City Museum and Art Gallery launches new online resources

The launch of a number of new online resources have been designed to make it easier to find out about permanent collections and exhibitions at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery.

The first development is a brand new collections website at http://museumcatalogue.plymouth.gov.uk. The site currently contains nearly 3,500 records and anyone can search it to find out more about what the city holds in its collections. A large number of photographs showing the development of Plymouth over the years has initially been uploaded, with many more sets to be added in the future.

A new micro-site that ties in with the Museum and Art Gallery’s new exhibition ‘The Making of a Modern City’ has been launched at www.plymouth.gov.uk/makingofamoderncity. The exhibition looks at how the city rebuilt itself following the devastation of the Blitz and the micro-site contains information about how this was achieved, as well as links to related events and resources.

A number of new web pages and PDF resources have also been published on items the Museum has from Papua New Guinea at www.plymouth.gov.uk/museumpapuanewguinea. This is one of the Museum’s largest world cultures collections and its biggest and most significant Oceanic collection.

“We have nearly 600 objects from Papua New Guinea, including body ornaments and clothing, weapons and tools, ceremonial and magical items,” said Curator of Social History and World Cultures, Tabitha Cadbury, who has undertaken in-depth research over the past year to produce the resources.

“More than 400 of these objects were collected by the Reverend Harry Moore Dauncey, an English missionary who worked in Papua New Guinea from the 1880s until the 1920s and wrote a book about his experiences called ‘Papuan Pictures’.

“We also have objects donated by at least 14 other collectors, which arrived at the Museum between the 1880s and the 1990s. These people include famous Devon antiquarian Sabine Baring-Gould and Gertrude Benham, the mountaineer and traveller who, in 1934, gave the Museum its biggest world cultures collection from all over what was then the British Empire.”

The Papua New Guinea project has also made connections with other major world cultures collections in the UK that have objects, photographs and archives relating to the Reverend Dauncey. The web pages include links to, information about and photographs of these other collections. They also explore Papua New Guinea’s history and Dauncey’s work for the London Missionary Society, with links to the Museum’s online database, which contains photographs of most of the objects as well as historical photographs taken by Dauncey that show people using them.

People can find out more about the City Museum and Art Gallery’s wider Oceanic collection at www.plymouth.gov.uk/museumoceania. They can also see images and information about its other world cultures collections, which come from places such as Asia and Africa at www.plymouth.gov.uk/worldcultures

Objects from the world cultures collections, including some from Oceania and Papua New Guinea can be seen in the Museum and Art Gallery’s ‘Bringing the World to Plymouth’ gallery. This is open all year round (except Christmas/New Year and Good Friday). The ‘Making of a Modern City’ exhibition will be on display until Saturday 29 June. Opening hours for both the gallery and the exhibition are 10am to 5.30pm Tuesday to Friday and 10am to 5pm on Saturdays. Admission is free.