Keswick Museum and Art Gallery
Encyclopedia
The Keswick Museum and Art Gallery in Cumbria
was founded in 1873 and had a number of temporary homes as it grew, including the Moot Hall in Keswick
town centre.
A building was purpose built for it, in Fitz Park, partly as a memorial to the Hewetson brothers; distinguished Keswick benefactors, and to commemorate the jubilee of Queen Victoria. It remains the only purpose-built museum in the county.
The two original galleries were the Main Gallery and the Model Gallery, the latter built especially for Flintoft's famous model.
The building work started in 1897 and the Grand Opening was on Easter Monday, April 11, 1898.
The 'Picture Gallery' was added later, through the energies of Canon Rawnsley, a Museum Trustee and one of the founders of the National Trust
. It opened in July 1906 with its first exhibition held by The Lake Artists Society.
The Fitz Park Trust, which was founded in 1882, took over the running of the Museum and kept it and Fitz Park for the enjoyment of "the inhabitants of Keswick and the visitors thereto", until 1994.
The Museum was handed over to the Borough Council for financial reasons, in April 1994, and the park to the Town Council. Both are kept as charitable trusts on behalf of the local people.
In February 2007, Keswick Museum and Art Gallery Management Limited was formed; a company made up of local people, who now run the Museum on behalf of Allerdale Borough Council, the sole trustee.
Some of its contents include:
The museum was also once home to the legendary Girt dog of Ennerdale
after it had been stuffed and mounted.
As of 2004, the Museum became free to enter for all. It relies on donations from the public to stay open.
1865 Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway
opened on the 2nd January.
1870 Crosthwaite’s museum closed and collection sold.
1873 The Keswick Museum founded by the Keswick Literary Society The museum collection was intended to illustrate the Natural History and Antiquities of the Lake District
. Temporary accommodation for the collection was provided in the reading room at the Library.
1874 The Museum Committee leased the southern end of the Moot Hall
to accommodate the growing collection by which time it comprised some 1319 artefacts including mineral
specimens, samples of ores, rocks and fossils, butterflies and moths, birds and flowering plants and grasses.
The Keswick Literary Society changes it name to the Keswick Literary and Scientific Society.
1875 Mr James Clifton Ward
appointed Caretaker of the Museum and Mr Birkett appointed assistant.
The Museum was placed in Trust, to secure the collection in perpetuity and Mr R D Marshall Esq, Dr Knight and John Fisher Crosthwaite were appointed as trustees.
1877 Mr James Clifton Ward retired.
The museum was opened free of charge to the inhabitants of Keswick for the first time.
1878 Flintoft’s model of the Lake District was bought for £160 for the Trustees of the Keswick Museum.
1882 Fitz Park Trust formed with the intention of providing space for the use of inhabitants of Keswick and its neighbourhood, and the visitors thereto, as a pleasure ground and a place of recreation.
1884 Canon Rawnsley, Vicar of Crosthwaite
founds the Keswick School of Industrial Art
1886 Mr John Postlethwaite replaced Dr Knight as Honorary Curator
of the Museum.
1887 Fitz Park
was opened to the public with support from Henry and Thomas Hewetson.
1895 The National Trust
was founded by Canon Rawnsley, Octavia Hill
and Robert Hunter.
1896 The Keswick Literary and Scientific Society agree to approach the Urban District Council, the Fitz Park Trustees and the Hewetson Memorial Committee to establish if an alternative accommodation can be provided for the museum and model and on 3 July the Trustees offered the Museum, including Flintoft’s model to the Urban District Council “to be held in trust for the use of the town in perpetuity”
The Society then asked the Fitz Park Trustees
Mr Thomas Hodgson, who had drawn up the original plans for the gate lodge was appointed architect
for the museum and presented plans at a meeting on 21 November.
1898 Mr and Mrs John Wilson were appointed Caretakers of the Museum and the Museum opened on Easter Monday 11 April.
1905 Thomas Hodgson prepares plans for the Art Gallery.
Thomas Hodgson (1833–1905) architect, builder and artist Trustee and Honorary Secretary of Fitz Park Trust died.
1906 Art Gallery opened.
1914-18 Art Gallery offered for use as a hospital if required.
1917 Lithophone
played by the Richardson family gifted to the Museum by Joseph Richardson’s great grandson, Richardson Henderson.
Art Gallery was rented out to the British Legion Band for three nights a week during the winter. It was subsequently also rented out to the Keswick Further Education Committee’s Physical Exercise Class, the Badminton Club and the Folk Dancing
Club.
1928 Mr Davey appointed curator to the Museum (til 1960)
A Short Catalogue of The Fitz Park Museum collection was published.
1938 Art Gallery used as a sorting office at Christmas.
1939-45 Art Gallery used as a classroom for St Katherine’s College Liverpool and Roedean School
Brighton
1943 Museum acquires ‘500 year old cat’
1955 Exhibition of David Arthur Baxter of Rosthwaite organised in the Art Gallery.
1972 Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway
was closed.
1960 Mr Gandy appointed as curator of Museum
1980s Public Toilets on Lower Floor level of the Museum and Art Gallery were closed.
1984 The Keswick School of Industrial Art
closes.
1988 The ‘Queen of the Lakes Pavilion’ in Station Road is demolished.
1990 Ms Hazel Davidson is appointed as full time curator of the Museum.
1994 Application to the Museum & Galleries Commission for repairs and improvements.
1995 The Museum is separated from the Fitz Park Trust on the 11 January and Allerdale Borough Council take over role of Trustee.
1996 Keswick Museum and Art Gallery becomes part of Allerdale Museum Service and are registered with Museum & Galleries Commission
2002 Allerdale Borough Council propose closure of the Museum.
2003 The Friends of KMAG was established.
2004 Mr Philip Crouch appointed as Curator
2005 Mr Peter Fox appointed as Curator
2006 Feasibility Study commissioned.
2007 Allerdale Borough Council formally handed the day-to-day management and operation of the Keswick Museum and Art Gallery to Keswick Museum and Art Gallery Management Limited (KMAG Mgt Ltd) on 1 April.
Collection of objects Keswick School of Industrial Arts purchased.
2008 Alterations to lower ground floor to provide additional accommodation for the museum and education centre.
Mr Jamie Barnes appointed as Curator
Cumbria
Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...
was founded in 1873 and had a number of temporary homes as it grew, including the Moot Hall in Keswick
Keswick, Cumbria
Keswick is a market town and civil parish within the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England. It had a population of 4,984, according to the 2001 census, and is situated just north of Derwent Water, and a short distance from Bassenthwaite Lake, both in the Lake District National Park...
town centre.
A building was purpose built for it, in Fitz Park, partly as a memorial to the Hewetson brothers; distinguished Keswick benefactors, and to commemorate the jubilee of Queen Victoria. It remains the only purpose-built museum in the county.
The two original galleries were the Main Gallery and the Model Gallery, the latter built especially for Flintoft's famous model.
The building work started in 1897 and the Grand Opening was on Easter Monday, April 11, 1898.
The 'Picture Gallery' was added later, through the energies of Canon Rawnsley, a Museum Trustee and one of the founders of the National Trust
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
. It opened in July 1906 with its first exhibition held by The Lake Artists Society.
The Fitz Park Trust, which was founded in 1882, took over the running of the Museum and kept it and Fitz Park for the enjoyment of "the inhabitants of Keswick and the visitors thereto", until 1994.
The Museum was handed over to the Borough Council for financial reasons, in April 1994, and the park to the Town Council. Both are kept as charitable trusts on behalf of the local people.
In February 2007, Keswick Museum and Art Gallery Management Limited was formed; a company made up of local people, who now run the Museum on behalf of Allerdale Borough Council, the sole trustee.
Exhibits
The museum was recently ranked as the third strangest museum in the world by helium.com.Some of its contents include:
- The Musical Stones of SkiddawMusical Stones of SkiddawThe Musical Stones of Skiddaw is a lithophone made of a type of hornfels rock found in Cumbria, England. Constructed between 1827 and 1840, the instrument has entertained royalty; it is now housed at the Keswick Museum and Art Gallery in Cumbria....
(Played to Queen Victoria) - Napoleon's Teacup
- A mounted Golden EagleGolden EagleThe Golden Eagle is one of the best known birds of prey in the Northern Hemisphere. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. Once widespread across the Holarctic, it has disappeared from many of the more heavily populated areas...
- Britain's rarest fish, pickled in a jar
- A 666 Year Old Mummified Cat
- The skin of a giant cobraCobraCobra is a venomous snake belonging to the family Elapidae. However, not all snakes commonly referred to as cobras are of the same genus, or even of the same family. The name is short for cobra capo or capa Snake, which is Portuguese for "snake with hood", or "hood-snake"...
- VictorianVictorian eraThe Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
rollerblades - A man trap
The museum was also once home to the legendary Girt dog of Ennerdale
Girt dog of Ennerdale
The Girt Dog of Ennerdale is the name given to a mysterious creature that cut a bloody swathe through the Cumberland, England fells in 1810. Over the course of six months, the creature killed between 300 and 400 sheep....
after it had been stuffed and mounted.
As of 2004, the Museum became free to enter for all. It relies on donations from the public to stay open.
Keswick Museum and Art Gallery: A Chronology
1784 Peter Crosthwaite opened the first museum in KeswickKeswick, Cumbria
Keswick is a market town and civil parish within the Borough of Allerdale in Cumbria, England. It had a population of 4,984, according to the 2001 census, and is situated just north of Derwent Water, and a short distance from Bassenthwaite Lake, both in the Lake District National Park...
1865 Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway
Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway
The Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway was incorporated by Act of Parliament on 1 August 1861, for a line connecting the town of Cockermouth with the London and North Western Railway West Coast Main Line at Penrith. Arrangements for the use of the stations at either end The Cockermouth,...
opened on the 2nd January.
1870 Crosthwaite’s museum closed and collection sold.
1873 The Keswick Museum founded by the Keswick Literary Society The museum collection was intended to illustrate the Natural History and Antiquities of the Lake District
Lake District
The Lake District, also commonly known as The Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous not only for its lakes and its mountains but also for its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth...
. Temporary accommodation for the collection was provided in the reading room at the Library.
1874 The Museum Committee leased the southern end of the Moot Hall
Moot hall
A moot hall is meeting or assembly building, traditionally to decide local issues.In Anglo-Saxon England, a low ring-shaped earthwork served as a moot hill or moot mound, where the elders of the hundred would meet to take decisions. Some of these acquired permanent buildings, known as moot halls...
to accommodate the growing collection by which time it comprised some 1319 artefacts including mineral
Mineral
A mineral is a naturally occurring solid chemical substance formed through biogeochemical processes, having characteristic chemical composition, highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. By comparison, a rock is an aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids and does not...
specimens, samples of ores, rocks and fossils, butterflies and moths, birds and flowering plants and grasses.
The Keswick Literary Society changes it name to the Keswick Literary and Scientific Society.
1875 Mr James Clifton Ward
James Clifton Ward
James Clifton Ward was an English geologist.Ward was born at Clapham Common on 13 April 1843. His father, James Ward, was a schoolmaster; his mother's maiden name was Mary Ann Morris. He entered the Royal School of Mines in 1861, where he gained the Edward Forbes medal in 1864...
appointed Caretaker of the Museum and Mr Birkett appointed assistant.
The Museum was placed in Trust, to secure the collection in perpetuity and Mr R D Marshall Esq, Dr Knight and John Fisher Crosthwaite were appointed as trustees.
1877 Mr James Clifton Ward retired.
The museum was opened free of charge to the inhabitants of Keswick for the first time.
1878 Flintoft’s model of the Lake District was bought for £160 for the Trustees of the Keswick Museum.
1882 Fitz Park Trust formed with the intention of providing space for the use of inhabitants of Keswick and its neighbourhood, and the visitors thereto, as a pleasure ground and a place of recreation.
1884 Canon Rawnsley, Vicar of Crosthwaite
Crosthwaite
Crosthwaite is a small village located in the Parish of Crosthwaite and Lyth, Cumbria, UK.-Village Hall:The Argles Memorial Halll was built in 1931 on land donated from the local landowners...
founds the Keswick School of Industrial Art
Keswick School of Industrial Art
Keswick School of Industrial Art was founded in 1884 by Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley and his wife Edith as an evening class of repoussé‚ metalwork in the Crosthwaite Parish Rooms, just outside Keswick, Cumbria....
1886 Mr John Postlethwaite replaced Dr Knight as Honorary Curator
Curator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
of the Museum.
1887 Fitz Park
Fitz Park
Fitz Park is a cricket ground in Keswick, Cumberland. The first recorded match on the ground was in 1955, when Cumberland played the Lancashire Second XI in the Minor Counties Championship...
was opened to the public with support from Henry and Thomas Hewetson.
1895 The National Trust
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
was founded by Canon Rawnsley, Octavia Hill
Octavia Hill
Octavia Hill was an English social reformer, whose main concern was the welfare of the inhabitants of cities, especially London, in the second half of the nineteenth century. Born into a family with a strong commitment to alleviating poverty, she herself grew up in straitened circumstances owing...
and Robert Hunter.
1896 The Keswick Literary and Scientific Society agree to approach the Urban District Council, the Fitz Park Trustees and the Hewetson Memorial Committee to establish if an alternative accommodation can be provided for the museum and model and on 3 July the Trustees offered the Museum, including Flintoft’s model to the Urban District Council “to be held in trust for the use of the town in perpetuity”
The Society then asked the Fitz Park Trustees
Mr Thomas Hodgson, who had drawn up the original plans for the gate lodge was appointed architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
for the museum and presented plans at a meeting on 21 November.
1898 Mr and Mrs John Wilson were appointed Caretakers of the Museum and the Museum opened on Easter Monday 11 April.
1905 Thomas Hodgson prepares plans for the Art Gallery.
Thomas Hodgson (1833–1905) architect, builder and artist Trustee and Honorary Secretary of Fitz Park Trust died.
1906 Art Gallery opened.
1914-18 Art Gallery offered for use as a hospital if required.
1917 Lithophone
Lithophone
A lithophone is a musical instrument consisting of a rock or pieces of rock which are struck to produce musical notes. Notes may be sounded in combination or in succession...
played by the Richardson family gifted to the Museum by Joseph Richardson’s great grandson, Richardson Henderson.
Art Gallery was rented out to the British Legion Band for three nights a week during the winter. It was subsequently also rented out to the Keswick Further Education Committee’s Physical Exercise Class, the Badminton Club and the Folk Dancing
Folk dance
The term folk dance describes dances that share some or all of the following attributes:*They are dances performed at social functions by people with little or no professional training, often to traditional music or music based on traditional music....
Club.
1928 Mr Davey appointed curator to the Museum (til 1960)
A Short Catalogue of The Fitz Park Museum collection was published.
1938 Art Gallery used as a sorting office at Christmas.
1939-45 Art Gallery used as a classroom for St Katherine’s College Liverpool and Roedean School
Roedean School
-Roedeanians in fiction:* Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward * Dawn Drummond-Clayton * Emily James...
Brighton
1943 Museum acquires ‘500 year old cat’
1955 Exhibition of David Arthur Baxter of Rosthwaite organised in the Art Gallery.
1972 Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway
Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway
The Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway was incorporated by Act of Parliament on 1 August 1861, for a line connecting the town of Cockermouth with the London and North Western Railway West Coast Main Line at Penrith. Arrangements for the use of the stations at either end The Cockermouth,...
was closed.
1960 Mr Gandy appointed as curator of Museum
1980s Public Toilets on Lower Floor level of the Museum and Art Gallery were closed.
1984 The Keswick School of Industrial Art
Keswick School of Industrial Art
Keswick School of Industrial Art was founded in 1884 by Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley and his wife Edith as an evening class of repoussé‚ metalwork in the Crosthwaite Parish Rooms, just outside Keswick, Cumbria....
closes.
1988 The ‘Queen of the Lakes Pavilion’ in Station Road is demolished.
1990 Ms Hazel Davidson is appointed as full time curator of the Museum.
1994 Application to the Museum & Galleries Commission for repairs and improvements.
1995 The Museum is separated from the Fitz Park Trust on the 11 January and Allerdale Borough Council take over role of Trustee.
1996 Keswick Museum and Art Gallery becomes part of Allerdale Museum Service and are registered with Museum & Galleries Commission
2002 Allerdale Borough Council propose closure of the Museum.
2003 The Friends of KMAG was established.
2004 Mr Philip Crouch appointed as Curator
2005 Mr Peter Fox appointed as Curator
2006 Feasibility Study commissioned.
2007 Allerdale Borough Council formally handed the day-to-day management and operation of the Keswick Museum and Art Gallery to Keswick Museum and Art Gallery Management Limited (KMAG Mgt Ltd) on 1 April.
Collection of objects Keswick School of Industrial Arts purchased.
2008 Alterations to lower ground floor to provide additional accommodation for the museum and education centre.
Mr Jamie Barnes appointed as Curator
External links
- Keswick Museum and Art Gallery - official site
- Local tourism museum information