We estimate that there are up to 40,000 individual items in the collection. The collections’ cultural value lies largely in documenting the late 19th to 20th-century social, cultural and economic histories of working class people in Cornwall including their domestic, cultural, sporting and vocational experiences.
Geographically the collection is centred in the Helston and South Kerrier region, but significantly also covers well-provenanced items related to everyday life in other parts of Cornwall.
Significant themes relating to the material culture of Cornish life (most important in bold):
- Farming, dairy and growing
- 20th-century social photography
- Working class costume and dress
- Domestic and religious material culture, 1850-1970
- Folk customs, especially Flora Day (aka Helston Furry Day)
- Folk art, performance and craft
- Toys, dolls and games, 1850-1970, addressing cultural stereotypes
- Shipwreck and lifesaving, inventions of Henry Trengrouse
- Distinctive mineralogy of the Lizard peninsula, especially zeolites and serpentine
- Neolithic and Bronze Age and Romano-British archaeology from the Camborne and Lizard regions, especially ceramics and stone artefacts, especially green stone axe heads.
Camborne Museum
In 2005, the Museum inherited the collections of Camborne Museum, which had occupied the Passmore Edwards Free Library Building at Camborne Cross since 1913. Both museums were under the governance of Kerrier District Council at the time. After the district council was dissolved in 2009 the collections became the property of the Museum of Cornish Life.
There are 1128 items ex-Camborne Museum. The Camborne items have not been formally accessioned into the Museum’s collection, although some have been amalgamated in error and several artefacts are dispersed throughout our displays. This collection was reviewed as part of a Headley Fellowship in 2022. The Museum will continue auditing and mapping the collection with a view to incorporating significant items into the permanent collection and documenting their provenance as ex-Camborne Museum. Throughout the Museum has been in touch with Camborne Town Council with a view to returning items to a new heritage centre should it succeed in being established.
Archives
Since its inception the Museum has collected paper archives that should have been deposited at Cornwall Record Office – now Kresen Kernow. In 2017-18 a project took place to identify archival material that would be better stored at Kresen Kernow. An archivist reviewed the collection and created an inventory prior to a formal deposit in October 2022. The deposited items remain in the Museum’s collection but are stored and accessed by the public from Kresen Kernow. We do not actively collect paper archives unless they are part of other deposits containing significant information on provenance.
Conservation and storage
The single biggest challenge for conserving the collection at the Museum is the fluctuating environment of the historic, granite-built, uninsulated, poorly heated old market buildings. As a consequence, pests such as woodworm have been endemic, particularly affecting farming collections. In 2023, an Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund-supported project was launched to address the problem before irretrievable losses occur, however the Museum is prepared that these may occur and a programme of archaeological-grade recording and photography is part of the conservation programme at hand. In September 2023 the Museum commissioned Historyonics, the national expert in museum pests to conduct an audit and create a plan for integrated pest management at the museum. The small object store was thoroughly audited in 2022, ‘recovering’ many items documented as having an unknown location. The store remains over-crowded and the Museum will not accept any large objects or those it cannot immediately make available for study, research, education or display.
Read our 2023 Collections Development Policy which reaches national Arts Council England Accreditation standards.