Take a peek at our ‘secret’ family silver

UGLY or lovely? A commemorative Victorian teapot

1 More Image(s) In Gallery

OLDHAM museum might have closed seven years ago . . . but that didn’t stop people taking a peek at the borough’s social history collection.

Everything from industrial deep fat fryers — Oldham is the home of the chippy — to trade union and suffragist banners are stored at various locations.

And social history curator Sean Baggaley revealed some of their secrets on a behind-the-scenes tour of a storeroom at Gallery Oldham where the most previous and fragile objects are kept.

It also houses part of Oldham’s fine art collection including including five Turner and four Constable watercolours bequeathed by industrialist Charles Lees.

“The building is nice and modern and has very good environmental conditions,” explained Sean.

“The things that are most fragile, especially the things that we spent a lot of money getting preserved, are kept here. This is also the most secure storeroom so we keep our weapons collection here, some swords and guns which have been deactivated.”

Visitors watched eagerly as Sean pulled out racks of pictures ranging from landscapes to paintings of local worthies.

They peered at shelves crammed with boxes and carefully handled Victorian commemorative tea pots which had been presented to Oldhamers and Sean joked: “They are horrible or they are lovely, take your pick, but they are very Victorian.

“My suspicion is they were not made in Oldham but they have each got a plaque.

“We are puzzled about what the plaques mean, why you would get one?”

Much of the social history collection has been donated and another interesting item is an owl letter opener which belonged to hat manufacturer Thomas Henshaw, who founded Blue Coat School.

Sean also showed off an etched glass, a souvenir from Oldham Wakes, and added: “We think about people going away during Oldham Wakes, but people came to Oldham as well.

“It’s nice to think there are souvenirs people took away.”

The tour was the second of three looking at the fine art, natural history and social history collections.

It links in with the current Made in Oldham exhibition which celebrates some of the borough’s famous people, artists and products.

Plans have been in the pipeline for years to open a new museum in the former library building on Union Street and Sean added: “There are 25,000 items in the social history collection. The Made in Oldham exhibition just scratches the surface.”