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The museum was established to advance the education of the public in all aspects of technology, in the period from the early to mid nineteenth century to around the 1980’s. This period in history is known as the “Electronic Revolution”.

The collection traces the progress of electronic and engineered artefacts including: telegraphy, telephony, audio, military & civil communications, warfare, photography, scientific and electrical domestic equipment.

The collections currently cover the following subject areas with the aim of showing the wide range of technology developed during the period, how some aspects of technology have developed during the period, and how military and non-military technology is related:

• Civil Communications
  • Telegraphy (special collection)
  • Telephony (special collection)
• Domestic and Office
  • Wireless & Television
  • Gramophones
  • Wire Recorders
  • Tape Recorders
  • Typewriters
  • Flexowriters
  • Electrical Domestic Home Equipment
  • Office Equipment
  • Photography
  • Victorian Magic Lanterns
  • Film Projectors
• Military
  • Military Communications (special collection)
  • Military projectiles (shells) and Grenades
  • Weapons (special collection)
  • Militaria (general)
  • Trench Art
  • Military uniforms and kit
  • Military Vehicles
• Scientific, Measurement & Test Equipment and Components
• Galvanometers
• Oscilloscopes
• Scientific Equipment
• Vacuum Tubes, capacitors, inductors (special collection)
• Vehicle Products
  • Electrical components and equipment
• Medical Equipment
  • Medical Induction Coils

The following collections are particularly strong:

• A collection showing the development of British Rifles. The collection spans from the earliest Brown Bess Musket to the Lee Enfield rifle; this collection has very few gaps. The Baker Rifle Musket is a very important first rifled weapon; we do not have an original.
• A large selection of Valves, Bulbs, and X-ray tubes. We have one Geissler tube that can be demonstrated, it brings a wow factor to all the visitors who see it. We would like to expand the collection of Geissler Tubes.
• Post 1900 is strong but the museum has poor collection of Pre 1900 Telegraphy that it would like to significantly increase.
• The collection of military communications has a number of gaps. We would like to expand very early communications particularly WW1 wireless sets.
• We have one of Major John Brown’s B2 Spy Sets, (in a suitcase), which relates to espionage in the 2nd World War.
• The story of the development of the telephone is almost complete. We have the very earliest example of Bells Telephone (Repro) right up to a computer styled screen telephone.

One of the strengths of the museum is the wide range of electromechanical and electronic technology on display. The Museum is always interested in acquiring unusual and interesting artefacts that will add to this eclectic collection of 19th & 20th Century technology. It is also the policy of the Museum to demonstrate as many working items as is possible, this adds to the enjoyment of all our visitors, both young and old.

While we have a few examples to show the range of technology, it is not the policy of the museum to extensively collect in the following areas:

• Post WW2 domestic radios, radiograms and televisions
• Test Equipment
• Post WW2 Office Equipment
• Modern Domestic Appliances

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2024

Licence: CC BY-NC

The Museum opened in a rented boat shed at Potter Heigham in 1996.Many items were on loan, but as the Museum became better known, some of those items were later given to the Collection.Significant objects given whilst the Museum was at Potter Heigham, include ‘White Damsel’, formerly ‘Tina’, a Great Yarmouth One Design yacht (1997), ‘Falcon’, steam launch (1997), and Dr Joyce Lambert’s mascot, a taxidermy coypu (1996).

After moving to Stalham in 1999, further items were lent or gifted.These included the 1827 lateener yacht, the ‘Maria’, which was transferred in 2004 from Great Yarmouth Museums, ‘Our Boys’, a provisions boat from Acle Bridge (2001), an example of an Airborne Lifeboat (2002), a coypu hat worn by Ted Ellis (2003), and various marsh working tools donated by marshman, Eric Edwards.

The Trustee originally responsible for collecting was the Museum’s President Robert Paul.His boating knowledge and background was supplemented with items of social history by other volunteers and by the then Curatorial Adviser, James Steward. Curator, Nicola Hems MA, was appointed in January 2010. Gradually the focus shifted from boats and boating history to other areas of Broadland life including marsh work, wildlife, the local community, and leisure and the holiday industry.Early edition books were lent and gifted, and the trustees of the Philippa Miller estate also donated many of her watercolour paintings.

Other notable donors were Sir Timothy Colman, who gifted his yacht, ‘Dabchick’, in 2011 and Robert Maltster who donated his vast collection of books.The core collection has been added to as themes have been expanded.Special exhibitions also allow the Museum to explore other themes for a short period of time and have also enabled items to be added to the collections.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2024

Licence: CC BY-NC

The collection currently numbers over 7,000 objects (Jan 2024).188 objects are on loan to the Museum and the rest of the collection has been donated to or bought by the Museum.

Core Collection

the core collection is mostly on display to visitors, with the remainder being kept in store. Some of the stored items are put on display by rotation, or feature in temporary exhibitions. The main themes within the core collection are –

Life on the Broads and origins of the Broads: agriculture, marshwork, the holiday industry, local industries, and the formation and adaptation of the landscape. Items include tools used by marshmen past and present, an auger and other items used by geologist, Dr Joyce Lambert, to explain the origins of the Broads, early religious monuments, peat digging, components from wind pumps, and a small collection of Broads wildlife in the form of taxidermy, a ‘river’ scene, and birds’ eggs. Leisure pursuits are also represented by a collection of fishing paraphernalia and gun punts. Famous local people are featured, including various authors and a local comedian, Sidney Grapes, whose stage clothes are on display.

Boats: boats either used on the Broads or made in local boatyards. Important examples include a working 1894 steam launch, ‘Falcon’, a 1827 racing lateener yacht, ‘Maria’, an example of a Broads One Design yacht, ‘Dabchick’, an example of a Yarmouth One Design yacht, ‘White Damsel’, an airborne lifeboat, dinghies, a river inspector’s launch, a weed cutter, working boats, punts and a provisions boat. This theme also features components and name boards of former wherries, and tools used by boat builders and designers, including boat plans. Tourism and boat hire are represented by brochures, memorabilia, boatyard pennants, and boat models.

The Museum has an established series of temporary exhibitions that feature periods or topics in history that are important to the development and heritage of Broadland and are not covered in detail in the permanent displays. They have included, ‘The Broads at War’, ‘The Lost Railway of the Broads’, ‘Broadland During the First World War’, ‘Beer- Broadland’s Breweries, Past and Present’, ‘Broadland in Pictures’, ‘Broadland’s High Streets’, local artists, and the life and works of Philippa Miller. Items on display come from the Museum’s collection and from local museums and collectors. Some of the latter items are then gifted to the Museum.

For ease of identification, the geographic area of “The Norfolk and Suffolk Broads” covered is that of the area covered by the Broads National Park. The period of history, from the 3rd century to the present day, can be subdivided into the following categories:

1. Early religious settlements and monasteries
2. Medieval peat digging and the formation of the Broads
3. The research on the origins of the Broads
4. Agriculture, to include farming, marshwork, drainage, wild fowling and fishing
5. River transport to include keels and wherries and navigation
6. Trades and industries of the Broads, including boat building
7. The boat hire industry and tourism
8. Life in Broadland, to include leisure pastimes
9. Building, building development and land management of the Broads
10. Broads flora and fauna.

Archive Collection

Photographs, boat plans, pictures, postcards, books, brochures, and reports featuring landscapes or activities on the Broads. Although most of this collection is not on display, some items are digitally accessible within the Museum and on the Virtual Museum on the Museum’s website. A number of photographs are only part of the collection as digital images. All are available to view by appointment.

Handling Collection

As part of its outreach programme, the Museum has a ‘Pop Up Museum’. This features at local events such as the Royal Norfolk Show, Horning Boat show, local groups, Stalham’s Christmas market and to fairs. It consists of pull up banners, a display board and handling items. The Museum’s small handling collection supplements its education and life-long learning activities. This collection is at greater risk of loss, theft or damage. Aspects of the handling collection will either be drawn from duplicates or poor examples from the permanent collections or specifically acquired for this purpose. If material is offered for donation and it is not suitable for the permanent collection, it may be useful for handling. The Museum staff will explain this to donors and seek their express permission, which will be recorded on the entry form.Handling material will be uniquely marked so that its source can be identified. Reviews will take place regularly and there may be occasions when material is moved from the handling and learning collection to the permanent collection.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2024

Licence: CC BY-NC

The Museum’s collections have been acquired since the Museum’s initial inception in 1913. The Museum was opened as the Geffrye Museum in 1914 by the London County Council to reflect the interests of the local furniture-making industry. Early acquisitions included furniture-making tools, architectural fittings, metalwork (due to the Museum’s link to the Ironmongers’ Company) and a range of smaller, largely domestic items including tableware and kitchenware, candlesticks, cooking equipment, and furnishing textiles.

In 1935, Marjorie Quennell was appointed Curator and the focus of the museum shifted away from the furniture-making industry towards education and school groups. Under Quennell’s curatorship ‘everyday things’ such as scrapbooks, clothing and toys were collected. Quennell also created a chronological series of period rooms spanning from 1650-1800.

Collecting continued in a similar vein through the middle of the twentieth century, although the pace of collecting slowed down slightly under the curatorship of Molly Harrison.  Contemporary furniture was first acquired for the collections in 1950 and a new 1960s room was later added to the period rooms.  The paintings collection was developed during the 1970s and early 1980s under the directorship of Jeffery Daniels. Costume was heavily collected during this time too, but has not been actively collected since. Furnishing textiles, particularly curtains, and sample lengths of mainly mid-twentieth-century fabrics were also collected during the 1980s.

In 1991, the Museum became a charitable trust, providing an opportunity to review the Museum’s purposes and priorities. Subsequently, the collection was developed to support the Museum’s shift in focus, first to English domestic interiors, then to the main living spaces of the urban middle classes (reflecting new research and development of the Museum’s period room displays in 2006) In this era, the Prints, Paintings and Drawings collection was refined and concentrated on two strands: examples of the type of picture the middle classes would have hung in their living rooms and representations of middle-class homes and gardens.

In 2002, the furniture collection was greatly enhanced by the donation of the Cotton Collection of English Regional Chairs, which maps regional chair-making traditions.

In 2003, one of the almshouses was restored and opened to the public. There are two period rooms furnished to represent the living conditions of the residents in the 1780s and 1880s and suitable objects were acquired for these displays.

The first Christmas items were acquired in the 1970s, and the collection has been developed considerably since the early 1990s, supporting annual Christmas Past exhibitions at the Museum.

Since 2005, the Museum has shifted its focus to the concept of home more broadly, aiming to study and reflect a more diverse and relevant meaning of home. In 2008, the Documenting Homes collection was begun, a unique collection, consisting of testimony, photographs, audio files, interviews and floor plans of people’s homes. It is a rich and vibrant connection that captures the connection between people and the places they live.

The library collections were not systematically catalogued until 2008. Earlier collections seem to have consisted mainly of decorative arts and architectural histories. In the late 1990s selected parts of the former Shoreditch Library were acquired, expanding the collection. Since then, secondary literature as well as primary material such as diaries and decorating advice manuals continues to be collected.

Archival collections have followed a similar path. In 1998, an interiors archive was set up, creating an image bank of domestic interiors and the Regional Furniture Museum Trust donated its archives to the museum in 2002.

Since 2017, much collecting has focused on the development of the new Home Galleries and includes a new collection of objects representing the religious practice in the home as well as themes including comfort, entertainment and domestic game changers.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2023

Licence: CC BY-NC

In the past, the Museum’s collections have primarily aimed to represent the material culture of the homes of the urban middle classes from 1600 to the present day.  In the past five years, the Museum has undergone significant change reopened in 2021 as the Museum of the Home, a place to reveal and rethink what home means. In preparation for the opening of the new Home Galleries and the refresh of the Rooms through Time Gallery, collecting focused on the home more broadly, including kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms and gardens. Collecting in the past five years has also aimed to address the lack of diversity in the Museum’s collecting, focussing on representing a broad range of homes from a variety of cultures and backgrounds, not just the urban middle classes. A key focus has been objects used in the homes of the Black Caribbean community in the mid-1900s, much of which is on display in the 1970s Room through Time. This collecting has been object based, but has also formed part of our Documenting Homes collection where testimony and personal stories have been collected.

The object collections include furnishings such as ornaments, curtains, furniture, floor and wall coverings, tableware, heating and lighting equipment and other domestic appliances.  While the majority of objects relate to the main living space, a small number of domestic objects furnishing or used in rooms beyond the main living space have been collected. Recently, object collections have broadened to reflect more diverse homes, including a collection of objects relating to religious practice, entertainment and housework in the home.

The significance of the collections, library and archive lies in the fact that this is a unique body of evidence on the theme of home.  No other museum in the country specialises in this particular aspect of our national heritage.

In collecting the material culture of home, the Museum’s priority is on typical and everyday domestic items, not the exceptional, the one-off or the most famous. In recent years, we have focused on the personal story of each object, and how it unlocks the lived experience for the person who owned it. In the past the Museum’s approach has been to start with the evidence of domestic inventories, wills, diaries, literature, household accounts, contemporary prints, drawings, paintings and photographs, as well as domestic architecture and artefacts, in order to build an understanding of taste, values and manners in relation to the home.  Whilst this continues to inform our collecting activity, there is now more of a focus on the importance of the lived experience and how each object can resonate with the visitor to provide relevance to the concept of home today.  When items are being considered for acquisition they are assessed against this contextual history, the personal story attached, as well as for qualities such as their condition and whether or not they have been restored, our preference being for items in as original condition as possible.

Many of the objects typically found in English homes had their origins abroad and can be the product of British colonialism, cultural appropriation and exploitation. In recent years we have sought to address this through our refreshed interpretation of the Rooms Through Time. Since reopening we have begun the process of decolonising our collection and interpretation to recognise the human cost of the objects in our collections today by adding contextual information and using objects as a starting point for wider conversations, as well as reviewing the language we use to describe our collection both in the past and moving forwards.

While the overwhelming strength of the collections, library and archives lies in their wide-ranging and in-depth coverage of the history of the home, there are highly significant strands within these areas, and individual items of national significance.  The collections are described in more detail below:

Furniture collection – the most extensive and comprehensive of the object collections, comprised of over 1,000 items, dating from the early 17th century to the present day, largely consisting of items that would have been used in the main living spaces of middle-class Londoners’ homes.  Amongst the furniture collection, there are pieces and areas of exceptional significance:

• a small but significant collection of 18^th– and early19^th-century London pieces bearing labels or inscriptions relating to their supply. These include the earliest known example of cabinet furniture to carry a printed trade label. The significance of these pieces is that for the vast majority of surviving pieces of middle-class furniture from the 18th and early 19th centuries the makers and owners are now unknown.  These labelled items provide invaluable personal perspectives from which to investigate the making and consumption of furniture at this period.
• a small but significant collection of original upholstery, including an early18^th-century easy armchair (one of only two easy chairs of this date known to survive with the once relatively common stamped wool top covers intact). The importance of this collection is that upholstery is fragile and has rarely survived, and its significance for furniture has tended to be overlooked in public collections until relatively recently.
• the English Regional Chair collection is largely formed of the Cotton Collection, donated to the Museum in 2002. This exceptional and unrivalled collection of over 450 chairs, many of which are marked by the maker, maps the regional ‘dialect’ of English chairs providing a typology for identifying and studying regional chair production and domestic culture.
• an extensive public collection of Utility furniture, a historically significant, ambitious and unique scheme. The collection includes living room pieces as well as ephemera from the scheme such as tokens and catalogues.

Paintings, prints and drawings: historically the collection has been made up of oil paintings dating from the 17th to 20th centuries, images that would have furnished the main living spaces of middle-class Londoners’ homes and, representations of domestic interiors and gardens.  Given the rarity of depictions on middle-class interiors, this is now a considerable collection of over 800 pieces.

Photography: This comprises of over 200 works and explores the work of professional photographers depicting home life. Artists represented include Mark Cowper, Kyna Gourley and Jonathan Donovan. We are continuing to grow our photography collection to diversify representations of home and begin to ensure our collections reflect many types of homes, not just the middle-class main living space.

Textiles: an extensive collection of furnishing textiles, curtains, carpets, cushions and other soft furnishings with examples from the 18th and 19th centuries and strength of coverage for the 20th century comprised of nearly 1,000 items. The collection is significant because it covers an important area of home furnishing that has tended to be neglected in public collections and due to its fragility is vulnerable to loss.

Documenting Homes Collection: an exceptional and unique collection of over 7000 items providing rich coverage of homes from 1900 to the present, comprised of photographs of people’s homes with supporting documentation such as questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The archive has a wide geographical and social spread, and we continue to grow it, focussing on homes from a variety of classes, cultures and backgrounds.

Christmas Collection: an extensive collection (over 1,800 items) of Christmas cards, decorations and other domestic Christmas ephemera as well as photographs of homes at Christmas, diaries and questionnaires. This level of documentation makes the collection unique and gives it a depth and richness that goes beyond other collections of Christmas material. We have started to expand this collection to encompass a broader range of winter festivals from a range of religions, cultures and backgrounds.

Metalwork, ceramics and glass: over 3,500 items comprising domestic equipment, tableware and ornaments.

Domestic Appliances: A collection of almost 900 items ranging from radio and stereophonic equipment, to domestic lighting, vacuum cleaners and sewing machines.

Wallpaper: a collection of over 200 items, wallpaper samples, sample books and fragments dating from the 18th to late 20th century.  Particular emphasis is made on acquiring wallpaper layers from existing buildings which can be separated providing a sequence of decoration for a given room.

Ephemera: Over 3,000 items mainly comprising packaging, stationery, writing equipment, household cleaning items and biscuit tins.  There is also an important collection of Utility Scheme related material.

Treen: Over 700 miscellaneous small wooden objects from napkin rings and wig stands to tea caddies and other boxes, as well as toy/doll’s house furniture; mostly from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Geffrye Almshouses collection: objects relating to the history of the Geffrye Almshouses and their inhabitants.  The 1780s and 1880s period rooms in the restored almshouse contain furnishings appropriate to their period and function, including cooking and food preparation equipment, bedroom furniture and accessories and objects relating to storage and recreation.

Costume: over 1,400 items of domestic dress, with pieces from the 18th to 20th centuries; currently the museum is not collecting actively in this area; the collection provides an aid to dating furnishing textiles and providing colour references.

Tools: an extensive collection of 19^th-century and earlier cabinetmaking and woodworking tools, including complete tool chests and small machines such as lathes and jig-saws. The museum no longer actively collects objects in this area.

Furniture Archive: over 4,000 items relating to furniture design and production, including invoices, design drawings, business ledgers, photographs of stock/models (2,000 from the firm of H&L Epstein) and the Frederick Roe archive.

Architectural Items: including several 17^th– and 18^th-century panelled rooms in oak and deal, a 17^th-century staircase, carved wood and marble fire surrounds, cast iron fire grates and firebacks, and examples of 18^th– and 19^th-century joinery.  Lead water butts and a brick niche are displayed in the museum gardens. The museum no longer collects in this area.

Library Collections: comprises printed books and journals relating to the study of home ranging across a broad range of disciplines and subject areas from social history, through material culture, social anthropology, design history, domestic architecture, garden history and the decorative arts. It includes primary evidential material such as diaries, decorating and furnishing advice manuals and interior/life-style magazines, cookery books, etiquette manuals and household inventories both in printed and manuscript form.  There is also an extensive collection of retail and trade catalogues of household goods dating from the eighteenth century to the present day.  In all, the collection comprises of around 8,000 titles.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2023

Licence: CC BY-NC

For a detailed history of the collections up to 1945 see H.W. Fincham, Notes on the History of the Library and the Museum of The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem at St John’s Gate Clerkenwell (London: 1945).

The history of the collections may go as far back as 1838, when the beginnings of a Library made up of gifts of books from Order members was kept on behalf of the Order. In around 1875, the remit of the Library expanded beyond books to incorporate other objects and documents of interest.

Colonel Holbeche started the first Accessions Book in 1912.

Items from the collection were first displayed in 1915 in two table cases. In 1923 the ground floor room of the West Tower became the first Museum Room and in 1935 a second room – the west tower basement – was opened to visitors by appointment.

In 1978 the Museum commenced regular opening for visitors, not only by appointment, in the current galleries at St John’s Gate. In 2010 the galleries (including the new Priory Gallery) reopened having undergone refurbishment and redisplay, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and other donors.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2023

Licence: CC BY-NC

As of May 2023, the Museum’s Collections Management System has 43,771 object records in the accessioned collection. These objects date from the first century to the present day and originate from around the world, from Jerusalem to Clerkenwell.

The main object types in the Museum collection are: Architects’ Drawings, Armour, Artworks, Decorative Arts, Ceremonial, Coins, Transport, Medical and First Aid Equipment, Ecclesiastical, Fundraising Objects, Furniture, Manuscripts, Maps, Medals, Models, Plaques, Printing Blocks, Seals, Souvenirs, Archaeology, Training Equipment, Trophies and Uniform. Certificates, Film and Photographic Material, and Books may currently be found in both the Museum and Archive and/or Library collections.

Within the collection, the Crusader coin collection, manuscripts and munition-type armour are deemed to be particularly significant. The social history collection is diverse and relevant to both internal and external audiences, and holds the greatest potential for the delivery of the Museum’s statement of purpose.

Much of the known collection remains relevant but an on-going inventory project may reveal currently undocumented objects that are irrelevant.

The Museum’s key themes, which form the core collection and relate directly to the Museum’s statement of purpose, are:

• The Knights Hospitaller (1099 – 1798) in: The Holy Land 1099 – 1291, Cyprus and Rhodes 1291 – 1522/23, Malta 1530 – 1798. Particular emphasis is placed on the activities of the English branch (or langue) of the Knights and the activities of its members.
• The history of the Priory of Clerkenwell and the post-Reformation history of its buildings (1140s – present)
• The history of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, with an emphasis on the Priory of England and the Islands (following the 1999 establishment of this Priory and St John International as a distinct office of the Order) (1820s – present)
• The history of St John Ambulance in England (originally the St John Ambulance Association and the St John Ambulance Brigade until they merged in 1968) (1870s – present)

Related themes, which may be relevant and form complementary additions to the collection, are:

• The history of the St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group (1882 – present)
• St John International and the overseas Priories, Commanderies and Associations
• The history of the Alliance Orders of St John, including the Sovereign Military Order of Malta
• The history of the military religious orders in Europe and elsewhere, including the Knights Templar (1118 – 1312), much of whose property was gifted to the Knights Hospitaller following their suppression
• The history of the Crusades and the Latin East

Objects falling within these related themes may serve the Museum’s statement of purpose if their context is related explicitly to the Order of St John or St John Ambulance.

In addition to the accessioned collection, the Museum has two additional inventoried collections:

• The Regular Use Collection (RU) is formed of items of furniture and ceremonial equipment that remain in use but are of historic and on-going significance to St John. Use at St John’s Gate and the Priory Church, and in Order ceremony is often integral to the significance of these objects. Unique identifying numbers and an inventory meet the need to record properly and account for these objects.
• The Handling Collection (HC) is used as part of the Museum’s education and outreach programme, and through regular use and handling will likely ultimately deteriorate and be disposed of.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2023

Licence: CC BY-NC

The Royal Leicestershire Regiment Museum collection has existed informally since at least the First World War, although a formal Regimental Museum was not established at Glen Parva Barracks until 1938. That Museum continued until the beginning of the 1960s, with new acquisitions recorded in the Regimental magazine ‘The Green Tiger’.

With the merger of the Regiment into The Royal Anglian Regiment, the Glen Parva Museum was closed. In 1961 the collection was lent to the City of Leicester and the Council agreed to manage it via the city museums service and keep part of the collection on public exhibition at all times; initially with a temporary display created within the Newarke Houses Museum. In 1969 a permanent new Regimental Museum was opened in the nearby Newarke Magazine. This continued until 1994, when it closed as a result of fire safety concerns about the building. A temporary new gallery was opened at the New Walk Museum from 1995 to 2004, before Regimental fundraising and an HLF grant enabled redevelopment of the Newarke Houses Museum. The refurbished Newarke Houses included the new Regimental Museum, which opened in 2007.

Throughout this period additions to the collection continued to be made slowly, via donations, loans and occasional purchases. This situation is likely to continue.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2019

Licence: CC BY-NC

The collection relates to the history of The Royal Leicestershire Regiment and its antecedents from 1688 to 1971. It is a lively, respectful memorial to the efforts and sacrifices of soldiers (and their families) who served in the Regiment in war and peace. The collection is strongest in material from the 19th and 20th centuries. It includes material illustrative of the history of The Royal Leicestershire Regiment as well as items from the many campaigns it fought in and items personal to individual soldiers. By the very nature of the Museum being dedicated to collecting items relating to the British Army, the vast majority of the collection is of British origin. The Regiment has a very strong regional link with Leicestershire and Rutland. A small number of items in the collection are foreign in origin, either souvenirs or campaign relics.

The collection includes uniforms (mainly late 19th and 20th century); cannons; weapons; medals and decorations; uniforms, badges and accoutrements; trophies and silverware; paintings (including four oil paintings by Terence Cuneo); military equipment; official and unofficial mementos and souvenirs of officers and men who served in the Regular, Militia, Volunteer or Territorial Battalions of the Regiment; postcards (mainly from World War I); letters; photographs; books; items captured from enemy armies; personal papers.

Prior to 1961, Leicester City Museums also collected military material relating to people or events with a connection to Leicester and its geographic hinterland. This included items with Royal Leicestershire Regiment connections. Since 1961 anything with a direct Regimental connection has generally been treated as part of a common collection under the stewardship of the current Leicester Arts Museums Service (LAMS).

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2019

Licence: CC BY-NC

The Royal Regiment of Scotland (SCOTS) is the senior line infantry regiment of the British Army. It was formed on 28th March 2006, on the fighting heritage of historic Scottish Infantry Regiments and represents over 390 years’ continuous service to the Crown. The Regiment is now made up of three regular battalions, one public duties company and two reserve battalions, with headquarters based in Edinburgh and battalions across Scotland and the north of England. Battalions and sub-units from the Regiment have been on constant operational deployment since 2006, including to Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, Cyprus and West Africa.

The Museum of The Royal Regiment of Scotland was first established in 2013, opening to the public in May 2014. The collection began as a small number of items gathered by the staff of RHQ SCOTS but has since grown into a flourishing collection of Regimental and national significance, charting the experiences of SCOTS during operational service, daily life and all that occurs in between. It sits within the historic Edinburgh Castle and is currently co-located with the Royal Scots Museum.

The varied collection now comprises over 750 objects including medals, uniform, artwork, weapons and archive material which date from formation in 2006 to present day. As a contemporary collection, collecting priorities are regularly being reassessed to ensure the objects in our care best reflect both the history and the currency of the Regiment. In 2017 the collection was awarded Nationally Recognised status as part of the Scottish Regimental Museums Collection cared for by the Association of Scottish Military Museums.

The collection is managed by a full-time Museum Curator, responsible for its ongoing care and further development. A Learning Officer was employed in 2018 to lead the creation and development of a formal learning programme, designed to help people of all ages understand the current role of the Regiment and wider Infantry in Scotland, as well as its historical role in conflict and peacetime, at home and across the globe. The programme has adapted in the years since to provide in-person and online opportunities for learners to explore the museum collection, including formal museum visits and informal creative activities. This was furthered by the launch of the Regimental Museums Learning Hub in 2021, an online platform which features highlight objects from the museum collection, people and places of Regimental interest and a vast array of activities that learners worldwide can carry out at home.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2024

Licence: CC BY-NC

The current collection of 750 items contains uniform, weapons, textiles (including flags, banners and other insignia), equipment, artwork, medals, presentation items and archive material (including physical and digital documents and photographs) used by and/or related to the Regiment and its members.

A number of items from foreign units exist within the collection, including uniform, weapons, textiles, insignia and presentation items that have been acquired by or gifted to the Regiment and its members.

The museum holds items on long-term loan from families of the Regiment. This includes a Military Cross medal group and personal items relating to SCOTS who have lost their lives in combat.

A small handling collection also exists. The items in this collection belong to the museum but are not accessioned, therefore not bound by this policy.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2024

Licence: CC BY-NC

Transport Collection

The collection of over 80 vehicles (buses, taxis, tramcars, coaches and various parts) date from 1890 to 1980 and are mainly from the North West of England. The museum holds items such as the only Atkinson double decker bus made, the last traditional front-engined double decker bus, the last rear-loader double decker bus, the first double decker bus designed to be operated by one person, the first production Leyland National and the first SELNEC standard bus. There is also an example of one of the new batch of Crossley buses that replaced the last trams to operate up to 1949 on the Manchester to Hazel Grove route. A more recent example is a minibus (D63 NOF) introduced in 1986 by the Bee Line Buzz Company. Various other vehicles include Manchester trolleybus 1250 and Manchester 25, a 1953 single decker. The collection of associated smaller objects is wide-ranging and includes items such as uniform button, street furniture, payment tokens, ticket machines, bus stops and bus shelters, blinds, posters, timetables, publicity material and hand painted tour boards.

Subjects

Transport

Photographic Collection

There is an extensive archive of 5,000 photographs.

Subjects

Photographic equipment

Archives Collection

The Museum’s extensive archive collection of over 80,000 items of transport interest dates from the 19th century to the present day. This includes a large coloured canvas map of the South Lancashire Tramways system (18×12 feet) and various tickets, wage records and the other documents relating to Greater Manchester’s road passenger transport history.

Subjects

Archives

Source: Cornucopia

Date: Not known, but before 2015

Licence: CC BY-NC

The Museum’s remit is to tell the story of cricket in Wales. To address this the Museum holds an extensive range of cricket related items dating from the eighteenth century to the modern day.

The collection includes items of clothing and equipment as worn by county and club players. Some have been acquired to provide examples of how the playing of cricket had changed and developed over the past 250 years. Many are directly associated with specific clubs, events and well-known players. They, therefore, play in an important role in illustrating different aspects of the history of the game in Wales.

The collection also includes a large number of records from the professional and recreational game, including scorecards, autograph books, scrapbooks, membership cards, club records and player contracts. This collection throws a light on how the people of Wales as club officials, players and supporters contributed to the development of the game in Wales.

The Museum’s permanent collection holds a number of trophies and awards received by the Glamorgan CCC and its players. The permanent collection is supplemented by silverware and trophies loaned to the Museum by clubs in Wales. There is also a collection of photographs, film and video including footage and commentary of specific games along with interviews with players, officials and supporters.

The collection supports the museum’s objectives by providing objects for exhibition, by helping to meet the needs of researchers and by providing resources for the future development of the exhibitions.

A digitisation project has taken place so that items from the collection are available on the Museum’s website, together with films and photographs from the Museum’s collection.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2023

Licence: CC BY-NC

The museum collection has evolved from Wigan Library’s collections. The Library was purpose built in 1878 and now houses the museum galleries and Local Studies. In the 20th century senior librarians were proactive in collecting. The collection of Sir John Scott was a significant donation in 1924. Leslie Scott MP donated his father’s collection of Egyptology and Archaeology to the people of the town. The collection belonged Sir John Scott KCMG, DCML born Wigan 1841, died Norwood 1904. Sir John Scott was Vice President of the International Court of Appeal in Egypt 1878-1882 and Judicial advisor to the Khedive 1890- 1898 (Goldschmidt 2000: 184). It is assumed that the objects were collected during this period. The objects include a gold coffin mask, four wooden coffin masks, various coffin fragments, libation dishes, necklaces and other vessels. Other donors include Mrs Hopkins (including link to Petrie) and Mrs Steele and Mr Nicholson. In the early 1930s the librarian approached the British Museum and received archaeological artefacts from the dig at Ur, City of Abraham in modern-day Iraq. The museum also acquired archaeological collections from Kendal Museum in 1968 including archaeology of Mediterranean cultures.

The museum holds a significant collection of satirical prints from the period of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. The Crawford Collection of 1,242 prints are believed to have been collected by Lord Crawford of Haigh Hall in the 20th century. The museum also holds around 1,600 items of Natural History including 1, 500 marine shells collected in 1750-80 from the Pacific, W Africa and the Caribbean by a member of the Bankes family of Winstanley Hall. The museum’s geological collection was mainly acquired through purchase and local fieldwork by a former member of staff who was a geologist. There are c.1, 000 minerals rocks and fossils. Many of the fossils have been collected locally and relate to coal measure deposits. The NWCRU are of the opinion that the specimens are of good quality and the palaeontology of regional significance.

A number of smaller collections should be highlighted including the Rimmer Collection of 22 brass and woodwind instruments from the 18th – 19th centuries collected by William Rimmer, a local and leading brass band conductor; Wigan Rugby League Football Club programmes 19th – 21st centuries; c.1000 glass lantern slides mainly of topographical interest in the Wigan and Lancashire area; The Birtwistle Collection – c.300 tin boxes once used to contain biscuits, sweets and chocolates; The Buckley Collection – c.500 examples of household textiles and haberdashery collected by a Mrs Buckley, most dating from the early to mid twentieth century; The Pennington Glass Collection – c. 250 examples of British and continental domestic tableware collected by Major W Peers Groves, a Salford Brewer.

In 2014 the museum acquired the print loan collection from the Turnpike Gallery and in 2015 acquired the Drumcroon collection of prints, glass, ceramics and mixed media works. The mixed media, glass and ceramics elements have since been accessioned into the collection. We are currently in the process of fully documenting the print collection to get up to date valuations for a project planned in 2025 where we will display a percentage of this work at Turnpike Gallery for possible loans to community partners.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2024

Licence: CC BY-NC

The museum collections number around 35,000 objects The collections are key to the work of the museum in promoting understanding and enjoyment through our changing exhibitions, events programmes, off-site displays and exhibitions, public projects, school programmes and community resources. The largest part of the collection is the social history collection with around 12,000 objects, mainly dating from the 19th and 20th centuries and acquired as a result of passive collecting from local families or worthies. Digital material is usually passed to Wigan Archives for storage and appropriate care. The museum holds a significant school loans collection, but these are not accessioned into the museum collection as they are regularly lent to schools for use in the classroom. This is a collection of c.2,000 items especially collected for educational purposes.

Social History

The social history collection comprises around 12,000 objects illustrating domestic, civic, religious, leisure and working life in Wigan Borough from the seventeenth century to the present day. The period most represented is the late nineteenth century to mid twentieth centuries. The range and quality of the items is diverse and most of the categories of the SHIC classification are represented.

Leisure and domestic items

Domestic objects include kitchen equipment, laundry equipment, tableware, furniture, textiles, ornaments and lighting and heating appliances. These mainly date to the late nineteenth to mid twentieth century. Objects include televisions, radios, gramophones, gramophone records, wax cylinders, photographic equipment (including cinematic and projection equipment), books, games, toys, ephemera, and musical instruments. Of note are:

• The Rimmer Collection of 22 brass and woodwind instruments collected by William Rimmer, a local and leading brass band conductor. These date from the late eighteenth to late nineteenth century.
• A collection of Wigan Rugby League Football Club (and its forerunners) programmes dating from the late nineteenth to early twenty-first century.
• A collection of c.1000 glass lantern slides mainly of topographical interest in the Wigan and Lancashire area.
• The Birtwistle Collection – c.300 tin boxes once used to contain biscuits, sweets and chocolates etc.

Civic and community life related items

Commemorative items such as keys, trowels, mallets, and ceramics etc, items relating to civic office, such as chains, badges, caskets, costume and ephemera etc.

Textiles

The majority of the artefacts date from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century and relate to cotton manufacture. These include twelve machines which process raw cotton into yarn by the ring spinning method; four power looms and a variety of yarn testing equipment. In addition, there is a rope-walk, which made the ropes which drove mill engine flywheels. The remainder relates to the silk industry including hand tools and a collection of silk pattern books of mid to late 19th century date. There is also the:

• The Buckley Collection – c.500 examples of household textiles and haberdashery collected by a Mrs Buckley, most dating from the early to mid-twentieth century.

War

First and Second World War items such as ARP, Home Guard, ration books, clothing coupons, military items etc, education, sporting trophies and trophies awarded by the local councils. Of note is:

• The Cheetham-Hibbert Collection – c.1000 French postcards 1914-18

Religious related items

Objects include memorial cards, Christmas cards, concert and tea party programmes, mourning jewellery and commemorative items relating to the anniversaries of local churches and Sunday schools.

Fine & Decorative Arts

Decorative Art

• The Pennington Glass Collection – c. 250 examples of British and continental domestic tableware collected by Major W Peers Groves, a Salford Brewer. Dating to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this material is not local to Wigan but was housed at Pennington Hall in Wigan Borough.
• A small collection of decorative objects relating to the Eckersley family of Wigan and Hindley.
• A small collection of material relating to the Leyland family of Hindley, including personal jewellery, sewing equipment and decorative objects dating from mid to late nineteenth century, and a collection of late eighteenth to early nineteenth century samplers.

Fine art

This is a diverse collection of c.2000 objects including around 180 oils, 120 watercolours and c.1400 prints of various types. The majority were acquired by bequest and donation from four local collectors. The museum also holds a print collection from the Turnpike Gallery and the Drumcroon ceramic and art collection. Other important collections include:

• The Crawford Collection of c.1242 hand-coloured political caricatures of the period 1789-1815, mainly French, but some British including Gillray and Cruickshank.
• The Peer-Groves – watercolour and ink and wash drawings
• The Dootson Collection – mainly oils and watercolours including the work of several well-known 19th century British artists eg Lord Leighton, Birket Foster, Luke Fildes and Alma Tadema.
• The Prosser-White Collection of 19th century local historical and topographical subjects.
• A portrait of Sir Roger and Lady Bradshaigh in front of Hail 1746 by Edward Haytley. This is of national significance and was acquired in 1981 with the aid of the National Art Collections Fund.

Industrial History

The collection is also diverse, ranging from small hand tools to large machinery. There are five major categories of material:

Coal Mining

Mainly large structures and machinery, including a wooden headgear dating to c.1870, a colliery ventilation fan and steam driven ventilation engine and a steam driven haulage winch. The museum also holds a number of small items, including lamps, hand tools, surveying equipment and winding engine control gear.

Heavy Engineering

Consists mainly of the products of local manufacturers e.g. hand tools, bolt- making and foundry equipment. Of special note is the steam hammer from Ince Forge; mobile crane and a steam powered gas compression engine made by Walker Brothers, plus their archive of 3,000 engineering drawings; the Harrison McGregor Albion agricultural machinery.

Light Industry

Examples of local manufacturer’s products and production machinery, including shoe and clog making, food and drug processing, brewing and tin- smithing.

Transport

A small collection including models, wagon plates, station name-plates, railway platform trucks and ephemera eg bus and train tickets. The major item is a signal box with interior fittings (Douglas Bank).

Archaeology

Consists of locally excavated material, chance local finds and material from the personal collections of some local worthies. The local material ranges in date from Roman to eighteenth century. The subject areas covered are Egyptology, Greek, Roman (British and continental), British Neolithic, British medieval and post medieval, and African prehistory.

World Cultures

A small collection of c.150 objects from Africa, Asia, N America, the Pacific and Europe. Most were acquired by donation in the early to mid-twentieth century. Like many other museums, Wigan acquired a few items from well-known collectors eg Seton-Karr, Sir John Scott and Stathom. Local donors were prominent families eg the Bankes and the Eckersley families, who acquired objects whilst working or touring the British colonies. We hope to work closer with this collection in the upcoming period in a look towards decolonising this material by recontextualising interpretation and information stored with support from local community groups with associated heritage.

Egyptology

A small but significant Egyptian collection of 38 items. The bulk of the Egyptian collection was donated, presumably to Wigan Library, in June 1924 by Sir Leslie Scott K.G., M.P (1869-1950). The Scott collection would have been donated during the time period when objects went to the library. The collection belonged Sir John Scott KCMG, DCML (born Wigan 1841, died Norwood 1904), believed to be the donor’s father. Sir John Scott was Vice President of the International Court of Appeal in Egypt 1878-1882 and Judicial advisor to the Khedive 1890-1898 (Goldschmidt 2000: 184). It is assumed that the objects were collected during this period. The objects were donated in 1924 and include a gold coffin mask, four wooden coffin masks, various coffin fragments, libation dishes, necklaces and other vessels. Other donors include Mrs Hopkins (including link to Petrie) and Mrs Steele and Mr Nicholson.

Natural History

Consists of c1,600 items. The most significant is a collection of c.1, 500 marine shells collected in 1750-80 from the Pacific, W Africa and the Caribbean by a member of the Bankes family of Winstanley Hall. A previous member of staff tried to establish a link with Joseph Banks, but without success. There are also small number of plants, insects, reptiles and mounted birds and mammals, mainly collected as curiosities, although some mounted specimens may be of local Victorian taxidermy. In 1991 the collection was surveyed by the North West Collection Research Unit (NWCRU).

Geology

This collection was mainly acquired through purchase and local fieldwork by a former member of staff who was a geologist. There are c.1,000 minerals rocks and fossils. Many of the fossils have been collected locally and relate to coal measure deposits. There is no record of the collecting criteria used or the objectives in building up the collection. The NWCRU are of the opinion that the specimens are of good quality and the palaeontology of regional significance.

Numismatics

A small collection with a number of items identified by the British Museum as being of produced by significant makers. The whole collection includes:

• c.175 trade tokens dating from the 17th to 20th centuries relating to
• Wigan, Lancashire and various industrial activities.
• 11 gaming counters.
• The Sir Leslie Scott Collection of 19 Graeco-Roman coins.
• The Boars head Hoard of 131 Roman coins dating from Nero to Septimus Severus.
• c. 330 British colonial, American and European coins of the 17th to 20th centuries.
• c. 230 commemorative and active service medals.

Gaming counters will no longer be collected, and coins and medals will only be collected from excavated archaeological context or because of their social history significance.

School Loans

There are three subjects’ areas, and all include original artefacts or specimens, replicas, books, charts and audio-visual material.

• Biological Sciences – spirit collections, mounted specimens of plants, invertebrates, fish, reptiles, birds and mammals illustrating basic botanical and zoological classification and representing wildlife found in the Wigan area. All material is British.
• Earth Sciences – mineral, rock and fossil specimens, models and agricultural samples.
• History – artefacts both original and replicas covering the subject areas of Egyptology, Prehistory, Roman, Post Roman, Medieval and modern history.

The majority of the material consists of 19th to mid 20th century social history artefacts. Most of the material has been acquired through purchase, some donated and some transferred from the museum’s reserve collections.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2024

Licence: CC BY-NC