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Museum of Gloucester

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A fragment from an Anglo-Saxon Cross from St. Oswald's Priory in the museum. (False colourised version on the right.)
Newnham-on-Severn from Dean Hill by William Turner, acquired for the museum in 1977 with help from The Art Fund.
John and Joan Cooke by an unknown artist. Joan Cooke founded The Crypt School after her husband's death.
An 1834 painting of a Gloucestershire Old Spot pig in the museum's art collection. Said to be the largest pig ever bred in Britain.[1]
A miniature of Jemmy Wood, the famous Gloucester Miser, from the art collection.

Gloucester City Museum & Art Gallery in Brunswick Road is the main museum in the City of Gloucester. It has recently been extensively renovated following a large National Heritage Lottery Fund grant and it reopened on Gloucester Day, 3 September 2011.[2]

The Gloucester Folk Museum is a smaller museum in Westgate Street, dealing with the social history of Gloucestershire.

Origins

The museum opened on 12 March 1860 as a private venture in three rooms at The Black Swan, provided rent-free by the poet Sydney Dobell. In 1896 the Corporation of the City of Gloucester took over the venture.[3][4]

The building

The Victorian building, in the early Renaissance style, inspired by the work of T.G. Jackson, is Grade II listed by English Heritage. It was originally the Price Memorial Hall of the Gloucester Science and Art Society, built for Margaret Price as a memorial to her husband William Edwin Price in 1893[3], and designed by F.S. Waller. The Corporation of the City of Gloucester took over the building as the City Museum & Art Gallery in 1902.[5][6]

Originally only on the ground floor, a first floor was added in 1958 which was opened by the archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler.[3]

Collections

Objects in the museum include:

Art collection

The art collection includes about 300 paintings including works by J. M. W. Turner and Thomas Gainsborough as well as a painting of Oliver Cromwell without his famous warts.[8][9]

In 1977, the collection acquired a landscape of Newnham-on-Severn from Dean Hill by William Turner of Oxford with help from The Art Fund.[10]

Activities

In 1976, excavations by the museum's Excavation Unit at St. Oswald's Priory yielded important new finds relating to the Saxon minster founded by Aethelred, Ealdorman of Mercia and his wife Aethelflaeda in the 890s.[11]

Selected publications

  • Sovereigns Of England Elizabeth I - Elizabeth II an Exhibition Held In The Wheatstone Hall Gloucester 1953. 1953.
  • Ten treasures of the City Museums Gloucester, 1860-1960. 1960.
  • Rhodes, J.F. Catalogue Of Romano-British Sculptures In The Gloucester City Museum. 1964.
  • Frith, Brian. Twelve Portraits of Gloucester Benefactors. 1972. ISBN 0903340003
  • Neufville Taylor, John. Fishing on the Lower Severn. 1974. ISBN 0903340011
  • Whiting, J.R.S. Gloucester besieged: The story of a roundhead city 1640-1660. 1975. (2nd edition 1984)
  • Heighway, Carolyn M. Ancient Gloucester: The story of the Roman and medieval city. 1976. ISBN 0903340046
  • Heighway, Carolyn M. The East Gate of Gloucester. 1980. ISBN 0903340062
  • The Golden Age of Richard III: City Museum & Art Gallery, Brunswick Rd., Gloucester: 2 July-1 October 1983: An Exhibition on the Twin Themes of Richard III and the Mediaeval Town. 1983.
  • Morris, Christopher. Farming in Gloucestershire, 1800-1914. 1984. ISBN 0903340070
  • Watkins, Malcolm J. Golden Age of Richard III. 1985. ISBN 0903340100
  • Watkins, Malcolm J. Gloucester: The Normans and Domesday. 1985. ISBN 0903340097
  • Morris, Christopher. Gloucester Folk Museum. 1986. ISBN 0903340119
  • Watkins, Malcolm J. March of Rome: Roman Soldier AD.50-150. 1987. ISBN 0903340135
  • Cox, Nigel G. Gloucester Folk Museum: A Guide to the Buildings. 1987. ISBN 0903340127
  • Atkin, Malcolm. History Under Our Feet: Work of the Gloucester Excavation Unit. 1988. ISBN 0903340143
  • Dartnall, D.L. The great Gloucestershire dinosaur discovery. 1990.

See also

References

  1. ^ Gloucester Old Spot by John Miles. BBC 2011. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
  2. ^ Gloucester City Museum official launch. soglos.com 11 August 2011. Retrieved 10 September 2011.
  3. ^ a b c d "Gloucester Museum Doubles Its Space" in The Times, 25 April 1958, p. 12.
  4. ^ "Gloucester Museum's Centenary" in The Times, 14 March 1960, p. 14.
  5. ^ CITY MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY. English Heritage, 2011. Retrieved 10 September 2011.
  6. ^ A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 4 - The City of Gloucester by N.M. Herbert (Ed.) British History Online, 2011. Retrieved 10 September 2011.
  7. ^ Roman Colony & Legionary Fortress Gloucester, Gloucestershire. roman-britain.org 29 August 2010. Retrieved 11 September 2011.
  8. ^ a b Gloucester City Museum & Art Gallery. Gloucestershire County Council, 2011. Retrieved 10 September 2011.
  9. ^ Your Paintings: Gloucester museum's Oliver Cromwell. BBC Gloucestershire 23 June 2011. Retrieved 10 September 2011.
  10. ^ Newnham-on-Severn from Dean Hill. artfund.org 2011. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
  11. ^ "Archaeology: Signs of Saxon minster" by Carolyn Heighway in The Times, 13 March 1976, p. 16.
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