Collection: Museum of Farnham

Collection-level records:

• Collection overview (Cornucopia)

  Social History

  Social history material found in, produced in, or closely associated with Farnham and its surrounding villages including the life of Farnham people, life during wartime, healthcare, local services, schools, shops and leisure activities and transport.

  Geology

  The museum has a modest geology collection of around 700 specimens.

  Decorative/Applied Art

  The decorative art collection includes Farnham Greenware produced at Wrecclesham Pottery at the height of its popularity in the first quarter of this century, that is of wider than local significance to students of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Farnham Greenware which was made at Harris’s Pottery in Wrecclesham until World War II. This pottery was a product of the Arts and Crafts movement and between the wars was sold by Heal’s, and Liberty’s of London.

  Personalia

  William Cobbett (1763-1835), and the less well known writer, George Sturt (1863-1927), were born and bred in Farnham and the collections include artefacts and papers relating to their life and works. Other local personalities reflected in the collections include local dignitary Charles Ernest Borelli (1873-1950) and Farnham motor racing hero, Mike Hawthorn.

  Biology

  There are over 4,000 natural history specimens of local and exotic origin.

  Science and Industry

  The collections record the development of Farnham along the old road from London to Winchester. Although Farnham had great strategic importance in the Middle Ages and the English Civil War, the traffic through Farnham did not significantly increase until the time of the turnpikes. Coaching inns and wheelwrights’ businesses sprung up everywhere. After local inventor John Henry Knight built the first petrol driven motor car in 1895, the town became a centre for motor car building. The collections contain many of John Henry Knight’s photographs and inventions, tools from George Sturt’s wheelwrights’ shop in East Street. There is also a small collection relating to the hops and brewing industry that once brought the town such prosperity.

  Costume/Textiles

  The Museum holds a good collection of costume and textiles including some notable examples of quilts and shawls, and female dress from the late 18th century to the present.

  Archaeology

  The Farnham area has been settled almost continuously since Palaeolithic times and the archaeological collections reflect this long and varied past. The particular strength of the archaeology collections is the huge quantity of flint tools, most of which were excavated in the first half of this century.

  Fine Art

  The Museum has a collection of fine art, representing the work of artists associated with the Farnham School of Art (now the Surrey Institute of Art and Design) since its foundation at the end of the 19th century. This collection also includes works of historic and topographical interest to the locality. There are works by local artist, Stephen Elmer (c1715 – 1796) who owned the house now occupied by the Museum and also by William Herbert Allen (1863-1943).

  Photographic

  The Museum holds a large photographic collection including some plates made by John Henry Knight, a pioneer in early colour and stereoscopic photography who belonged to a long standing Farnham family. The architectural heritage of the town and its environs is represented by an archive of photographs accumulated by architectural historian, Nigel Temple.

  Archives

  The architectural heritage of the town and its environs is represented by a substantial collection of drawings by the late 19th/early 20th century architect and artist Harold Falkner (1875-1963), and by plans for new buildings and building alterations carried out on prominent Farnham properties at the turn of the last century. Archives and maps relating to the local area are available for study.

  Source: Cornucopia

  Date: Not known, but before 2015

  Licence: CC BY-NC