Museum Week 2019

7 Days, 7 Themes, 7 Hashtags!

For Museum Week 2019, we will be sharing seven themes using hashtags on Twitter.

Day 1 – Women in Culture

For Monday, we have chosen to feature Pickering’s very own Polly Marshall.

Polly Marshall
copyright: WCA

Olive ‘Polly’ Marshall was born in Pickering in 1932. From an early age she showed a great aptitude for cricket and played for both the Pickering and Yorkshire team. Between 1954 and 1966 Polly travelled the world playing in 13 Test matches for the English women’s cricket team. 

Much loved by the people of Pickering, she became known as ‘Our Polly’ and was granted the Freedom of the Town of Pickering. The town’s sweet shop, owned by members of her family, still bears her name. Howzat?

Check back tomorrow for the next hashtag!


Day 2 – Secrets

For day 2 of Museum Week we posted a photograph of a mystery item from the collection and asked our followers on Facebook and Twitter to guess what it may be.

Here’s the object:

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Any ideas? We had lots of interesting guesses, including a fan, a kitchen gadget, a bell, an air raid siren…but what was the correct one?

Julie Williamson correctly identified it as…a cockroach trap! It’s the Demon Beetle Trap: fill the base with sugar or crumbs, bait the top with treacle, beer, sugar or cheese, and unsuspecting beetles trying to reach the top will tumble through the spinning metal flaps into the base of the trap.

The trap bears the legend “Most Popular Trap in the World” on its reverse. We assume cockroaches might take a different view!

Day 3 – Play

For day 3 of Museum Week we are sharing this image of programmes from Pickering Musical Society which are currently on display in the museum. The society celebrates its centenary this year, and you can buy tickets for its upcoming production of The Sound of Music here:

https://www.kirktheatre.co.uk/events/sound-music

Image of programmes from Pickering Musical Society

Day 4 – Peace

On day 4 of Museum Week 2019 we have chosen this Sydney Smith photograph of the 1919 Peace Day Parade in Pickering Market Place. The First World War came to an end with the Armistice of 11 November 1918 but demobilisation of troops took several months, and so it was decided that Britain would celebrate nationally on 19 July 1919, following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June of that year. This photograph shows nurses from the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment), based at One Oak, Hallgarth, in the procession. Sydney Smith’s collection can be viewed at the museum and print copies of all his works are available to order, in a variety of sizes and mounts.

Nurses in procession at Peace Day Parade in Pickering 1919

Day 5 – Explore

The theme for day 5 of Museum Week is Explore, and we have chosen to feature the King family from Pickering, who gave their name to a row of shops in the Market Place called Kings Row. Robert and his two sons, Robert Jr and Nicholas, all served as surveyors to the city of Washington, when the city was still in its infancy. Washington’s location was chosen in 1791 by its namesake President as the country’s first permanent seat of government, and a Frenchman who had come to fight in the Revolutionary War, Pierre Charles L’Enfant, tasked with drawing up its design. With a wide Mall reminiscent of the Champs-Élysées and other grand European thoroughfares, it was designed to be a city for ‘all comers’, with congress on a prominent hilltop site which was more commonly given to the leader’s residence. Today you can still see Kings Row in Pickering’s Market Place, and a plaque in the town’s church commemorates the family and their link to the most historic of American cities.

Kings Row Pickering
Kings Row, Pickering