The Bristol Industrial Museum was a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, located on Prince's Wharf beside the

Floating Harbour Bristol Harbour is the harbour in the city of Bristol, England. The harbour covers an area of . It is the former natural tidal river Avon through the city but was made into its current form in 1809 when the tide was prevented from going out per ...

and which closed in 2006. On display were items from Bristol's industrial past – including aviation, car and bus manufacture, and printing – and exhibits documenting Bristol's maritime history. The museum was managed by

Bristol City Council Bristol City Council is the local authority of Bristol, England. The council is a unitary authority, and is unusual in the United Kingdom in that its executive function is controlled by a directly elected mayor of Bristol. Bristol has 34 wards ...

along with nearby preserved industrial relics along Prince's Wharf, including the Bristol Harbour Railway, cranes and a small fleet of preserved vessels. The railway, cranes and vessels all now form part of the working exhibits at M Shed Museum. The museum closed its doors to the public on 29 October 2006.

M Shed M Shed is a museum in Bristol, England, located on Prince's Wharf beside the Floating Harbour in a dockside transit shed formerly occupied by Bristol Industrial Museum. The museum's name is derived from the way that the port identified each of i ...

, the new Museum of Bristol has been created on the site, keeping the same façade and many of the exhibits. It opened 17 June 2011. A website has been created to try to capture the essence of the museum and some of its memories. It can be found at http://bristolindustrialmuseum.epizy.com/

Overview

The museum's indoor exhibits were housed on the two floors of a former quayside transit shed.

Road transport

On the lower floor was the transport gallery, which housed various land transport exhibits with a particular Bristol slant. Exhibits included what is believed to be the world's first purpose-built holiday

caravan Caravan or caravans may refer to: Transport and travel *Caravan (travellers), a group of travellers journeying together **Caravanserai, a place where a caravan could stop *Camel train, a convoy using camels as pack animals *Convoy, a group of veh ...

to be compared with a 1950s equivalent, the Grenville steam carriage,

bicycle A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A is called a cyclist, or bicyclist. Bic ...

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike, or trike (if three-wheeled)) is a two or three-wheeled motor vehicle steered by a handlebar. Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes: long-distance travel, commuting, cruising ...

cars A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as t ...

carriage A carriage is a private four-wheeled vehicle for people and is most commonly horse-drawn. Second-hand private carriages were common public transport, the equivalent of modern cars used as taxis. Carriage suspensions are by leather strapping an ...

s and

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

es.

Aviation

On the upper floor the aviation gallery told the story of Bristol's involvement in

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...

manufacture and contained a collection of Bristol-made aero engines, a Bristol-built helicopter, a mock-up flight deck of

Concorde The Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde () is a retired Franco-British supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation (later Aérospatiale) and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France an ...

and scale models showing the many aircraft built in the city. On the same floor the story of the

Port of Bristol The Port of Bristol comprises the commercial docks situated in and near the city of Bristol in England. They are now operated by the Bristol Port Company, which owns both Avonmouth and Royal Portbury Docks. Until 1991 the Port of Bristol Authori ...

was told with models, paintings and other exhibits.

Print & Pack

The adjacent ''Print & Pack'' gallery told the story of one of Bristol's biggest industries with machinery and products. This was a particularly popular working exhibit, with live demonstrations of printing machinery such as Linotype and

Letterpress Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing. Using a printing press, the process allows many copies to be produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. A worker comp ...

. These same exhibits also printed many of the museum's own leaflets, tickets and flyers.

Bristol and Transatlantic Slavery gallery

Elsewhere in the museum, the ''Bristol and Transatlantic Slavery'' gallery told the story of Bristol's involvement in the

trans-Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...

between the UK,

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

and the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

, from its early days through abolition and to recent times.

Historic ships, cranes and trains

Normally moored in front of the developing new museum is the collection of historic vessels, which included the 1934

fireboat A fireboat or fire-float is a specialized watercraft with pumps and nozzles designed for fighting shoreline and shipboard fires. The first fireboats, dating to the late 18th century, were tugboats, retrofitted with firefighting equipmen ...

"''

Pyronaut ''Pyronaut'' (originally ''Bristol Phoenix II'') is a specialised form of fireboat known as a fire-float. It was built in 1934 by Charles Hill & Sons Ltd., Albion Dock Bristol, Yard No. 208. Registered number 333833. She is owned by Bristol Mus ...

''" and two tugs: ''John King'' built as a diesel tug in 1935 and ''

Mayflower ''Mayflower'' was an English ship that transported a group of English families, known today as the Pilgrims, from England to the New World in 1620. After a grueling 10 weeks at sea, ''Mayflower'', with 102 passengers and a crew of about 30, r ...

'', the world's oldest surviving steam tug built in 1861. On the quayside outside the museum are four electrically powered cargo cranes built in 1951 by

Stothert & Pitt Stothert & Pitt was a British engineering company founded in 1855 in Bath, England. It was the builder of various engineering products ranging from Dock cranes to construction plant and household cast iron items. It went out of business in 1989 ...

. A short distance to the west is much older crane, the sole surviving operational example of a

Fairbairn steam crane A Fairbairn crane is a type of crane (machine), crane of an 'improved design', patented in 1850 by William Fairbairn, Sir William Fairbairn. There are numerous hand-powered versions around the world and one surviving steam-powered example in Bri ...

. Built in 1878, also by

, it was in regular use until 1973 loading and unloading ships and railway wagons with loads up to 35 tons. It has been restored and is in working order, operating on some bank holidays and the

Bristol Harbour Festival The Bristol Harbour Festival is a festival held annually in the English city of Bristol, and which the celebrates the city's maritime heritage and the importance of Bristol's docks and harbour. Most of the activities, including live music, street ...

. Bristol Harbour Railway continues to offer train rides along the quayside on bank holidays, using restored steam locomotives and rolling stock.

References

{{Culture in Bristol Bristol Harbourside Grade II listed buildings in Bristol Grade II listed museum buildings Industry museums in England Museums in Bristol Defunct museums in England