Walsall Museum
Walsall Museum was a small, local history museum located in the centre of Walsall in the West Midlands. The holdings of Walsall Museum ranged from seventeenth-century firemarks to twenty-first century posters. There was also a large collection of costume and textiles; notably The Hodson Shop Collection, a unique collection of unsold shop stock of working-class clothing dating from the 1920s to the 1960s. The museum closed permanently in March 2015.[1] The collections were placed in secure storage and remain under the care of Walsall Council's Museum Service.[2]
Collections
[edit | edit source]Walsall Museum’s collection included products of local industries, particularly those of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as curios and costume.
Metalworking
[edit | edit source]A very large collection of lorinery, locally made locks, brass wares and chains.
Twentieth-century industry
[edit | edit source]Innovative stainless steel homewares made by Old Hall of Bloxwich, and Gaydon and Beetleware items made by BIP's Streetly Plastics, are represented in the collection.
Walsall at War
[edit | edit source]Objects from the First World War and Second World War, including gas masks and soldiers' equipment.
The Hodson Shop
[edit | edit source]The nationally significant Hodson Shop collection comprises the unsold stock of a small drapers' shop in Willenhall, and includes everyday clothing from the 1920s to the 1970s - the sort of garments that rarely find their way into museum collections.
Curios
[edit | edit source]The collection also included a scold's bridle; a preserved crocodile; and a preserved child's arm, found in a chimney at the White Hart Inn on Caldmore Green. The arm was discovered in 1870 and thought to be a 'hand of glory', but tests showed it to be a medical specimen that has been injected with the preservative formalin. It is known that a doctor was residing at the White Hart, but not how he came by the arm.[3]
Local notables
[edit | edit source]There were also a few items relating to famous Walsall figures including the local author Jerome K. Jerome, the nursing pioneer Sister Dora and John Henry Carless, a recipient of the Victoria Cross in the First World War.
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ "Walsall Museum to Close Next Month" Museums Journal. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
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