Bolton Museum
Established | 1852 |
---|---|
Location | Bolton Central Library and Museum, Le Mans Crescent, Bolton, BL1 1SE United Kingdom |
Visitors | 275,000 (2018)[1] |
Public transit access | Bolton Interchange |
Website | https://www.boltonlams.co.uk/museum |
Bolton Museum is a public museum, aquarium and art gallery in the town of
Museum history
The origins of the current museum date to 1852 when the town adopted the Libraries and Museums Act, leading to the opening of the town's first Library in Victoria Square, now site of the
Chadwick
In 1876, Dr Samuel Taylor Chadwick, a wealthy medical doctor and a benefactor of the town, left a bequest of £5000 to create a museum in Bolton. This also encouraged many others to donate items for the museum. His bequest specified the funds were to be used for the 'building, furnishing and maintenance of a Museum of Natural History in the Bolton Park' with free entry, this early museum was located at Queens Park. The Chadwick Museum was chaired by Councillor B.A. Dobson and its first professional curator William Waller Midgley was employed in 1883. The museum opened in 1884 with three floors with displays.[4]
The Museum added collections of national importance including items of textile machinery, textile samples and Egyptian antiquities with an organised structure, with minerals, rocks and fossils in the basement displays, on the ground floor were zoology displays of stuffed animals, birds' nests and eggs, shells, and insects, the first floor consisted of displays of
The Chadwick Museum was demolished in 1956 and its collections of Egyptian, industrial and local history moved to the Le Mans site, industrial collections were put on display in Tonge Moor library until the 1990s.[4]
Branch museums
Mere Hall was donated to the town as an art gallery by J.P. Thomasson in 1890, the art comprising mostly 19th-century oil paintings and some older works, including Noah Leaving the Ark by Adam Colonia. From 1897, the local authority began to buy North West contemporary art, often from summer exhibitions held at Mere Hall including artists Fred Balshaw, Alfred Heaton Cooper and Samuel Towers. In 1938, the collections of Mere Hall were transferred to a purpose-built gallery at Le Mans Crescent. Most of its collection was subsequently disposed of before 1948 to make way for new acquisitions.[4] Mere Hall became local authority offices used for weddings until 2016,[5] becoming a music and performance education centre in 2019.[6]
The
Smithills Hall opened in 1963, a nature trail museum opened in its Park in 1975, and Little Bolton Town Hall operated as a museum from 1979.[8] All branch museums except Hall i' th' Wood and Smithills closed due to budget cuts, a gallery at Le Mans Crescent became the local history and archive section, now managed by the museum. Large collections of over 400,000 museum objects formerly displayed are held in storage off-site; details are contained within the museum's Acquisition and Disposal Policy.[4]
The Chadwick Resource Centre is a museum collections store and research centre housing approximately 60,000 objects that opened in 2012 at Union Road, Bolton, BL2 2HE.[3]
Le Mans Crescent
The current Le Mans Crescent Museum was opened by the Mayor in 1934, displaying natural history and art. The aquarium opened in 1941, the full fitting out of the museum was delayed due to World War 2 until 1947.[4] There was some controversy in 2006 as forger Shaun Greenhalgh had sold a statue to the museum collection known as the Amarna Princess it was exposed as a forgery.[9] The Museum received £3.8 million in grant funding to update and improve displays in 2018.[10]
Collections
The collections include natural history, Egyptology, archaeology, art, local history, and one of Britain's oldest
Egyptology, Archaeology & World Cultures
The archaeological collection at Bolton of over 10,000 archaeological objects is one of the largest regional collections in the UK.
British Archaeology
The British Archaeology collection has approximately 4000 items from British sites since the 1880s and includes the contents of the Silverdale Museum from mid 19th century excavations in locations including
Ancient near East
The collection from the ancient near East includes finds from excavations in
Worldwide
The worldwide collection includes over 1500 items excavated since the late 19th century. The collection contains artefacts from Swiss lake dwellings at
Egyptology
The Egyptology objects were excavated from the countries of
Botany
Botany collection consists of approximately 60,000 specimens consists largely of dried specimens.[3]
Vertebrate Zoology
Vertebrate Zoology collection (birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles & fish) consists of 15,000 to 20,000 specimens.[3]
Invertebrate Zoology
Invertebrate Zoology collection contains approximately 200,000 specimens.[3]
Geology
The geology collection consists of around 20,000 specimens.[3]
Palaeontology - Fossils
The collection consists of approximately 15,000 specimens mainly British and the largest part of the collection is from the Rooke Pennington's Castleton Museum collection.[3]
Mineralogy
The collection consists of approximately 4000 specimens.[3]
Petrology
There are 2000 specimens in this collection.[3]
Slides and Thin Sections
The collection is the most important in this series and consists of approximately 1800 slides and thin sections including specimens from the Lomax Palaeobotanical Company.[3]
Models
The models collection includes those of prehistoric animals made by the Natural History Museum, London, in the 1970s.[3]
Fine Art
Painting, Drawing and Prints
At the start of the Chadwick period, there was little in the way of art in 1853 until the Mere Hall collection was transferred to the Le Mans site at the combined library and museum in 1938, on advice of the Walker Galleries and to make way for new art works the Mere Hall collection was sold. A bequest in 1940 was received from Frank Hindley Smith of Bolton, being part of a collection of British and Continental art distributed to various art galleries including the Tate. Bolton received forty paintings, sculptures and drawings of North West England regional interest by artists Edward Stott as well as British artists of national importance such as Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and two works by Roger Fry.[7]
The Walker Galleries had advised Bolton to form its Art collection on four criteria,
- British oil paintings
- Portraits of local personalities, local topographical views and examples of the work of significant artists associated with Bolton.
- English watercolours
- British sculpture
The policy of acquiring British oil paintings was more recently defined to focus on
The gallery now has paintings of artists including J. M. W. Turner, Luca Giordano, John Bratby, Edward Burra, Elizabeth Blackadder and Laura Knight and a collection of paintings of Thomas Moran.[7]
There are over 1000 prints, mostly of British artists of the 20th century including works from the Sycamore Collection of British printmaking from 1900 to 1960.[7] An iconic painting of local importance held at the Bolton Art Galleries is Rivington Lakes by Frederic William Hulme created in 1872.[14]
Sculpture
There are 50 items collected in the 1950 and 1960s in the sculpture collection, most of which are mid 20th century British bronzes and include the artists Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Jacob Epstein.[7]
Decorative Arts
The Decorative Arts collection comprises 900 mostly British
A Japan-focused collection was a bequest in 1959 and includes 150 pieces that are mainly 19th century inro, netsuke and scent bottles.
Local history
There is an extensive local history section with 38,000 objects from the 17th to 20th century relating to Bolton.;[3]
The objects included in this section cover the aspects of birth and death; marriage; family and domestic life; work; business and technology; transport; health and medicine; conflict leisure and sport; religion and belief; politics; civic and national life; law, punishment and control; childhood and education; and industry.[3]
Special exhibitions
Bolton Lives
The Bolton Lives gallery presents the story of Bolton and its people.[15]
2019 'Desire, Love, Identity', Outing The Past
In March 2019, Bolton Museum hosted the OUTing the Past Festival which featured talks and presentations on LGBT+ history and two performances of "The Adhesion of Love", a dramatization of a visit by a member of the Eagle Street College to Walt Whitman in 1891.[16] In the Summer of 2019, the Bolton Museum hosted the British Museum touring exhibition "Desire Love Identity" exhibition[17] in its renovated temporary exhibition space. The exhibition told the story of LGBT+ history in the UK with this iteration featuring several Bolton specific objects and documents to tell the story of local LGBT+ history in the context of the major national history.[18] The exhibition also featured "Museum Monologues", five in-gallery dramatisations produced by Inkbrew Productions. Talks given included Matt Cain (writer) in conversation with James Edgington, discussing his book 'The Madonna of Bolton'. Displays included recalling the progress and creation of 'Bolton Pride' and looked back at the local history of activism, campaigns, events and figures from Bolton's LGBT+ past including displays of photographs and documents of Bolton's first LGB youth group, YGLIB volunteers meeting Anne, Princess Royal. There were also exhibits illustrating the roles of James William Wallace (of the Eagle Street College), Vesta Tilley and Humphrey Spender.[19][20]
See also
References
- ^ "Museums + Heritage". Museums + Heritage. M and H Media Ltd Registered in England. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
- ^ "Bolton Museum, Aquarium and Archive". Culture24. Retrieved 3 March 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Squires, Pierrette (September 2014). "Museum Collections Acquisition & Disposal Policy 2014". Bolton Council. Bolton Council. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g "A brief history of the Museum collections". Bolton LAMS. Bolton Library and Museum Services. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
- ^ Thorp, Liam (2016). "Marriages will no longer take place at Mere Hall as council relocates registrars service". Bolton News. Associated Press. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
- ^ Naylor, Mary (2019). "Mere Hall set to become Bolton Music Service's new home". Bolton News. Associated Press. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f "Bolton Lams". Bolton Library and Museum Services. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
- ^ Tatman, Elizabeth; Coppens, Margaret (2015). "A brief history of Little Bolton". Halliwell History Society. Retrieved 12 July 2021.
- ^ Bolton Museum, (no byline). "Amarna Princess statement" Archived 20 November 2008 at the Wayback Machine, Bolton Museum, 29 November 2007. Retrieved 15 December 2007. [dead link]
- ^ "New look museum opens its doors". Bolton Council. Bolton Council. 22 September 2018. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
- ^ "Caroline Birley". Bolton Museum. 7 June 2007. Archived from the original on 8 February 2012. Retrieved 23 January 2012.
- ^ "Growing up with a bisexual father". Bi Community News. 18 February 2015. Retrieved 21 September 2019.
- ^ Price, Campbell. "Bolton's Egypt, Bolton Museum and Art Gallery". Museum Association. Museum Association. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
- ^ Lacey, Paul. "Rivington, Lancashire". Rivington. Angelfire. Retrieved 3 January 2011.
- ^ Suggitt, Mark (March 2011). "Bolton Lives Gallery, Bolton Museum". Museums Journal. 111 (3): 50–51.
- ^ "Whitman play comes out and comes 'home'". The Bolton News. Retrieved 21 September 2019.
- ^ "Desire, love, identity: exploring LGBTQ histories". British Museum. Retrieved 21 September 2019.
- ^ "Groundbreaking exhibition celebrating diversity and cultural expression lands in Bolton". The Bolton News. Retrieved 21 September 2019.
- ^ "Love, Desire, Identity". That's TV Manchester. 28 March 2019.
- ^ "Desire, love, identity: exploring LGBTQ histories in Bolton exhibition and events" (PDF). Bolton CVS. BoltonLams. Retrieved 3 June 2020.