Armagh County Museum

Armagh County Museum

Neoclassical façade of Armagh Museum
Established	1937
Location	Armagh
Type	Historical museum
Collections	Archaeology, Art, Costume, Taxidermy, Library
Collection size	360,000
Founder	Armagh County Council
Owner	Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council
Nearest parking	Street
Website	http://www.armaghcountymuseum.co.uk/

The Armagh County Museum is a museum in Armagh, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Located on the edge of the tree-lined Mall in the centre of Armagh city, the museum is the oldest County Museum in Ireland, officially opened in 1937.

The building was originally established as Charlemont Place National School and the architect may have been Francis Johnston's pupil, William Murray.

However the school was not a success and the trustees transferred the lease to Armagh Natural History and Philosophical Society in 1856. They utilised the premises as their reading room, library, lecture hall and museum. It was their museum that formed the foundation of what would become Armagh County Museum’s collection. They employed architect Edward Gardner to convert the one room interior into two ground floor rooms and a broad balcony housing the museum above. The Society and museum expanded during the latter half of the nineteenth century and by 1888 it could boast 275 members paying an annual subscription of five shillings each. In that year the interior layout of the building was described thus: "To economise space, the reading room, by the withdrawal of a partition formed of shutters, becomes the stage of the theatre, and the theatre and museum are one. A good collection of specimens has been secured for the illustration of lectures on natural history. The library is well stocked with books in the following departments: – Antiquities, Astronomy, Arts, Biography, Chemistry, Economics, Geography, Geology,and Mineralogy, History, Mechanics, Metaphysics, Microscopy, Natural History, Natural Philosophy, Poetry, and general literature..." In 1891 Art Rooms were built immediately behind the museum and for some years an Art School flourished under the auspices of the Science & Art department of the South Kensington Museum.

In 1930 Armagh County Council took over the building with the primary purpose of using it as a repository for the County Library but by the far sightedness of the Council secretary T.E. Reid they were persuaded to rejuvenate the Philosophical Society's museum. In 1933 the Council commissioned J.A. Sidney Stendall then Assistant Curator at Belfast Municipal Museum & Art Gallery to write a report on the current state of the museum and how it should be developed. He found many of the "curiosities" collected by the Philosophical Society to be of little value to a modern County Museum and advised "that the few scattered ethnographic objects should be likewise jettisoned, including the very dilapidated mummy..." By 1934 they had expended £1,300 "on the reconstruction of the buildings to make them suitable for a central Book Repository and Museum". The same Council minutes recommend that £50 per annun be spent "for the assistance of the Honorary Curator." The Honorary Curator was 46-year-old local historian George Paterson or as he became known through his writing, T.G.F. Paterson. By November 1934 he had been appointed "whole-time curator for three years commencing on the 1st January, 1935, at a salary of £3.0.0 per. week." Several years were spent rationalizing the collection and refitting the display cases as well as making alterations to the building. This was completed by 1937 and on 28 April of that year Viscount Charlemont in his role as Minister of Education for Northern Ireland performed the opening ceremony. The Carnegie U.K. Trust had contributed funds to complete the refurbishment of the museum and in 1938 they contributed a further £162.10s.0d towards further development of the new museum.