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Ripon Museum Trust has received £40,100 from The National Lottery Heritage to safeguard its heritage buildings and to provide much needed support for essential costs whilst managing through this crisis period. Since the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown began Ripon Museum Trust has been without the visitors, volunteers and staff essential to the upkeep of the three museums – The Workhouse…

Edward Theodore Davison was born in 1869, to parents George and Elizabeth. George was a wholesale grocer and, in 1871, the family lived in Stockton-on-Tees with Elizabeth’s mother, Elizabeth Jebb, and a servant Phoebe Walter. Ten years later, in 1881, George, Elizabeth and Edward were living together in Stockton, without Elizabeth’s mother or Phoebe.   On 28…

Emily and Mabel Seed, mother and daughter, were arrested in 1920 in Scarborough for shoplifting. Their crime is recorded in a criminal record book created in Scarborough in the 1940s, held in the collections of Ripon Museums. The book is one of a series, recording every person arrested and charged in Scarborough, along with any previous convictions elsewhere, from the late 180…

Call for Artists now open! We’re delighted to announce that our brief is now live for the 2021 contemporary art commission at Ripon Museum Trust. As part of an exciting phase at Ripon Museum Trust, we are working with contemporary artists to bring the history of our three museums to life in a new way. We are inviting artists…

February’s Object of the Month is a book containing photographs and information about criminals arrested in Scarborough. ‘Photograph Book No. 8’ originates from the Scarborough Borough Police Force, and it contains ‘mugshots’ of approximately 700 arrested persons, along with the personal details about each individual and his or her alleged offences. The volume dates from the 192…

For the past year, we have been creating a new home for some of our museum collections. When we vacated our old offices in the summer of 2018, we knocked down the dividing wall to create a bigger space that could be used as a museum store. The room was stripped out and painted and vinyl flooring replaced the old carpet.…

Object of the Month for January is a female police officer’s cap, from York City Police, dating from about the 1960s. The cap is made from black felt and white fabric, with a chequered band and a chrome cap badge, inscribed with ‘York City Police’ with the Queen’s Crown above. The cap has a…

December’s Object of the Month is a certificate awarded by the Royal Humane Society to Police Constable John Herbert Hughes of the West Riding Constabulary. PC Hughes was awarded the certificate in 1925 for restoring the life of a boy dragged from Skipton Canal. The certificate is printed on parchment and mounted and framed. It has been signed by…

November’s Object of the Month is a nightshirt, worn by a vagrant in Knaresborough Workhouse. It dates from between 1930 and 1945. The nightshirt is made from a coarse material, known as drabbet. It has been stamped with the initials ‘WRCC’, which stand for West Riding County Council, and the words ‘MEN TRAMP WARD’. The nightshirt…

Object of the Month: Police Jiu Jitsu Early 20th century policing can conjure up many images; a bobby on the beat with his whistle, truncheon, and a familiar but stern “Ello, ello, ello”. But an image we might not usually associate with interwar policing is Jiu Jitsu. August’s Object of the Month features an instructional police…