Get Packing! 

Volunteers are busy starting the process of packing the museum collections in preparation for the move to new stores over the next few months. 

This is a mammoth project with over 26,000 items to move. The small team of regular volunteers based with the Museum Team are becoming experts in checking numbers, wrapping and packing a huge variety of strangely shaped and unusual pieces. Everything from flat irons and lampshades to blacksmiths tools and mangles. We will keep you posted on progress! 

Flood and Drought Project - Appeal for Volunteers 

We currently have a four year research project with the University of Liverpool researching the historic impact of flood and drought across Staffordshire. 

If you would you like to learn more about how people experienced and understood weather in the past or if you are interested in the 18th century more generally then we have a range of diaries and bundles of letters which we need help to go through and extract relevant information. For more information visit the project blog.

Puppets on Parade

Puppets on Parade is a new touring exhibition focusing on the museum’s fantastic puppet collection. It will open at Brampton Museum, Newcastle-under-Lyme on 22 July 2017 and move to the Ancient High House, Stafford on 12th September.

The exhibition is currently in development and the exhibition designers have sent through some really exciting ideas. It will be an interactive family friendly exhibition with a focus on performance and storytelling. There will be lots for families to enjoy from dressing up as a life size puppet to putting on a puppet show and even becoming the star of puppet TV.

As well as museum venues we are hoping to display parts of the exhibition in other community spaces such as libraries and empty shop units. 

Colliery Company Aquisition

A recent accession at Staffordshire Record Office relating to a colliery company has thrown up some interesting material about the First World War that complements our research and volunteer projects. 

The company was Hawkins & Sons, and the colliery was Cannock Old Coppice Colliery at Cheslyn Hay. The papers reveal how the company dealt with the process of keeping experienced miners and other workers (there was a separate tribunal process for colliery workers), the shortage of staff for other purposes such as office workers and the recruitment of female workers, shortages of material such as pit timber, and post-war shortages. There is also correspondence with soldiers and their commanding officers about the process to get experienced men released from service to return to the mine in 1918.

During the war, transportation of goods had to be prioritised, also the actual supply of coal to essential industries. (A reply to a letter from a coal merchant about the shortage of domestic coal points out dryly that coal is being diverted to the south where people are actually starving.) 

Workers attended training sessions at Hednesford Mine Rescue Station including dealing with gas. Assistance was given to the dependents of workers in the Services with their rent. Discussions took place over what land could be used for food production, and the company sent waste paper for salvage, and contributed to Christmas parcels for soldiers and other appeals. The collection reference is 7539.