A MARITIME COLLECTION SAILING TOWARDS THE FUTURE
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2020-12-12

This is the story of a professional diver, passionate collector and a keen historian who in 1978 when he was 29 years old wanted to share his growing collection of items recovered from shipwrecks with the public to ensure that everyone would be as fascinated as he was with the discovery, recovery and conservation of items from lost ships. To reach the public he bought a cottage in a small village and set up his own Shipwreck Centre and Maritime Museum, funded and managed by himself. The museum and the collection grew over the next 28 years and in 2006 the building was deemed too small necessitating a move to a larger facility within a Craft Village which supports a pub, craft shops and a glass museum.
It is also the story of the artefacts that make up this private collection. The museum is filled to the brim with unique, amazing and surprising objects, most brought up from the seafloor and all on display, although few are labelled or catalogued. In early 2017 in a move towards the long-term safeguarding of the collection the owner decided to pass over the museum to The Maritime Archaeology Trust that is an established organisation researching and managing marine cultural heritage.

As is well known, the history of museums started with private collections in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries however our story is happening now. While we transform the museum and the collection from a collector’s paradise into an accredited museum and modern attraction we need to ask ourselves who we are doing it for? What will get lost if we focus only on the history of the items themselves but forget why they are in there and who collected them. Is this for us, as academics, or the public?


Author(s): Heamagi, Christin (Martitime Archaeology Trust; Shipwreck Centre and Maritime Museum)