Hastings Museum & Art Gallery is 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 ...

and

art gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

located in,

Hastings Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...

East Sussex East Sussex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England on the English Channel coast. It is bordered by Kent to the north and east, West Sussex to the west, and Surrey to the north-west. The largest settlement in East Su ...

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 ...

. Established in 1892, it originally resided in the

Brassey Institute The Brassey Institute at 13 Claremont in Hastings, England, was founded by Thomas Brassey in 1879 and, as the Brassey School of Science and Art, provided for the study of arts and the sciences. It opened a chemistry laboratory in the Old Town of ...

(now the town's library), but moved to its current location in 1927. it had around 97,000 objects of local history, natural sciences, fine and decorative arts, and world cultures. The early local history gallery recounts the history of the area from prehistory to the Saxons. Local wildlife is displayed in dioramas of different local habitats, and there is a dinosaur gallery. Other galleries include local wildlife and a Native North American collection, featuring the Plains and Sub-Arctic areas and the life of Hastings-born conservationist Archibald Belaney, who adopted the name "Grey Owl".

Building

The museum has been based at John's place since 1928. John's Place was designed in 1923 as a private house. It made of red brick with sandstone dressings. The building has a distinctive character with a crenelated roof line, columned loggia, oriel window and studded oak doors. It was bought by Hastings Corporation and converted into the museum in 1928. In 1932 an extension was added to create an art gallery and house the Durbar Hall, part of an Indian palace built for the Indian and Colonial Exhibition of 1886. A store was added to the back of the building in similar style in 1988. A major refurbishment took place in 2006–7, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, which expanded the floor space by 40%, improved access and facilities and introduced environmental control and monitoring.

The Durbar Hall

The Durbar Hall was constructed for the 1886 Colonial & Indian Exhibition in London. It was donated in 1919 as part of the Brassey Collection. The hall was the centrepiece of the Indian Court, a series of buildings designed and laid out like a traditional Indian palace. It was designed by

Caspar Purdon Clarke Sir Caspar Purdon Clarke (21 December 1846 – 29 March 1911) was an English architect and museum director. Early years Born in 1846, Clarke was the second son of Edward Marmaduke Clarke and Mary Agnes Close. He was educated at Gaultier's Scho ...

and was built on-site by Mohammed Baksh and Mohammed Juma. Baksh and Juma were skilled woodcarvers brought over from the Punjab specially to do the wood carving required for the exhibition. During the exhibition, the hall was the

Prince of Wales Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...

official reception pavilion. At the conclusion of the exhibition

Thomas Brassey, 1st Earl Brassey Thomas Brassey, 1st Earl Brassey (11 February 1836 – 23 February 1918), was a British Liberal Party politician, Governor of Victoria and founder of ''The Naval Annual''. Background and education Brassey was the eldest son of the railway ma ...

bought parts of the Indian Court and had them remodelled and installed as an extension to his Park Lane house. It was removed from London by

Thomas Brassey, 2nd Earl Brassey Thomas Allnutt Brassey, 2nd Earl Brassey TD, DL, JP, MInstNA, AMICE (7 March 1863 – 12 November 1919), styled Viscount Hythe between 1911 and 1918, was a British peer, who was for many years editor or joint editor of ''Brassey's Naval Annu ...

and gifted to Hastings in 1919. It was kept in storage until the 1930s, when it was re-constructed at the museum as it looked in the Brassey family's London home. Today the hall is lower floor of the hall is regularly used for many different types of events, including talks, theatre performances, preschool groups and weddings & civil partnerships. The upper hall is one of the museum's world cultures galleries.

Collections

The collections of Hastings Museum & Art Gallery have been built up since 1890 when the Hastings and St Leonards Museum Association was founded. The collections are thought to number around 97,000 objects from around the world.

Community history

The museum's community history collections contain local and social history objects from Hastings and the surrounding areas. Together with the archaeology and decorative art collections they tell the story of the life and development of Hastings and the surrounding area from the 1500s to the present day. The museum's local and social history collections contain objects relating to tourism, fishing and boat building, smuggling, wrecks, the Cinque Ports, the Bonfire Societies, local industries such as ironworking, gypsum and gunpowder manufacturing. There is also a significant number of commemorative and civic items, photographs, guide books and printed ephemera. The collection also includes artefacts relating to domestic life such as cooking, toys and games as well as a number related to local theatre and entertainment, writing, education, law and order, firefighting, transport and the First and Second World Wars. The museum has significant collections relating to well-known local people including

John Logie Baird John Logie Baird FRSE (; 13 August 188814 June 1946) was a Scottish inventor, electrical engineer, and innovator who demonstrated the world's first live working television system on 26 January 1926. He went on to invent the first publicly demo ...

Robert Tressell Robert Noonan (17 April 1870 – 3 February 1911), born Robert Croker and best known by the pen name Robert Tressell, was an Irish writer best known for his novel ''The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists''. Tressell spent his entire early adult w ...

and

James Burton James Edward Burton (born August 21, 1939, in Dubberly, Louisiana) is an American guitarist. A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since 2001 (his induction speech was given by longtime fan Keith Richards), Burton has also been recognized ...

and

Decimus Burton Decimus Burton (30 September 1800 – 14 December 1881) was one of the foremost English architects and landscapers of the 19th century. He was the foremost Victorian architect in the Roman revival, Greek revival, Georgian neoclassical and Reg ...

World cultures (ethnography)

Hastings Museum has a diverse group of world cultures collections (

Ethnography Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

). The world cultures collection includes objects from India, Burma, China, Japan, Indonesia, the Middle East, the Balkans, Scandinavia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia, South American and North America. The largest part of this collection area was donated in 1919 by the Brassey family and come from the personal museum of

Anna Brassey Anna Brassey, Baroness Brassey ( Allnutt; 7 October 1839 – 14 September 1887) was an English traveller and writer. Her bestselling book ''A Voyage in the Sunbeam, our Home on the Ocean for Eleven Months'' (1878) describes a voyage around the ...

(1839-1887). Lady Brassey was an avid collector and photographer. She collected the majority of the material while travelling the world in the 1870s and 1880s. The largest number of objects come from the Pacific and Melanesia. Other collections in this area include Ambrose Jones Collection of stone carvings from Costa Rica and the Cullen Collection of artefacts from the Cook Islands and New Guinea. The museum has a large collection of material related to Native North Americans, including objects collected by local writer and sculptor

Clare Sheridan Clare Consuelo Sheridan (née Frewen; 9 September 1885 – 31 May 1970), was an English sculptor, journalist and writer known primarily for creating busts for famous sitters and writing diaries recounting her worldly travels. She was a cousin ...

on her visit to America in 1937. The Blackmore Collection was bequeathed in 1982 and relates mainly to the

Plains Indians Plains Indians or Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies are the Native American tribes and First Nation band governments who have historically lived on the Interior Plains (the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies) of N ...

. The museum is also home to the large collection of Colin Taylor, including a selection of high-quality items from the

Subarctic The subarctic zone is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic, north of humid continental regions and covering much of Alaska, Canada, Iceland, the north of Scandinavia, Siberia, and the Cairngorms. Generally, ...

region. The museum collection relating to

Grey Owl Archibald Stansfeld Belaney (; September 18, 1888 – April 13, 1938), commonly known as Grey Owl, was a British-born conservationist, fur trapper, and writer who disguised himself as a Native American man. While he achieved fame as a co ...

, who was born and brought up in Hastings in the early years of the 20th century and adopted a Native American persona.

Archaeology

The museum's archaeological collection contains artefacts from Hastings and the surrounding area. There is also a small collection of artefacts from other parts of the world. The collection contains material from most British historical periods. There is a large number of flints from the

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...

to the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

including those excavated by J Moore in

Hastings Country Park Hastings Country Park was formed in 1974 and covers east of Hastings in England. Sandstone cliffs, glens covered with gorse and trees, footpaths, nature trails, picnic areas and ample car parking are some of the features at the country park. Set ...

. There are also good examples of Egyptian, Greek and Roman pottery from all periods. As well as a few pieces from pre-Columbian South America, New Zealand, Florida, Sweden and Denmark.

Numismatics

The

numismatics Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals and related objects. Specialists, known as numismatists, are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, but the discipline also includ ...

collection is representative of coins from the Roman period through the 20th century. There are good examples from Saxon period from Sussex Mints, including Hastings. Tokens are well represented with over 700 local hop tokens and other trade tokens in the collection. The collection also includes commemorative and civic medallions and campaign medals.

Natural history

The museum's

vertebrates Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, ...

collections is mainly focused on birds collected locally in the early 20th century. This includes examples of the

Hastings Rarities The Hastings Rarities affair is a case of statistically demonstrated ornithological fraud that misled the bird world for decades in the 20th century. The discovery of the long-running hoax shocked ornithologists. The Hastings Rarities were a se ...

. There are a few examples of larger mammal and fish also in the collection. The

Entomology Entomology () is the science, scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such ...

and

Invertebrates Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

collections are limited to butterflies, moths and other insects, shells, corals and sponges.

Geology

The geology collection consists of plant and animal fossils from the local area, including the collections of

Teilhard de Chardin Pierre Teilhard de Chardin ( (); 1 May 1881 – 10 April 1955) was a French Jesuit priest, scientist, paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and ...

, Philip (James) Rufford and

Samuel Beckles Samuel Husbands Beckles (12 April 1814, in Barbados – 4 September 1890, in Hastings) was a Bajan/English 19th-century lawyer, turned dinosaur hunter, who collected remains in Sussex and the Isle of Wight. In 1854 he described bird-like trackw ...

. Hastings has long been a classic site for

Iguanodon ''Iguanodon'' ( ; meaning 'iguana-tooth'), named in 1825, is a genus of iguanodontian dinosaur. While many species have been classified in the genus ''Iguanodon'', dating from the late Jurassic Period to the early Cretaceous Period of Asia, Eu ...

remains. The collection has many examples of

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

fossils A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...

including footprints from the Cretaceous rocks at Fairlight and Galley Hill.

Fine art

The museum's fine art collection consists largely of topographical paintings, drawings, prints and photographs of Hastings and the surrounding are. The large number of artworks in this collection date from the late 18th century to the present day. The museum also has a smaller collection of 20th century British art and examples from the main European Schools. There is also a small collection of sculpture from local artists as well. The museum's oil paintings and sculptures are available to view on the Art UK website.

Decorative art

Maiolica Dish by Federigo of Modena, 1593–1594

The museum's decorative art collections comprise ceramics, furniture, silverware and jewellery. The largest and most significant is the ceramics collection. It includes a wide range of work from ancient civilisations through to contemporary studio pieces. It includes rare examples such as the large maiolica piece known as the Modena Dish. The collections include a comprehensive selection of Sussex pottery. The furniture collection is limited. It includes many fine examples of Sussex firebacks ranging in date from the 16th to the 18th century. There are also a number of clocks and cased verge watches from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Costume and textiles

The costume and textiles collection includes a range of local clothes such as smocks, waistcoats, women's and children's clothing, lace, whitework and samplers. There is also a good collection of English, French and German dolls.

Covid-19 response

On March 17, 2020, the museum closed to the public due to the

lockdown A lockdown is a restriction policy for people, community or a country to stay where they are, usually due to specific risks (such as COVID-19) that could possibly harm the people if they move and interact freely. The term is used for a prison ...

introduced by the UK Government to tackle the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

pandemic A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic (epidemiology), endemic disease wi ...

. Hastings Museum & Art Gallery launched Hastings Digital Museum in response. The digital museum aimed to "counter the increase in social isolation and loneliness that COVID-19 is likely to cause." The digital museum ran across the museum's social media accounts on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

and

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

using #HastingsDigitalMuseum. Digital content was produced by the museum team and also by freelancers. Funding to do this came from the museum's core budget, funding from a local charity, Chalk Cliff Trust, and Arts Council England's Museums and Schools Programme. The digital museum produced a range of activities including immersive game experiences, community art projects and creative workshops. Each of the activities they produced focused on involving people and encouraged participation. Some of the activities now feature on other websites; Hastings Digital Quilt is on

Art UK Art UK is a cultural, education charity in the United Kingdom, previously known as the Public Catalogue Foundation. Since 2003, it has digitised more than 220,000 paintings by more than 40,000 artists and is now expanding the digital collection t ...

and the

LGBTQ+ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is ...

inspired zine activity is on

The British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It documen ...

site. The museum also launched a contemporary collecting project to record peoples' everyday experiences of lockdown. Volunteers were asked "to write as much or as little as they want to each day, but to make an entry every day" sharing their daily activities and feelings. Over 120 people volunteered to record their experiences. They also invited local black and ethnic minority creatives to respond to the

murder of George Floyd On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's n ...

in the US and the

Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (abbreviated BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. Its primary concerns are incidents of police bruta ...

movement. The museum supported four creatives to respond and shared their work through the museum's social media accounts.

References

External links

Hastings Museum & Art Gallery website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hastings Museum and Art Gallery 1892 establishments in England Archaeological museums in England Art museums and galleries in East Sussex Asian art museums in the United Kingdom Buildings and structures in Hastings Decorative arts museums in England History museums in East Sussex Local museums in East Sussex Museums established in 1892 Natural history museums in England