The Museum - Some facts and history about how it started.

By

Harold G White

In 1935 I was elected to the Dartmouth Borough Council. In those days the council had enormous powers, it could spend its money as it's like. There was no District Auditor, we did or own assessment independent of the Inland Revenue and could raise money for loan purposes without having to ask any ministry.

I was roped in by one or two enthusiast to provide the town with a public library. There were private libraries at Boots, Smith etc. But no County library where people could obtain books free of charge, this badly effected the W. E. A. (Workers Education Authority) which was the sole means of adult education in the town. As a result we bought the closed Primitive Methodist Chapel in Newcomen Road. The price was £500 which included (1) What is now the library * (2) A flat underneath (3) The hall under that. The chapel had a high pitch roof and a gallery.

We first put in an upper floor and in remove the Gallery. The Carnegie Trust gave us the bookshelves. The Dartmouth council had to agree to pay a half penny rate to the Devon County Council for a supply of books. The Dartmouth council had to pay the librarian. A lot of this was hotly opposed, but we won, there was a demand in the town which could not be gainsaid.

We opened the top floor as the Reading room. Newspapers and reference books but this was not used and was the failure. As it was now vacant a man called Percy Russell came and asked if he could open a museum there. This was about 1937. I was by this time chairman of housing and estates (this included slum clearance and was a very big job) and the library was a sub-committee of this. So it all started. The upper floor was in cubicles - see the present roof and you'll see why. Percy Russell had a great friend Payne and between them they had a small display of Victoriana / Antique silver / Period dresses etc. The idea of a Dartmouth Museum was talk about but there was not the material.

At about this time the council bought the old Liberal Club in Victoria Road and started to reorganise the whole office under a very energetic new in engineer. The Dartmouth Castle which was a much neglected Borough property was taken over by the Office of Works (ancient monuments)? and an enormous amount of stuff which had not seen the light of day for years was unearthed. In one sense when I say unearthed I mean unearthed. As we dug out the huge mound of earth at the bottom of the castle itself we found a large iron box which was found to contain the court records of the civil war'. This went to the Record Office.

A note on Percy Russell.

He was a chartered accountant from the Midlands who used to come here for holidays and finally retired here circa 1930s. He was a very enthusiastic but not a professional historian.

From all the clear-out of the above such items as the Constable's Staves, the old Bronze Measures etc were found and Percy put these and other items into one of the alcoves and the “Dartmouth Museum” was born.

Then came the war

After the war, I was demobbed  and went to Eton Hall in Cheshire where the college was. I got back in 1947 - stood for the council - and was again made chairman of housing and estates, no mean job at that time. Among the jobs I took over was the Butterwalk.

The whole of the Butterwalk side of Duke Street had been flattened in 1944. The Butterwalk itself was standing – just - but was in an appalling state and just held up with scaffolding inside. The great question in the town was what to do with the Butterwalk, the general view was - pull it down and widen the road. I really can claim credit for being one of the people who saved it. After lots of debate I arranged a public meeting of the Council in which we got the War Damage Commission, Ancient Monuments Department, Council, the mayor Harold Adams who was in the chair, he was an anti - in the end it was agreed

1. The Butterwalk must be preserved.

2. Estimated cost was £40,000 although this was an approximate estimate if ever there was one.

3. The war damage would pay £10,000

4. The ancient monuments would pay £20,000

5. All rents must be paid into a separate account and are not used for the general rate fund and this

account was to accumulate for future preservation of the building.

6. The King Charles Room now the Museum - must be used in such a way that it was opened to the

public.

7. The roomed next to it to be used as a Café/ Restaurant so that the upstairs room with its Pentecost    overmantle should always be on view.

8. The end shop - Par Ferris - seemed to small to make such a stipulation but anyone could apply to the

council offices for permission to see the Rood of Jesse ceiling and must be shown over.

So far so good. Incidentally no one gave credit to the temporary Borough Engineer (really a very well-known engineer/Architect doing a wartime job) and the Borough foreman Whitemore who after the bombing faithfully collected all the bits and pieces of the ceilings, got out a drawing, numbered every piece, put them all in boxes in straw etc so that after the war they were all ready to reassemble. A true labour of love for which no thanks were ever given.

Then the next argument arose, fierce and bitter. The old Dartmothian element Alderman Row etc were quite satisfied with the Henley Museum. After all Henley was a Dartmothian who most of them remembered and were opposed to any other museum. I tried to get the room (in the Butterwalk) for Percy Russell to restart his Museum, eventually I (we) won. One of the original conditions was that no part of the Butterwalk was to be used free. There was a strong move to get a council offices moved there. So we let the room to the museum for £60 a year and then agreed to make the museum a grant of £60 a year from the general rate fund! how we got that through, God knows.

The Museum was to be run by a set of Trustees. From then Percy Russell took over. He was a very forceful character as well as being a very comfortably off man. I dropped out of it in any official capacity. New housing and the de-requisitioning of commandeered property kept my committee more than a little occupied. Percy Russell wanted me to be a trustee but I was more use as a councillor and chairman of Estates. I think the only original trustee left, or at least the longest serving is Marigold Richardson so try her for the subsequent history.

March 1983

* Since this was written the library has moved to a new site in the Flavel Centre