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The existing collections cover the principal fields of human history, natural history and fine art. Within these broad disciplines the collections comprise social/local History, including ephemera and photographs, numismatics, costume and archaeology; natural history, including vertebrates, invertebrates, geology and mineralogy, photographs and biological records; The Beecroft, Municipal and Thorpe Smith Collections of fine art. Southend Museums’ collections have been acquired since 1906, but include a series of foundation collections acquired in the first instance by the Southend Institute from 1885.

Much early collecting was fairly indiscriminate regarding relevance to the Museum’s geographic area, especially in the field of social history. Today collecting is restricted to items that relate more specifically to south east Essex.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2014

Licence: CC BY-NC

Fine Art

Southend Museum Service’s art collections are housed at the Beecroft Art Gallery, and are managed as a trust with Southend Borough Council the sole trustee. The art collections comprise three separate parts:

The Beecroft Collection

Built up by the founder, Walter Beecroft, and the Friends of the Beecroft Art Gallery and acquired mainly in the 1950s. Comprises mainly Old Master paintings (most notable being the Dutch and Flemish works) and other pre-twentieth century works by British, French, Italian and German artists. Also contains an important selection of works by the artists of the Great Bardfield Group (mid twentieth century). Sculpture representation poor apart from a bronze by Jacob Epstein. The Beecroft collection contains the most important works of the art collections. 157 works, mainly oil paintings, some watercolours, prints and drawings and sculpture.

The Municipal Collection

Southend Borough Council’s additions to the art collections, during and after Walter Beecroft’s time. Mainly 20th century works, many with local or Essex connections. Most notable is an early Constable sketch of great importance, and three oils by Edward Seago. (580 works, some sculpture)

The Thorpe-Smith Collection

Local works, the best being around one hundred works by Victorian artists, bequeathed to the gallery by Sidney Thorpe Smith, around 1960. Since then, the collection has grown to over 900 works and continues to be added to. (949 works; oils, watercolours, prints and drawings, no sculpture)

Natural History

The collections contain representatives from most major groups of animals and plants. As with all museum natural history collections, their compositions reflect past and present interests of local collectors and recorders, including members of museum staff. The Natural History collections form a valuable record of environmental change in this area over the last two centuries. They contain material that is important for distributional, taxonomic and environmental research. The principal groups represented are:

Vertebrates (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish)

Skeletal material as well as mounted (‘stuffed’) and spirit-preserved material. There are also several large and scientifically important old collections of birds’ eggs. Collecting in this area is never active but depends on the public bringing in specimens found dead.

Invertebrates

• Insects: large and important collections with strong relevance for scientific research and display.
• Other Invertebrates (e.g. Spiders, Molluscs and several marine groups)

The collections include much important local marine invertebrates (which can provide valuable evidence for environmental research in the future) and spiders.

Plants (Herbarium material including pressed plants, dried fungi, mosses and lichens)

Modest collections with strong local and county significance.

Geology and Mineralogy

A medium-sized worldwide collection of minerals of high quality and a modest fossil and rock collection, mainly of Essex material.

Photographs

The Museum has several thousand 35 mm transparencies, mostly of high quality, that complement the natural history collections.

Biological Records

The Museum has been collecting data on local wildlife sites since 1975 and the resulting evidence forms an important research and planning resource.

Social History Collections (except EKCO and costume collections)

This is a very wide and miscellaneous series of collections of mixed quality, principally from the late Victorian and later periods. While a considerable amount of the material has no known local connection (resulting from passive and non-targeted collecting in the past) there are some very fine pieces (particularly furniture, some ceramics and domestic fireplaces, for example) with local family connections. There are particularly fine collections of local photography, ephemera, local souvenir pottery and postcards, covering south east Essex, but concentrating mainly on the Borough of Southend-on-Sea. The collections can be grouped into the main headings below.

Ephemera

These collections relate specifically to:

• The seaside and local tourism.
• Local theatres, clubs and societies.
• Local shops, trades and industries.
• Wartime.
• Civic matters (Southend Local Board, Southend Borough).
• Local newspapers.
• A very small collection relating to local families.
• Photographs (Including postcards, prints and glass plate and other negative materials, relating specifically to south east Essex, and particularly to Southend, and dating from c. 1870 to date.) These collections can be described specifically by photographer/collector/origin:
  • Dawson collection: glass negatives of Southend and the area dating from 1899-1901.
  • Padgett Collection: glass negatives and postcards of S.E. Essex, dating from c. 1900 to 1930.
  • Secourable Collection: a small but important collection of images of Southend, c. 1870.
  • Borough Engineers Collection: record shots of Southend Borough, c. 1950-1980.
  • Goodale Collection: prints of Southend area including an important archive of bomb damage in first and Second World Wars.
• Postcard Collection: A large collection of postcard views of Southend Borough dating from c. 1900 to date.

There are also a very few more personal collections, comprising negatives, prints and transparencies (and some film) taken by local residents.

Leisure and Resort

Artefacts relating to the leisure pursuits of local inhabitants and visitors, and especially relating to Southend-on-Sea’s importance as a holiday resort and seaside town. This includes a substantial collection of holiday souvenirs, dating from c. 1870 to 1950s.

Ceramics

Locally produced ceramics, together with examples of domestic wares, principally from the Victorian and later periods. This collection includes an important group of Leigh and Southend wares. The domestic wares include:

• Late Victorian tea and dinner services.
• Individual cups and saucers, creamers, etc. from the late 18th and 19th centuries, with local family connections.
• Stoneware hot water bottles/foot warmers.
• Wash basins and ewers.
• A collection of Castle Hedingham Wares.
• Examples of stoneware Bellarmine jugs and stoneware mineral water bottles from local firms.
• Leigh and Southend Wares (late 19th to mid-20th century.)

Glasswares

The Museum has a modest collection of glassware, mainly domestic drinking glasses, and dating from the late 18th and 19th centuries. There is a substantial collection of bottles dating mainly from the late 19th and early 20th centuries (but with examples of earlier types), and including representative examples of local mineral water bottles and milk bottles of local dairies.

Printing

This includes a very small but bulky collection of printing presses, and associated fonts, etc., together with printed ephemera, mostly associated with a local firm, and dating from the late 19th to early 20th centuries.

Toys, Dolls and Playthings

This is a very modest collection, dating mainly from the late 19th century to mid-20th century. This collection includes:

• Examples of dolls from the mid-19th century to mid-20th century.
• A very small selection of Dolls Houses (late Victorian onwards), and dolls house furniture.
• Table (including Board) games dating from the early 19th century, but mainly early-mid 20th century.
• Small collection of other toys from early 19th century to early 20th century.

Domestic Bygones (not elsewhere described)

This is a large collection of rather miscellaneous material and of mixed quality. This collection includes:

• Structural.
• A locally important collection of fireplaces and surrounds from local demolished farmhouses, dating from 18th and 19th centuries.
• Small structural items and fittings.

Furniture

This includes some medieval and later items, mainly displayed in room settings. The large majority of the post medieval furniture has come from local families, and includes some very fine and important pieces, displayed in room settings.

Lighting and Heating

• Oil, gas lamps, electrical fittings.
• Household Management, etc. (large).
• Vacuum cleaners, sweepers, wash tubs, cookers.
• Household management, etc. (small).
• Irons, glove stretchers, domestic appliances including a substantial number of sewing machines, kitchen utensils.

Personal

Smoking pipes, hair dryers, razors, spectacles, home medical.

Other

Small selection of prams, bicycles, typewriters, some domestic textiles.

Clocks

A small but locally important collection of clocks, both domestic and non-domestic. The domestic clocks include several long-case clocks dating from the 18th century to mid-19th century. The non-domestic clocks (including clock faces) comprise mainly those from the local firm of R.A. Jones and Son.

Photographic

This collection includes cameras, some darkroom equipment and accessories. The collection also includes Magic Lanterns and later projection equipment. This is a modest but representative collection.

War Time

A collection of War Time ephemera (First and Second World Wars) relating to the Home Front and specifically to south east Essex. A small but locally important collection. This collection includes:

• Ephemera and items relating to air raid precautions
• Ephemera relating to rationing and resources
• Ephemera relating to personal life (ID cards, evacuation)
• Souvenirs of the air raids (shrapnel, fragments of Zeppelin, etc.)
• Artefacts including some helmets, stirrup pumps, badges, etc.

Crafts

Trades and professions are represented by collections of mainly carpentry, smithing and plumbing tools used by local tradesmen. This includes a very large collection of tools and equipment from a local blacksmiths.

Agriculture

A small collection of farming equipment (mainly hand tools) from local farms, but including some larger machinery.

Fishing and the Sea

The museum has a very small collection relating to inshore fishing (shell fish), together with models of (local) boats and ships, of varying quality.

Brick making

A very small collection of bricks representative of local brick making establishments.

Radio and Television (EKCO) Collection

The museum currently holds an extensive collection of EKCO radios, televisions, associated archives, photographs and other products made by the EKCO company from the late 1920s to the 1970s. Key items include all five Bakelite round radios designed by Wells Coates, early televisions, including a prototype model colour television, and archives such as professional photographs of the working factory, special events, and staff, and a very full business archive. The collection already has national significance as the EKCO brand was well known worldwide. Expansion of the collection and knowledge about the company could make Southend Museums Service the most comprehensive source of objects and information on EKCO in the country.

Numismatic Collections

The large majority of the coins were donated in the early 20th century as large complete collections. This included a substantial number of non-British coins. A modest collection, including coins of the realm, tokens, medals and awards. The large majority of the coins have come from local collectors, complemented by archaeological and stray finds. The majority of the coins are English, with good representation of all issuers from the later Middle Ages onwards. The coins range in date from the late Iron Age (Celtic) to the present day, including Roman. There is a small but important collection of local token coinage (mainly late 17th century) and more general token coinage (mainly 18th century). There is a representative collection of military medals (associated mainly with local families) dating from the Crimean War to the Second World War. A small but important collection of local sporting medals and awards, educational awards (attendance and Peace medals) and other civilian awards.

Costume Collection

Housed at the Beecroft Art Gallery, Southend’s costume collection began as a few items collected as social history, and as parts of large and varied donations. In the 1970s and 80s the bulk of the collection was acquired, but with little or no local emphasis. As a result, much of the collection has no local connection or indeed any information as to its history at all. It is intended that further collecting will address this balance through placing an emphasis on the acquisition of local items, whether worn, designed, made, collected or purchased in the Southend area. Presently there are garments and accessories from a period of around three hundred years. This breaks down roughly as the following:

• Seventeenth century: a single, slap sole shoe.
• Eighteenth century: several ladies shoes. two late eighteenth century court waistcoats.
• Nineteenth century: two early pelisse robes. several early bonnets. a small number of 1850s dresses. several items from each decade from the 1860s onwards
• Twentieth century: a small number of Edwardian items. a small number of 1910-1920 items. a good number of 1920s – 1970s. a small number of 1980s items. a very small number of 1990s items.
• Twenty first century: a very small number of items. An important collection of around 500 bathing suits dating from the late 19^th century to present day. This collection, mostly formed from the private collection of Mavis Plume, is the largest of its kind in the country and, as such, is an important resource for research. The costume collection is patchy in many areas and it should be stressed that men’s and children’s wear is underrepresented in all periods.

Archaeology Collections

These collections are representative of all periods of human occupation in south east Essex. They are of major research potential and include much that is of regional importance and, with the discovery of the ‘Prittlewell Prince’ in 2003, some archives of national and international importance. The collections comprise principally:

• Major assemblages in the form of site archives from archaeological excavations.
• Stray finds, including some metal detected material.
• Antiquarian collections.

Artefacts excavated/dredged from shipwrecks in the Thames Estuary. Of particular note, The London, a Designated wreck in Southend waters, regularly visited by a local licensed diver and yielding many and varied artefacts They range in date from the Pleistocene (Ice Age/Old Stone Age) to the Victorian period.

Heritage and Environmental Records (HER)

Southend Borough Council became a Unitary Authority in April 1998 and Southend Borough’s Planning Department is now responsible for maintaining its own Sites and Monuments/Heritage and Environmental Record. This is maintained by the Archaeology Curator. Archaeological archives are maintained in accordance with Guidelines for the Preparation of Excavation Archives for Long-term Storage (UKIC 1990), Selection, Retention and Dispersal of Archaeological collections (Society of Museum Archaeologists, 1993) and Archaeological Archives, a guide to best practice in the creation, compilation, transfer and curation (AAF, 2007).

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2014

Licence: CC BY-NC

St Albans Museums consists of two museums, St Albans Museum + Gallery and Verulamium Museum. St Albans Museum + Gallery opened in 2018 in the old St Albans Town Hall. It is the successor to the Museum of St Albans which was established in 1898 as the Hertfordshire County Museum.

St Albans Museum + Gallery’s collections reflect the social history of St Albans, the Natural History of Hertfordshire and also include the Salaman Collection of Trade Tools, which is nationally significant.

The Verulamium Museum was established as the site museum of Iron Age and Roman Verulamium during the 1930s, following the archaeological excavations by Mortimer and Tessa Wheeler. It holds most of the excavated material discovered in the City and District of St Albans.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2023

Licence: CC BY-NC

The museum collection is owned by St Albans Museums Service, as part of St Albans City and District Council. The existing collections, and policies for their future development, are described in more detail below. In summary, the main elements are:

• the residue of Sir John Evans’ archaeological collections originally placed in the Hertfordshire County Museum [later Museum of St Albans].
• small quantities of local prehistoric archaeological material.
• Late Iron Age and Roman archaeological finds from Verulamium and its hinterland within the City & District boundaries, an area of approximately 200 km². The most significant finds are Late Iron Age burial, cemeteries, coinage and pottery, Roman mosaics and wall plasters, burials, and everyday objects from a type Romano-British town.
• the in situ Roman mosaic in Verulamium Park.
• Archaeological material from the Late Saxon and later monastic and market town of St Albans.
• the fifteenth-century town belfry, the only example in Britain, with its original great bell.
• ruins of Sir Richard Lee’s house on the site of Sopwell Nunnery, St Albans.
• social history collections from the post-medieval thoroughfare, market, and commuter town of St Albans.
• Hertfordshire-wide maps, prints, watercolours and drawings from the Lewis Evans collection, including comprehensive material for St Albans to 1900.
• an extensive twentieth-century photographic record of St Albans & District, and nineteenth and twentieth century local ephemera.
• English trade tools of the period 1700-1950 comprising the Salaman Collection, an important partially published collection.
• the residue of geological, palaeontological, and natural history collections (now a closed collection).

Archaeology

The Museum Service’s archaeological material is largely housed at the Verulamium Museum and at Sandridge Gate Business Centre and forms the bulk of the current collections. The Verulamium Museum was founded in 1939. Initially the collections were those from the excavations conducted by the Wheelers within the Roman Town. These have subsequently been added to by further excavations and the inclusion of the archaeological collections from the Hertfordshire County Museum.

Prehistoric

The collection under-represents all prehistoric material, particularly prior to the Late Iron Age. Similarly, little is known of the location of sites.

Roman

This is the strongest area of the collections. The Verulamium collections are of national importance though there are recognisable gaps in the area of ‘luxury’ items. Although Verulamium is one of the best known Roman towns in Britain we still know relatively little about its hinterland and this is reflected in the collections.

Saxon

The Museums’ collections are very weak in all material of this period (perhaps reflecting its material culture or its true extent). We still have limited knowledge of the immediate post-Roman history of Verulamium, the founding of the Abbey and the early origins of St Albans.

Medieval

Excavations within the medieval town have provided a considerable amount of data in terms of collected material. There is still a need to locate and explore the pre-twelfth century town. Excavations at the Abbey have provided a considerable body of material from the religious centre. Our knowledge of the hinterland of St Albans is still very weak.

Foreign Material (closed collection)

The collections include small assemblages of material from Ireland, and from Egypt, Cyprus and other Mediterranean areas. These objects were acquired from the Hertfordshire County Museum in 1955 having been collected by past residents of St Albans.

Natural Sciences

Introduction

The Museums Service’s Natural Sciences collections are housed at the Sandridge Gate Depot Store. The Natural Science Collections are largely ‘historic’ in nature, the majority of the material being derived from the and the collecting activities of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Substantial purchases were made, for example, as late as the 1940’s for educational purposes but no large and/or important groups have been given to the Museum in recent years. More recent donations have been largely of individual items. Field collecting has ceased.

British Vertebrates (closed collection)

The current vertebrate collection consists of 300 mounted specimens and associated field material, 200 microscope preparations of vertebrate histology, 200 fish in spirit and 1200 birds eggs. There is little documentation associated with these collections, which are mostly ‘historic’ in nature. There is also a small collection of osteological material.

Invertebrates (closed collection)

The current collections consist of 17,500 lepidoptera (including important regional and national collections) 5,000 other insects (including the important Victorian county collections) and 5,000 mollusca.

Botany (closed collection)

Although a large section of the vascular plant herbarium (including most of the county flora of 1832) was destroyed in the 1950s much important material is still extant. The County herbarium function passed to during the 1950s. Collections of bryophytes, fungi and other non vascular cryptograms have been transferred to North Hertfordshire Museum Service.

Earth Sciences

The petrology, mineralogy and palaeontology collections comprise: a representative collection of major British rock types and local building stones; a small collection of minerals, many of them unprovenanced; and a good collection of fossils representing the local Chalk and Pleistocene deposits, together with characteristic non-local British material of all periods.

Social and local history

The Museum Service’s social history section is based in St Albans Museum + Gallery with outlying stores at SADC Depot, Sandridge Road. The social history section is responsible for both social and local history as well as fine and decorative arts. The current collections contain the following elements:

Hertfordshire County Museum 1898-1956

As the first Museum in the County, a very wide range of material relating to the whole of the County of Hertfordshire and not merely St Albans was collected. Much of the material is unprovenanced, and many other items have, been passed on to the appropriate museum within the County since 1956. Where material forms part of a discrete collection this has been maintained intact (e.g. Lewis Evans Collection). The main body of the collections include a number of small groups of material such as:

• Hodgson Collection of silver spoons (closed collection)
• Curtis Collection of fans (closed collection)
• Lewis Evans Collection of books, pocket compasses and music staves (closed collection)
• Lewis Evans collections of maps, prints and drawings
• Evan Roberts Collection of watches (closed collection)

St Albans City Museum 1956-1989

The most significant addition to the collections during this period was the purchase of the Salaman Collection of trade tools in 1969.

Museum of St Albans 1989–2018

The policy of the Museum of St Albans will be to collect material of local provenance, i.e. items used or made within the City and District of St Albans.

St Albans Museum + Gallery 2018 – present

The policy of St Albans Museum + Gallery will be to collect material of local provenance, i.e. items used or made within the City and District of St Albans.

Local Trades and Industry

The collections are particularly weak in this area. There is, for example, little material from the brick makers noted by Dickens in Bernards Heath, coats made by Nicholson’s of Hatfield Road and shoes from the Lees factory. In general twentieth century industry from the City is under-represented.

Costume

The collection of costume has grown haphazardly and although it contains some fine items is not representative of the everyday wear of any particular period or class.

Dolls and Toys

The collections range from dolls of the eighteenth century but include few items with a local provenance.

Farm Vehicles and Implements (closed collection)

The collections include a number of large agricultural vehicles which cannot be displayed at present. The Salaman Collection contains many agricultural hand tools. Other agricultural collections are slight: photographs, reminiscence, costume and printed ephemera.

Furniture

The collection of furniture includes items from the civic past of the City, but local domestic items are poorly represented.

Decorative Arts

In metalwork, ceramics and glass the Service holds small, but representative collections of general interest rather than of local relevance.

Maps, prints, drawings, and paintings

The Service holds a particularly fine collection of maps, prints, and drawings relating to the County and acquired/collected by the curators of the Hertfordshire County Museum. St Albans and surrounding settlements are particularly well represented though not completely comprehensive, even in maps and prints. The collections date from the eighteenth century onwards but there is a lack of post-1920 material. There are few oil paintings and works by locally significant artists, the result of the concerns of the County Museum.

Numismatics

The Museum has a good collection of Hertfordshire Trade Tokens but is not comprehensive in St Albans material.

Photographs

The collection includes substantial amounts of photographic material relating to St Albans in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Collecting during recent years has filled many gaps, but there remains little before 1880, or for the wider district.

Other Printed Material

The Museum has a wide collection of ephemera, with particular strengths in political posters from c. 1840, theatre bills, chap books, mourning cards, WWII official notices etc. There is also a collection of bound copies of various local newspapers covering the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

Residues of transferred collections (closed collections)

The collections of Arms and Armour are a legacy the Ball Collection held by the Hertfordshire County Museum from the 1920s until the 1950s. Although withdrawn by the 1950s the collection had attracted other local donations.

Ethnographic material previously held has been passed to Ipswich Museums’ Ethnology Department, though some items have been retained as representing St Albans citizens’ past activities such as campaigns in India.

Hertfordshire Regimental items have mostly been passed to Hitchin Museum.

Salaman Collection of trade tools

This is the most important single group of objects in the history collections, and was purchased from Raphael Salaman in 1969. It was assembled by trade rather than by locality and is drawn from all over the country. The collection is therefore national in scope and importance. Salaman used the collection, and other material, as the basis for his Dictionary of Woodworking Tools 1975, and Dictionary of Leatherworking Tools 1986, where many of the more significant items in the collection are illustrated.

Film

The Museum Service has very limited collections of moving image material made in, or depicting, St Albans. There is no comprehensive list of such material, whether in private or public ownership.

Twentieth century collecting and contemporary recording

The collections of post-1930 material have been augmented by recent collecting. The Museum Service has devoted considerable time to recording change within St Albans over the past 15 years, resulting in exhibitions on Food, Domestic Interiors and the Home Front. But much more remains to be done.

Building Records

The Museums Service holds the results of photographic building surveys of St Albans City Centre and similar surveys are held by the Planning Department.

Education collection

The Museums Service recognises the public demand for, and educational potential of, objects which can be freely handled and examined in the museum. Specially collected material, and selected objects from the accessioned collections cover most periods outlined in the History National Curriculum and can be used as recommended elements in English, Geography, etc. Replica material is used where appropriate.

Source: Collection development policy

Date: 2023

Licence: CC BY-NC