When I was a child I had a mini museum of fossils found in the fields and shards of pot, on the bink near the back door. Curiousities that hinted at sea creatures from another age, clay formed and fired for practical use. Bits of bone were added, we once found a horse's tooth, obviously the poor creature had been buried on the farm long ago. As soon as this summer term ended I treated myself to two museum visits, first to The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, and then to the Yorkshire Museum in York. So this month I am looking at Museums. York has several fine museums, the National Railway Museum, the Castle Museum, and the Yorkshire Museum in the lovely Museum Gardens which are on the site of st Mary's Abbey. The idea for the Yorkshire Museum came from the Yorkshire Philosophical Society founded in 1822. As the members studied discoveries of archaeological and scientific interest in Yorkshire they needed somewhere to keep material objects. A wealth of Roman antiquities were being uncovered in York, and further afield antiquarians were discovering ancient barrows with archaeological finds. The site of the present Museum Gardens was formerly called "Manor Shore", and as it was the site of the medieval abbey it had belonged to The Crown since the Dissolution of the Monastery. This was gifted by His Majesty to the Yorkshire Philosophical Society in 1827 and subscriptions were invited to raise the sum required to build the museum. The York Gazette printed lists of subscribers and the amounts they gave. There was the added incentive that if you gave a large sum, £50 or more, you had a life membership of the Society and could visit the Museum any time you liked and take a guest free of charge. [With the bonus of not having to book a timed ticket online]. The foundation stone was laid by the Archbishop of York in October 1827. The architect was W Wilkins, the style Grecian Doric, and the stone came from Hackness. Little mention was made of the fine ruins of St Mary's Abbey right next to the museum, the focus being on the Roman antiquties it contained, along with bronze and flint implements and specimens of natural history. These included 10,000 specimens of rocks and fossils arranged in order of their position in the earth; 2,000 minerals arranged in chemical order, and all kinds of zoological creatures. Inside the museum had a large library (where the shop is now), a theatre for public lectures, three large galleries all lit by skylights, but it was hoped gas lights could be installed later, and surrounded by a botanical garden. It was finally opened to the public in February 1830, they were still appealing for funds as the total cost had been £9,800 and they still had a debt of £1,500. If you have the chance, and survive the online booking system, do go and enjoy this lovely Museum. In contrast to this, the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle had a very different foundation, being the creation of two people. It is named after John and Josephine Bowes, local landowners in Teesdale. This is a portrait of John Bowes [ 1811 - 1885] by Jaques Eugene Feyen [1815 - 1908]. John Bowes was born illegitimately, the son of the 10th Earl of Strathmore, and although he inherited the family wealth from coalmines in the north east, he did not inherit the title. John Bowes travelled in Europe, and as many young men did, collected art. He loved France in particular, and made Paris his second home after Streatlam Castle near Barnard Castle. His interest in, and eventual purchase of, a theatre in Paris brought him into the company of an actress Josephine Benoite Coffin-Chevalier [1825 - 1874]. The painting on the left is of Josephine as a young woman by Louis William Desanges [1822 - 1906], the painting on the right Josephine later in life by Antoine Dury [1819 - 1880]. They married, and together John and Josephine set about collecting art, furniture, ceramics and all the latest collectables in Europe. Josephine was an extremely talented artist. This is a painting called Souvenir of the Danube, Hungary, by Josephine. All the paintings that are in the Bowes Museum are on the ArtUk website, including those above. Search using the term"Josephine Bowes" and you will be impressed at her talent. This is also by Josephine and is called "Still life with bread and butter". I just hope it was not my ancestors who sold her the butter, I've never seen butter with holes in it. I don't think it was Cotherstone cheese either! My ancestors sold butter at the Butter Cross in Barney. Having filled the Chateau du Barry with art treasures, and having no children, John and Josephine decided to create a museum for their collection. They sold the Chateau in France and purchased land in Barnard Castle. The foundation stone was laid in 1869. By 1870 the locals would be wondering what on earth the Bowes were building, it was unlike anything in Teesdale. The Teesdale Mercury of 27 July 1870 reported .... For some time past a good deal of curiosity has been excited in this town… concerning a considerable extent of land on the north side of the Greta Bridge Road near the Militia Barracks, which is now being enclosed with high walls, and in the centre of which the outlines of a large ornamental building are beginning to appear above the ground. We believe we are in a position to give reliable information on the matter, which may be interesting generally to our fellow townsmen. The property in question has been purchased by Mrs Bowes, the wife of John Bowes, Esq., of Streatlam Castle. The lady sold a beautiful residence she possessed in the neighbourhood of Paris, reserving the handsome furniture and objects of art it contained, with the intention of some day replacing her late French abode with one of a somewhat similar nature in England. After much consideration Mrs Bowes has fixed on the spot above mentioned … The construction commenced will be of handsome design … and will be in the nature of a museum ….. Mr and Mrs Bowes have spent many years in collecting. We think we may congratulate the inhabitants of the town that Mrs Bowes has selected this spot for a large and handsome building, surrounded by extensive and well laid out pleasure ground ….. The Teesdale Mercury of 15 June 1892 dedicated almost a whole page to the opening of the Museum. It had taken a long time to build, and sadly both Josephine and John died before it was open to the public. It is an impressive place, with a collection to rival anything you may see in our capital city. The grounds are still lovely, and exhibitions are changed from time to time. Well worth a visit[ if you can bear the online booking]. As a child I was taken often, and no visit was complete without a visit to the two headed calf. However, there were other museums in the dales, which are now forgotten. So now to curious collections in Teesdale and Wensleydale. Teesdale first. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries aristocratic men and women had travelled around Europe on "The Grand Tour". Many brought souvenirs home. The more modest collections would be kept in a cabinet of curiosities with lots of little drawers and compartments. The serious collectors came home and built a room or remodelled their house for their art collection. So I am interested to understand the motivation behind collecting scientific and botanical specimens from Britain, and more importantly, the immediate neighbourhood of some of our great houses. In Teesdale there were museums which predated The Bowes. There was a museum at Lartington Hall, the creation of Henry Thomas Maire Witham [ 1779 - 1844]. He was a collector of fossils and minerals and wrote pamphlets on the subject. This one was published in 1831 and he published another on fossil vegetables in 1833. The Museum that he created in Lartington Hall was open to visits by groups and the public, and visiting societies often had their attendance at Lartington Hall Museum reported in the press. There is no doubt the locals were quite proud of this. The Museum was begun in 1831 and was described as a highly ornamental building. A report in The Northern Echo of 8 October 1892 said - the museum alone would occupy hours for a geologist and mineralogist - there was also the barrow and spade used for cutting the first sod of the railway line that went through the Lartington Estate, and the house had many noted paintings. Further down Teesdale is Wycliffe. Thanks to Savills estate agents there are some spendid pictures in a brochure online of Wycliffe Hall. This had been the home of Marmaduke Tunstall [1743 - 1790] and he too had a museum. He was interested in the natural world and made observations on the weather and the sky. His greatest interest was in birds. First his museum was at his London home in Welbeck Street, but in 1776 he moved it to Wycliffe Hall in Teesdale. Comments have been made that the engraving of the bird on the cover of this book was not British at all but an African Sacred Ibis. However, Tunstall was ahead of the naturalists field in devising names to identify and distinguish the features of British birds. His Museum of specimens, which I understand were stuffed, attracted the great and the good. Including the wood engraver Thomas Bewick [ 1753 - 1828] who spent two months at Wycliffe making drawings. Bewick's engravings are so lovely, it seems sad that all the birds that he engraved were dead. In 1797 Bewick published "A History of British Birds", and after its publication gentlemen who were good shots sent him more dead birds. The bird on the right is The Great Bustard, and the notes in the text say that it is now only found in open countries in the south and east, in Wiltshire and Dorset and in some parts of Yorkshire! It was formerly in Scotland but is extinct there, being hunted with greyhounds! Thomas Bewick also illustrated Aesop's Fables, and it is nice to think that a visit to a Museum in Teesdale influenced him. But what happened next? Marmaduke Tunstall died in 1790 and his collection was dispersed. An article on jstor [for academic research] by Howard Jobber traces what happened to Marmaduke Tunstall's collection. After Tunstall died in 1790 his trustees put his collection up for auction. Some were bought by George Allan [1736 - 1800] of Blackwell Grange near Darlington, for £700 and the rest was sold by Christies in 1792. Allan then opened his own museum at Blackwell to the public and it was a great success attracting hundreds if not thousands. It also included curiosities brought back by Captain Cook. But then Allan died in 1800 and the collection was again put up for sale. In spite of a Mr Fothergill of Yorkshire bidding 300 guineas, Allan's own son bought the collection and kept it at Blackwell - until - This advertisement appeared in the Yorkshire Gazette on the 18th May 1822. The collection at Blackwell Grange, including that of Marmaduke Tunstall, was to be sold. This time it was bought by George Townshend Fox for £400 and went to Newcastle upon Tyne where the Literary and Philosophical Society made it part of their museum. Now to Wensleydale. I am not sure when the Museum in Bolton Castle began, but it was visited in the 1880s and 1890s and mentioned up to the 1940s. A visiting party in May 1888 were reported as going to the Castle to see the "Ethnological and Archaeological Museum which the Hon William T Orde-Powlett has recently formed". Antiquarian Discoveries were reported in the local Richmond and Ripon Chronicle. A local antiquarian called William Horne, along with the Hon W T Orde-Powlett, had discovered a human skeleton near Leyburn in 1884. In 1885 they found another one, reindeer bones and implements, all of which were deposited in Bolton Castle museum. Further mentions in the press recorded that the museum contained a bronze bushel measure, and a brass rubbing from Wensley Church. Edmund Bogg's book "Richmondshire" has information about the Bainbridge Horn, which from time out of mind was blown every evening between the Feast of the Holy Rood, 27th September, and Shrovetide, to guide travellers into the village. Bogg mentioned that one of the ancient horns was preserved in the Bolton Castle Museum. And a letter in the Yorkshire Evening Post of the 11th February 1933 from Mrs J E Ryder of Redmire, mentioned an old fashioned musical instrument called a serpent, and that there was one in the Bolton Castle Museum. This was a real eclectic collection of curiousities, a little bit of everything in the true spirit of a local museum. And lastly to William Horne himself, who had his own museum in Leyburn. He was born about 1836 and died in 1928, a native of Wensleydale he was apprenticed to a clock and watchmaker in Manchester, but returned to be a watchmaker in Leyburn. Horne was a Fellow of the Geological Society, interested in collecting coins, photography, and anything to do with rocks and fossils. His Museum in Leyburn certainly existed in 1886 and was full of curiousities of a mechanical nature, and anything that interested him. A large number of fossils was accepted by the British Museum and called "The Yore Dale Rock: Mr Horne's Collection". Geological field trips visited him, and he showed them around Wensleydale, and often gave lectures. He also had 70 grandfather clocks (where did he keep them?), and “His Museum contains a wealth of antiquities including Saxon, Roman, Norman and Egyptian curiosities and a notable collection of clocks and watches … and John Wesley’s walking stick." So bless Mr William Horne for collecting curiosities, and all like him, who were perhaps slightly obsessed with collecting, but wanted to share their knowledge and enthusiasm with others. We are all the richer for it. But where are all these objects now?
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