UlsterMuseum.org.uk
Title
Ulster Museum : Homepage : Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland
Description
About Us
The origins of the Museum can be traced back to Tuesday 5 June 1821, when eight young men met in Belfast to form a society for the study of natural sciences. The Belfast Natural History Society put its collections on public display in a handsome new building, "the first ever museum erected in Ireland by voluntary subscription", which opened to the public - for a small admission charge - in 1833.
Thereafter, efforts were made to increase the scope and quality of the collections, first to include ethnographic items collected by many distinguished Ulster travellers, then archaeological specimens. The collections did not at that time extend to the visual arts, although the museum was a venue for temporary art exhibitions. Among the early supporters and patrons were such distinguished citizens as Robert Lloyd Patterson and the collector Canon John Grainger.
In 1888, when Belfast became a city, the Corporation established the Belfast Free Public Library, adding an art gallery in 1890. In the meantime, the growth and increasing importance of the Society's collections and its lack of resources led to the transfer of the museum to Belfast Corporation. A site in Botanic Gardens, a mile south of the city centre, was selected for the building of a new, free Belfast Museum and Art Gallery, although the outbreak of the First World War delayed construction and lack of money after the war reduced the contract to half of the building originally planned. In 1924, the foundation stone was laid by HRH the Duke of York (later King George VI) and in 1929 James Cumming Wynne's neo-classical Portland-stone building opened.
Languages
English
