Published in Windelsora 02 (1982)
© WLHG
In 1951, the Guildhall opened its doors to a small but impressive local history exhibition. It was the beginning of what was to be the town museum, displaying in the downstairs room of the Guildhall, a selection of the great wealth of material which help to illustrate Windsor’s history. Several of the objects were owned by the Corporation, part of its regalia and inherited possessions, but many more were donated or loaned by individuals or organisations interested in the history and heritage of the town. Since then many more items have been given or loaned to the museum and during the thirty years of the museum’s existence, it has been possible to ring the changes many times.
The oldest items in the collection are geological and archaeological, and include a fossilized sea urchin found by a school boy in a Dedworth garden and several hand axes, fashioned by Palaeolithic Man (Old Stone Age) during the warm periods of the Ice Ages, some quarter million years ago. More impressive in my eyes, however, are the mammoth tooth and the perforated and polished axe heads of New Stone Age man, (Neolithic). Each time I look at the latter, I wonder at the skill and patience of the men who could shape and smooth these stones until they became effective tools, quite capable of being used to fell trees. How long did it take them to ‘drill‘ the holes in which they fixed the handles?
Such objects, although important and interesting to the study of the local area, are to be found in most local museums but amongst the items in the collection are a small number which are unique to Windsor, or very special and of interest to the wider study of history. The first one that springs to my mind is the aerial post box, as far as I know the only surviving example from the 1911 experiment in carrying mail by aeroplane. The GPO borrowed it for their exhibition at Olympia a few years ago. We also have the engine of the first petrol-driven aeroplane designed by Sydney Camm soon after he left the Royal Free School. World War I intervened and the aeroplane was never completed, but Sir Sydney Camm became one of the country’s leading aviation designers, and his Hurricane fighter of World War II is one of the best remembered successes.
The collection includes a very wide range of objects – several hundred paintings, prints and photographs, a small number of maps, documents and books and a great number of three-dimensional items ranging in size from the waywizer once used to measure the length of roads to a Charles II farthing. Every curator has his or her favourite objects and two of mine are the first edition of the AA Handbook and a pen wipe. The first of these I find fascinating because of its directions on how to relay a message to an AA driver – there were only a very select number of them then. The pen wipe 1 like because of the imagination of the person who made it, creating a black gowned schoolmaster from a cock’s comb and a piece of material.
Although the exhibition in the Guildhall contained some forty display cases, it was never possible, nor desirable, to put the whole collection on show at any one time and for some years the museum has had a store at the Technical Services Depot at Tinkers Lane. Now, since the museum was closed in 1982, it has become the home of the collection – its home, not its grave!
It is a very sad fact that the museum has been closed but as honorary curator I still have a job to do. I am gradually completing the work of re-cataloguing and, with the help of the Area Museums Service, seeing that all the items are properly housed and repaired or given conservation treatment. This, of course, can be expensive and will
therefore, take some time to accomplish. Every year, now as before, a number of researchers and people looking for illustrative material visit the Store by appointment, a very usual aspect of any museum’s activities. Occasionally I arrange the loan of objects to other museums or temporary exhibitions; I am at present dealing with two such enquiries. At Easter 1984 the Corporation’s Victorian Exhibition is expected to open within Madame Tussaud’s Royalty and Railways Exhibition in Windsor. This is being planned and designed by two of Madame Tussaud’s staff in conjunction with myself and should prove an interesting complement to their main display.
What of the future? 1 cannot answer this. Many people have expressed sorrow at the closure of the museum in the Guildhall and concern for the collection. I can assure people that while I am honorary curator, this will not be neglected or forgotten, but the town itself must decide whether it wants to once again put on display the history of the town.
Judith Hunter (Hon. Curator, Royal Borough Collection)
Windsor Local History Group 