11 Facts About Bolton Museum

Bolton Museum is a public museum and art gallery in the town of Bolton, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom, owned by Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council.

The collections of the Bolton Museum grew slowly and by 1876 hosted a good collection of scientific specimens and ethnographic objects, with the collections growing there was public support for a separate museum the local authority was not willing to use its funds for this purpose.

Bolton Museum's bequest specified the funds were to be used for the 'building, furnishing and maintenance of a Museum of Natural Bolton Museum'story in the Bolton Park' with free entry, this early museum was located at Queens Park.

The Chadwick Museum was chaired by Councillor B A Dobson and its first professional curator William Waller Midgley was employed in 1883 and the museum opened in 1884 with three floors with displays.

Bolton Museum added collections of national importance including items of textile machinery, textile samples and Egyptian antiquities with an organised structure, with minerals, rocks and fossils in the basement displays, on the ground floor were zoology displays of stuffed animals, birds' nests and eggs, shells, and insects, the first floor consisted of displays of anthropology, Egyptology and other antiquities and other curiosities.

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Chadwick Bolton Museum was demolished in 1956 and its collections of Egyptian, industrial and local history moved to the Le Mans site, industrial collections were put on display in Tonge Moor library until the 1990s.

Leverhulme had proposed a total redesign of Bolton which included an expanded Chadwick Museum at Queen's Park, this plan was rejected but parts of it gave rise to the building of the current Le Mans Crescent in the 1930s.

Current Le Man's Crescent Bolton Museum was opened by the Mayor in 1934, displaying natural history and art.

Significant collections within Bolton Museum include the collection of Humphrey Spender material.

Bolton Museum received forty paintings, sculptures and drawings of North West England regional interest by artists Edward Stott as well as British artists of national importance such as Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and two works by Roger Fry.

In March 2019, Bolton Museum hosted the OUTing the Past Festival which featured talks and presentations on LGBT+ history and two performances of "The Adhesion of Love", a dramatization of a visit by a member of the Eagle Street College to Walt Whitman in 1891.