Derbyshire Museums Manager Ros Westwood finally has time to reveal the origins of Buxton Museum and Art Gallery:
Following from Ben’s blog about Buxton Market Place, I have been finding out about the early history of the museum. In the museum’s library, there is a wonderful scrapbook of very old newsclippings which usually I have time only to dip into. Now, while the museum is shut during lock down, I am endeavouring to list the contents, and to share some of the highlights
Before 1890, Buxton’s administrative affairs were run from a building on Eagle Parade. In 1885, the Market Hall burnt down, providing the people of Buxton the opportunity to build a grand, new Town Hall, which today dominates the Slopes and the Market Place.
It was designed by William Pollard. The foundation stone was laid on the day celebrating Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887. Two years later, in 1889 the Town Hall was opened, having cost £12,000 to build. The councillors had great ideas for it: there was space for shops, the free library, proposals for an art college, and the Freemasons supported the development by renting a room for their meeting.
The decision to have a museum was considered the very next year and recorded in the 3rd Annual Free Library and Museum Report, presented by Mr Plant:
“Perhaps the principal feature, marking the progress of the institution has been, as I ventured to predict in my last report, the firm establishment of the Museum.” He acknowledges several donors; 120 years later, the loans from Mr Micah Salt (transferred subsequently to gift) are still on permanent display, and Mr Felix Joseph’s gift of ceramics from around the UK remains in the collections.
By 1900 the museum attracted more than 5,000 visitors a year, to see exhibitions on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum. There was a well-resourced Reading Room with reference books and local history publications; what it made up for in books was paid for in it being very poorly heated.
Mr Plant was replaced by Mr J. Sarjant as librarian/curator sometime before 1896. He was soon wrangling with two problems which remain familiar over all these years: shortage of space for the collections and exhibitions which disappoint visitors.
A Buxton visitor wrote to The Buxton Herald in 1899 lauding the range of the collection but saying that ‘they deserve a better and bigger abode… they are very dusty… and they are jumbled up. A museum is no use primarily if it does not teach…’. While he recognises that Buxton is a Health Resort, ‘and the health of the visitors must be consulted first,’ he says: ‘Next, come the amusements to ease the distracted mind…’.
Mr Sarjant tried his best. Over several years the debate rumbled on through the pages of the local newspapers as councillors tried to respond to the popularity of the Reading Room which people visited daily to see the printed newspapers and magazines, and the “cabin’d,cribb’d,confin’d” conditions in which the museum was housed (The Buxton Herald, 20 February 1901).
In 1903 there was a lengthy debate in the Council about whether the museum might take over the room rented by the Freemasons who paid £40 per year (including electric light) rent. Alas, it was not to be: the councillors believed that the room would only be used for storage space. The newspapers record the cut and thrust of the debate, with one councillor rambling on and on, away from the point, until the chairman brought order to the proceedings. Eventually the discussions fall from the agenda and the newspaper pages. Will Mr Sarjant win over the councillors and gain more room in the Town Hall?
No matter; in 1906, W. Turner author of several articles about archaeology around Buxton, writes in a journal called ‘The Queen’ that “considering the town is comparatively small, it has one of the best selected museums in proportion to its size”. The museum, he tells us, occupies only two rooms which meant that not everything was exhibited, which he continues “is due probably to the usual want of funds which affects all town councils, great and small”.
I will have to read on… will I have time to do so while we are shut down? There so many fascinating snippets in this volume, all at the very smallest print size. How about a note on donations for the Reading Room and Museum for a quarter in 1906: 6 shillings and six pence. Mr Sargant was disappointed! In that, times have vastly improved with visitors in 2019 giving over £5,000 in donations for which the museum is very grateful – we use donations for the development of the collections. Thank you.
And we know the eventual outcome to Mr Sarjant’s dilemma: that the museum and library were removed to the Peak Buildings, where the museum has been able to expand into available space as the collections have become more numerous.
Buxton Museum and Art Gallery 