Collection: Hastings Museum and Art Gallery

Collection-level records:

• Collection history (Collection development policy)

  The collections of Hastings Museum & Art Gallery have been built up since 1890 when the Hastings and St Leonards Museum Association was founded. The first public museum in Hastings was housed in the Brassey Institute, a reference library, art school and exhibition gallery provided for the town by Thomas Brassey, MP. The Museum Association was responsible for the collections of exhibits and the displays. The museum was handed over to Hastings Corporation in 1905, with the Association retaining membership of the Museum Committee.

  The first full-time curator, Ruskin Butterfield, added to the collections particularly in natural history and relics of the old Sussex industries, which he recognised were fast disappearing; ironworking, pottery, hop gardens etc. The foundations of the current Sussex ironwork and Sussex Pottery collections were founded in the first quarter of the 20^th century. The museum moved to its current location in 1928, where space could be found for an exhibition gallery and a home for the Durbar Hall, acquired under the will of Lord Brassey in 1919 along with much of the World Cultures collection.

  In 1935, Ruskin Butterfield was succeeded as curator by John Manwaring Baines, whose interest in local history led to the acquisition of archaeology and local history. These collections were strengthened when the town acquired a branch museum in 1949 in the Old Town Hall. Mr Baines also added considerably to the ceramic collections.

  In the 1980s under the curatorship of Victoria Williams the museum began to add to its collection of World Cultures, particularly Native American material, with the donation of the Edward Blackmore collection and material relating to Grey Owl. Other items relating to famous people with Hastings connections were acquired at this time, including John Logie Baird, James and Decimus Burton and Robert Tressell. In 2004 and 2013 the Colin Taylor collection of Native American material was added to the World Cultures collection. In 2015 the branch museum at the Old Town Hall was closed and the collections moved to the main museum building. A number of new displays were introduced at the museum to accommodate the additional collections and the temporary exhibition gallery replaced with a permanent display.

  Beginning in 2018, under a collections and engagement team, the museum has worked with community groups to democratise the collections, making them more relevant to the people of Hastings and more representative of contemporary issues and experiences.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2025

  Licence: CC BY-NC

• Collection overview (Collection development policy)

  Community History

  The community history collections overlap with archaeology and decorative art to present a coherent history of life and social development in Hastings and its surrounding neighbourhood from the 16th century to the near present. This is the largest section of the museum’s collections numbering more than 20,000 items.

  Local History
  The local history collections relate to tourism, fishing and boat building, smuggling, wrecks, the Cinque Ports, the Bonfire Societies, Sussex Ironwork, gypsum, gunpowder, hops, commemorative and civic items, photographs, guide books, printed ephemera and architectural details from demolished buildings. The museum has built up significant collections relating to well-known local people including John Logie Baird, Robert Tressell, Fred Ball and James and Decimus Burton. The museum has also begun more focused collecting of intangible cultural heritage relating to Hastings and St. Leonards.

  Social History
  The social history collections cover the fields of laundry, dairy, cooking, toys and games, theatre and entertainment, smoking, writing, education, law and order, fire-fighting, transport, church history (excluding parish records), agriculture, early electrical appliances, television and domestic items from the First and Second World Wars. During the Covid pandemic the museum collected Covid journals. Through various funded projects, the museum has also acquired items from community groups that reflect contemporary experiences. Since 1995 old film footage belonging to the museum has been placed on deposit with South East Film and Video Archive at the West Sussex County Record Office.

  Archives

  Since 1999 the museum has transferred many Hastings Borough Council documents to the East Sussex County Record Office, The Keep. In line with the recommendations of a report funded jointly by Hastings Borough and East Sussex County Councils in 1996, the museum’s archive collections are now restricted to areas of special Hastings interest. These include papers relating to Baird, Tressell, Charles Dawson and the Burton family, the Cinque Ports, smuggling, fishing, local societies, maps, photographs, local ephemera and items concerning the town’s development. There are currently around 51,000 items in this collection of including photographs, maps, books as well as documents.

  World Cultures (Ethnography)

  The bulk of the world cultures collection was put together by the first Lady Brassey (1839-1887) in the 1870’s and 80’s and bequeathed to the museum on the death of the 2nd Lord Brassey in 1918. The largest section is devoted to material from the Pacific and Melanesia, much of it collected at first hand on the Brasseys’ voyage round the world in 1876. The Brassey material also features items from India and Burma, China and Japan, Indonesia, the Middle East and the Balkans, Scandinavia, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, North and South America.

  There are a number of smaller collections including the Ambrose Jones Collection of stone carvings from Costa Rica and the Cullen Collection of artefacts from the Cook Islands and New Guinea. The latter has been on loan to the museum since 1914. There is also a substantial collection of oriental art including Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Middle Eastern ceramics, Japanese lacquer, Indian and Middle Eastern metalwork and jewellery, Indian and South East Asian textiles, Buddhist and Hindu Sculpture, Indian and South East Asian woodcarving.

  Other important collections include the Blackmore Collection of Native American Art, bequeathed in 1982 and relating primarily to First Nations communities in the west of Canada and the United States.  It includes material acquired by local writer and sculptress Claire Sheridan, on her visit to America in 1937. Some pieces have been added in the last 30 years including a fringed and beaded jacket and child’s “honouring” tipi, as well as the large collection of material from the late Colin Taylor. There is a growing collection of exhibits relating to the conservationist and Indian protagonist, Grey Owl, who was born and brought up in Hastings in the early years of the 20^th century.

  Archaeology

  The archaeological collection consists both of material from Hastings and the surrounding area and, to a lesser extent, material from other parts of the world. There are around 12,500 items in total. Most of the local items have been acquired by organised excavations.

  British Archaeology
  Material from earlier periods is represented by large quantities of flints, including the work of J Moore within the Country Park at Fairlight (Mesolithic to Iron Age) and a collection of early Palaeolithic hand axes from the important North Kent site of Swanscombe. There is an important group of Bronze Age items discovered during building work at Marina, St Leonards. One of the largest single collections of material is from Pevensey Castle (Roman and Norman), which is now outside the collecting area.  Some of the major excavations, which have taken place, have been at Hastings Castle (Norman/Medieval), Beauport (Roman), Hastings Priory (Medieval), Winding Street, Hastings (Medieval), Phoenix Brewery, Hastings (Saxon-Medieval) and Winchelsea, (Medieval/Post-Medieval).  In 2024, the museum acquired significant archaeological holdings from 5 High Street.

  Following an amendment to the Acquisition and Disposal Policy approved in June 2012, the museum no longer collects from the Sussex parishes formerly agreed by the Sussex Curator Archaeological Working party in 1988.

  International Archaeology
  Greek and Roman pottery from all periods is well represented. There are smaller groups of Etruscan and Egyptian material, and a larger group, some 300 items, of pottery and glassware from Cyprus, part of the Brassey collection. There are a few pieces from pre-Columbian South America and a small number of flints from New Zealand, Florida, Sweden and Denmark.

  Numismatics

  The numismatics includes examples from the Romans through to the 20^th century.  Examples of Roman coins include the coin hoard found on the outskirts of Hastings in 1989 consisting of 53 silver denarii and 92 bronze coins dating from the 1^st and 2^nd centuries. The Saxon period is represented by an important collection of silver pennies from the Hastings Mint and other Sussex mints of the period such as Chichester, Lewes and Steyning. There are examples of gold, silver and base metal English coinage from the Medieval period to 1953. Tokens are well represented with over 700 local hop tokens and other trade tokens in the collection. International currency is restricted to an album of Chinese cash.

  There are miscellaneous commemorative and civic medallions and a collection of approximately 200 campaign medals dating from the late 18^th to early 20^th century and including the George Cross awarded to local nurse, Dorothy Gardiner and the medals of Sir Henry Webster of Battle Abbey whose portrait is also in the museum collection.

  Natural History

  Vertebrates
  The natural history collections contain fish, mammals and particularly birds, mainly specimens obtained locally and including important examples of the “Hastings Rarities”.  However, there are some specimens from other parts of the country, collected to form a representative survey of British wildlife.

  Entomology and Invertebrates
  Invertebrates, many found or caught locally, are represented by a small collection of marine life preserved in formalin, and collections of butterflies, moths and other insects in collector’s cabinets. There is also a collection of shells, corals, sponges and other marine life of both local and foreign origin including Venus flower basket specimens collected on the Challenger expedition (1872-1876). There is also a small collection of skulls, bones and skeletons of vertebrates from all around the world.

  Archives and Records
  An important item is a sketchbook of mammals, fish & ethnographical objects by Naturalist Thomas Davies FRS FLS (1737-1812). Local occurrence records acquired recently from Maurice J. Mowbray offer a useful baseline for future recorders of biodiversity.

  Geology

  Fossils
  Plant and animal fossils from the Hastings area make up the largest part of the geology collection. These include historic collections made locally by Samuel Husband Beckles (1814-1890), Philip James Rufford (1852-1902), Edward John Baily (1859-1939), Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955). The Wealden plants in Rufford’s collection are particularly important, and include specimens described as the finest in the country.

  Hastings has long been a classic site for dinosaur remains, and the Museum’s collection of bones number several hundred specimens. Other vertebrates of the period, which are well represented in the collection, are pterosaurs, the fish Scheenstia mantelli, crocodiles including Goniophiolis crassidens, and hybodont shark species.  Invertebrates include insects, clam shrimps, freshwater snails and bivalves.

  Fossils from outside of Hastings include fine examples of middle Jurassic plants from the Scarborough area, and a wide variety of invertebrate and vertebrate fossils from around the UK. There are very few fossils of foreign origin.

  Specimens acquired more recently include local scientifically important fish and trace fossils and insects.

  Mineralogy and Petrology
  There are petrological samples from around the UK and a collection of minerals from around the world. Part of the mineral collection is of historical interest as part of the Brassey collection amassed on Annie Brassey’s final voyage and includes specimens of gold from Australia.

  Archive
  There is a small archive collection of letters and other geological ephemera including lantern slides and geologically themed watercolours by Philip Rufford. There are also a few rare early geology books that are of local importance. Some of the material in this archive is important as a record of the history of palaeontological science.

  Fine Art

  The museum possesses a large collection of mainly topographical paintings, drawings, prints and photographs relating to the Hastings area and ranging in date from the late 18th century to the present day.

  There is also a small collection of 20^th century British art, including work by Walter Sickert, Therese Lessore, Sylvia Gosse, and David Hockney, and a few examples of works from the main European Schools. There are about a dozen examples of sculpture by artists associated with the Hastings area. The museum has extensive records of artists who worked in the town.

  Decorative Art

  Ceramics and Glass
  The ceramics collection is the largest and most significant of the decorative ar collection, numbering around 1100 pieces. Exhibits range from the pottery of the Ancient Civilizations of the Mediterranean, America and the Orient to European Pottery and porcelain from the 17^th to the 20^th centuries. It includes rare examples such as the large maiolica piece known as the Modena Dish. There is also a comprehensive selection of locally made, Sussex pottery. English and continental glass, approximately 65 pieces dating from the 17^th to the 19^th century.

  Furniture
  The museum also has an important collection of Sussex firebacks ranging in date from the 16^th to the 18^th century. Furniture and woodwork, about a dozen pieces and a representative collection of Tunbridge and Mauchlin ware, also a small collection of miniature furniture.  Clocks and watches, approximately 40 cased verge watches mainly from the 18^th century, 8 long case clocks predominantly by local makers.

  Silverware and Jewellery
  The museum has approximately 70 English silver items mostly of local significance and including early 18^th century church plate on deposit from All Saints and St Clements Church.  There are also a few examples of English and continental pewter. The museum has a small collection of brooches associated with the Royal St Leonards Archers.

  Costumes and Textiles

  The costume and textiles collection is broad and includes local smocks, 18^th century waistcoats, 19^th century women’s and children’s clothing, accessories, fans and parasols, clothing from the Second World War, lace, whitework, and samplers, and recent acquisitions relating to local intangible cultural heritage such as Jack in the Green.  There is also a good collection of English, French and German dolls.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2025

  Licence: CC BY-NC