Main museum of the city of Gloucester, formerly named "City Museum & Art Gallery"
Museum of Gloucester
The Museum of Gloucester[1] in Brunswick Road is the main museum in the city of Gloucester, England. It was extensively renovated following a large National Heritage Lottery Fund grant, and reopened on Gloucester Day, 3 September 2011.[2]
In March 2016, the museum rebranded itself; it used to be called the Gloucester City Museum & Art Gallery.[3]
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.[4][5]
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. 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,[4] 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.[6][7]
Originally only on the ground floor, a first floor was added in 1958 which was opened by the archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler.[4]
Collections
A fragment from an Anglo-Saxon Cross from St. Oswald's Priory in the museum. (False colourised version on the right.)Newnham-on-Severn from Dean Hill by William Turner, acquired for the museum in 1977 with help from The Art Fund.John and Joan Cooke by an unknown artist. Joan Cooke founded The Crypt School after her husband's death.An 1834 painting of a Gloucestershire Old Spot pig in the museum's art collection. Said to be the largest pig ever bred in Britain.[8]A miniature of Jemmy Wood, the famous Gloucester Miser, from the art collection.
Objects in the museum include:
Dinosaur skeletons.
Archaeology, including the Rufus Sita Tombstone[9] and the Iron Age Birdlip Mirror found in 1879.[4][10]
The art collection includes about 300 paintings including works by J. M. W. Turner and Thomas Gainsborough as well as a painting of Oliver Cromwell without his famous warts.[10][11]
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.
Heighway, Carolyn M. The East Gate of Gloucester. 1980. ISBN 0-903340-06-2
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. ISBN 0-903340-07-0
Collins, Chris. Robinswood Hill Geology Trail. 1985.
Watkins, Malcolm J. Golden Age of Richard III. 1985. ISBN 0-903340-10-0
Watkins, Malcolm J. Gloucester: The Normans and Domesday. 1985. ISBN 0-903340-09-7
Morris, Christopher. Gloucester Folk Museum. 1986. ISBN 0-903340-11-9
Watkins, Malcolm J. March of Rome: Roman Soldier AD.50-150. 1987. ISBN 0-903340-13-5
Cox, Nigel G. Gloucester Folk Museum: A Guide to the Buildings. 1987. ISBN 0-903340-12-7
Atkin, Malcolm. History Under Our Feet: Work of the Gloucester Excavation Unit. 1988. ISBN 0-903340-14-3
Dartnall, D.L. The great Gloucestershire dinosaur discovery. 1990.
^A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 4 - The City of Gloucester by N.M. Herbert (Ed.) Archived 2 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine British History Online, 2011. Retrieved 10 September 2011.
^Gloucester Old Spot by John Miles. Archived 7 January 2019 at the Wayback Machine BBC 2011. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
^Roman Colony & Legionary Fortress Gloucester, Gloucestershire. Archived 2 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine roman-britain.org 29 August 2010. Retrieved 11 September 2011.