Preserving the past – with the future in mind

IN a time when the world changes rapidly round us, no wonder we feel a need to preserve something of the past for generations to come. But this isn’t a new phenomenon. Did you know there have been three different museums in Wallingford in the last 150 years – all apparently run by an unpaid labour of love? Here’s a bit about them:

The Castle Museum

Back in 1840 John Kirby Hedges married his cousin Sophie and took up residence in their newly-built home in Wallingford Castle. Hedges was an avid historian: his detailed History of Wallingford, privately published in two volumes in 1881, has proved a useful guide for future researchers. He was also a collector, gathering artefacts from the castle site and elsewhere, and creating his own museum. He opened it occasionally to friends and to the Berkshire Archaeological Society. John Kirby Hedges had no surviving son, so eventually the castle passed to his unmarried daughters and then, through a great-nephew, to John Francis Hedges, later to be "Sir John".

In the 1960s, Sir John Hedges donated most of the surviving museum collection to Reading Museum. In 1977 he also generously gifted the whole site of the castle to the Wallingford Town Council. A few unwieldy items, such as the old town pillory and stocks, remained in the museum building until the early 1980s when they were rescued by the newly-founded Wallingford Museum.

The Free Library Museum

In April 1912, Robert Russell Hutchinson moved to Wallingford as chief clerk, and later manager, of the London County and Westminster Bank in the High Street. He too had an interest in history, and when given an old horseshoe, found in the High Street in 1916, he recorded it as the first item in a new museum. This was housed in the "Free Library and Literary Institute" in St Leonard’s Square. Hutchinson’s interests were wide - as well as local pictures, documents, fossils, archaeological fragments and bones, there were large numbers of stuffed birds and animals. Mounted over the main doorway were eighteen heads of antlers and horns. He made copious notes on subjects of local historical interest and commissioned photographs.

When he retired in 1930, the collection of more than 900 items was given to the Corporation. The museum remained part of the Free Library until it closed in 1936. Most of the museum collection then went into store for 40 years. In the mid 1970s the newly-formed Wallingford Historical and Archaeological Society (TWHAS) offered to catalogue the remaining items and the need for a new town museum was quickly perceived.

Wallingford Museum

In 1981, the new Wallingford Museum was born, housed on the top two floors of Flint House on the High Street, and run by volunteers (mostly from TWHAS) under a charitable trust. The first catalogued item (81.1) was the old Hutchinson collection (there are now nearly 10,000 items). Flint House is owned by the town council and the museum, in its 35th year (a charitable limited company since 2005), now rents the whole property on a long term lease. It has national accreditation and is still run entirely by a dedicated team of volunteers who will always welcome newcomers.

And so the past lives on for the future.