Founded 1906
Archaeology Report Spring 2019
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Selected Article from the BHAS Bi-Annual magazine "Flint" Spring 2019
Brighton Museum Archaeology Gallery – a lengthy and convoluted tale Brighton Museum was in the forefront of archaeology for much of the 20th century. Herbert Toms, its curator in the early 1900’s, was the founder of the Brighton and Hove Archaeological Club, later to become the Society. The museum originally had three long galleries filled to the brim with a wonderful collection of ar-tefacts, including numerous flint axes and tools, pottery from lo-cal sites, and magnificent reconstructed displays of Whitehawk Camp, Hollingbury Hill-fort and the Rottingdean long barrow. Many of the older members of BHAS will remember these with affection. As youngsters we would wander these galleries and stare in awe at this fabulous array. It was sometime during the 1980’s that a new gallery was creat-ed. This was designed and built by Tristan Bareham and the ESAMP team, and the new gallery included a full size Iron Age round house. The new gallery was opened by David Attenbor-ough. One of the exhibits was of two of the Whitehawk female skeletons displayed below a glass panel in the floor. In 1998 Brighton Museum received an eight million pounds lot-tery grant for re-vamping the museum displays. BHAS were pleased to hear about the award until they heard that, as part of the new scheme, there was to be the total removal of any ar-chaeology from the museum! BHAS held numerous meetings with the museum hierarchy, but never managed to get a meeting with the then head of BHCC museums who had made the decision to remove all archaeology from the museum. Various past presidents, including Arthur Collins, Val Betts, Doreen Richardson and myself, attended a number of acrimonious discussions at the museum, but to no avail. Archaeology was totally removed from the museum. As a result of this there was a major display at Hove Museum organised by Richard le Saux and the museum team. It was a magnificent display which consisted of three large galleries with many finds, and numerous photographs of var-ious BHAS presidents and members. Sadly this excellent exhibition lasted for only for three months. The museum team did create a very small display in Brighton Museum in the community group area. This display was designed by BHAS member Karina Wiles. The display was due to last for 6 months, but actually lasted for 12 years and was only re-moved as part of the new initiative for a larger gallery. It was when the local history section of Brighton Library moved to The Keep in about 2015 that the Society decided there was the potential for a real archaeological gallery be-cause of all the extra available space. BHAS members moved onto the streets to petition the public for the return of an archaeology gallery in Brighton Museum, and there was huge public support. Numerous BHAS members including Fran Briscoe, Linda Robinson, Joan MacGregor, Maria Gar-diner, Jane Russell, David Rudling, Mary Funnell and Elaine Evans were out in all weathers seeking names on their peti-tion. The lobbying proved extremely successful with thousands of people signing up. The success of the petition meant that a meeting of the full Brighton and Hove City Council had to consider the proposal for a new gallery. David Rudling gave such a splendid presentation at the meeting that the Council announced that Brighton Museum should have an archaeol-ogy gallery. The new gallery was to depict the ancient and rich heritage of the city and its wonderful collection of finds. The only drawback was that the Society would have to find £250,000 to finance the scheme! BHAS were in the process of discussing fund raising when a worthy patron appeared. Elaine Evans had joined the Socie-ty in 2006 after being on one of the BHAS summer walks at Bramber. Elaine then attended many lectures, was a regular on the BHAS outings, and also attended some of the finds pro-cessing sessions. That was so useful and I came home with two key points for the practical development of this gallery. One: the size of the font so that people can read it without having to put on their reading glasses. Two: the position and angle of the text below the display cases, accessible to everyone including children. They have created something totally wonderful, and I am 100% convinced that it will receive local and national awards. Fantastic!
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