Collection: The Wilson

Collection-level records:

• Collection overview (Cornucopia)

  Decorative and Applied Art Collection

  The Arts and Crafts Movement collection is the pre-eminent collection in Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum. The primary strengths of the collection are furniture, metalwork and private press books. The decorative art collections are rich and diverse in nature, including ceramics, glass, silver, pewter and jewellery, treen and furniture. They illustrate the main styles and media in English decorative arts from the 17th century to the 20th century. Although the emphasis of the collection is British, it includes important foreign items from both Europe and further afield, notably from China, Japan and the Indian sub-continent. The highlight is the world-renowned collection of the British Arts and Crafts Movement from the 1860s to the present day, including furniture, metalwork, jewellery, ceramics, plasterwork and leatherwork, paintings, textiles, embroideries and printed books made by Cotswold craftsmen inspired by William Morris. There is an important archive which supports the main collection.

  Subjects

  Decorative and Applied Arts

  Fine Art Collection

  The fine art collection was founded with the gift of 43 Dutch and Flemish paintings to the Borough of Cheltenham by the 3rd Baron de Ferrieres in 1898. Chiefly divided between 17th century Dutch and Flemish paintings and 19th century Dutch and Belgian paintings, the collection is of exceptional importance. The collection includes British and foreign paintings, drawings and prints, notably a major collection of 17th to 19th century Flemish, Dutch and Belgian works. There is an excellent collection of works related to Gloucestershire, either topographical views of the county and portraits of people connected with it (particularly by Richard Dighton in the early 19th century); or paintings or drawings by artists connected with Gloucestershire. Of particular importance are two large paintings of the landscape around Dixton Manor, one of which shows haymaking in progress c.1725-35. These paintings are considered key documents of rural English life at the time. There is also a fine small collection of miniatures and paintings from the War Artists Advisory Commission.

  Subjects

  Paintings; Fine Art

  Costume and Textile Collection

  There is a large collection of British costume and textile which spans the period from the 16th century to the present day. It illustrates changes in style of women’s costume over the period. The rarest pieces are of Anglo-Indian costume worn by a Cheltenham family in India. The collection includes some uniform. There are examples of European and Chinese costume. The textile collection includes embroidery and quilts.

  Subjects

  Costume and Textile

  Social History Collection

  There is a collection of general social and domestic history from the 17th century to the present day relating to the history of Cheltenham and its locality. It includes a unique early 19th century chimney sweep’s trade sign; a Highlander figure from a tobacconist’s shop; other local shop fittings and fixtures; trade signs; and carved coats of arms. There is also a group of 19th century architectural models.

  Subjects

  Social History

  Science and Industry Collection

  This collection includes examples of late 19th and early 20th century decorative ironwork produced by William Letheren, one of the leading art metalworkers of his day; and items of wood carving and plasterwork by H H Martyn and Co. There are a few scientific instruments.

  Subjects

  Science and Industry

  Geology Collection

  This is a substantial and important collection of mainly Cotswold geological material, including specimens from the collections of several important 19th and early 20th century geologists, notably S S Buckman, Captain R P Wild and Lindsall Richardson, whose brachiopod collection is of major importance. The collection includes a small number of highly significant type specimens.

  Subjects

  Geology

  Biology Collection

  The natural science collections include herbaria, shells and taxidermy, including work by the leading 19th century Cheltenham-based taxidermist Thomas White.

  Subjects

  Biology

  Transport Collection

  The last surviving Cheltenham tram, c.1900, is in the collection, as well as a few locally made carriages; and railway station plates, the footplate for the Cheltenham Spa express, c.1930 and railway ephemera.

  Subjects

  Transport

  Agriculture Collection

  This collection largely comprises hand tools, most of local provenance.

  Subjects

  Agriculture

  Personalia Collection

  The collection relating to the composer Gustav Holst, who was born in Cheltenham, is owned by the museum but is on loan to the Holst Birthplace Museum Trust. The collection comprises paintings, furniture, musical scores and recordings, and manuscripts and photographs. The Antarctic explorer Edward Adrian Wilson was also born in Cheltenham and there is a collection including important scientific specimens from the National Antarctic Expeditions of 1901-4 and 1910-13, along with many examples of his watercolours and drawings, family papers, letters, photographs and personalia.

  Subjects

  Personalia

  Arms and Armour Collection

  This collection includes both firearms and edged weapons. It is a representative collection of British and foreign material, including locally manufactured firearms and oriental edged weapons, especially Japanese swords.

  Subjects

  Arms and Armour

  Medals Collection

  This is a small collection of mainly military and commemorative medals, mainly of 19th and 20th century date and relating to local families.

  Subjects

  Medals

  Numismatics Collection

  There is a good representative collection of numismatics from the iron age to decimal coinage. It includes a number of Roman and Civil War hoards, such as the Willersey Roman coin hoard and the Winchcombe hoard of 16th and 17th century coins. There are also commemorative coins and local tokens.

  Subjects

  Numismatics

  Ethnography Collection

  The ethnographic collection comprises weapons, clothing, eating and drinking utensils and religious items mostly from Africa, the Pacific, the Americas and Asia, particularly India, Malaysia and Indonesia. Among the highlights are Indian sculpture from the 2nd century AD; and a group of Tibetan items brought back from the Younghusband expedition to Tibet in 1904. The collection is particularly strong in West African objects collected in the early 20th century and covering the period from the turn of the century to the 1940s. The African material is particularly strong on weapons and beadwork. The collection is of particular interest in that it was assembled by civil service and military families, many of whom retired to Cheltenham after working and living abroad in Britain’s Empire. Robert Powley Wild (1882-1946) was HM Inspector of mines in the Gold Coast. During the 1920s and 1930s, he became an expert on the geology of the area and developed a keen interest in its local culture. Wild donated West African artefacts to Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum during this period and it forms a significant element in the ethnography collection. Lt Col R Longfield Beasley (1878-1954) was a distinguished soldier who was posted to the West African Frontier Force from 1901-1906, when he collected many examples of West African weapons, as well as some domestic items. In 1933, he donated his ethnographic collection to Cheltenham Museum.

  Subjects

  Weapons; Ethnography; World Cultures

  Archaeology Collection

  This collection covers the area of north Gloucestershire and spans the period from the palaeolithic to the industrial revolution. Particular strengths are finds and excavation archives from the neolithic long barrows of Belas Knap, Notgrove and West Tump. Significant iron age collections include material from Salmonsbury Camp (Bourton-on-the-Water), Kings Beeches (Cleeve Hill), Oxenton Hill and Leckhampton Hill. Romano-British settlement sites are represented by finds from Bourton-on-the-Water, Andoversford, Syreford, Vineyards Farm (Charlton Kings), Haymes (Southam) and Wycomb and the villa sites by Compton Grove and Whittington Court. Anglo-Saxon material from the cemetery at Bishop’s Cleeve has recently been acquired. Medieval finds are so far the earliest artefacts attesting to permanent settlement on the site of Cheltenham itself. The collection also includes some Egyptian, Classical Greek and Roman artefacts.

  Subjects

  Archaeology

  Ancient Egyptian Collection

  The museum holds 180 ancient Egyptian objects which are part of the Archaeology collection. Classes of objects represented in the collection include: amulets; basketry; ceramic figures; faience vessels; flints; foundation deposits; funerary cones; glass vessels; jewellery; metal figures; animal remains (mummies); human remains (mummies); pottery; ‘Ptah-Sokar-Osiris’ figures (fragments); relief sculpture; scarabs; cosmetic palettes; shabtis; stelae (stone); stone figures; stone vessels; textiles; toilet articles; tomb models (fragments); tools/weapons; wooden figures. Objects are known to have come from the following locations in Egypt (with the name of the excavator/sponsor and year of excavation given where possible): Abydos (Egypt Exploration Fund); Alexandria; Amarna; Aswan; Oxyrhynchus (Egypt Exploration Fund); Beni Hasan; Gizeh (mortuary temple of Mycerinus); Gurob; Lahun (Petrie); Memphis, including el-Badrashein; Thebes, including Deir el-Bahari (Naville – Egypt Exploration Fund, 1906-1907] and a village near Luxor. A provenance of Aswan was identified through internal evidence. There are also a number of photographs in the collection.

  Subjects

  Antiquities; Ancient civilizations; Antiquity; Archaeological sites; Archaeological objects; Egyptology; Archaeological excavations

  Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum Theatre Collection

  Collection of approximately 3,400 theatre playbills, 1791-1920, mainly for Cheltenham theatres, but a small number for other Gloucestershire towns, as well as Bath, Birmingham, Brighton, Cardiff, Ilfracombe, London, Portsmouth and Teignmouth.; Handwritten catalogue; chronological list. Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum, Cheltenham Borough Council.

  Subjects

  Theatre; Performers; Playbills; Regional theatre; 18th century; 19th century; 20th century

  Archives Collection

  The Arts and Crafts Movement archives form an important part of the archive collection. They include letters; drawings; photographs; printed ephemera; exhibition catalogues; articles; unpublished research material; history files on individual designers, makers and collectors; and reference books. The Emery Walker Library has a large supporting archive of material including trial proofs by William Morris in developing the Kelmscott Press and documents on the early Socialist Movement with which Walker and Morris were both connected. There are also important archives relating to the composer Gustav Holst and the explorer Edward Adrian Wilson; and one of the largest collections of 19th century theatre playbills in a provincial museum. Other archive material comprises printed ephemera relating to Cheltenham and Gloucestershire.

  Subjects

  Archives

  Source: Cornucopia

  Date: Not known, but before 2015

  Licence: CC BY-NC