Victorian era, World War II and Windrush, as well as objects from different communities that are represented in Hackney and are used extensively in the Museum’s Learning Programme.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2020

Licence: CC BY-NC

There are 8,574 entries recorded on the Museum’s collections database, Collections Index+, consisting of artefacts, artworks, images and oral history recordings. The Museum has permanent displays with a clear, well-defined theme – the history of immigration and settlement to Hackney over the last 1,000 years.

The Museum’s collections predominantly reflect working and domestic life in the London Borough of Hackney from about the 1850s to the present day.

• Family life: comprising domestic and household goods and art dating back to the 1860s.
• Local ephemera: civic objects, health and welfare, education and political activity, entertainment, artistic, cultural and sporting activity.
• Local trade and industry: items from local shops and markets; eg : garment, shoemaking, paper-flower making, furniture making, toy-making and scent production.
• Religious material: tracts, pamphlets, objects of worship.
• Photographs: Topographical, portraits, work related, family as well as images from specific photographers such as Dennis Morris and Gabrielle Motola.
• Contemporary art: 1920s Chalmers bequest of portraits and landscape paintings and sculptures forms the main part of the collection.
• Recordings of oral history interviews.
• Objects relating to African and African-Caribbean, Jewish, Indian, Pakistani, Irish, historic and contemporary communities.
• ‘Mapping the Change’. A collection of artefacts, ephemera, photographs and video and oral history recordings relating to the changes that took place in Hackney in the run-up to and during the London 2012 Olympic Games.
• Archaeological material
• Natural history
• Costume
• Handling items acquired specifically for educational purposes, such as handling and school sessions [not accessioned or catalogued].

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2020

Licence: CC BY-NC

Halesworth & District Museum was created in the late 1980s at the request of Halesworth Town Council to create such a collection for the benefit of the town and the surrounding district.  Since that time, the Museum has acquired over 6,000 items. The Museum became a charity through a deed of Trust in 1991 and then in 2019 became a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO)

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2023

Licence: CC BY-NC

The Museum collections consist of artefacts and objects, paper ephemera and photographs, (including a small number of line drawings and paintings, covering the geology, archaeology, social and economic history of the town of Halesworth and the surrounding villages of its natural hinterland.

1. Geological Collection:
   1. rocks and fossils illustrating the general geology of East Anglia; and
   2. rocks and fossils picked up within the geographical area as defined above, illustrating the local geology and historical topography.
2. Archaeological Collection: The archaeological collection covers:
   1. The Prehistoric Period (700,000BC-43AD: The artefacts consist of flint assemblages and ceramic sherds from the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age; collection from Halesworth, Chediston, Cookley, Walpole and Wissett. Archaeological artefacts from the Bronze Age include a hoard of Middle Period Bronze Age palstaves/axeheads regarded as one of the finest in the country.  Items from the Iron Age period include  a significant horde of golden coins from this period found at Blythburgh in 2018.  Some of these items were purchased from the British Museum with the support of grants from public bodies and from private donations.
   2. Roman to Medieval Period (43AD – 1600AD:  The Museum has artefacts and ceramic sherds from the Roman, Middle Sazon, Saxo-Norman and Medieval periods; most are from Chediston (Roman and Halesworth.  The artefacts include items from a number of domestic and workshop-based industrial sites in Halesworth, (lead work, pin-making, pottery making, brewing etc, whilst the sherds illustrate the many different types of local, regional and European pottery in use in the town between 720AD and 1600AD. Items from the Roman period include a significant horde of silver coins from this period found at Cookley in 2017.
   3. Post Medieval (1600AD-1900AD:  The Museum has a collection of ceramic sherds and clay pipe bowls.  The sherds illustrate the many different types of earthenware, stoneware and porcelain domestic utensils in use in the town, and the clay pipes identify manufacturers of clay pipes working in the town between 1680 and 1860.

Most of the medieval and post medieval artefacts were collected as a result of fieldwork and excavations carried out by the Museum Field Archaeology Unit extant during the 1980s and 1990s.

3. Town and Country (domestic, farming, craft and industrial artefacts): This collection illustrates:
   1. Social history: All aspects of domestic and corporate life of the Halesworth area; most of the items are domestic bygones from the Victorian age and the 20th century.  A number of objects depict the ‘Home Front’ and life in the town during both world wars.
   2. The local economy: Farming and rural crafts in the villages and manufacturing, handicrafts, retail trades and transport in the market town of Halesworth.  Items from the villages include hand tools used during the farming year and a collection of tools from the old Wissett Forge.  The items from Halesworth come mostly from the important malting, brewing, shoe making and tailoring industries and trades.
4. Paper Ephemera:
   1. A small collection of local maps mostly covering Halesworth and its immediate environs, the most important being an original copy of the Town Tithe Map (1840.  Other maps include those produced by the Ordnance Survey.
   2. A large collection of documents such as trade bills, invoices, business accounts, contracts, letters and depositions.  Of particular note are the Lincolne Letters, an archive of early 19th correspondence between a prominent Halesworth family.
   3. A collection of printed ephemera such as business leaflets and posters, transport timetables, local pamphlets, programmes, guide books, trade directories and almanacs.

The majority of the ephemera items belong to the late 19th century and first half of the 20th century.

5. Photographs: The Museum holds a large collection of photographs which have historical or geographical value as records of the past.  These include:
   1. Printed photographic postcards of Halesworth and surrounding villages produced since 1900.
   2. The Limmer Photographic Archive – copies of nearly 150 sepia photographs taken between 1882 and 1900.
   3. The Robbie Page Collection of approximately 20,000 negatives of photographs taken of individuals, groups, businesses and events during the second half of the 20th century. by Mr R Page of Halesworth.
   4. A large collection of black and white and colour photographs of Halesworth and the surrounding villages; these show many of the houses and industrial buildings of the town which have undergone renovation or change of use.
6. Research Notes:  The Museum has collections of the research material and notes of several eminent local historians: Rachel Lawrence, Michael and Sheila Gooch, Ivan Sparkes, June Brereton and Mike Fordham.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2023

Licence: CC BY-NC