Collection: Holst Victorian House

Collection-level records:

• Collection history (Collection development policy)

  In 1974, Cheltenham Borough Council (CBC) purchased the house where the composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934) was born and established it as a museum. It was administered by the Council from 1975 until 1999 when it was closed because of budget cuts. However, the museum was re-established under the supervision of a new independent charitable trust, The Holst Birthplace Trust, incorporated as a Company Limited by Guarantee in 1999 and as a Registered Charity from the year 2000. The collections, for the most part given by Holst’s daughter Imogen Holst, were loaned from CBC to the Trust as part of a Service Level Agreement (SLA). They remain on loan to the Trust as part of an updated Loan Agreement with The Wilson – Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, (The Cheltenham Trust), who administer the collection on behalf of CBC.

  The Holst Birthplace Trust began collecting Holst related material from 2000. This collection is distinct to the CBC collection and is accessioned and stored separately.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2022

  Licence: CC BY-NC

• Collection overview (Collection development policy)

  The Holst Birthplace Trust collection comprises items relating to the life and work of the composer Gustav Holst (1874-1934). It comprises 684 accessioned objects, with approximately 300 still to be accessioned. It is a significant collection and includes items such as autograph manuscripts, published music scores, letters, photographs, portraits and paintings as well as other personal memorabilia. Noteworthy items include four Holst autograph manuscripts: I’ll Love My Love, Folk Songs of Somerset, Two Songs without Words and a sketch from Beni Mora; correspondence relating to his work with the YMCA on the Macedonian Front during WW1; the Holst family gramophone; a gouache set design for Holst’s opera The Perfect Fool, and an oil painting of Holst’s wife Isobel by the artist Millicent Woodforde. The Trust collection also contains items relating to Holst’s daughter Imogen, his great-uncle Theodor von Holst and his friends Ralph Vaughan Williams and Vally Lasker.

  1. The Holst Birthplace Trust collection also contains a small selection of domestic items illustrative of Victorian life.
  2. The collection spans the early 1800s to the present day.
  3. The collection spans a wide geographical area with items from across Britain, for example Cheltenham, London and Thaxted, all places where Holst lived. There are also items from Greece, Turkey and the USA, reflecting Holst’s travel abroad.
  4. Approximately 100 items have been entered onto Adlib, the museum’s collections management software. It is hoped that the museum will build on this transfer of paper-based to computerised records within the next three years.
  5. In addition, the museum cares for a number of items on loan from CBC. The Holst items form a highly significant collection and include 11 autograph manuscripts; Holst’s scrapbooks, and letters and photographs including rare carte-de-visites of Holst and his family in 1870s Cheltenham. The museum also holds on loan a small collection of Theodor von Holst artwork, namely a painting of Macbeth and pencil sketches from private collector Max Browne.
  6. Furthermore, the museum has a small collection of unaccessioned items it uses for education and interpretation, for example Victorian domestic objects for its learning sessions, and Victorian books, costume and ceramics to enhance the museum’s room settings, known as ‘set-dressing.’ There is a separate inventory for these items.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2022

  Licence: CC BY-NC