Stromness Museum is a small independent museum in the town of
Stromness
Stromness (, non, Straumnes; nrn, Stromnes) is the second-most populous town in Orkney, Scotland. It is in the southwestern part of Mainland Orkney. It is a burgh with a parish around the outside with the town of Stromness as its capital.
E ...
in
Orkney
Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...
, Scotland focusing on the town's connections to maritime and natural history. The building which accommodates the museum was originally constructed as the town hall of Stromness and is a Category B
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
.
History
Following significant population growth, largely associated with the fishing industry, the area became a
police burgh
A police burgh was a Scottish burgh which had adopted a "police system" for governing the town. They existed from 1833 to 1975.
The 1833 act
The first police burghs were created under the Burgh Police (Scotland) Act 1833 (3 & 4 Wm IV c.46). Thi ...
in 1856. In this context, the burgh council decided to commission a town hall: the new building was designed in the
neoclassical style
Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing sty ...
, built in
ashlar
Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...
stone and was completed in 1858.
[
The burgh council occupied the ground floor of the building while the Orkney Natural History Society, which had been founded in 1837, established a museum on the first floor of the building in 1858. In the 1920s, the burgh council relocated and the society acquired ownership of the building. The expanded museum was re-opened on the site by ]Lord Lieutenant of Orkney and Shetland
This is a list of people who served as Lord Lieutenant of Orkney and Shetland. The Lieutenancy was replaced by two Lieutenancies, the Lord Lieutenant of Orkney and the Lord Lieutenant of Shetland, in 1948.
* James Douglas, 11th Earl of Morton 17 ...
, Alfred Baikie, in February 1931.
The museum is now owned by Orkney Natural History Society Museum, a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation, with members of the society electing a committee of volunteers to manage the museum.
Collections
The museum's Orkney naval history collections include artifacts recovered from the scuttling of the German fleet at Scapa Flow
Shortly after the end of the First World War, the German Kaiserliche Marine was scuttled by its sailors while held off the harbor of the British Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. The High Seas Fleet was interne ...
and sunken Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
ships, including a dumaresq
The Dumaresq is a mechanical calculating device invented around 1902 by Lieutenant John Dumaresq of the Royal Navy. It is an analogue computer that relates vital variables of the fire control problem to the movement of one's own ship and that ...
from the Dreadnought battleship
The dreadnought (alternatively spelled dreadnaught) was the predominant type of battleship in the early 20th century. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy's , had such an impact when launched in 1906 that similar battleships built after her ...
, HMS ''Vanguard''.
A number of items on display relate to arctic exploration, the 19th century Orcadian explorer John Rae, and indigenous peoples in Northern Canada. Artifacts include one of the only two Halkett boat Halket is a Scottish surname of English (Anglo-Norman) origin.
The Halket surname originated in Renfrewshire Scotland and the family seat was at Pitfirrane Castle near Dunfermline.
Variants of Halket included : Halkett, Halkette, Halkhead, Halkhed ...
s known to still exist, and an Arctic medal awarded to the ill-fated Arctic explorer, John Franklin
Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through ...
.
Other exhibits include ethnographic items collected by Orcadians, William Balfour Baikie
William Balfour Baikie (27 August 182512 December 1864) was a Scottish explorer, naturalist and philologist.
Biography
Baikie was born at Kirkwall, Orkney, eldest son of Captain John Baikie, R.N. He studied medicine at Edinburgh, and, on ob ...
and Jack Renton, and items from James Cook's third voyage which landed in Stromness on its return home.
The museum's natural history collection includes displays of taxidermied birds, fossils, and molluscs, including items collected by Charles Clouston and Robert Rendall
Robert Rendall (1898–1967) was a poet, and amateur naturalist who spent most of his life in Kirkwall, Orkney.
Biography
Robert Rendall was born in Glasgow in 1898 but moved to Orkney with his Westray parents when young. When he was seven years ...
, and the Homosteus milleri fossil discovered by Hugh Miller
Hugh Miller (10 October 1802 – 23/24 December 1856) was a self-taught Scottish geologist and writer, folklorist and an evangelical Christian.
Life and work
Miller was born in Cromarty, the first of three children of Harriet Wright ('' ...
.
In 2016, the museum discovered a 5,000 year old neolithic whalebone figurine in its Skara Brae
Skara Brae is a stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of Skaill on the west coast of Mainland, the largest island in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland. Consisting of ten clustered houses, made of flagstones, in earthen dams ...
collection that had long been considered lost. In 2020, two Egyptian faience
Faience or faïence (; ) is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major ad ...
shabti
The ushabti (also called shabti or shawabti, with a number of variant spellings) was a funerary figurine used in ancient Egyptian funerary practices. The Egyptological term is derived from , which replaced earlier , perhaps the nisba of "' ...
from 1145 to 986 BC were identified in the museum's collection by researchers at the National Museum of Scotland
The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland, was formed in 2006 with the merger of the new Museum of Scotland, with collections relating to Scottish antiquities, culture and history, and the adjacent Royal Scottish Museum (opened in ...
.
See also
*
References
External links
Official website
{{Authority control
Museums in Orkney
Stromness
Maritime museums in Scotland
Natural history museums in Scotland
Museums established in 1837
Charities based in Scotland
Local museums in Scotland
City chambers and town halls in Scotland
Government buildings completed in 1858
Category B listed buildings in Orkney