Collection: Worcester City Museum and Art Gallery

Collection-level records:

• Collection history (Collection development policy)

  There has been a museum in Worcester since the 1820s, estimated to be the eighth oldest in the country. Museum collecting began in earnest in 1833 with the formation of the Worcestershire Natural History Society led by Sir Charles Hastings. These early and now extremely significant natural history collections were bought by the Corporation of Worcester in 1881, completing the Victoria Institute to house the Library, Museum & Art Gallery and School of Art & Science in 1896.

  Throughout the twentieth century the collections continued to be drawn from a very wide geographical area and range of disciplines and included the purchase of The Commandery building in the 1970s. Local Government reorganisation in 1974 saw the building split as the Library became Worcestershire County’s responsibility while the Museum and Art Gallery stayed with the city. Photography, documents and ephemera collections were split rapidly between the organisations at this time.

  During the late twentieth century it was the policy of the museum to ‘illustrate the story of man and his environment in the Severn valley, with particular reference to Worcester’. Since 1997 the focus for the archaeology, social history and applied art collections has been more precisely defined as the area governed by Worcester City Council and the people who have lived and worked within that boundary.

  Participation in the Contemporary Art Society Special Collections Scheme in the late 1990s and the early years of the new century saw the refocus of the fine art collection to more fully explore urban and rural landscape. The scheme gave Worcester City Museums the opportunity to acquire works by internationally important contemporary artists.

  In 2006 a partnership was formed with Worcestershire County Museum in the formation of a joint museum store outside of the city on Hartlebury Trading Estate. The majority of the archaeology, social history and applied art collections have been moved from less-suitable stores around the city and are now stored to a high professional standard in this building, making the collections more widely accessible for visitors, researchers and learning groups.

  In 2010 Worcester City Council and Worcestershire County Council took the decision to merge the management of their collections and museum venues, although ownership remained with each authority and the collections are managed in parallel. The new service was named Museums Worcestershire and is overseen by the Joint Museums Committee, formed of representatives from each authority and, when required, additional external expertise.

  Specific collections of material relating to the city are also known to exist at other museums in the fields of sports, education, friendly societies and the archaeology of Worcester Cathedral as well as the well-established independent museums of medical history, Worcester Porcelain, the Worcestershire Yeomanry and Worcestershire Regiment (both with displays hosted by the City Museums), and freemasonary. We offer both paid and unpaid advice and expertise to the staff and volunteers of these collections to facilitate the long-term future of these collections and to encourage improvements in public access.

  The 2020 COVID pandemic saw a renewed focus towards contemporary collecting, and, likewise, a successful track record of community focussed collections outreach projects has seen a commitment in collecting to better reflect and represent communities in the collections.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2023

  Licence: CC BY-NC

• Collection overview (Collection development policy)

  Understanding the English Landscape

  The Story of Worcestershire

  The city of Worcester is placed within a very typical English landscape. While it is centrally located in the country, the rise and fall of the ocean tides have their influence: Worcester grew up because of the crossing point of the River Severn at low tide. The Severn is a respected force in the city with floods reclaiming both farmland and city streets on a regular basis. Worcester sits in the shadow of the Malvern Hills, one of Britain’s most important classic geological areas and now recognised as an internationally significant Geopark. Eleven out of the thirteen recognised geological periods of time are represented by the rocks of Worcestershire.

  This special position encompassing urban, rural, river, tidal water and hill has created a museum collection significant both regionally and nationally that allows us to explore the quintessential English landscape.

  The bedrock of this collection is the herbarium and geological collections, which in part date back to the founding of the Museum of the Worcestershire Natural History Society in 1833. Further natural history collections of birds, mammals and insects from Worcestershire increase the information about the range of habitats in landscape.

  In more recent years, the fine art collection has been focussed to interpret our ‘way of looking’ at and increase our understanding of the peculiarly English landscape. Collecting in this area has sought to comment on the relationship between urban and rural landscapes and the tension between the two.

  For this core collection, of paramount importance is the advice of experts and partners for acquiring, identifying, interpreting, documenting and disseminating the information the collection holds. Substantial work on cataloguing and research has been completed in the last thirty years via collaboration and partnership, working with the Worcestershire Biological Records Centre at the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust, the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Earth Heritage Trust at the University of Worcester and the Abberley & Malvern Hills Geopark and the Contemporary Art Society. These and other relationships will continue to develop over the lifetime of this policy and will inform future acquisitions.

  Natural History

  The Natural History Collection contains an enormously useful catalogue of specimens that charts the natural landscape, flora and fauna of Worcestershire. The collection acts as an accessible central resource for the people of Worcestershire to connect with their present and past environment and understand their place within it. It also chronicles significant environmental change, habitat and species loss caused by human factors such as global warming, land development and introduction of invasive species.

  The collection Includes:

  Herbarium

  A large and significant part of the collections, with at least 10,000 individual specimens comprising a wide variety of flowering plants, mosses, algae, lichens, liverworts, ferns and fungi, the majority from Worcestershire and including the earliest recorded specimens of several species. The nineteenth century collections of local naturalists include those of William Matthews, Harvey Buchanan Holl, and J.H. Thompson. The collection of over 300 specimens of flora from Wyre Forest was amassed by George Jordan, butler to a surgeon from Bewdley.

  Geology

  • The geological collection was mainly assembled in the nineteenth century. It holds important scientific material including type, figured and cited specimens. It has historical significance because of the association with the early pioneers of the science including Murchison, Phillips, Lyell, Buckland and Owen. The individual collections of well known local geologists can still be recognised, including Strickland, Hastings, Symonds, Buchanan Hall, Allies, Roberts, Reece and Winnington-Ingram.
  • Stratigraphical Collection – A large collection of British rocks and fossils dating from the Precambrian to the Pleistocene. The majority are from Worcestershire and the neighbouring counties. They include material collected during the construction of the Malvern and Ledbury railway tunnels in the nineteenth century. Many individual collections have been amalgamated to form this reference collection.
  • Vertebrate Collection – A small collection of mainly British and local vertebrate fossils determined and listed by Delair. It contains some of the most spectacular specimens as well as important scientific and historical material. The particular strengths are local Old Red Sandstone fish, Liassic ichthyosaurs and Pleistocene mammal remains from the River terrace deposits of the Severn and Avon.

  Birds, Mammals, Fish, Shells and Insects

  • A substantial collection of birds both full mounts and study skins. The largest single part of the collection, including most of the study skins, was bequeathed to the Museum in 1907 by Robert Fisher Tomes, a local Justice of the Peace and collector.
  • A selection of British, particularly local, mammal specimens purchased mainly in the late twentieth century. This is further enhanced by groups of horns and bones.
  • A small collection of mainly British freshwater fish, but including the amazing sturgeon, nearly 2 metres in length, which was caught in Worcester in the 1830s.
  • A small group of mainly British corals, sponges, sea urchins and crustaceans.
  • Some 10,000 examples of land, sea and freshwater shells, including collections by Whitmore, Gale, Martin, Moseley and Thomas. This includes examples from Worcestershire, and is one of the largest such collections in a provincial museum.
  • Several thousand specimens of mainly British butterflies, moths and beetles, including the collections of Carlton Rea and Bloom, and those from the former Malvern Museum.

  Fine Art

  Includes:

  • The Sale Bequest of nineteenth century English watercolours is one of the strongest and most coherent elements of the collection. There are 87 watercolours altogether, including works by Samuel Prout (1783-1852), Peter de Wint (1784-1849), Thomas Sidney Cooper, William Callow (1812-1908) and W.J. Muller (1812-1845). Of most importance are the 29 works by Birmingham artist David Cox (1783-1859), which demonstrate early freedom of expression from British artists alongside JMW Turner that influenced the French Impressionists
  • A significant collection of late nineteenth century and early twentieth century landscape and interior paintings showing the influence of French plein-air naturalism, alongside a British concern for social realism, considered the British Impressionism collection. This area of the collection includes work by Alexander Stanhope Forbes (1857 – 1947), William Blandford Fletcher (1858-1936), Charles Napier Hemy (1841-1917), Arthur Mead (1864-1948), Julius Olson (1864-1942) Dame Laura Knight (1877-1970) and Sir Arnesby Brown (1866 -1955). Many of these artists were of national importance and were members of the New England Art Club (NEAC). This area of the collection is important as it represents the start of modernism in British art, providing a link between the strengths of the nineteenth century collections and the contemporary collection of landscape-based work and showing how influential Worcestershire and West Midland artists were in this period
  • A significant collection of contemporary work in all medias acquired through the Contemporary Art Society Special Collections Scheme at the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries with funding from the Arts lottery and the Elmley Foundation. This collection focuses on work which explores the imagery of light across contemporary landscape and image-making techniques, particularly that which contrasts with the often idyllic rural scenes already represented in the rest of the art collection. This collection includes works by Paul Seawright, Sophy Ricketts, Willie Doherty, Heather & Ivan Morrison, Carol Rhodes and Dan Holdsworth.
  • A good collection of nineteenth century landscape paintings by important local artists including, Benjamin Williams Leader, Henry Harris Lines, Harry Adams, David Bates. As well as illustrating the development of the artist’s approach across the nineteenth century, these works also give an insight in Worcester’s creative industries and the strong art school training that was in place to serve the porcelain and gloving factories.
  • A number of mid- and late-twentieth century prints, including those by important artists Howard Hodgkin, Gillian Ayres, Elizabeth Frink, Patrick Caulfield, Barbara Hepworth, Paula Rego, Eileen Cooper and Julian Trevelyan.
  • Early work includes two seventeenth-century views of the city, a Dutch interior by David Teniers III (1638-85), and a series of royal portraits on panel from the Rev Bowles collection.
  • Topographical paintings, prints, drawings and photographs of Worcester, many of exceptional artistic merit and documentary value.

  Understanding Life in a County Town

  The Story of Worcester

  Worcester’s typical English landscape has facilitated a representative history of human occupation, development and use.

  Worcester has been the focus of some kind of urban settlement for over 2000 years. For most of the first 1000 years of this occupation, archaeology is the only evidence we have for understanding the City’s development. The earliest structure on the site of Worcester’s Castle, now Kings School dates back to the later Neolithic and Bronze Age, with further evidence of an Iron Age boundary in the Cathedral area and Iron Age roundhouses at Deansway and Bath Road

  Worcester developed into a small town (probably called Vertis) during the Roman period; a town supported by its agricultural hinterland as well as its strong industrial traditions of iron working but also pottery production, bronze working and glass production. The Roman town spanned the Cathedral and High Street area at its peak with development known to the north and into Sidbury and across the river in St Johns

  Archaeological evidence suggests life continued in the town beyond the end of the Roman period and though evidence exists from excavations particularly at Deansway, archaeological evidence for the early medieval period is still very rare. Most significantly, at the end of the seventh century, during the reorganisation of the Church under Archbishop Theodore, the see was founded at Worcester and the City came to be dominated by the church and Cathedral that would continue to influence the city so heavily in the medieval period.

  Its position as a key river crossing point on the route between the key southern cities of London, Oxford & Bath and Wales has left its mark on the community most violently by civil wars in the twelfth and seventeenth centuries including the significant 1651 Battle of Worcester. Even in the twenty-first century the city continues to act as a litmus paper for modern political battles, in the fight for the votes of ‘Worcester Woman’.

  Encompassing both urban and rural land, the city has developed to serve the fertile surrounding agricultural area and has also experienced the poverty of slums, factory work and heavy industry. The industries for which the city is most famous – Roman iron working, medieval tile making and cloth manufacture, as well as it’s more recent gloving, vinegar making and porcelain industries– exploited the benefits of local raw materials, good transport and close-at-hand labour.

  Worcester is provincial, yet here creativity and enterprise has had internationally significant impact from the experimentation of the early porcelain industry, to the founding of the British Medical Association and the compositions of Sir Edward Elgar.

  Worcester’s position as both city and country, both gated and yet outward-looking, both working class and affluent – its representative cross section of English history is what makes the city’s history special.

  Archaeology

  Includes:

  • Large deposits from the key city centre excavations Lychgate, Blackfriars, Sidbury, Copenhagen Street, High Street, Deansway, Magistrates Court, the Commandery and Newport Street
  • Significant collections of flints by three key collectors: A.E. Jones, Bruton and Bowen. Stone axes from several sites across Worcestershire.
  • Bronze age pottery and axes from sites both in the city and wider county; a Bronze Age sword dredged from the River Severn.
  • Roman pottery, glass, metalwork, ironworking, bronzeworking and glassworking waste plus a rural Roman milestone and mosaic. Roman Severn Valley and Samian ware are also well represented.
  • Early medieval grave goods including jewellery, metalwork, shield bosses, spears and a sword chape from sites both in the city and wider county.
  • Medieval pottery, floor tiles, domestic metalwork, glass, shoes and a rare barrel latrine from sites within the city walls.
  • Post medieval pottery and glass bottles. Eighteenth and nineteenth porcelain waste and kiln furniture from the city industry.
  • Human remains including Roman cremations from the Diglis cemetery, Roman skeletons from the Kings School cemetery and a significant collection of disarticulated medical waste from medical treatment, training and post mortems carried out at Worcester Royal Infirmary
  • Paper archives of site records, notes, maps, plans, drawings, photographs, written reports. Digital material is deposited with the Archaeology Data Service (ADS)

  Social History & Applied Art

  Includes:

  Working Histories

  • A large and important collection of gloves and related archives from collector Robert Ring and a range of glove making tools both from factories and outworkers. This reflects Worcester’s international recognition between the eighteenth and twentieth century as a centre for the manufacture of gloves. This collection is of national significance, plotting the rise of an industry within a locality to become a global centre for glove design and manufacture. The industry impacted on other linked industries and employed tens of thousands of local people before complete disappearing. The legacy of the trade and the local people connected to it are found within the tools and archives held in the City Collection, as well as one off unique examples of craftsmanship that put Worcester at the centre of the high fashion gloving world. This collection is a focus for potential designation and significant new additions are actively acquired.
  • Large industrial and agricultural machinery from key Worcester firms including items from Lee & Perrins, Fownes Glovemakers, Spetchley Bros Brewery and Guinness Hop Farm. In some cases they represent the first stage of mechanisation and demonstrate local enterprise and creativity in the design of the process.
  • Sizeable collections from individual Worcester tradesmen and small firms, including the Stewards Chemist Shop, Littlebury printers, early twentieth century offices and a cobbler’s shop.
  • A small collection of shoes drawn from Worcester’s late nineteenth and early twentieth century shoemaking factories.
  • Ephemera from Worcester firms such as Kays, and theatrical posters and playbills including Worcester born music hall star Vesta Tilley.
  • Cared for on long-term loan, spectacular large historic textiles from the Clothiers’ Company. This includes a late fifteenth century embroidered funeral pall, which was supposed to be used at the funeral of Prince Arthur at Worcester Cathedral in 1502.
  • A representative collection of Royal Worcester porcelain (a comprehensive collection is held by the Museum of Worcester Porcelain) from 1751 to the present day alongside interesting examples of work by other local, English and international manufacturers, with a particularly strong collection of Boehm of Malvern.

  Community, Domestic and Personal Histories

  • Architectural fragments, particularly from churches, in Worcester. In some cases the area has been redeveloped and the building no longer exists. Together with photographic records recording architectural change in the city, these form a physical record of the urban landscape.
  • Weaponry, armour and historic items relating the Civil War period and the particular role of Worcester.
  • Coins, token and medals, both with a Worcester connection national and international, including coinage from the earliest times and most significantly, from early medieval Worcester mints
  • A moderately-sized costume collection including some examples of agricultural costume and a small collection on long-term loan collected by the Worcester Women’s Institute.
  • Domestic items with a particular strength in kitchen items and cookery.
  • A small collection of furniture, including a varied school collection.S

  Understanding Collecting

  The Story of Worcester’s Museums

  Cabinets of Curiosity

  As one of the earliest established museum collections in the country, Worcester City’s collections span 175 years of collecting interest, fashion and occasional excess. The result is some exceptional individual items and small collections which are highly unusual in a medium-sized regional museum and should be seen as a strength of Worcester’s collection.

  Many of these objects are fascinating for visitors because of their rarity and for some visitors represent what a museum ’ought to be’. The potential for learning is high and some have clear links to units of the National Curriculum. These collections should be seen principally as a source of inspiration and comparison for the other collections as developing staff expertise in these areas is not a priority.

  Non-native Natural History Specimens

  Includes:

  • Important Australian and New Zealand bird study specimens, including specimens donated by Gould and Holden, the extinct Huia, and the rare Kokako and Kakapo and a large Albatross brought here from the Southern Hemisphere. Also a collection of foreign taxidermy specimens, including big game hunting trophies.
  • A good range of mineral specimens from worldwide locations, mostly collected in the nineteenth century, and including the Strutt and Tennant collections.
  • Within the large shell collections collected by Whitmore, Gale, Martin, Moseley and Thomas, examples from the Indian Ocean.
  • About 100 specimens preserved in spirit jars including examples from the Challenger expedition.

  World Cultures Collection

  Includes:

  • A small but varied collection of decorative items from Asia, America, and the South Pacific including pottery and ceramics, weapons, costume and religious items.
  • The collection includes a Māori skull and an amulet made from human bone from Torres Straits, Australia that may be appropriate for repatriation.
  • Excavated Ancient Egyptian artefacts including the Corbett collection, objects excavated at Lahun and Harageh by Flinders Petrie and a small collection of mummified animal remains.
  • A significant bark cloth from Pitcairn Island made around the time of the mutiny on the Bounty (the mutineers took women from Tahiti to form a colony at Pitcairn in 1767), a rare ceremonial club from Gazelle Peninsula, northern New Britain, Papua New Guinea and a rare woven mat from southern Australia.

  History of the museum buildings

  The two museum buildings, the Commandery and the Art Gallery & Museum are themselves important historical assets for Worcester City. Historical items relating to the development of the museums in Worcester and their buildings have been collected steadily since the foundation of the service in the nineteenth century. These will continue to be acquired with careful selection and moderation.

  Working and Educational collections

  The power of museum objects can sometimes only be fully accessed through handling the artefact, or seeing it work in its original function. In order to preserve significant items, it is important that some specific objects are designated or collected as handling/working items. These items are not considered part of the main collection and the processes of acquisition, documentation and disposal is less formal than for the main collection.

  Education handling collection

  Handling items enable visitors, particularly in formal learning groups and community groups, to interact directly with objects by touching, feeling, smelling and wearing and are acquired to reflect the accessioned collections. These items might be primarily original historic items but can be replicas, but all are considered a core learning resource. Although treated with care, it is assumed that some will be damaged or destroyed with use and that eventual disposal may be necessary.

  As with accessioned collections, the handling collection considers acquisition, disposal, management, care, and access for all handling items.

  Museums Worcestershire have a number of objects that have been collected or prepared especially for handling, particularly by school groups, the majority of which are not accessioned. Donations of historical objects have also sometimes been designated as handling rather than refusing the offer.

  Working Objects

  Working items are restored, sometimes with the addition of new parts, to more fully demonstrate the purpose they were originally used for. The restoration should not transform the original purpose or original look of the object: if parts are removed as part of the restoration they will be kept alongside the object. The decision to restore an object to ‘working’ should only be made to add to visitors’ understanding of that item rather than simply to make it look more attractive. Once an object has been restored to work it should, wherever possible, be maintained in a working state.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2023

  Licence: CC BY-NC