The Cuming Museum in Southwark, London focuses on the history of the region from Roman times to the present day, with a collection of artifacts and exhibits. It also features the personal collection of Richard and Henry Cuming, the museum’s founders. The museum has expanded to include interactive displays for children and rotating exhibits.
The Cuming Museum is a small art museum in the London Borough of Southwark, located in the southeastern part of the city. Its focus is mainly on life in Southwark from early Roman times to the present day. The museum boasts a robust collection of artifacts, exhibits and presentations on how the quality of life has evolved and changed in the region over the centuries. Another unique feature of the Cuming Museum is the personal collection of curiosities of Richard and Henry Cuming, the museum’s first benefactors and founders.
Southwark father and son Richard and Henry spent much of the mid-19th century traveling the world and collecting art and artefacts from Asia, Africa and present-day Australia. Most of these they put on display in their stately home. As one of the wealthiest families in the region, they spent most of their time in Southwark entertaining and hosting guests.
Henry inherited the entire collection, but left instructions in his will that it be used to form the basis of a museum to be located in Southwark, designed to give the whole community a chance to view the artefacts. The Cuming Museum was opened in 1906 with just this mission. It was housed in the historic Newington Library building and consisted of rotating displays of the nearly 100,000 items, all with descriptions, short histories, and collector’s notes.
In the late 1990s, Southwark Council, a local government body, approved the expansion of the Cuming Museum to provide insight into not only this family’s personal collection of Southwark establishments, but also about life in Southwark over the centuries . In 2006, the museum had moved across the street into the building that once served as Walworth’s Town Hall. It takes up most of this renovated structure.
The modern Cuming Museum contains three main galleries. In the first is a permanent selection of the Cuming family’s treasures, including a room modeled after a parlor in the Cumings’ original home. Artifacts and curios are displayed on racks and shelves just as they might have been in the family’s heyday.
A second section is dedicated to the history of Southwark. This section aligns the Cuming with a handful of other British museums that focus on specifically regional history and customs. The Southwark Gallery includes notes, photos and artefacts on daily life in the borough from the early Roman settlements to the present day. Museum types of this genre exist primarily to serve the local community and the Cuming is no exception. However, visitors from all parts of the city and the world are always welcome.
One of the most unique things about the Southwark part of the museum is its interactivity, designed with families and school groups in mind in particular. Children are welcome to dress up in regional costumes, for example, or learn from interpreters in historical dress. They may also engage in all sorts of chores, tasks, or rituals that they might have taken part in if they had lived a long time ago. For this reason the Cuming Museum is one of the best intersections between museums and kids, at least in South London.
The last section of the museum is dedicated to rotating exhibits. Most of the time, these displays are from the extensive Cuming Collection, but are sometimes borrowed from other museums. Temporary exhibitions generally last from one to six months.
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