The Museum of Gloucester in Brunswick Road is the main museum in the city of

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city, non-metropolitan district and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West England, South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean ...

, England. It was extensively renovated following a large National Heritage Lottery Fund grant, and reopened on Gloucester Day, 3 September 2011. In March 2016, the museum rebranded itself; it used to be called the Gloucester City Museum & Art Gallery. Gloucester Life is a smaller museum in Westgate Street, dealing with the

social history Social history, often called history from below, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. Historians who write social history are called social historians. Social history came to prominence in the 1960s, spreading f ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( , ; abbreviated Glos.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire ...

Origins

The museum opened on 12 March 1860 as a private venture in three rooms at ''The Black Swan'', provided rent-free by the poet Sydney Dobell. In 1896 the ''Corporation of the City of Gloucester'' took over the venture.

The building

The Victorian building, in the early Renaissance style, inspired by the work of T.G. Jackson, is Grade II listed by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

. It was originally the ''Price Memorial Hall'' of the ''Gloucester Science and Art Society'', built for Margaret Price as a memorial to her husband William Edwin Price in 1893, and designed by F.S. Waller. The ''Corporation of the City of Gloucester'' took over the building as the ''City Museum & Art Gallery'' in 1902. Originally only on the ground floor, a first floor was added in 1958 which was opened by the archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler.

Collections

Objects in the museum include: *Dinosaur skeletons. *Archaeology, including the Rufus Sita Tombstone, the Iron Age Birdlip Mirror found in 1879."Gloucester Museum Doubles Its Space" in ''The Times'', 25 April 1958, p. 12. and Bon Marché head, found in 1934. *Natural history objects. *Roman and mediaeval artefacts, including the Gloucester tabula set, a rare 11th or 12th century

board game A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects () that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the ...

. *Fine and decorative art items, including

Delftware Delftware or Delft pottery, also known as Delft Blue () or as delf, is a general term now used for Dutch tin-glazed earthenware, a form of faience. Most of it is blue and white pottery, and the city of Delft in the Netherlands was the major cen ...

, Staffordshire figurines and Arts and Crafts Bowls by Alfred and Louise Powell. *Queen Anne furniture. *Local history items including items relating to the Gloucester Railway Carriage & Wagon Company and a bust of local Methodist preacher George Whitfield.

Art collection

The art collection includes about 300 paintings including works by J. M. W. Turner and

Thomas Gainsborough Thomas Gainsborough (; 14 May 1727 (baptised) – 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists o ...

as well as a painting of Oliver Cromwell without his famous warts.Gloucester City Museum & Art Gallery.

Gloucestershire County Council Gloucestershire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Gloucestershire, in England. The council was created in 1889. The council's principal functions are county roads and rights of way, social servi ...

, 2011. Retrieved 10 September 2011. In 1977, the collection acquired a landscape of ''Newnham-on-Severn from Dean Hill'' by William Turner of Oxford with help from The Art Fund. Gloucester Regent magazine March 1987 p2-6 discusses the controversial painting of dog excrement on a silver platter. However local artists praised its daring content.

Activities

In 1976, excavations by the museum's ''Excavation Unit'' at St. Oswald's Priory yielded important new finds relating to the

Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

minster founded by Æthelred,

Ealdorman Ealdorman ( , )"ealdorman"
''Collins English Dictionary''. was an office in the Government ...

Mercia Mercia (, was one of the principal kingdoms founded at the end of Sub-Roman Britain; the area was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlan ...

and his wife

Æthelflæd Æthelflæd ( – 12 June 918) ruled as Lady of the Mercians in the English Midlands from 911 until her death in 918. She was the eldest child of Alfred the Great, king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, and his wife Ealhswith. Æthelflæd ...

in the 890s."Archaeology: Signs of Saxon Minster" by Carolyn Heighway in ''The Times'', 13 March 1976, p. 16.

Selected publications

*''Sovereigns Of England Elizabeth I - Elizabeth II an Exhibition Held In The Wheatstone Hall Gloucester 1953''. 1953. *''Ten treasures of the City Museums Gloucester, 1860-1960.'' 1960. *Rhodes, J.F. ''Catalogue Of Romano-British Sculptures In The Gloucester City Museum''. 1964. *Wellington, Robert. ''Hubert Wellington memorial exhibition: An exhibition of paintings & drawings by Hubert Wellington, 1879-1967''. 1968. *Frith, Brian. ''Twelve Portraits of Gloucester Benefactors''. 1972. *Taylor, John Neufville. ''Fishing on the Lower Severn''. 1974. *Whiting, J.R.S. ''Gloucester Besieged: The story of a Roundhead city 1640-1660.'' 1975. (2nd edition 1984) * Heighway, Carolyn M. ''Ancient Gloucester: The story of the Roman and medieval city''. 1976. *Heighway, Carolyn M. ''The East Gate of Gloucester''. 1980. *''The Golden Age of Richard III: City Museum & Art Gallery, Brunswick Rd., Gloucester: 2 July-1 October 1983: An Exhibition on the Twin Themes of Richard III and the Mediaeval Town.'' 1983. *Morris, Christopher. ''Farming in Gloucestershire, 1800-1914''. 1984. *Collins, Chris. ''Robinswood Hill Geology Trail''. 1985. *Watkins, Malcolm J. ''Golden Age of Richard III''. 1985. *Watkins, Malcolm J. ''Gloucester: The Normans and Domesday.'' 1985. *Morris, Christopher. ''Gloucester Folk Museum''. 1986. *Watkins, Malcolm J. ''March of Rome: Roman Soldier AD.50-150''. 1987. *Cox, Nigel G. ''Gloucester Folk Museum: A Guide to the Buildings''. 1987. *Atkin, Malcolm. ''History Under Our Feet: Work of the Gloucester Excavation Unit''. 1988. *Dartnall, D.L. ''The great Gloucestershire dinosaur discovery''. 1990.

References

External links

Official website.
{{authority control Museums in Gloucester Museums established in 1860 Museums of ancient Rome in the United Kingdom 1860 establishments in England Art museums and galleries in Gloucestershire Natural history museums in England History of Gloucester