Salford Museum and Art Gallery: Then and Now

This is an online version of an exhibition currently on display on the Bluestairs Gallery in Salford Museum and Art Gallery.

Salford Museum & Art Gallery opened as the Royal Museum and Public Library in 1850. It was originally housed in the former Lark Hill Mansion and comprised a refreshment room, two rooms housing natural history and geographical collections and a hall and staircase decorated with casts and friezes of the Parthenon.

Unlike some other museums it did not inherit an existing collection but soon paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, natural history, ethnography and archaeology were acquired by purchase and gift.

The museum and library proved popular and with growing collections and visitor numbers it became necessary to extend and two new wings were added. The North wing opened in 1853 comprising a large reading room on the ground floor, a museum room above and a staircase to provide access to all parts of the building. In 1857 the South wing was opened housing museum rooms on both levels.

Further expansion was possible when Edward Langworthy bequeathed £10,000 to the museum and library which enabled the building of an extension. The Langworthy wing was opened in 1878 and comprised a ground floor entrance which led to a reading room, and a gallery on the upper floor devoted to art.

More changes took place in 1936 when the original Lark Hill Mansion was found to be unsafe and was demolished. It was replaced with a new extension in 1938 which mirrored the Langworthy wing. The ground floor housed a gallery of decorative art with a temporary art gallery above. In the 1950s the ground floor of this wing was turned into the Victorian street Lark Hill Place.

The photographs in this exhibition date mainly from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries and show the galleries as they established themselves.