The Cuming Museum in

Walworth Road The A215 is an A roads in Great Britain, A road in south London, starting at Elephant and Castle and finishing around Shirley, London, Shirley. It runs through the London Boroughs of London Borough of Lambeth, Lambeth, London Borough of Southw ...

Elephant and Castle The Elephant and Castle is an area around a major road junction in London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark. The name also informally refers to much of Walworth and Newington, due to the proximity of the London Underground station ...

, within the

London Borough of Southwark The London Borough of Southwark ( ) in South London forms part of Inner London and is connected by bridges across the River Thames to the City of London and London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was created in 1965 when three smaller council areas ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

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 ...

, was a museum housing the collection of the Cuming family and later collections on Southwark's history. As of 2021, its collections have been rehoused in a new Southwark Heritage Centre. Richard Cuming (1777–1870) started his collecting life when he was only five with some fossils and a coin that had been given to him by a family friend. That ignited a passion for collecting, which lasted for his lifetime. He made his first significant purchases in 1806 at the sale of the

Leverian Museum The Leverian collection was a natural history and ethnographic collection assembled by Ashton Lever. It was noted for the content it acquired from the voyages of Captain James Cook. For three decades it was displayed in London, being broken up ...

. His interests covered geology, scientific equipment and animalia. The collection was bequeathed to the people of Southwark by his son,

Henry Syer Cuming Henry Syer Cuming (1817 – 7 October 1902) was a British collector of objects, art and antiquities, notable for exposing the Shadwell forgeries, and who bequeathed his collection to what is now the Cuming Museum, in Southwark, South London. C ...

, in 1902, and the museum opened in 1906. As described in Cuming's will, it comprised "My Museum illustrative of Natural History,

Archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

and

Ethnology Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural anthropology, cultural, social anthropolo ...

with my coins and medals and... other curios". The museum galleries were moved from the first floor of the Newington Public Library to the building next door, the former

Walworth Town Hall Walworth Town Hall is a municipal building in Walworth Road, Southwark, London. It is a Grade II listed building. It was built for the vestry of the parish of Newington, opening as the Newington Vestry Hall in 1865. When Newington became part o ...

, in 2006. On 25 March 2013, that building was seriously damaged by fire, severely affecting the museum galleries but leading to only a very small loss from the collections. Around 98% of objects on display at the time of the fire were recovered and were placed in storage to await a solution to the display of the collections and public access to them. The Cuming and local history collections have been re-displayed at the new Southwark Heritage Centre and Walworth Library, 145 Walworth Road SE17 1RW, next door to the former town hall and library complex which once housed the old Newington Library and Cuming Museum.

References

External links

The Cuming Museum website
Museums established in 1906 Biographical museums in London Local museums in London Museums in the London Borough of Southwark 1906 establishments in England category:2013 disestablishments in England {{UK-museum-stub