The 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.) St Oswald's Priory Anglo-Saxon cross.jpg
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. Newnham-on-Severn from Dean Hill - William Turner of Oxford.jpg
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. John Cooke (d.1528), and Joan Cooke (d.1545).jpg
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. Gloucester Old Spot by John Miles 1834.jpg
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.
A miniature of Jemmy Wood, the famous Gloucester Miser, from the art collection. Jemmy Wood miniature.jpg
A miniature of Jemmy Wood, the famous Gloucester Miser, from the art collection.

The Museum of Gloucester 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]

Gloucester City and Non-metropolitan district in England

Gloucester is a city and district in Gloucestershire, in the South West of England, of which it is the county town. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the southwest.

Gloucester Day is a recently reinstated annual day of celebration of the City of Gloucester's history and culture.

Contents

In March 2016, The Museum rebranded itself and used to be called Gloucester City Museum & Art Gallery. [3]

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

Gloucester Life

Gloucester Life is a museum which is housed in two of the oldest buildings in the City of Gloucester, a Tudor merchant's house and a 17th-century town house. The museum, at 99–103 Westgate Street, is devoted to the social history of Gloucestershire.

Westgate, Gloucester

The Westgate area of Gloucester is centred on Westgate Street, one of the four main streets of Gloucester and one of the oldest parts of the city. The population of the Westgate ward in Gloucester was 6,687 at the time of the 2011 Census.

Social history, often called the new social history, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in history departments in Britain, Canada, France, Germany, and the United States. In the two decades from 1975 to 1995, the proportion of professors of history in American universities identifying with social history rose from 31% to 41%, while the proportion of political historians fell from 40% to 30%. In the history departments of British and Irish universities in 2014, of the 3410 faculty members reporting, 878 (26%) identified themselves with social history while political history came next with 841 (25%).

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. [4] [5]

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, [4] 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. [6] [7]

Thomas Graham Jackson English architect

Sir Thomas Graham Jackson, 1st Baronet was one of the most distinguished English architects of his generation. He is best remembered for his work at Oxford for Oxford Military College as well as the University, notably: the Examination Schools, most of Hertford College, much of Brasenose College, ranges at Trinity College and Somerville College, and the Acland Nursing Home in North Oxford. Much of his career was devoted to the architecture of education and he worked extensively for various schools, notably Giggleswick and his own alma mater Brighton College. Jackson designed the former town hall in Tipperary Town, Ireland. He also worked on many parish churches and the college chapel at the University of Wales, Lampeter. He is also famous for designing the chapel at Radley College. The former City of Oxford High School for Boys in George Street, Oxford, Oxford is another building designed by him.

English Heritage charity responsible for the National Heritage Collection of England


English Heritage is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that it uses these properties to ‘bring the story of England to life for over 10 million people each year’.

Originally only on the ground floor, a first floor was added in 1958 which was opened by the archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler. [4]

Mortimer Wheeler British archaeologist and Army officer (1890 – 1976)

Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler was a British archaeologist and officer in the British Army. Over the course of his career, he served as Director of both the National Museum of Wales and London Museum, Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, and the founder and Honorary Director of the Institute of Archaeology in London, in addition to writing twenty-four books on archaeological subjects.

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. [9] [10]

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. [11]

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 Æthelred, Ealdorman of Mercia and his wife Æthelflæd in the 890s. [12]

Selected publications

See also

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St Mary de Crypt Church, Gloucester Grade I listed church in the United Kingdom

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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. ↑ "Gloucester museums unveil major rebrand and name changes". Gloucester Citizen. 21 March 2016. Retrieved 2 April 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Gloucester Museum Doubles Its Space" in The Times, 25 April 1958, p. 12.
  5. ↑ "Gloucester Museum's Centenary" in The Times, 14 March 1960, p. 14.
  6. ↑ Historic England. "CITY MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY (1245964)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 10 September 2011.
  7. ↑ 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.
  8. ↑ Roman Colony & Legionary Fortress Gloucester, Gloucestershire. Archived 2 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine roman-britain.org 29 August 2010. Retrieved 11 September 2011.
  9. 1 2 Gloucester City Museum & Art Gallery. Gloucestershire County Council, 2011. Retrieved 10 September 2011.
  10. ↑ Your Paintings: Gloucester museum's Oliver Cromwell. BBC Gloucestershire 23 June 2011. Retrieved 10 September 2011.
  11. ↑ Newnham-on-Severn from Dean Hill. artfund.org 2011. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
  12. ↑ "Archaeology: Signs of Saxon Minster" by Carolyn Heighway in The Times, 13 March 1976, p. 16.

Coordinates: 51°51′49″N2°14′40″W / 51.8635°N 2.2445°W / 51.8635; -2.2445

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