The Tolson Memorial Museum, also known as Tolson Museum, is housed in Ravensknowle Hall, a Victorian mansion in Ravensknowle Park on Wakefield Road in

Huddersfield Huddersfield is a market town in the Kirklees district in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confluence into ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

, England. The museum was given to the town by Legh Tolson in memory of his two nephews who were killed in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Originally a natural history museum, it is run by

Kirklees Council Kirklees Council is the local authority providing most local government services for the borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It is a metropolitan district council and one of five constituent councils of the West Yorkshire Combined Aut ...

and has a wide range of exhibits related to the area's cultural and industrial history.

History

Ravensknowle Hall was built in the late-1850s for a local textile baron, John Beaumont. The house was designed by the London architect, Richard Tress who designed the mansion in a "palatial Italian style" and cost about £20,000. Beaumont died in 1889 leaving the house to his daughter who sold it to a relative, Legh Tolson. In 1919 Legh Tolson gave Ravensknowle Hall to Huddersfield Corporation to use as a museum in memory of his two nephews, brothers 2nd Lieutenant Robert Huntriss Tolson, killed on 1 July 1916 at the Battle of the Somme, and 2nd Lieutenant James Martin Tolson who died in the closing stages of the

on 2 October 1918. Their sisters were the suffragettes Catherine Tolson and Helen Tolson. Originally a natural history museum with an extensive collection of rocks and fossils, the museum was formally opened on 27 May 1922 under the directorship of

Thomas William Woodhead Thomas William Woodhead (1863–1940) was an English plant ecologist. He was early proponent of ecology, who helped the growth of plant ecology as a discipline in England, and later became Professor of Biology at Huddersfield Technical College. ...

, a prominent local

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclu ...

ecologist Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

and Professor of Biology at Huddersfield Technical College, with Seth Lister Mosley being appointed the museum's first

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

. His son, Charles Mosley, was appointed as Assistant Curator before succeeding his father in 1925. Charles remained curator until 1933. The Tolson Museum was revamped from the 1980s to feature the industrial history of the Huddersfield area, including the manufacturing of textiles and road vehicles.

Exhibits

Exhibits of local archaeology, weaving machinery and textiles, and natural history with an extensive collection of stuffed birds occupy the museum galleries. A reconstruction of a Victorian schoolroom allows children to experience the type of teaching used in that era. A ground floor extension at the rear of the building houses a transport exhibition including roadbuilding techniques and horsedrawn and motor vehicles including Britain's rarest car – the three-wheeled LSD – which was manufactured in Huddersfield between 1919 and 1924. It was made by Sykes and Sugden Ltd from 1919 to 1923 and then by the LSD Motor Company in Mirfield from 1923 to 1924. Another local make of car, the Valveless, made by David Brown Ltd., is on display after being recovered from South Africa. The Grade II

listed Listed may refer to: * Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm * Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic * Endangered species in biology * Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...

remains of a

hypocaust A hypocaust ( la, hypocaustum) is a system of central heating in a building that produces and circulates hot air below the floor of a room, and may also warm the walls with a series of pipes through which the hot air passes. This air can warm th ...

, comprising the rubble columns and tiled floor from

Slack Roman Fort Slack Roman Fort was a castellum near Outlane, to the west of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, England. Its site is a scheduled monument. The ruins of the fort which lay alongside the Pennine section of the Roman road from Deva Victrix Deva ...

were moved and reconstructed in Ravensknowle Park.

References

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