Collection: Watford Museum

Collection-level records:

• Collection overview (Cornucopia)

  Local and Social History

  The collections date mainly from the late 19th to mid 20th centuries and as well as general everyday wear (including hats, boots, shoes and accessories) have items of industrial clothing, ceremonial, education, war related, social/sporting, welfare and celebrity clothing. The archive collection includes documents (1900-1980’s), plans, maps (1870’s -1930’s) and printed ephemera. Topics include local topography, trades and industries, transport, wartime Watford, social activities, welfare, religion, education, civic matters, commemorative material and local celebrities/famous people. The photographic collection includes both original and copy images of local scenes,people, activities and events in Watford from the late 19th century to the 1960’s. Watford had two principle industries from the late 19th to the mid 20th century – printing and brewing. The collections associated with the printing industry relate especially to the major firms of Odhams and the Sun Engraving Co. They include a number of early letter press machines and equipment, such as the Columbian Press used to print the first edition of the Watford Observer newspaper, and the Rupert Cannon collection of Photo-Gravure equipment, which was a technique developed in Watford. The brewing collections include material relating to the Watford Breweries and their associated pubs, including a good collection of local beer bottles and pub signs. There is a reconstruction of a typical local bar in the gallery made by Benskin’s craftsmen, using material from The Pennant pub, now known as The Flag. Social and Local history is one of the principle collections of the museum. It includes material relating to civic matters, education, local trades and industries, transport, welfare, social activities, wartime, religion and domestic life. Most recently the museum has established a small but growing collection of cultural material reflecting the ethnic make-up of the town’s population. Items of particular note include good local World War II and early 20th century domestic life collections. The museum has a collection of late 19th century to early 20th century medical items from Leavesden Hospital. Elton John’s Watford Football Club inspired stage costume. A good collection of late 19th – early 20th century christening dresses. Items of particular note include a good set of 1870’s Ordnance Survey maps of Watford; a substantial archive of Second World War Civil Defence documents and Watford Palace Theatre programmes; an extensive collection of photographs of Odhams Printworks, Watford, complementing the collection of artefacts and printed material from the same firm.

  Fine Art

  The nucleus of the collection came from the former Library Collection, and has been added to over the years by gifts, purchases and bequests, including the Burr Bequest of oil paintings, the Blackley Bequest; the Essex Bequest of portraits and the Thompson Bequest of sculpture, which includes some 20th century African pieces. The collection ranges in date from the 17th century to the present and includes works by internationally and nationally renowned artists such as J M W Turner, Sir Jacob Epstein, Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Le Brun, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Sir Peter Lely, Sir Hubert von Herkomer, Lucy Kemp-Welch and John Wootton. Locally significant artists represented in the collections include Emma Oliver and Louis Burleigh-Bruhl. ;The museum has an excellent and unique collection of paintings relating to Cassiobury House, Watford and to the Earls of Essex and their families who lived there. This includes a recently acquired View of Cassiobury Park by John Wootton, 1748, purchased in New York, and the following portraits: Lady Elizabeth Percy (1636-1717), wife of Arthur Capel, 1st Earl of Essex; Lady Elizabeth Russell (1704-1784) second wife of William, 3rd Earl of Essex, attributed to Andrea Soldi; George Capel Coningsby 5th Earl of Essex (1757-1839) by Sir Thomas Lawrence ; Lady Mary Bentinck (1670-1726), daughter of William Earl of Portland, wife of Algernon 2nd Earl of Essex, by the studio of Sir Godfrey Kneller; Algernon, 2nd Earl of Essex (1670-1710), by H. Brown; Lady Anne Capel (1674-1752), daughter of Arthur, 1st Earl of Essex. Wife of the Earl of Carlisle, by Enoch Seeman; Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex of the 6th Creation (born 1566 and beheaded 1601), from the studio of Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger. The museum has a good collection of works by the Bushey artists Sir Hubert von Herkomer and Lucy Kemp-Welch. Works by Herkomer include: ‘Anton the weaver’; ‘Weary’, 1879; ‘Abendbrodt’ 1872; ‘Siegfried Herkomer at six months’ 1875; ‘The naughty boy’ 1888 and ‘The lady in grey’ 1904; an oil sketch ‘Cumberland Fell’ (1912) and a Herkomer print (1895) using his own printing process, the Herkomergravure. Works by Lucy Kemp-Welch include ‘Timber Hauling in the New Forest’

  Archaeology

  The collection is primarily from locations within the Borough boundary and includes both stray finds and excavated material. The excavated material includes sites excavated by Dr R Jacobi, South West Herts Archaeological Society and the Herts Archaeological Trust. The material dates mainly from the Prehistoric period and the 13th to 19th centuries and includes a good number of sites excavated in the High Street area and a significant Bronze Age hoard from the Holywell area of Watford.

  Geology and Natural History

  A small collection of local specimens, dating mainly from the Cretaceous period, and including a large ammonite fossil, a belemnite fossil partially replaced with pyrite and several good specimens of Hertfordshire Puddingstone. There is a small number of non-local specimens from

  Source: Cornucopia

  Date: Not known, but before 2015

  Licence: CC BY-NC