Potteries Museum & Art Gallery

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The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery
Potteries museum & art gallery.JPG
Museum entrance
Potteries Museum & Art Gallery
Location Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent,
United Kingdom
Coordinates 53°01′22″N2°10′41″W / 53.0229°N 2.1781°W / 53.0229; -2.1781
Type Art museum & local museum
Visitorsover 100k per annum
CuratorCurators for Arts, Ceramics, Natural Science and Local History
Website www.stokemuseums.org.uk/pmag
Statue of Arnold Bennett outside the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent Statue of Arnold Bennett outside the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Hanley, Stoke-On-Trent.jpg
Statue of Arnold Bennett outside the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent

The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery is in Bethesda Street, Hanley, one of the six towns of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. Admission is free.

Contents

One of the four local authority museums in the city, the other three being Gladstone Pottery Museum, Ford Green Hall and Etruria Industrial Museum, The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery houses collections that bring together the identities that went into forming the area known as the Potteries. The museum holds a collection of Staffordshire ceramics.

All the collections at this museum are categorized as Designated Collections. Galleries display fine and decorative arts, costume, local history, archaeology and natural science collections. There is a Second World War aircraft on permanent display, a Supermarine Spitfire whose earlier Marks were designed by R. J. Mitchell who came from nearby Butt Lane.

History

The museum opened on its current site in 1956 as the Stoke-on-Trent City Museum & Art Gallery. [1] [2] The building was designed by the city architect; J. R. Piggott. [1]

The museum's Spitfire, was received from the Royal Air Force in 1972. [3] Over the winter of 1985/86 the Spitfire was moved from its previous home in a glasshouse outside the museum to a specially constructed gallery within the museum. [4]

Since February 2010, The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery has been the home of a number of artefacts from the Staffordshire Hoard. 52,500 visitors viewed 118 items at the Potteries Museum during a 23-day exhibition in February 2010. [5] Since Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and Stoke-on-Trent Museums have purchased the Hoard, items have been on permanent display at both venues. Over 80 pieces can be seen in The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery's archaeology gallery.[ citation needed ] Redevelopment of the Saxon part to this gallery in the latter half of 2010 has set the Hoard within a more tangible context, using existing pieces from the museum's collection of Staffordshire archaeology.

In 2012 the museum ran an exhibition on the subject of connections between Stoke-on-Trent and the Titanic. [6] It included information on people from the area who died in the sinking and archive footage of Captain Edward Smith who was born in Hanley. [6]

On 28 February 2017, the Leekfrith torcs, believed to be the oldest Iron Age gold jewellery found in Britain, were unveiled to the public for the first time, at the museum. [7] From the following day, they were placed on public display. [7]

In June 2017 a bronze statue of Arnold Bennett was located on the pavement just next to the front entrance to the museum.

In the 2010s the museum's Spitfire underwent a three-year restoration program before returning to a new gallery at the museum in September 2021. [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">R. J. Mitchell</span> British aircraft designer (1895–1937)

Reginald Joseph Mitchell was a British aircraft designer who worked for the Southampton aviation company Supermarine from 1916 until 1936. He is best known for designing racing seaplanes such as the Supermarine S.6B, and for leading the team that designed the Supermarine Spitfire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Staffordshire</span> County of England

Staffordshire is a landlocked ceremonial county in the West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands county and Worcestershire to the south, as well as Shropshire to the west. The largest settlement is the city of Stoke-on-Trent; the county town is Stafford.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stoke-on-Trent</span> City and unitary authority in England

Stoke-on-Trent is a city and unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England, with an area of 36 square miles (93 km2). In 2021, the city had an estimated population of 258,400. It is the largest settlement in Staffordshire and is surrounded by the towns of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Alsager, Kidsgrove and Biddulph, which form a conurbation around the city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hanley</span> Human settlement in England

Hanley is one of the six towns that, along with Burslem, Longton, Fenton, Tunstall and Stoke-upon-Trent, amalgamated to form the City of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Staffordshire Potteries</span> Historic ceramic-producing region within the present Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England

The Staffordshire Potteries is the industrial area encompassing the six towns Burslem, Fenton, Hanley, Longton, Stoke and Tunstall, which is now the city of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. North Staffordshire became a centre of ceramic production in the early 17th century, due to the local availability of clay, salt, lead and coal.

Arthur Berry was an English playwright, poet, teacher and artist, who was born in Smallthorne, Stoke-on-Trent. His individual creative work became deeply rooted in the culture, people and landscape of the industrial pottery town of Burslem.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Creamware</span> Cream-coloured, refined earthenware with a lead glaze over a pale body

Creamware is a cream-coloured refined earthenware with a lead glaze over a pale body, known in France as faïence fine, in the Netherlands as Engels porselein, and in Italy as terraglia inglese. It was created about 1750 by the potters of Staffordshire, England, who refined the materials and techniques of salt-glazed earthenware towards a finer, thinner, whiter body with a brilliant glassy lead glaze, which proved so ideal for domestic ware that it supplanted white salt-glaze wares by about 1780. It was popular until the 1840s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charlotte Rhead</span> English ceramics designer

Charlotte Rhead was an English ceramics designer active in the 1920s and the 1930s in the Potteries area of Staffordshire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederick Hurten Rhead</span>

Frederick Hurten Rhead (1880–1942) was a ceramicist and a major figure in the Arts and Crafts movement. A native of England, worked as a potter in the United States for most of his career. In addition to teaching pottery techniques, Rhead was highly influential in both studio and commercial pottery. He worked for the Roseville Pottery, established his own Rhead Pottery (1913–1917), and in 1935 designed the highly successful Fiesta ware for Homer Laughlin China Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Staffordshire Hoard</span> Anglo-Saxon hoard discovered in 2009

The Staffordshire Hoard is the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork yet found. It consists of almost 4,600 items and metal fragments, amounting to a total of 5.1 kg (11 lb) of gold, 1.4 kg (3 lb) of silver and some 3,500 pieces of garnet cloisonné jewellery. It is described by the historian Cat Jarman as "possibly the finest collection of early medieval artefacts ever discovered".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marc-Louis Solon</span>

Marc-Louis-Emmanuel Solon, pseudonym Miles, was a renowned French porcelain artist. After beginning his career at the Sèvres Pottery, he moved to Stoke-on-Trent in 1870 to work at Mintons Ltd, where he became the leading exponent of the technique of ceramic decoration called pâte-sur-pâte. His work commanded high prices in the late Victorian period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mercian Trail</span> Group of museums and historical sites in the West Midlands

The Mercian Trail is the name given to a group of museums and historical sites in the West Midlands of England that will be used to display objects from the Staffordshire Hoard. The trail is organised by a partnership of Lichfield District, Tamworth Borough Council, Staffordshire County Council, Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Birmingham City Council, and features the following locations:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Potteries Electric Traction Company</span>

The Potteries Electric Traction Company operated a tramway service in The Potteries between 1899 and 1928.

The Minton Archive is a collection of records for the English pottery firm Minton. The archive was originally housed in the firm's works at London Road, Stoke-on-Trent. It was catalogued by Alyn Giles Jones (1928-2000), Archivist and Keeper of Manuscripts at the University of Wales, Bangor, who acted as archival consultant for the Minton china company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Greatbatch</span>

William Greatbatch was a noted potter at Fenton, Staffordshire, from the mid-eighteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. Fenton was one of the six towns of the Staffordshire Potteries, which were joined in the early 20th century to become the city of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Staffordshire helmet</span> 7th century Anglo-Saxon helmet

The Staffordshire helmet is an Anglo-Saxon helmet discovered in 2009 as part of the Staffordshire Hoard. It is part of the largest discovery of contemporary gold and silver metalwork in Britain, which contained more than 4,000 precious fragments, approximately a third of which came from a single high-status helmet. Following those found at Benty Grange (1848), Sutton Hoo (1939), Coppergate (1982), Wollaston (1997), and Shorwell (2004), it is only the sixth known Anglo-Saxon helmet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leekfrith torcs</span> Archaeological find in Staffordshire, England, in 2016, comprising four iron age gold torcs

The Leekfrith torcs are four Iron Age gold torcs found by two hobby metal detectorists in December 2016 in a field in Leekfrith, north Staffordshire, England. The find consists of three neck torcs and a smaller bracelet, which were located in proximity to each other. They are believed to be the oldest Iron Age gold jewellery found in Britain. Subsequent archaeological examination of the area did not uncover further objects.

Colin Melbourne was an English sculptor, ceramicist, painter and academic. He is known particularly for several statues that stand in various locations in Stoke-on-Trent.

References

  1. 1 2 Jenkins, J.G, ed. (1963). A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 8. London: Victoria County History. pp. 259–271.
  2. "About Us". Stoke-on-Trent museums. Stoke-on-Trent City Council. Retrieved 23 August 2020.
  3. 1 2 "Battle of Britain: Restored Spitfire unveiled in Stoke-on-Trent". BBCNews. 15 September 2021. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  4. Warbrook, Colette (17 January 2018). "The day the Spitfire arrived at the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, in Hanley, in 1985". The sentinel. Retrieved 31 August 2020. 
  5. http://www.esci.keele.ac.uk/nsgga/bulletin/bulletin093.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]
  6. 1 2 "Film of Titanic captain Edward Smith at Potteries Museum". BBC News. 11 February 2012. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
  7. 1 2 "'Oldest' Iron Age gold work in Britain found in Staffordshire". BBC Online . 28 February 2017. Retrieved 28 February 2017.