The Ruskin - Library, Museum and Research Centre is an archive, Accredited Museum, and research centre at

University of Lancaster , mottoeng = Truth lies open to all , established = , endowment = £13.9 million , budget = £317.9 million , type = Public , city = Bailrigg, City of Lancaster , country = England , coor = , campus = Bailrigg , faculty = ...

, in the north of England. The Director of The Ruskin is Professor Sandra Kemp. Prior to 2019, The Ruskin - Library, Museum and Research Centre was known as the Ruskin Library. The Ruskin is home to The Ruskin Whitehouse Collection, the world's largest assemblage of works by artist, writer, environmentalist and social thinker

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and pol ...

(1819–1900), and his circle. The collection is on display in The Ruskin building at Lancaster University, designed for the collection by Sir Richard MacCormac, and

Brantwood Brantwood is a historic house museum in Cumbria, England, overlooking Coniston Water. It has been the home of a number of prominent people. The house and grounds are administered by a charitable trust, the house being a museum dedicated to Jo ...

, Ruskin's house, garden and estate on

Coniston Water Coniston Water in the English county of Cumbria is the third-largest lake in the Lake District by volume (after Windermere and Ullswater), and the fifth-largest by area. It is five miles long by half a mile wide (8 km by 800 m), has a ...

. The Collection was purchased by

in 2019, with support from the

National Heritage Memorial Fund The National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) was set up in 1980 to save the most outstanding parts of the British national heritage, in memory of those who have given their lives for the UK. It replaced the National Land Fund which had fulfilled the ...

. The Ruskin launched on 26 September 2019 with the exhibition, ‘Ruskin: Museum of the Near Future’, to mark the bicentenary of Ruskin's birth in 1819. In 2021, Lancaster University announced that The Ruskin would close until 2024 to enable planned capital works to take place. During the temporary closure, The Ruskin's programmes of exhibitions, events, research and learning are taking place digitally and off-site.

The Ruskin Whitehouse Collection

The Ruskin Whitehouse Collection was formed by the educationalist and Liberal MP,

John Howard Whitehouse John Howard Whitehouse (1873–1955) was the founder and first Warden of Bembridge School on the Isle of Wight, United Kingdom, and a Member of Parliament. His father, George Whitehouse, was a Quaker and an uncompromising Gladstonian Liberal wh ...

(1873–1955). It is the most extensive collection of Ruskin's works in the world, and the most widely consulted because of its depth and range. The collection contains thousands of paintings, drawings and diagrams, letters and manuscripts, photographs and daguerreotypes, a library - including Ruskin's own collection - and a complete repository of critical writing on Ruskin. Every aspect of Ruskin's polymathic interests are represented, from architecture and the arts, to political economy and the natural sciences.

2019 Purchase

In 2019, the purchase of The Ruskin Whitehouse Collection at Lancaster University was funded by the Education Trust Limited and the Whitehouse Trust and with the support of the National Heritage Memorial Fund; Art Fund;

Garfield Weston Foundation The Garfield Weston Foundation is a grant-giving charity based in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1958 by Canadian businessman W. Garfield Weston (1898–1978), who during his lifetime contributed to numerous humanitarian causes, both ...

; Bowland Trust;

Friends of the National Libraries Friends of the National Libraries (FNL) is a British registered charity founded in 1931 that supports the British Library, the National Library of Scotland The National Library of Scotland (NLS) ( gd, Leabharlann Nàiseanta na h-Alba, sco, Nait ...

; John R Murray Charitable Trust;

Guild of St George The Guild of St George is a charitable Education Trust, based in England but with a worldwide membership, which tries to uphold the values and put into practice the ideas of its founder, John Ruskin (1819–1900). History Ruskin, a Victorian ...

; Aldama Foundation;

Pilgrim Trust The Pilgrim Trust is a national grant-making trust in the United Kingdom. It is based in London and is a registered charity under English law. It was founded in 1930 with a two million pound grant by Edward Harkness, an American philanthropist. T ...

; and the Cohen Foundation.

The Building

MacCormac Jamieson Prichard MJP Architects is an employee-owned British architectural practice established in 1972 by Sir Richard MacCormac, and based in Spitalfields, London. The practice officially changed its name from MacCormac Jamieson Prichard to MJP Architects in Jun ...

,"Richard MacCormac, former Riba president, 1938-2014"
''Financial Times''. Retrieved 2016-06-19. it was opened in 1998 by Princess Alexandra, The Hon Lady Ogilvy. It subsequently won the ''

Independent on Sunday ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...

'' Building of the Year Award 1996, the

Royal Fine Art Commission The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) was an executive non-departmental public body of the UK government, established in 1999. It was funded by both the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for ...

BSkyB Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...

Building of the Year University Winner 1998, and Millennium Products status awarded by the

Design Council The Design Council, formerly the Council of Industrial Design, is a United Kingdom charity incorporated by Royal Charter. Its stated mission is "to champion great design that improves lives and makes things better". It was instrumental in the prom ...

in 1999.

Activities

The Collection is loaned to institutions internationally, across Europe, America and East Asia. The Ruskin offers a programme of temporary exhibitions, talks, lectures and performances, and creative workshops for all ages. Since 2020, these have taken place digitally. The Ruskin Whitehouse Collection is used in learning programmes taking place at Lancaster University, local schools and colleges, and continuing education, led by museum staff. The Ruskin Research Centre is integrated with The Ruskin's public-facing programme, producing ‘live’ research in partnership with its communities, and through its established seminar series and journal.

References

External links