Project Planning

Many of you may already have seen the new murals in the underpass of Hitchin Station and wondered about the different images shown and how the project came about. In early 2021 during the second national lockdown we were contacted by Groundwork East. They were looking to create a mural in the underpass of Hitchin Station as was part of Govia Thameslink Railway’s station improvement programme. After having a discussion with Groundwork, we agreed on the idea of creating large graphic panels to take advantage of our museum’s fantastic photographic collection.

The collection of photographs runs into many thousands and covers all kinds of subjects. Notably, we hold a lot of early examples: our earliest, which is included in the station display, dates from 1854. When Groundwork got in touch, we were coming to the end of our successful Frozen in Time exhibition. This was an exhibition of historic photographs of the district that had already involved a lot of sifting through different photographs and looking for inspiring exhibition material. This was a prime moment for another project using them.

Though Frozen in Time gave us a solid start for photo research, I had still only seen a small part of our overall collections. Though I knew we held photographs of the whole district, I thought it better to keep the Hitchin Station mural Hitchin focused. As I looked over some of our other photographs, star images began to emerge. Becca Huggins from Groundwork and I settled upon the idea of separating the images into themes. The final mural has 11 themes containing around 200 photographs. The themes are purposely varied to give a taste of local history. These include things like: Agriculture, “Captured Moments”, Football, Shops and War. Lovely photographs of the railway station and its staff (a must-have for such a project!) turned into a larger theme of transport as we also had so many amazing photos of local transport history.

A horse drawn carriage and early motor car in Market Place about 1902

Our earliest photograph, showing Market Place in 1854

 

Samuel Lucas Sr’s Market Place painting, 1841

 

A favourite theme of mine was the section showing momentous local moments. This section includes the oldest photo from our collection which I mentioned earlier. This features the building on the left, The Shambles, and the Corn Exchange (now Pitcher and Piano) on the right: a recognisable sight alongside a Hitchin of the past! The Shambles features on Samuel Lucas Snr’s Market Place painting. The photo is made even more interesting by the painting, which is on display in the museum. It also features on the mural as one of the few images that is not a photo! In the Lucas painting, you see different buildings on the right. These were demolished to make way for the Corn Exchange, with the owners of the Corn Exchange later demolishing the Shambles. The painting and the photo are just thirteen years apart! 

Another striking photo showing a captured moment is one which shows the supporters of the MP Dr Hillier, gathered to cheer his 1910 election victory at the Hitchin Conservative Club which is bedecked in “Vote for Hillier” banners.  

 

Gathered supporters of Dr Hillier

One notable part of our holdings, the football collection, features in its own theme panel. Hitchin was home to what is believed to be the world’s first museum of football. Founded in 1956, its almost 1,000 objects were donated to our museum in the 1970s.

 

Vic Wayling (left) the founder of the football museum, shows his collection to guests and FA Secretary Sir Stanley Rous (holding the ball)

 

One fascinating panel to gather together was Faces. We hold so many photographs of people. Some we know a lot about, others are complete unknowns to us. Our panel combines the image of, for example, Hitchin Suffragette Elizabeth Impey along with the picture of a sweet unidentified young child in a sun hat. We even managed to find some smiling Victorians!

Elizabeth Impey

Unidentified child

The next time you travel by train do build in a few minutes to take a look at the History of Hitchin through our brilliant images!

Assistant Curator Matthew Platt discusses with Herts County Councillor Phil Bibby and GTR Area Manager Karen Gregson some of his favourite images and how the display came together

One hundred years ago today, Barry Parker, one of the architects of Letchworth Garden City, wrote a letter giving a fascinating insight into the beginnings of Letchworth Museum and the people involved in setting it up.

The letter is about finding a site for a museum. Barry Parker had already written about this to Aneurin Williams, Chairman of First Garden City Ltd, and had also met him to discuss the matter further. The general agreement seems to be that the committee of the Naturalists’ Society should make a formal application to the directors of First Garden City Ltd, and once First Garden City Ltd have responded, the matter can be further discussed by the wider membership of the Naturalists Society.

letter from barry parker

A letter from Barry Parker

A W Brunt gives a good summary of the setting up and early years of the museum in his book “Pageant of Letchworth”. He wrote this while he held the Chair of the Naturalists’ Society, a post he had taken up in 1923 and continued to hold into the 1940s, so he would have experienced it all first hand.

There had been talk about having a museum as part of the new Garden City for several years. In 1906 the Letchworth Citizen mentioned that part of the original plan for Howard Hall had included a museum to show the archaeology that had been uncovered on the Garden City Estate. When the Garden City Naturalists’ Society was set up in 1908, it included amongst its aims ‘the formation of a museum’. Other members of the Naturalists’ Society included Barry Parker and W P Westell (who was to become the first museum curator), and the Secretary in 1914 was Rev E Everett, to whom this letter is addressed.

Though he had written to Mr Williams, Barry Parker notes that he “did not anticipate he would be able to give any such matters consideration until after his election”. In January of that year, Aneurin Williams was elected as the Liberal candidate for North West Durham.  A month later, Barry Parker had managed to meet him to discuss the museum matter further, and so plans had been put in place at this point to progress the project.

Though 100 years seems a long time ago, the letters and newspapers from this time reveal familiar stories. Just as these men spent many years discussing and working towards the building of the Letchworth Museum, so the museum service and people of North Hertfordshire have long been talking about the plans for our new museum.  It will be interesting to follow the progress of the plans from 100 years ago in future blogs, and note at the same time the progress being made in our own project as both move towards realisation.

Hitchin archives

Hitchin archives

North Herts Museum Service has just been awarded £700 by the East of England Regional Archive Council (EERAC) to improve access and storage of our vast archive collection.

You may not know it, but Hitchin Museum has a store full to the rafters with documents, photographs and maps. These have been used by hundreds of researchers over the years, as well as museum staff when creating exhibitions.

The chairman for EERAC was very impressed by the quality of documents we hold when he visited recently. The archives contains a whole array of photographs and postcards from the whole district, as well as poems, personal accounts and diaries of people who have lived in North Herts over the years. Some of the manuscripts date back to the 17th century and contain wax seals and are pretty hard to decipher for the untrained eye.

The grant money EERAC have kindly awarded us will go towards funding new storage files for the documents, these will be archival quality and will help to protect the items for much longer. So we are now starting an archive project, where volunteers from the Hitchin Historical Society will assist staff in repacking the archives and making sure documentation is up to date, so everything will be much more readily available and accessible when they are moved to the new museum for 2015. Here, alongside digital records of the museum collections, they will form part of the new study area where visitors will be able to come and find out more about how people have lived in North Herts.