Museum

Pedlar doll

The Museum in the Large Mansion is the local history museum for the London Boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow. Its collections have been built up from small beginnings and are now very rich. Like the proverbial iceberg, about nine-tenths has long been “submerged” in store rather than on display, apart from a modest programme of special exhibitions. A short history is set out below, with initial information about the refurbished Museum which will re-opened in the summer of 2018.

Origins

The Museum opened in October 1929, with displays of local antiquities, books, maps and pictures collected by Frederick Sadler, the Borough Surveyor of Acton. Donations from other collectors and from individuals followed. The first lady Mayor of Acton, Miss Susan Smee, was the Honorary Curator until 1945, stepping down in her 80s. The first professional curator was appointed in 1955.

In 1965, with a re-organisation of local government, the Museum came under the new London Boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow. It had little investment and its resources were modest, but it was expected to become the borough museum for over half a million residents.

The impetus for the creation of the Friends was the proposal to hand over the Stables to a property developer in 1980. There had long been a dream of moving the Museum’s Rothschild carriages and other vehicles, as well as its agricultural and industrial collections, to the Stables. A number of those who joined the campaign, led by the Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society, did so because they saw the potential loss of this important opportunity; it would have given the Museum desperately needed space and more suitable accommodation for these collections than decorative early Victorian interiors.

Governance

The oversight of the Museum by the Gunnersbury Joint Committee for over 40 years meant that its significant role as a museum for a large slice of West London was undervalued, usually being seen as just one of the attractions in the Park, with no wider political commitment to its development as a two-borough service. Nevertheless, enterprising staff obtained grants for projects (some from the Friends), purchased significant acquisitions for the collection and developed a valued exhibition and education programme. When Cabinet government was introduced in the two boroughs, the committee became the Gunnersbury Park Joint Advisory Panel whose agenda and minutes can be found on the Hounslow Council web-site. Its role came to an end in 2018 as the new Community Interest Company has taken over operational management.

Over more than three decades, budget cuts severely limited the Museum’s scope for development. By the time the regeneration project was being planned there was only one curatorial post and limited funding. Nevertheless the Museum had a high reputation for its work with a variety of different local community groups and remained popular with schools.

The Friends’ contribution

The Friends made a number of donations to support the work of the museum, ranging from funds to help bring the former Board Room into use as the Costume Gallery, to support for acquisitions such as an early Brentford FC programme, Dennis Morris’s photos of Southall people and Iron Age ‘potin’ coins from the Thames foreshore.

Maxwell Ashby Armfield painting, c 1933, acquisition supported by the Art Fund and the V&A Purchase Grant Fund

In 2017 we funded the conservation and re-framing of the recently acquired Maxwell Ashby Armfield painting of Gunnersbury Park in about 1933 and contributed to the purchase of a very fine enamel panel by Edith Dawson in an ebony, silver and pearl frame by Nelson Dawson, arts and crafts metalworkers from Chiswick Mall, and made a grant of £8,500 towards he costs of adjustable mounts for the clothing collection in the new galleries.

Working as volunteers, the Friends began the programme of restoring the Victorian kitchen wing which enabled these rooms to be opened to visitors. Until the Friends’ initiative, the main kitchen was used by park staff for the painting of boats and benches on wet days. We de-rusted the range, the hot cabinet and the 27-burner gas range, but the work also involved many weekends of removing splodges of red, yellow and green paint from the floor tiles.

Our hopes

In 2013 we wrote that the Friends was longing to see real investment in the Museum which would bring the collections out of the stores to tell the story of the two boroughs in imaginative and lively displays, to make it possible for visitors of all ages to enjoy and learn from the many decades of collecting in ways that were simply not possible on such limited resources. Various committee members contributed to the development of a new scheme and, with a substantial grant from the Heritage Lottery Fun, further grants from charitable trusts and funding from the two boroughs, the Museum closed at Christmas 2014 for work on a major refurbishment.

In 2018 we can record the fact that the fabric of the Large Mansion has been repaired and conserved, with new discoveries about its structure and its past decoration,. Now new exhibition galleries, study and learning spaces fill all three floors for visitors to explore. The three beautifully refurbished grand rooms on the ground floor will be used for museum events and can also now be hired for functions and formal events. New programmes of activities and learning are being provided including regular walks. It promises to offer an exciting opportunity to discover more about the collections and the history of the two boroughs.