Wrexham Museums - Collecting Our Past

Wrexham Museums collect on behalf of the local community both to preserve the heritage of Wrexham County Borough and to help your local museums offer the services their many varied users want.

In this section you can find out:

The Collection Policy of Wrexham Museums

The most important fact is:

Wrexham Museums collect on behalf of the local community both to preserve Wrexham's heritage and to help your local museums offer the services their many varied users want.

The numbers in brackets eg (1.1) refer to the official Acquisitions & Disposal Policy.

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Summary

Early 20th century birthday card. (Wrexham Museums collection)All museums have a collection policy, but why?

  • It ensures that Wrexham Museums collect the most important items to represent the heritage of Wrexham County Borough.

  • It ensures Wrexham Museums collect items that can be used in displays, education and research.

  • It ensures that anyone who gives an object to Wrexham Museums knows that the object will be cared for and not sold on.

Officially many collection policies are known as Acquisition and Disposal Policies. This puts the focus on what comes in and what goes out, but the important part is what happens when the object is in the care of Wrexham Museums.

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What is in Wrexham Museums' collections at the moment? (1.1 - 1.5)

  • The collections reflect the local social, military and industrial heritage of Wrexham County Borough.

  • The collections are only twenty or so years old; quite young for a museum collection.

  • Highlights include: material from the local brick, tile and terracotta industry; a collection of Wrexham clocks, the Welsh Football Collection, industrial archaeological material from the Clywedog Valley and material connected to Wrexham printing and publishing.

The Rossett Hoard, recently purchased by Wrexham Museums. The hoard came to the museum through the Portable Antiquities Scheme with the help of two local metal detectorists.What historical items interest Wrexham Museums?

  • Art - connected by theme or artist to the County Borough (2.1)

  • Archaeology - whether from archaeological excavation, casual find or metal detection through the Portable Antiquities Scheme (2.3)

  • Costume - smart clothes, casual clothes, work clothes, uniforms if connected to the County Borough (2.5)

  • Social History - all those items connected to our everyday lives (2.6)

  • Football - memorabilia connected to football in Wales from local clubs up to the national team. (2.6.1)

  • Military history - militaria connected to regiments historically linked to Wrexham eg Royal Welch Fusiliers, Denbighshire Yeomanry. (2.6.2)

  • Economic history - objects connected to Wrexham's many industries in the past, how people made a living in Wrexham and its surrounding communities or how they spent their money. (2.8, 2.8.7 & 2.8.8)

  • Coal mining - material connected to local coalfield pits and their communities (2.8.1)

  • Iron & Steel - currently displayed at Bersham Heritage Centre (2.8.3)

  • Lead mining - currently displayed at the visitor centre at Minera Lead Mines (2.8.4)

  • Transport (2.8.5)

  • Trade Union Movement - material related to Unions and industrial relations locally (2.8.6)

  • Science Collections: specimens from Natural Science including Geology, Technological and Scientific material. (2.9.1 & 2.9.2)

  • Architectural material (2.9.3)

Miners’ helmet. Used in workshops for primary school children on coal mining and the Gresford Colliery Disaster.The focus for collecting is on life in Wrexham County Borough. However, the County Borough has not developed in isolation. Wrexham Museums will collect material that represents the past or how life has changed here, but which comes from elsewhere. (3.1-3.5)

  • Limitations on collecting (4)

  • Collecting policies of other museums (5)

  • Updating Wrexham Museums' Collection Policy (6)

  • How Wrexham Museums acquire material? (8)

    All museums are governed by national and international rules on what they are not allowed to collect.

  • Loans

    Wrexham Museums generally only accepts loans for specified lengths of time and for specific exhibitions. In the past, museums did accept objects on "permanent loan" or at the owner's pleasure. This practise can lead to all sorts of problems.

    Wrexham Museums often displays material on temporary loan where the items concerned will be of special interest to locals and visitors.

  • Spoliation

    The Museum service does not accept itmes collected illegally during the period 1933 - 1945 (9)

  • Repatriation & Restitution

    The Museum adheres to the latest legislation and MLA/CyMAL guidance on the issue of returning human remains, objects and specimens to a country or people of origin. (10)

  • Disposal Procedures (12)

    The presumption is against Museums disposing of their collections. That is one reason why Museums should be careful about what they collect. There are nationally agreed ways to dispose of collection items - known as de-accessioning in the museum world.

    Any Museum that tries to offload items in an improper manner could be de-registered by the Museums, Libraries & Archives Council

  • Education & Handling Collection

    The Museum's education service collects objects and archival material that enable staff to deliver workshops to local schools and to provide loan boxes for schools to use.

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Medal marking Wales’s victory in the British Home International Championship (Welsh Football Collection, Wrexham Museum)How to donate something to your local museum

Are you thinking of donating an item to the Museum collection?

Some helpful hints:

  • Please ring the Museum on 01978 317 970 and ask to speak to the Curator before coming to the Museum in person. This could save you a wasted journey.

  • Please discuss with your family before making any decision. It saves heartbreak later.

  • If you have any related material to the object, please bring it along too eg you would like to donate your mother's traditional Welsh hat - if you have a photo of your mother wearing it, please bring it along. We could scan the photograph if you don't want to give it. The more information with an object the more interesting it will be for future generations.

  • Please don't be in a rush when you come in. We like to record as much information as we can then. Objects without information are the orphans of museum collections. The more stories you can provide connected to the objects and the people who owned, used or worked them the better eg your mother may have been given the hat by her mother who won a competition at the 1912 National Eisteddfod in Wrexham.

  • An object does not have to be valuable to interest the Museum. Many supposedly worthless items are just what are needed for our exhibitions and displays.

If it's historical and local, don't skip it - call Wrexham Museum on 01978 317 970.

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Two early electric washing machines. The front one has an electric mangle attachment. Used in an exhibition at Bersham Heritage Centre and for school workshops. (Wrexham Museums collection)How your old things could help the Museum

We are always looking for material to use in our school workshops and in our reminiscence boxes.

Any object that could fit the following themes could be just what we need:

  • Old Wrexham
  • Entertainment
  • A Day Out
  • Work
  • Life in the Home
  • Childhood including clothes, school, toys
  • How we used to eat
  • Wartime
  • Archaeology (for the Children's Archaeology Roadshow)
  • Geology

If you would like to donate items for use in the school workshops and the reminiscence boxes, please contact Wrexham Museum 01978 317 970 and ask to speak to the Education Officer.

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Aquisitions & Disposal Policy

The Policy is available to download in the following format:

Aquisitions & Disposal Policy 2009 - MS Word format 93Kb

Aquisitions & Disposal Policy 2009 - PDF format 41Kb

Aquisitions & Disposal Policy 2009 - Plain Text format 139Kb

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