Collection: Sheringham Museum

Collection-level records:

• Collection history (Collection development policy)

  1988 Sheringham Museum was set up by Sheringham Town Council and a group of local enthusiasts in 1988.

  1992 – This group was separated from the Town Council to become a charitable trust in 1992 and known from then on as the Sheringham Museum Trust. The SMT collected information on the Parish of Sheringham, Upper Sheringham and Beeston Regis, an entirely voluntary run endeavour with an honorary curator, Peter Brooks, the collection grew and grew.

  2004 – Information from paper record sheets transferred onto CATALIST database.

  2007 – Objects and documentation material was moved to a temporary off-site storage facility in Holt during the museums closure for capital redevelopment work supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. As part of this project a permanent Museum Manager was employed, replacing the position of honorary curator which was vacated by Peter Brooks in 2008 due to ill health.

  2010 – The museum collections achieved full Accreditation status in 2010. 2011 – CATALIST replaced by MODES Compact.

  2015-2018 Capital redevelopment, objects were temporarily moved offsite to the Sheringham Town Hall store and a facility at Weybourne.

  Returning all collections back on site by 2019.

  Post 2010 the museum has limited the acceptance of new items into the collection to those items of great significance to the town and immediate area. All offsite collections have been introduced back into the building including the Sheringham Town Council Painting collection donated in 2019.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2023

  Licence: CC BY-NC

• Collection overview (Collection development policy)

  The collections are diverse in size and scale, the Core collections comprise of smaller social history 3D objects and artists original 2D work and are collected in accordance with Sheringham Museum’s agreed Foundations Statements: Vision, Values, Mission, Aims and Objectives.

  Existing collections, including the subjects or themes and the periods of time and /or geographic areas to which the collections relate. The development of fishing and lifeboat vessels in Sheringham between the late 19th century and 20th century. The lifeboat, lifesaving, and fishing heritage of the North Norfolk area. The particular history of Sheringham and its people as a coastal town alongside other leisure and industrial activities in the immediate locality, including social and documentary records associated with these activities. The collections are diverse in size and scale. Most of the Core Collections comprise small social history artefacts and archival material augmented with large maritime objects, which are intended to be the centrepiece of the museum’s ground floor displays. The Top Deck holds the most recent retired lifeboat- the Atlantic 75 and is a flexible space for temporary exhibitions.

  The museum has a number of themes. These include:

  • These include the development of fishing and lifeboat vessels in Sheringham between the late 19th and 20th century.
  • Lifeboats, lifesaving, and the fishing heritage of North Norfolk.
  • The story of Sheringham and its people as a coastal town.
  • Leisure, tourist and industrial activities in the immediate locality
  • Social and documentary activities associated with the above.
  • Collecting ganseys (fishermen’s sweaters) from Sheringham and East Anglia.

  RECORD OF SHERINGHAM (19th to 21st century) Documents, photographs and ephemera relating to the central themes identified above and which specifically relate to streets, roads, properties, occasions, events, people, personalities, disasters, shipping, fishing industry, lifeboats, trades, industries, shops, holiday industry, boat building, seaside souvenirs, flint picking, local families, tourism and war years.

  Collection themes

  • These include the development of fishing and lifeboat vessels in Sheringham between the late 19th and 20th century.
  • Lifeboats, lifesaving and the fishing heritage of North Norfolk.
  • The story of Sheringham and its people as a coastal town.
  • Leisure, tourist and industrial activities in the immediate locality
  • Social and documentary activities associated with the above.

  Core collections:

  1. The Lifeboat and Fishing Boat Collection (20th century)

  Sheringham is the only known place in the world to possess five of its original lifeboats with a continuous service span of 1894 through 1990’s. Sheringham Museum Trust owns four of these lifeboats which are held inside the museum; The J.C.Madge 1904 – 1936, The Foresters Centenary 1936 – 1961, The Manchester Unity Of Oddfellows – an Oakley class of lifeboat 1961 – 1990, and the first in-shore Atlantic 75 class lifeboat placed on permanent service in the UK, also called The Manchester Unity of Oddfellows 1994 – 2007. One lifeboat is not housed inside Sheringham Museum, although it is part of the Trust’s collection, (The Henry Ramey Upcher 1894 -1935) is housed at the Fisherman’s Heritage Centre, now renamed as the Fisherman’s Lifeboat Museum, a few yards along the promenade. The Trust also owns three traditional fishing boats built in Sheringham by local craftsmen. The collection holds 910 objects, ephemera, and images on the subject of Sheringham lifeboats, lifeboatmen and crew, including information on The Augusta 1838 – 1894; the first private lifeboat, the first R.N.L.I lifeboat; The Duncan 1867 – 1886, and The William Bennett 1886 – 1904. In the collection we hold 1100 items relating to lifeboats which include 576 on fishing and fishermen.

  2. Gansey collection

  The knitted fisherman woollen sweater, known as a Gansey, or Guernsey was traditionally hand-knitted. These garments were made for fishermen by their mothers, although commercially made ones became available from the early 20th century. A gansey was a close-fitting sweater worn by fishermen who required hard wearing clothing which would resist the sea-spray when worn. These usually have a raised stitch pattern, and the Sheringham knitters were known for their very fine work. The museum has 220 gansey related objects including 46 garments in the main accessioned collection and a further 45 in the handling replica section, there are 24 knitted samples, photographs, postcards, books, and a representative collection of knitting tools such as knitting needles and 44 handmade wooden knitting sheaths, three of which were used by Sheringham knitters. The museum is supported by a textile team which forms part of the East Anglia Gansey Group, they have reproduced many of the local patterns taken from photographs held in the museum collection. The complementary collection of knitwear researcher, Michael Harvey was donated in 2019 and comprises some 200+ items of knitwear, ephemera relating to knitting and tools, including 36 research folders, on the gansey and books authored by him. This has increased the gansey collection significantly.

  3. Olive Edis (Born 3.9.1876, died 28.12.1955)

  Olive Edis was a renowned portrait photographer who owned a studio in Sheringham, Surrey and London. She photographed royalty, celebrities as well as the local fishermen, these she produced as a popular series of postcards. She was the only one of 71 shortlisted photographers to visit the WW1 Battlefield sites to record the work of women’s services on behalf of the National War Museum, now the Imperial War Museum. We have 277 items relating to Olive Edis including original works of hers and copies of her photographs and printed postcards. Her original oil painted works, which she made over enlargements of her photographs, 56 are held in the collection. In addition, there are news clippings, correspondence and prints relating to Cyril Nunn, a photographer who she mentored.

  4. Hewitt collection (1880-1900)

  The Hewitt collection comprises 1272 items, 600 glass plate negatives and 300 slides, these chart the social life of a family who had a second home in Sheringham. It is a social record of family activities made by Cecil Hewitt, a disabled upper-middle class man in Sheringham about the town and its environs from the Edwardian times to the inter-war years. We also hold five family Scrapbooks dating from the WW1 which are filled with ephemera and clippings.

  5. Boat building tools and artifacts (1896-1981)

  Boat building was of huge importance to Sheringham, the town boasted five main boat builders: Sunman, Boxall, Lown, Johnson, and Emery. They supplied boats to the other nearby towns, including Cromer. The museum holds items relating to boat building including tools, and samples of sail cloth, as well as housing a permanent display of the interior of the Emery Family of boat builders working shed and a drawing by Thomas Armes of this. We also have three Sheringham built crab boats on permanent display.

  6. The Ellis Pratt collection (1880-1990)

  There are over 1000 items in his collection, including the contents of a shop with all its leather working tools, consumer items and other artefacts from a local saddler, leather worker and general retailer whose business existed in Sheringham for over a century. There is a permanent display devoted to most of the contents of this collection based on the shop, which was donated by Ellis Pratt’s daughter, Mrs. Wakefield.

  7. John Craske (born 1881-1943)

  John Craske, from a Sheringham family, produced naïve paintings and embroidered pictures. The museum holds 24 of his works in both media and includes the painting of ‘The Gannet’ boat on the lid of a bait box, thought to be his first work. Fourteen conservation mounted works are of significance as they were exhibited in New York by his benefactor, novelist Sylvia Townsend Warner and her life partner and poet, Valentine Ackland. These paintings were returned to the UK unsold and were donated to Sheringham Museum by author, Robert Malster. We also hold a significant collection of his detailed embroideries of all sizes, some of which are unframed.

  8. Tom Armes (born 1894-1963)

  A collection of 53 items including original drawings and paintings of the Sheringham area by the artist Tom Armes who lived in Sheringham including works donated from the Sheringham Town Council collection when they moved premises from the Town Hall to the Community Centre. The collection includes several of his works which were used as advertisements for Sheringham by the National Railways on their posters.

  9. Mick Bensley (born 1944-2023)

  A Sheringham born artist, Mick Bensley produced work which is associated with Sheringham and its lifeboat history. The museum has a collection of his work which includes scenes of dramatic rescues by the Sheringham lifeboats. We have 75 examples of his work, including 25 watercolour and oil paintings, plus pencil drawings, prints, books, and ceramics.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2023

  Licence: CC BY-NC