Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery
Another cultural mainstay of the city centre (not just because of Gerald) the RAMM is intertwined with many other historical literary people & places, so buckle up for a ‘spot the literary organisation and/or author name drop’ in this quick history!
Sir Stafford Northcote, Devon MP & former President of the Exeter School of Art, proposed the building of a memorial institution to Prince Albert after his death in 1861. It was to include a museum and art gallery, a free public library, a school of art and a mechanical institute. The museum was opened in 1868, with a free library and reading-room, as well as a lending library added in 1870.
South West artist J. B. Goodrich wrote a poem to celebrate the opening [thanks to David Cornforth of Exeter Memories] — we’ll leave you to be the judge of quality;
Here's the Museum of fair design,
Carved and polished superbly fine...
Inwardly all is nicely plann'd,
Corridors branching on either hand...
Students of Art and Literature
Will draw, and read, and look demure,
While others will information gain,
Or just 'pop in' to dodge the rain.
Many of the early artefacts to fill the museum came from the Devon & Exeter Institution, which had not just been collecting books since opening in 1813, and the museum was granted the word ‘Royal’ in 1899 when the York Wing was opened by the Duke & Duchess of York [you get no points for guessing that].
The science schools eventually became the Royal Albert Memorial University College (1900), making a short move to what is now the Exeter Phoenix, then became the University College of South West England (1922) which in turn became the University of Exeter and moved up to the Streatham Estate in 1955!
As the museum grew it struggled to contain the collections and the library, so in 1930 the library was given a home all to itself in the city — which, after being burned out in the Blitz and then refurbished, couldn’t keep pace with a growing city, and so Exeter Library was born!
Though it no longer holds a working library, the RAMM is a thriving cultural hub in the city that has been home to some remarkable exhibitions and collections which have asked questions, challenged established historical narratives, and inspired — just ask Thomas Hardy: he visited the museum in 1915 and was inspired by a cast of an Archaeopteryx skeleton to write a poem that might be better than Goodrichs’ — again, you can be the judge of that;
I
Here's the mould of a musical bird long passed from light,
Which over the earth before man came was winging;
There's a contralto voice I heard last night,
That lodges with me still in its sweet singing.
II
Such a dream is Time that the coo of this ancient bird
Has perished not, but is blent, or will be blending
Mid visionless wilds of space with the voice that I heard,
In the full-fuged song of the universe unending.
The Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Galler have been key partners in a number of projects and events under the Exeter City of Literature umbrella, such as Around the World in 88 Tales and Out & About: Queering the Museum, and we can’t wait to work with them more in the future!