Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery
Tuesday 31 October 2023
From private society to city museum 1871 - present
Natural History Society and Field Club Founded 1871
What is now known as the Museum Society was founded in 1871 as the Peterborough Natural History Society and Field Club. It's early members included Dr Thomas Walker and J.W. Bodger. Mr Bodger, a local chemist, who was also the societies secretary for over 30 years. The society joked, quiet accurately, that it's early collections were kept in a box under Mr Bodgers bed!
Over the next ten years the societies interest and membership widened, and the group were renamed as the Peterborough Natural History, Scientific, and Archaeological Society. The society were prolific collectors, with objects and records of local history, paleontology and natural history. But also international acquisitions including Egyptian, Greecian and Far Eastern collections to name a few. The collection gathered by the society became the foundation of what is now the Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery collection.
From Bed to Beckets 1885
To house the growing collections, the Society moved their collections into Becket's Chapel within the Cathedrals Precincts, after the former occupiers, the Kings School moved to their campus on Park Road. The photograph below depicts a group sitting for a photograph in the museum at Beckets Chapel. Above the group the turtle shell which still hangs in the museum today can be seen, as well as other objects from the collection.
Room to grow at Park Road
The Peterborough Museum Society and their collections would follow the example of the Kings School and move to Park Road, though we have been unable to track down the exact date for this move.
From Mansion, to Hospital, to Museum 1928 - Present
Upon the Peterborough Infirmary's move to the newly completed Memorial Hospital in 1928 the Infirmary building was acquired by Percy Malcolm Stewart, Chair of the London Brick Company, who donated it to the Museum Society (at that time the Natural History, Scientific and Archaeological Society) to house their collection. By 1931 the society were ready to open their collections to the public yet again, with the art gallery being added in 1939 to further expand their exhibition spaces.
In 1947 the society changed their name to the much easier to remember Peterborough Museum Society, the society would continue to collect and engage with local history, including the undertaking of excavations through the Peterborough Museum Society Archaeological Field Section.
By 1968 Peterborough had grown considerably and was about to embark on it's fastest expansion yet as a designated New Town area. With the changing times came the decision to gift the collections to the city along with the mansion on Priestgate that housed them. Despite this the Museum Society remains an active organisation even today, continuing to explore interests in the fields of natural history, archaeology, science and the arts.
In May 2010, management of the building and its collections was taken over by the charity Vivacity who would continue to manage the museum and other local heritage, culture and leisure venues until 2020. Vivacity would be forced to hand the management of these venues back to the council due to the financial pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic. Management of the museum then passed to City Culture Peterborough a branch of City College Peterborough, though this move would prove to be short lived as in April of 2022 the museum would change management to Peterborough Limited.
