Discovery Museum retires long-running gallery space to make room for major revamp
City centre Museum makes way for a new way of working. Tony Henderson reports
The working life of a museum’s gallery is coming to an end after more than 20 years of telling the story of how people have earned a living on Tyneside.
The gallery at Newcastle Discovery Museum has explored how working life has changed over the last 300 years.
Exhibits range from a welder’s protective clothing from John Readhead Limited of South Shields in the 1970s to a National Health Insurance contribution card from 1919, belonging to William Steel of Stephen Street, Byker in Newcastle.
The Working Lives gallery will be replaced by a new exhibition space following a £193,000 award by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
This will pay for the development of a flexible space to host high-profile temporary exhibitions.
The first exhibition in the new space will be a family exhibition next summer called Things That Go.
It will highlight the world of wheels and other forms of motion, with exhibits such as a model of the last type of horse-drawn mail coach used between Newcastle–Darlington in 1840 and toys like a 1950s model fire engine.
It will illustrate transport from boats and bicycles to tractors, trains and planes.
Keith Merrin, director of North East Museums, said: “It is important to keep the visitor offer fresh and interesting. These funds will allow us to create a new flexible space that will enable us to deliver more high-quality exhibitions, experiences and events.
“We’d like to say thank you to the National Lottery Heritage Fund and all Lottery players for supporting this development which will improve the museum experience for our visitors.”
Helen Featherstone, director, England, North at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said: “It’s great news that the transformation of the spaces will allow the museum to share more of their wonderful collection and host more exciting exhibitions in the North East.”
Kylea Little, keeper of history at Discovery Museum, said: “The current temporary exhibition space is not suitable for the scale of exhibitions we hope to provide for our visitors.
“In recent years we have had the first touring exhibition from The National Archives and we want to deliver higher-profile exhibitions with our national museum partners, like the Science Museum, as well as showcasing Discovery Museum’s world-class collections, some of which may never have been displayed before.”
Discovery Museum tells the story of Tyneside and showcases its collections in a large Victorian building, once the headquarters of the Cooperative Wholesale Society.
Displays range from Joseph Swan’s first commercial lightbulb and Turbinia – once the fastest ship in the world and the first steam-turbine powered ship made on the River Tyne – to Tiny Tyneside, a new play space for under-5s, and the hands-on Science Maze.