Collection: Museum of Cornish Life

Collection-level records:

• Collection history (Collection development policy)

  Under the auspices of the town mayor, Helston had a museum briefly in the late 19th century, called Penberthy’s Museum that closed in 1893. Its contents were sold to Burton’s Old Curiosity Shop in neighbouring Falmouth. None of these objects constituted the current collection.

  The current collection was constituted by the Helston branch of the Old Cornwall Society in the 1930s and included agricultural objects, relics of civic history including the Helston Railway, Cornish trades and occupations, archaeological artefacts, photographs and documents, numismatics, domestic items used for making, preserving, cooking and mending, Victorian textiles and dress, and items relating to Henry Trengrouse and his significant lifesaving inventions.

  The idea for a museum to preserve material folk memories, especially of everyday activities that were beginning to fade in local communities followed the ruptures caused by the First World War (1914-18) and the impact of the increasing globalisation of Empire. The museum came to fruition in 1937 when the museum’s objects were systematically catalogued for the first time and the collection and project gained the financial backing of Helston Borough Council which took on its governance.

  The development of the collections has not deviated from the initial pledge that the museum should be: “This is a folk museum and a local museum for the borough and the surrounding district. It exists for the collection of local things, especially ancient agricultural implements and such things as old coins, pictures and photographs of local scenes and events.” (Guide to Helston Borough Museum, c.1949. HESFM.1994.6465).

  The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 caused the temporary hiatus of the museum. The collection went into storage and many items were distributed among townsfolk for safekeeping. In 1946 town’s old market buildings became vacant and the collection was transferred to its current venue as a dedicated museum.

  In 1949, Helston Borough Museum opened in the old Butter and Egg Market building. The first curator, William ‘Bill’ Dalton, also the Landlord of the Beehive pub opposite the museum, continued to collect artefacts, mainly those relating to 19th and early 20th century Cornish social and cultural history. Natural history specimens including taxidermy and minerals, items relating to childhood, domestic technologies such as television, radio and music, and the contents of or inspired by defunct shops, and businesses began entering the collections. The geographic scope focused on Helston, the Lizard and south Kerrier district, however other items from across Cornwall were collected from the museum’s earliest days.

  The collection expanded along similar lines throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Acquisitions were normally initiated by a member of the community, Old Cornwall Society, and through Bill Dalton’s network in the town and district. In 1974, following Local Government reorganisation, the collection and museum became the property of Kerrier District Council.

  The collection was re-catalogued, partially illustrated or photographed, marked and documented according to ‘modern’ museum standards between 1977 and 1980 thanks to the Manpower job creation scheme. In 1980 Martin Matthews became the Council’s first paid Museum Officer and de facto curator. The 1980s to 1990s saw considerable redisplays and the expansion of the museum into the former Meat Market immediately adjacent to the Butter Market in 1983 and in 1999 into the Drill Hall, adjacent to the Meat Market. The collection expanded thematically and set-piece displays were built, for example, the Toyshop, the Victorian Classroom, the Serpentine Turner’s workshop, the 1950s corner shop and the Cornish kitchen; the costume collection expanded considerably in this period. The museum was rebranded as Helston Folk Museum in this period.

  As part of the expansions, a small object store was established in the museum’s loft to house items not part of long-term displays. The majority of the object collection has always been on display. The major exception is photographs and framed items.

  In 2002 Martin Matthews was succeeded by Janet Spargo as curator. The collection continued to expand in the early 2000 but the specific Cornish provenance of many items was not well-documented. A dedicated educational/handling collection was set up for the first time in the early 2000s and the catalogue began to be transferred to Modes, the museum collections management system.

  In 2005 the collections of Camborne Museum, housed in the town’s library, were transferred to Helston. Camborne Museum was also under the auspices of Kerrier District Council and the decision to amalgamate the collections was intended to be temporary while a new home might be found. The collections comprised significant archaeology, notable ethnographic objects, mining material culture and extensive, unprovenanced mass produced ceramics.

  In 2009 ownership of both collections passed from Kerrier District Council to the unitary authority Cornwall Council. At this point Melody Ryder had become curator. In 2012/13 the museum was threatened with closure as a new governance arrangement was being sought. In August 2013 South Kerrier Heritage Trust (SKHT) was constituted and took over the management of the museum and its collections under the curatorship of Katherine Ashton. In 2017, SKHT appointed the museum’s first director, Annette MacTavish.

  The Museum rebranded in 2018 as the Museum of Cornish Life to more correctly reflect the breadth of geographies that the collection reflects, and its ambition to be relevant to people outside the immediate district. Limited and mostly well-provenanced collecting has taken place over the last decade to focus on expanding documentation, improving cataloguing and activating the collection through temporary exhibitions, loans and digitisation.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2023

  Licence: CC BY-NC

• Collection overview (Collection development policy)

  The collections’ cultural value lies largely in documenting the late 19th to 20th-century social, cultural and economic histories of working class people in Cornwall including their domestic, cultural, sporting and vocational experiences.

  Geographically the collection is centred in the Helston and South Kerrier region, but significantly also covers well-provenanced items related to everyday life in other parts of Cornwall.

  Significant themes relating to the material culture of Cornish life (most important in bold):

  • Farming, dairy and growing

  • 20th-century social photography

  • Working class costume and dress

  • Domestic and religious material culture, 1850-1970

  • Folk customs, especially Flora Day (aka Helston Furry Day)

  • Folk art, performance and craft

  • Toys, dolls and games, 1850-1970

  • Shipwreck and lifesaving, inventions of Henry Trengrouse

  • Distinctive mineralogy of the Lizard peninsula, especially zeolites and serpentine

  • Neolithic and Bronze Age and Romano-British ceramics and stone artefacts, especially green stone axe heads.

  Documentation

  We estimate that there are up to 40,000 individual items in the collection.

  21,118 items are currently documented to inventory level on the Modes collections management database. Many object records document groups, sets and sometimes entire deposits so an accurate total of items in the collection is not yet possible.

  A minority of objects are documented to catalogue level and cataloguing items under our most significant themes will be one of our key priorities over the next five years.

  A major process to retrospectively accession hundreds of photographs is near completion while the collection is digitised and catalogued. Previously, photographic accessions had escaped manual registration in Accession Registers.

  Recent inventories suggest that about 20% of objects are not correctly marked with accession numbers and an ongoing process of retrospective inventory work has been prioritised, starting with the costume and farming collections. This will involve cross-referencing with the manual registers and checking against collections ex-Camborne Museum which used the same modern numbering system as Helston Museum.

  Mass archaeological fragments in the form of assemblages of ceramic sherds and briquetage are principally undocumented.

  Movement control has been lacking in the Museum practices over the last 20+years, compounded by the partial amalgamation of items ex-Camborne Museum.

  Currently 1107 items are recorded with an ‘unknown location’ however we are confident from an inventory of our object store (Loft Store) and the systematic retrospective inventory programme since 2014, that items remain in the museum and are not completely missing. The job to update our catalogue is ongoing and since 2022 we have included object photography in inventory check routines.

  We retain records of objects that went missing or were damaged when the museum was housed at its first site, and during the hiatus of World War 2. There was a significant theft in 1965 with no recoveries and Camborne Museum suffered a major theft in 1976 with no recoveries.

  A review in 2023 confirmed that the Museum holds 9785 unprovenanced objects.

  Loans

  682 objects are on loan from private lenders, many of which have not been traced due to a lapses dating back to the 1960s. In 2018/19 a concerted effort was made to contact lenders to request a permanent transfer of title, however the majority of recipients had long ago moved on or had died without leaving details of next of kin. These have been recorded while a small number of significant items now in the ownership of SKHT. 360 objects belonged to the informal and unincorporated Friends of Helston Folk Museum set up to safeguard the collections against any threat of being sold off when the Museum changed governance from the local authority to SKHT. In 2023 the Friends informed SKHT and the Museum that the Friends had now been dissolved and these items could be formally taken under the ownership of the Trust.

  Camborne Museum

  There are 1128 items ex-Camborne Museum. The Camborne items have not been formally accessioned into the Museum’s collection, although some have been amalgamated in error. This collection was reviewed as part of a Headley Fellowship in 2022. The Museum will continue auditing and mapping the collection with a view to incorporating significant items into the permanent collection and documenting their provenance as ex-Camborne Museum. Throughout the Museum has been in touch with Camborne Town Council with a view to returning items to a new heritage centre should it succeed in being established.

  Archives

  Since its inception the museum has collected paper archives that should have been deposited at Cornwall Record Office – now Kresen Kernow. In 2017-18 a project took place to identify archival material that would be better stored at Kresen Kernow. An archivist reviewed the collection and created an inventory prior to a formal deposit in October 2022. The deposited items remain in the Museum’s collection but are stored and accessed by the public from Kresen Kernow.

  Conservation and storage

  The single biggest challenge for conserving the collection is the fluctuating environment of the historic, granite-built, uninsulated, poorly heated old market buildings. As a consequence, pests such as woodworm have been endemic, particularly affecting farming collections. An Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund-supported project is underway to address the problem before irretrievable losses occur, however the Museum is prepared that these may occur and a programme of archaeological-grade recording and photography is part of the conservation programme at hand. The small object store was thoroughly audited in 2022, ‘recovering’ many items thought to have gone missing. The store remains over-crowded and the Museum will not accept any large objects or those it cannot immediately make available for study, research, education or display.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2023

  Licence: CC BY-NC