Spring 2012 - Dress and Textile Specialists

aimed to enhance the collection’s profile by exploring specific and possibly less well-known parts of
collection and encouraging dialogue and discovery amongst curatorial staff who did not usually work
with the collection. The approaches used to build long-term knowledge and understanding included
themed videos integrating object-based research, the development of web-based information with
the ultimate goal of e-learning and podcasts, training sessions on fibres and fabrics and research into
the collection’s history.
York Castle Museum
York Castle Museum is one of the largest regional museums in England. It developed from a
collection of ‘by-gones’ amassed by Dr John Lamplugh Kirk (1869-1940). In 1890 Kirk moved to
Pickering, a small town near York. Kirk was a keen archaeologist, photographer and speed-trials
racing driver and became most deeply engaged with the loss of the material cultural of the past
which he saw being discarded as the pace of social and cultural change quickened in Yorkshire. He
started to collect in the 1890’s and his collection – bought, given and sometimes accepted in lieu of
medical fees – grew with a vengeance. It became too large for his home and by the 1920s was
housed in Pickering Memorial Hall. Kirk began offering his collections to various institutions but was
dissatisfied with the buildings he was offered. Eventually, the City of York accepted his conditions
and with the great support of Councillor John Bowes Morrell, Kirk’s collection came to York and was
housed in the old Female Prison. This had been built in 1780 to ease some of the overcrowding
problems in the adjacent Debtors’ Prison 1 which the museum expanded into in 1952. Kirk had
revolutionary ideas about museum design, influenced by Scandinavian pioneers such as Hazeilus. He
visited Skansen, the pioneering Swedish outdoor museum, in 1910. 2 Kirkgate, the famous street of
relocated shop fronts constructed in the exercise yard of the Female Prison, and the period rooms
are the most famous of his display strategies and, although they have been changed over time, still
reflect something of his original vision. The YCM Designated Costume and Textile collection includes
English dress from c.1700 to the present day as well as domestic textiles, quilts and embroideries
with particular strengths in the nineteenth and early-twentieth century. The collection reflects
mainstream fashions exemplified in the clothes worn by ordinary together with fans, shawls,
underwear, shoes and accessories.
The Monument Fellowship Scheme
The Monument Fellowship scheme was established in response to the Museum Association’s report
Collections for the Future (2005), 3 which highlighted concerns that collections knowledge was not
being sufficiently developed, recorded and transmitted.The scheme was funded by the Sainsbury
family Monument Trust and administered by the Museums Association which provided guidance and
support through workshops with other Fellows and this mentors. 4 The host museum and the Fellow
proposed projects enabling past specialists to share their subject knowledge to successors or former
colleagues as well as the wider museum community. The projects initially lasted fifty days with
opportunity of applying for an extension. As a previous Assistant Keeper of Textiles & Dress
(Conservation) at YCM (1988-1993) and following the closure of the Textile Conservation Centre at
the University of Southampton, 5 I was eligible under Fellowship criteria and our application was
successful.
‘Talking Textiles’
The ‘Talking Textiles’ project aimed to capture and share knowledge about the textile and dress
collection by explore ways of looking at textiles and dress with colleagues who had relatively little
experience with this type of material. It was hoped that using a discovery approach would stimulate
dialogue, build knowledge of textiles and dress and create systems and tools to encourage and
sustain long term development of knowledge and understanding. In terms of sustainability, this
information would also contribute to the retrospective documentation process The approaches used
to build long-term knowledge and understanding of the textiles and dress collection included
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