Collection: Brent Museum and Archives

Collection-level records:

• Collection history (Collection development policy)

  The foundations of Brent’s heritage collections were laid 120 years ago, when the first Willesden Green librarian, Frank Chennell, encouraged notable local residents to donate historical material. An important founding collection for Brent Museum was bequeathed to the Borough of Wembley in 1937 by the owner of the Express Dairies, George Titus Barham, along with his home and its grounds (now Barham Park). First opened to the public in May 1977 as The Grange Museum of Community History, the renamed Brent Museum moved to Willesden Green Library Centre in 2006. Most items in the collection relate directly to the history of the borough and its predecessors, and over the past forty years the collection has developed largely through donations and bequests.

  The museum’s collection largely reflects working and domestic life in Brent from around 1850 to the present day, broadly comprising artefacts, video and oral history recordings, extending to some 10,000 items. There are some older items but the majority relate to this period. In recent years, a structured collecting policy has been implemented, placing greater emphasis on collecting material that represents the diversity of the borough’s population in the twenty-first century.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: Not known

  Licence: CC BY-NC

• Collection overview (Collection development policy)

  The Museum’s collections reflect working and domestic life in the London Borough of Brent from about 1850 to the present day. The collection broadly comprises artefacts, video and oral history recordings and extends to some 10,000 items.

  Brent Museum’s collection strengths can be summarized as follows:

  Costume: A large collection of a late nineteenth/early twentieth century costume, largely women’s. A significant part of an interior of an Edwardian draper’s shop including the contents.

  British Empire Exhibition: Extensive collection of ceramic and other souvenirs, badges, tickets, gramophone records etc. from the British Empire Exhibition, 1924-25.

  Wembley Stadium: Later collecting from the site of the Exhibition includes material around Wembley Stadium, including old seating and items connected to events there such as a 1948 Olympic torch, concerts, sporting events.

  1990s community items: A mixed selection of items contemporary to the early and mid-1990s, specifically collected for community focused temporary exhibitions produced by the Grange Museum.

  Barham collection: This is an antiquarian collection ranging from classical antiquities to ceramics and furniture of the 17^th to 19^th centuries. It comprises over 500 pieces, bequeathed to the Borough in 1937 by Joseph Barham, local businessman, collector and philanthropist. It is a large representative sample from the collection of Titus Barham, founder of Express Diaries and an eclectic collector of antiquities, books and curios.

  Individual strong points are:

  • British Military Medal – Napoleonic Wars–WWI
  • Ceramics – Dutch, British, Chinese, c. 16^th–18^th centuries
  • Egyptian antiquities
  • c.51 northwest Indian tradesmen
  • Seventeenth century cuirassier cavalry amour and pot helmets
  • Ferneley painting of a racehorse

  Art: Local paintings and prints, mainly of the area before suburbanisation. Also Ferneley racehorse painting mentioned above. To a lesser extent, sculpture, in the form of 2 x Tonelli busts and Rasta Boy figurine.

  Children’s Objects: Some Victorian/Edwardian dolls. Other toys and dolls houses. School materials from various epochs and various medals.

  Inter-war suburbia: A significant amount of inter-war standard social history material, ranging from furniture to birthday cards.

  WWI & WWII: Reasonable collection of material on WWII, largely home front items with some interesting Jewish refugee items. WWI collection small but interesting and strong on postcards (held by Brent Archives).

  Industries/work: Various objects and documents from local employers and employees covering a wide variety of occupations. Strong on hairdressers and barbers. A small acquisition connected to Jayaben Desai, leader of the Grunwick Strike in the late 1970s.

  Domestic work c.1870-1945: Generic social history items such as mangles, washing machines, sewing machines, cooking equipment etc.

  Furniture:A selection of furniture from various periods which used to dress the period rooms at the Grange Museum.

  Contemporary Collecting: A selection of items collected in the mid-2000s specifically in partnership with the Polish and Brazilian communities in Brent to reflect their experiences of migration, settlement and their respective cultures and customs. We have recently re-visited the Brazilian contemporary collection with a community co-curated exhibition in the summer of 2016 which involved a number of new acquisitions from the Brazilian community.

  Education Handling Collection

  This comprises of some 700 objects that have been acquired specifically for educational purposes, such as handling or school group sessions, but not school loans. Managed by the Learning Officer, these objects are appropriately stored and handled to ensure they have a reasonable lifetime within the context of their educational role. This material is recorded separately outside the accession register and treated as unaccessioned material. The education collections have important potential for collections study by non-school groups, such as adult learners.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date:

  Licence: CC BY-NC