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Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery

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Coordinates: 52°34′18″N 0°14′45″W / 52.57176°N 0.2459°W / 52.57176; -0.2459
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For the Canadian city's museum, see Peterborough Museum & Archives.
Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery on Priestgate
Portrait of George Montagu by John Giles Eccardt after Jean-Baptiste van Loo (c. 1739–1750).

Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery houses the historical and art collections of the city of Peterborough in the United Kingdom.

Its building was acquired and donated to the Peterborough Natural History, Scientific and Archaeological Society in 1931 and the art gallery was added in 1939. The building dates from 1816 and was originally a private house. In 1856 the Priestgate mansion was sold to Earl Fitzwilliam, who allowed it to be used as the city's first hospital, the Peterborough Infirmary from 1857 until the opening of the War Memorial Hospital in 1928.[1] In 1968, the museum was presented to the city of Peterborough by the Peterborough Museum Society.

Peterborough Museum has a collection of some 227,000 objects, including local archaeology and social history ranging from the products of the Roman pottery industry to a collection of marine fossil remains of international importance from the Jurassic period.[2][3]

The museum also contains the original manuscripts of John Clare, the "Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" as he was commonly known in his own time and the Norman Cross collection of items made by French prisoners of war.[4] These prisoners were kept at Norman Cross on the outskirts of Peterborough from 1797 to 1814, in what is believed to be the world's first purpose built prisoner of war camp.[5] The art collection contains a variety of paintings, prints and drawings dating from the 17th century to the present day.

See also

References

  1. ^ Beatty, Gwendoline, "Peterborough and District War Memorial Hospital 1928–1968" in Peterborough's Past Vol. 3, pp. 45–56. Peterborough Museum Society, 1988.
  2. ^ Cambridgeshire (including City of Peterborough), Natural England (retrieved 17 May 2010).
  3. ^ Martill, David M. Predation on Kosmoceras by Semionotid Fish in the Middle Jurassic Lower Oxford Clay of England. Journal of the Palaeontological Association, Vol. 33, Part 3, pp. 739–742, August 1990.
  4. ^ Grainger, Margaret, A Descriptive Catalogue of the John Clare Collection. Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery, 1973.
  5. ^ Time Team dig up old Norman Cross Pow camp's secrets, Peterborough Evening Telegraph, 16 July 2009.

52°34′18″N 0°14′45″W / 52.57176°N 0.2459°W / 52.57176; -0.2459

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