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Yorkshire Museum

Location within North Yorkshire
Established	1830; 188 years ago (1830)
Location	Museum Gardens, York, England
Coordinates	53°57′42″N 1°05′15″W / 53.9618°N 1.0875°W / 53.9618; -1.0875Coordinates: 53°57′42″N 1°05′15″W / 53.9618°N 1.0875°W / 53.9618; -1.0875
Type	Archaeological and Natural Sciences Museum
Visitors	120,630 (2017–2018)[1]
Director	Reyahn King, York Museums Trust
Website	www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk

The Yorkshire Museum is a museum in York, England. It was opened in 1830, and has five permanent collections, covering biology, geology, archaeology, numismatics and astronomy.

History

The museum building in the early 1900s

The museum was founded by the Yorkshire Philosophical Society to accommodate their geological and archaeological collections, and was originally housed in Ousegate, York, until the site became too small. In 1828, the society received by royal grant, 10 acres (0.040 km²) of land formerly belonging to St Mary's Abbey for the purposes of building a new museum. The main building of the museum is called the Yorkshire Museum; it was designed by William Wilkins in a Greek Revival style and is a Grade I listed building. It was officially opened in February 1830, which makes it one of the longest established museums in England. A condition of the royal grant was that the land surrounding the museum building should be a botanic gardens and one was created in the 1830s. The botanic gardens are now known as the Museum Gardens. On 26 September 1831, the inaugural meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science was held at the Yorkshire Museum.^[2]

The Tempest Anderson Hall was built in 1912, as an annex to the museum, and is an early example of a reinforced concrete building. It is used as a conference venue and lecture theatre.

The Museum was narrowly missed by a bomb during the Baedeker Blitz on 29 April 1942, though the explosion caused damage to the roof and the windows. The Curator, Reginald Wagstaffe, lived in Manor Cottage (a building adjacent to the museum) and was responsible for the subsequent clean up effort of the debris, during which 'seven large bath-tubs' of broken glass and geological specimens were thrown away.^[3]

In 1960, the museum and gardens were given in trust to York City Council, the successor of which, the City of York Council, set up the York Museums Trust in 2002, to manage the York Castle Museum, York Art Gallery, the Yorkshire Museum and the Museum Gardens.^[4][5]

The museum closed in November 2009 for a major refurbishment and reopened on Yorkshire Day on 1 August 2010. The £2 million scheme was largely carried out by the museum's own staff, who restructured and redecorated the interior of the building.^[6]

As of 2018, the museum has the following permanent exhibits: "Roman York – Meet the People of the Empire", "Medieval York: Capital of the North", "Yorkshire's Jurrasic World", "After the Ice: Yorkshire’s Prehistoric People", and "William Smith: The Map That Changed The World".^[7]

Collections

The four permanent collections at the museum all have English designated collection status, which means they are "pre-eminent collections of national and international importance".^[8] The collection began in the 1820s, with the collection of animal bones and fossils from Kirkdale Cave.^[9]

Biology

The biology collection contains 200,000 specimens, including both fauna and flora, with the majority of the collection made up of insects. There are two stuffed specimens of the extinct great auk, an almost complete skeleton of an extinct moa, and a large collection of specimens from the Yorkshire region including the remains of elephants, cave bears and hyena from Kirkdale Cave dated to the Quaternary period, around 125,000 years.

Geology

The geology collection contains over 112,500 specimens of rocks, minerals and fossils. Fossils make up the majority of the collection numbering over 100,000 samples, and include important specimens from the Carboniferous, Mesozoic and Tertiary periods.

Astronomy

York Observatory

The astronomy collection is mainly kept in the observatory in the museum gardens with some telescopes kept at the Castle Museum in York.^[10] The observatory is staffed by volunteers.^[11]

Archaeology

The final known inscription of the Ninth legion

The archaeology collection has close to a million objects that date from around 500,000 BC to the 20th century. Most of the objects from the Roman, Anglo Scandinavian and Medieval periods are from the York and Yorkshire area. Following the 2010 refit of the museum, the first gallery displayed parts of the Roman collection, focusing on objects from Eboracum (Roman York). A statue of the Roman God Mars is prominently displayed, and there is an interactive display describing the lives of some of the Romans whose remains have been found in York.^[12] The final record of the famous lost Roman legion, the ninth legion, is on display as part of the Roman gallery. The stone inscription, which has been dated to Trajan's twelfth year as emperor, between 10 December 107 and 9 December 108, commemorates the legion's rebuilding in stone of the south-eastern wall of Eboracum's legionary fortress.^[13] The BBC reports that "Experts have described it the finest example of Romano British inscription in existence".^[13]

The museum houses some collections of forged prehistoric tools by the Yorkshire forger, Flint Jack.

Notable collections

Geological

• The Middlesbrough meteorite.


• 
  Alan the Dinosaur.

Prehistoric

• The Star Carr Pendant, the oldest Mesolithic art in Britain.^[14]
  

Roman

• The Wold Newton hoard, a hoard of 1,857 coins dating from the early 4th century AD.


• The Head of Constantine the Great, a fragment of a marble statue of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great.


• The Statue of Mars, a 4th-century sculpture of the Roman God Mars.


• The Heslington Hoard, a hoard of 2,800 coins dating from the mid 4th century AD.

Early Medieval

• The Coppergate Helmet, an 8th century helmet found in York.


• The Ormside Bowl, a silvert-gilt bowl from Cumbria.


• The Bedale Hoard, a hoard of Viking silver jewellery and an Anglo-Saxon sword.^[15]
  


• The Escrick ring, an Anglo-Saxon gold and sapphire finger ring.


• The Gilling sword, a late Anglo-Saxon sword found in a river.


• The Vale of York hoard, a 10th-century niello silver-gilt vessel containing coins and jewellery. It was valued at £1,082,000, and acquired jointly by the British Museum and the York Museums Trust. After being cleaned by the conservation department of the British Museum, it was displayed at the Yorkshire Museum from 17 September 2009, for a period of six weeks before moving to the British Museum.^[16][17] The hoard was re-displayed at the Yorkshire Museum in 2015.^[18]
  

Medieval

• The Middleham Jewel, a gold, diamond-shaped pendant set with a sapphire and engraved with a picture of the Christian Trinity on the front, and one of the Nativity of Jesus on the back.^[19][20][21]
  


• The Cawood sword.^[22]
  


• The Medieval Shrine of Saint William of York.^[23]
  

• Objects from the archaeology collection


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  Bun of Roman hair from the late third to early fourth century
  

  
  

  
  


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  Ormside bowl
  

  
  

  
  


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  The front of the Middleham Jewel showing the Crucifixion of Jesus
  

  
  

  
  


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  The 8th century Coppergate Helmet
  

  
  

  
  


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  The 9th century Gilling sword with silver decorated handle
  

  
  

  
  


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  Carved Medieval Boss from St. Mary's Abbey
  

  
  

  
  


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  Marble bust of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great
  

  
  

  
  


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  The Bedale Hoard of Viking silver and gold
  

  
  

  
  

Events

The museum has 'Finds Days' in the main Yorkshire Museum building where members of the national British Portable Antiquities Scheme and museum staff will identify objects brought to them by members of the public. The information is also recorded to help build up a more complete archaeological picture of the past.^[24]

A monthly lecture series by the Yorkshire Philosophical Society is held in the Museum's lecture theatre.^[25]

Exhibitions

The museum has hosted many exhibitions since its inception.

1970s

The 1976 exhibition "The Viking Kingdom of York" was seen by over 78,000 visitors.^[3]

1980s

The Coppergate helmet was first put onto display in a permanent gallery space in 1980 following a £30,000 grant from the British Museum as part of the "International Viking Exhibition".^[3]

A third successful Viking exhibition, "The Vikings in England" was opened by the Prince of Wales on 30 March 1982 and was seen by over 235,000 visitors before it closed in October of the same year. This exhibition was awarded the European Museum of the Year Special Exhibition Award as a result of the presentation of the exhibition in the Museum and for additional educational projects organised by the then Keeper Elizabeth Hartley.^[3]

2000s

The 2006 exhibition Constantine the Great: York's Roman Emperor was described as "the most important archaeological-historical loan exhibition to have been held in a provincial British museum".^[26] It attracted over 58,000 visitors.^[27]

2010s

The facial reconstruction of King Richard III was displayed in the museum from July–October 2013 as part of a national tour.^[28]

A Shakespearean First Folio was on display in the Medieval gallery in 2014.^[29]

In 2015 the museum first displayed the oldest Sauropod fossil from the Yorkshire coast, nicknamed 'Alan the Dinosaur'.^[30]

In 2016 a recently discovered, unique Mesolithic pendant from Star Carr first went on public display.^[31]

In 2017 the Museum hosted the first stage of a touring exhibition titled 'Viking: Rediscover the Legend', opened by Alice Roberts.^[32] The exhibition is co-curated by the British Museum and will subsequently travel to the Atkinson Art Gallery and Library in Southport, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Norwich Castle Museum, and the University of Nottingham.^[33][34] The exhibition was awarded the 'Excellence in Media Arts' award at the 2017 York Culture Awards.^[35]

In April 2018, Yorkshire's Jurassic World exhibition, including marine and land fossils from Yorkshire and elsewhere, was opened by David Attenborough.^[36][37] The exhibition, like the Viking exhibition the previous year, was also awarded the 'Excellence in Media Arts' awards at the 2018 York Culture Awards.^[38]

Keepers and Curators

The museum has had many keepers, curators and honorary curators over its lifetime.

Keepers and Curators of the Yorkshire Museum

Name	Title	Dates in Post	Image
John Phillips	Keeper	1826–1844
Henry Baines	Sub-Curator	1829–1870
William Hincks	Curator of Botany	1827–1838
Charles Wellbeloved	Honorary Curator of Antiquities
Edward Charlesworth	Keeper	1844–1858
Charles Wakefield	Keeper	1858, 1870–1878
William Dallas	Keeper	1858–1868
John-Clay Purves	Keeper	1878–1880
Walter Keeping	Keeper	1880–1883
Henry Maurice Platnauer	Keeper	1883–1904
Oxley Grabham	Keeper	1904–1919
Walter Harvey Brook	Honorary Curator of Medieval Architecture	Early 20th Century
Walter Edward Collinge	Keeper	1921–1940
Reginald Wagstaffe	Keeper	1940–1950
George Willmot	Keeper	1950–1970
Barbara Pyrah	Keeper of Geology	1968–1988
Elizabeth Hartley	Keeper of Archaeology	1971–2007
Michael Clegg	Curator	1974–1982
Terence Suthers	Curator, Director[39]	1983-before 1992
Janet Barnes	CEO of York Museums Trust	2002–2015
Reyahn King	CEO of York Museums Trust	2015–

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Yorkshire Museum.

• The Yorkshire Museum and Gardens website


• The Yorkshire Philosophical society


• History of York website


• 
  Historic England. "Museum, Tempest Anderson Hall and abbey remains: Grade I (464225)". Images of England.
  


• In pictures: Letting in the light BBC