Abstract
A COLLECTION illustrating the past cultural history of Yorkshire in the life of both country and town has been presented to the Corporation of York and housed in the old Female Prison, which has been converted into a museum for this purpose. The donor of the collection is Dr. Kirk of Pickering. The collection includes horse brasses, horseshoes, over one hundred insurance plates, and police truncheons, some of which were used hi the Chartist and Bread riots. To these have been added fireplaces of various periods, weights and measures of all kinds and periods, and a collection illustrating the history of house lighting ; all these exhibits are derived from the past custom of Yorkshire. One of the most instructive is the reconstruction of a Tudor street, some one hundred feet in length, in which are doorways, mounting blocks, shops and other features collected from various parts of the county. Parts of the Female Prison, which was built at the end of the eighteenth century, have been preserved in the original state. The Museum is not yet open to the public, but a private view for subscribers was held on February 5. Among the subscribers are the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust and the Joseph Bowntree Social Trust, Ltd., from each of which the sum of £500 has been received. The historical and geographical position of York makes it a peculiarly appropriate centre for a collection of this kind. The past cultural history of a county embodies much of interest to the student of archaeology and ethnology, while custom illustrating its social history survived in a primitive form down to quite recent tunes, of which it is still possible to find traces in the remoter districts. In these matters, it is true, Yorkshire does not stand quite alone ; and although the scheme for a national folk-museum for England seems for the time being to make little progress, it is none the less gratifying to note that local collections are being made before the material has entirely disappeared, as has been shown by recent correspondence in The Times.
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Yorkshire 'Bygones'. Nature 141, 323 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/141323b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/141323b0