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Transport

A collection of 3,000 items has 15 aircraft representing 26 companies in the area between 1905 -1968 including Airspeed, Airwave, Avro, Britten Norman, De Havilland, Folland, Hunting, Saunders Roe, Slingsby, SUMPAC, Wight, Alvis, Bristol Siddeley, Gnome, Metrovik, Napier and Rolls Royce.

Source: Cornucopia

Date: Not known, but before 2015

Licence: CC BY-NC

The Somerset Military Museum traces its origins to the early 1920’s when a collection of Somerset Light Infantry objects was put together as a small museum in the Regiment’s Depot Officers’ Mess at Jellalabad Barracks, Taunton. Later the museum was moved to larger premises in the Keep at Jellalabad Barracks – a landmark building overlooking Vivary Park. In 1963 it was again moved to a purpose-designed room in the Regimental Headquarters of The Somerset and Cornwall Light Infantry at Jellalabad Barracks. It was, however, always the wish of the Somerset Light Infantry Museum trustees to find a permanent home for it somewhere within Somerset.

Field Marshal The Lord Harding of Petherton launched an appeal in May 1971. This raised £32,000 to build a new floor to the Wyndham Gallery of the Somerset County Museum (now the Museum of Somerset) where the Somerset Light Infantry collection and that of the West Somerset Yeomanry, the Somerset Militia, Rifle Volunteers and their successor regiments could be housed and developed as a military museum for the County in partnership with the Somerset County Council. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother formally opened the new Somerset Military Museum on Tuesday 7th May 1974.

In 1979 a charitable trust deed, which replaced the Somerset Light Infantry Museum Trust Deed, was set up which formalised the objects of the Somerset Military Museum Trust. This Deed was replaced by the current charitable trust deed in 1997. The new deed and subsequent amendments have allowed for the inclusion of North Somerset Yeomanry objects and have reflected changes to the title of the modern regiment and to the Trust’s loans policy.

In 2004 the Museum’s collection of North Somerset Yeomanry objects was significantly increased when the NSY trustees donated objects, which had previously been housed at Tyntesfield and with the National Army Museum.

From 2008 the Somerset Military Museum was closed for refurbishment for 3 years as part of the Museum of Somerset Project. The redesigned museum was reopened in September 2011.The centrepiece of the museum is Lady Butler’s painting of the Remnants of an Army, which is on loan from the Tate Gallery.

Between 2010 and 2014 the museum’s large reserve collection was re-housed in the newly built Somerset Heritage Centre. This collection includes the major portion of its medal collection, which is now displayed in new wooden cabinets. Since 2014 work has been undertaken to rationalise the reserve collection with the aim of identifying objects surplus to the museum’s needs, and to formally accession objects which had not yet been accessioned.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2018

Licence: CC BY-NC

The collection reflects the purpose of the Somerset Military Museum Trust (SMMT) comprising objects and information relating to The Somerset Light Infantry, The West Somerset Yeomanry, The North Somerset Yeomanry and their successor units (principally The Somerset and Cornwall Light Infantry, The Light Infantry and The Rifles), and also relating to the Somerset Militia, Volunteer and Irregular Units raised in the County of Somerset and relevant objects and information derived from enemy sources.

The collection totals 6,001 objects and includes uniforms, medals, trophies including silver and porcelain, Colours, guidons and other standards, memorabilia, ephemera and photographs. A small collection of weaponry is held under licence.

The collection spans the period from 1685, when the 13th of Foot was formed, to the present day. The 13th of Foot subsequently became The Somerset Light Infantry and is manifest today as a part of The Rifles. The Yeomanry collection is largely from the 19th and 20th centuries, whilst the militia and volunteers span the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. Objects relating to The Somerset Light Infantry comprise the largest part of the collection.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2018

Licence: CC BY-NC

Archaeology Collection

An important Celtic carved stone head found locally and a small collection of other varied material.

Subjects

Archaeology

Arms and Armour Collection

This collection comprises firearms and 20th century militaria.

Subjects

Arms and Armour

Decorative and applied Art Collection

There is a small collection of British and European pewter.

Subjects

Decorative and Applied Arts

Ethnography Collection

A small collection including some African items.

Subjects

Ethnography

Agriculture Collection

Agricultural history items including tools, animal traps and silver trophies. There is a large 18th century wooden cider press with contemporary implements.

Subjects

Agriculture

Fine Art Collection

This collection comprises paintings, engravings and other pictures of local interest, demonstrating changes in the locality over the last two centuries.

Subjects

Fine Art

Geology Collection

There is a collection of minerals lent by John Rattenbury, local mining expert. It comprises minerals mostly mined from local and other north Devon workings. There are also mining maps, diagrams and models.

Subjects

Geology

Transport Collection

This aspect of the collection includes two fire engines, a Newsham’s model bought with 12 leather buckets (five of which survive in the museum) in 1736 for 46 and a horse drawn Merryweather appliance dated 1886.

Subjects

Transport

Social History Collection

The collection includes the Corporation weights and measures; the town stocks (on loan); cabinet maker’s tools; shoe maker’s tools; blacksmith’s tools and other craftsmen’s tools and equipment. There is a collection of mid 20th century dolls in period costume, a penny-farthing bicycle and various domestic social history items including ceramics, glass, metalwork, wooden items, clocks and watches.

Subjects

Social History

Archives Collection

There are some books, maps and documents relating to the South Molton area which are available for reference.

Subjects

Archives

Photographic Collection

Photographs of local interest, including eight albums of photographs by a local professional photographer, Elizabeth Askew, dating to c.1903.

Subjects

Photography

Other

Subjects

Biology; Maritime; Medals; Medicine; Music; Numismatics; Personalia; Costume and Textile; Science and Industry

Source: Cornucopia

Date: Not known, but before 2015

Licence: CC BY-NC

Fine Art Collection

19th century works include a painting of Mr and Mrs Walton c.1830 and an oil painting of Farington Corn Mill c.1880. There are also works by local artist Tom Anderton.

Subjects

Fine Art

Science and Industry Collection

Objects relate to local industries such as Stannings Bleach Works and there are also foundry workers’ tools. Items associated with the local textile industries include model cotton steam engines, hand tools, cotton samples, fents, shuttles and loom gauges and items from Carrington’s Mill, Eccleston. There are also other tools, scientific instruments and pattern books. Local trades include shoemakers’ tools and commerce is represented by items such as chemists’ bottles and beer and pop bottles.

Subjects

Science and Industry

Social History Collection

There is a relatively large collection of social history material including a range of household items and ornaments (pre 1950). Childhood items include toys and games and objects from local schools such as school magazines. The local churches are represented by ranging from a waterspout from the 14th century parish church and an alms house inscription to various other photographs, items and souvenirs.

Subjects

Social History

Geology Collection

Fossils and minerals of regional origin.

Subjects

Geology

Medals Collection

Religious and civil medals.

Subjects

Medals

Transport Collection

Items related to railways, canals and the Bamber Bridge Tramway are acquired.

Subjects

Transport

Agriculture Collection

The collection includes field drainage tiles and vernacular bricks. Agricultural implements and associated tools are acquired where they particularly relate to the Mosslands of the Western Parishes.

Subjects

Agriculture

Archaeology Collection

Excavation finds from the Roman site at Walton le Dale, found by E.E. Pickering from 1946-1960.

Subjects

Archaeology

Arms and Armour Collection

Items relate to wartime and include gas mask, home guard material and other objects.

Subjects

Arms and Armour

Costume and Textile Collection

Costume includes a range of dresses, underclothing, garments, accessories and footwear. Textiles include drapery and needlework.

Subjects

Costume and Textile

Personalia Collection

There is a range of items relating to the Farington family of Worden Hall, including photographs, pet gravestones, a wireless and an inn sign. There is also a framed memorial address relating to Kathleen Ferrier (the important 20th century opera star, who has direct associations with Blackburn).

Subjects

Personalia

Photographic Collection

There is a collection of over 1000 postcards, photographs, glass slides and negatives depicting local scenes and events. There are groups of images relating to firms including Leyland Motors Ltd, Leyland and Birmingham Rubber Co., Leyland Paint and Varnish Co. and also local cotton mills. Local buildings such as, Worden Hall feature in addition to local and national events such as the Leyland May festival and Festival of Britain. There is also a camera collection.

Subjects

Photography

Archives Collection

There are early local maps and also early plans of the Leyland Estate (copies), together with local handbooks, directories and souvenir publications. Newspapers cover national and local news events and date to 1887. There are also scrapbooks of local events cuttings.

Subjects

Archives

Source: Cornucopia

Date: Not known, but before 2015

Licence: CC BY-NC

The original inspiration of the museum came from Alderman W.R.E. Mitchelmore, Mayor of Yeovil 1918-1921, who was interested in local antiquities and in particular the Roman site at Westland, discovered in 1923.

Dr C.A. Ralegh Radford’s excavations there in 1927 produced valuable Romano-British archaeological material. An important collection of fire arms was presented by Alderman Henry Stiby, another Mayor (1904-05) and an Honorary Freeman of the Borough of Yeovil. The photographic collection includes Henry Stiby’s original glass plate negatives; a 1961 aerial survey of Yeovil and a recent addition of Estate Agent Peall & Co’s A-Z drawers detailing properties sold across the south west of England.

Other gifts included the Pinney collection of glassware, Bailward Costume Collection and Roman finds from Lufton and Ilchester, excavated under the direction of Mr L.C. Hayward, together with many other gifts, loans and purchases of interest to the local area.

The Museum collections were housed in the former coach house to Hendford Manor as the Museum of South Somerset. In 2004, Heritage Lottery Fund and South Somerset District Council grants created the Community Heritage Access Centre, (CHAC) an off-site environmentally controlled store on Lufton Depot, near Yeovil. This was to care for the collections in store at the Museum of South Somerset and kept in industrial sites around Yeovil.

The Museum of South Somerset closed in March 2011. CHAC achieved Accreditation Status in 2014 and is now the main contact for physical artefacts and photographs related to Yeovil and South Somerset.

The Community Heritage Access Centre (CHAC) was renamed and rebranded as the South Somerset Heritage Collection (SSHC) from July 2021 to August 2022.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2023

Licence: CC BY-NC

Archaeology:

Material ranges from the Palaeolithic up to the twentieth century. The collection comprises groupings of small finds (i.e. artefacts of metal, bone, glass, stone etc.) along with an amount of pottery and animal and human bone both worked and un-worked. The major strengths of the collection lie in the following excavation archives:

• Ilchester Mead Roman
• Lufton Villa Roman
• Westland Roman Villa

Costume and Textiles:

The costume and textile collection consists mainly of:

• Women’s garments, most of which date from the 18th and 19th centuries (especially wedding dresses)
• Gloves
• 19th century infant wear
• Men’s waistcoats, most of which date from the 18th and 19th centuries

There are a number of earlier items and a growing collection of 20th century material. A small portion of the collection is made up of male daywear and children’s clothing i.e. waistcoats and christening robes. There is also a large collection of fashion accessories, i.e. fans, scent bottles, jewellery and items used in the production of textiles, i.e. lace bobbins. There is a collection of military uniforms from WWII and some items of ceremonial regalia. There are also two personal costume archives: the Bailward collection of 18th-19th century costume and the Tacchi-Morris collection of 20th century costume.

The strength of SSHCs costume collection is the Bailward costume collection. This collection includes men’s and woman’s costumes covering periods between 18th century – 19th century, it is especially valuable as a snapshot of body adornment of one particular family and class, over many generations. In 1997 this collection, which had been on loan to the South Somerset Heritage Collection since c1955, was generously donated by the descendants of the Bailward family and original lenders.

Decorative Arts:

British ceramics
The reference collection of ceramics is small, consisting of:

• Pottery made in South Somerset, particularly Donyatt ware
• Roman pottery from excavations at Lufton, Ilchester Mead, and Westland sites
• Post-medieval decorative ceramics in the Pinney Glass collection
• Some examples of rare Tintagel – B class sherds from excavations at South Cadbury
• Robertson collection of Yeoviliana.
• Five riot jugs, unique to Yeovil’s history

Glass
Pinney collection of glassware dating to 18^th

Metalwork – Silver
The strengths of the existing collection lie in a few commemorative plaques, ewer and a commemorative tray.

Furniture
There are only a few pieces of furniture in the collection; most of these pieces have a South Somerset association based on use (i.e. the former mayor’s chair, the bureau designed for the original Borough Museum). There is a significant 18^th century table in the collection.

Other:

• Pinney collection of gemstones
• Marble statue created by Westmacott.
• Angel Inn panel dating from 1603.
• Cromwellian clock, one of only six known to exist.

Fine Arts, Painting, drawing and prints:

With the exception of a few very fine oil and watercolour paintings, SSHC’s collection is almost exclusively confined to two-dimensional graphic art (i.e. drawings and prints). These mainly comprise illustrations of Somerset scenes and portraits of people associated with South Somerset, together with works by artists connected with the district by birth or residence. Its main strength is as a visual reference collection of places and architecture in South Somerset.

Of particular note are a group of portraits depicting the members of prominent glover’s families. These include Thomas Dampier and his wife Elizabeth Dampier who was also the daughter of William Bide, another local glover. Portraits of Thomas William Dampier-Bide and Elizabeth Dampier-Bide continue the tradition.

Documents & Printed Ephemera:

A small collection of printed ephemera has been acquired since 1928 and has been expanded since 1991 to complement the social history and Education and Outreach collections:

• Legal documents concerning Yeovil dating back to 14^th century
• Poor Law Rate Books dating back to 1664.
• Social history flatwork, such as bills, proclamations and public apologies
• Maps, archaeological illustrations and certificates
• Photographs in frames

Batten collection of maps and documents dating back to 16^th Century.

Geology:

• Local Fossils
• Local Sedimentology

Photographic:

The photographic collection – consisting of c.5000 negatives, original prints, lantern slides and glass plates – is an important visual record much used by researchers. Strengths include:

• Yeovil and district
• Gloving industry
• Glass slides, – Victorian & Edwardian (including Stiby collection dating from 1880’s.)
• 1993 survey of Yeovil
• Social History
• Local estate agent collection of A-Z property index cards 1960s to 2000.

Few of these photographs are of intrinsic significance as artefacts, for example, to the technological development of photography, but are important because of the images they record. To ensure that every care can be taken to prolong the life of the original medium for as long as possible and to ensure the preservation and use of the image, many of the images are copied using modern photographic techniques which produce a negative and paper print and increasingly digital form.

Social History:

The main material is connected with the history of the people, work and leisure of South Somerset, including material related to trades and crafts, in particular Petter’s and Westland’s. The collections derive from early efforts to record the ethnography of the district and tend to form typological groups of artefacts such as Friendly Society Brasses, the gloving industry and the development of Petter / Westland as a manufacturing base in the District.

Whilst recognising the physical limitations of storage, the need to actively collect selected material reflecting the development of the landscape, industry and human life of South Somerset and thereby to maintain the relevance of SSHC’s collections is understood.

Gloving was one of Yeovil and South Somerset’s main industries up until the early twentieth century. Together with the portraits of prominent glovers, the gloving collections include hand tools, machinery, patterns, archives, photographs and the gloves themselves, which record the heritage of the gloving industry or ‘Great Trade’ as it has been described locally.

Numismatics:

The coins and medals date from ancient Greek and China to the 20th century. The particular strengths in the collection are Roman Imperial coins, and Somerset trade tokens, notably the 18th century tokens. The collection also includes bank notes, some local and general medallions and English regal coinage from Saxon times to the present.

An important collection of medals is the Pearson collection belonging to Charles Pearson, naval commander present at the battle of Trafalgar and his son Sir Charles Knight Pearson veteran of the Crimean and Boer wars, mentioned in despatches eleven times. A sword, painting and naval dirk also make up part of this collection.

The coin collection has grown up through donations of single coins and collections. There has always been a marked concentration on acquiring specimens with a Somerset provenance; specimens made in, or for specific use in, the district. This includes chance finds, material from excavations and hoards.

Toys, Dolls and Games:

The collection contains a small number of dolls, and assorted toys and games from the 18th – 20th centuries.

Firearms and Weapons:

One of SSHC’s strengths is its firearms collection, consisting of c.85 weapons collected privately by former mayor and businessman Henry Stiby of Yeovil. The collection was presented in 1926 to the town of Yeovil for inclusion in the Yeovil Borough Museum. This collection is noted for its well-chosen examples illustrating the development of the firing mechanism, and includes journals kept by Henry Stiby describing these mechanisms.

Medicine Collection

The medicine collection derives mainly from Newtons Chemist which was in Hendford, Yeovil.  A collection from a chemist in South Petherton is also held and one or two medical items have been donated individually.  Newtons Chemist collection dates from the 19^th century to the early 20^th century.  The South Petherton collection dates from the mid-20^th century.

 

In all disciplines, the collecting area will be confined to the area of post-1974 South Somerset unless otherwise stated.

The majority of the collections derive from the area of the post-April 1974 boundaries of the district, but inevitably there are parts of the collections, which derive from other areas.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2023

Licence: CC BY-NC