Museum clothing collection
Walsall Museum’s Clothing Collection is part of the Community History Collection and, as such, it reflects the clothing of the townspeople and their neighbours in the surrounding areas. The Collection contains no ceremonial dress, no court dress and no haute couture. It consists mainly of the clothing worn by people going about their daily business and that worn on high days and holidays. A large part of the Collection is formed by the contents of the Hodson Shop, which was a Willenhall General Draper’s. About three hundred items from Wolverhampton Museum & Art Gallery were added to the collection in 1999. The remainder of the Collection was given by members of the public. There are over five and a half thousand garments and accessories in all.
The Hodson Shop Collection
In about 1920 the Hodson sisters, Flora and Edith, decided to turn the front room of the house where they lived with their father, Edgar, into a “General and Fancy Draper” shop. The house was in New Road, Willenhall, West Midlands. Edgar was a lockmaker and his factory premises surrounded the courtyard behind the house. The sisters sold women’s and children’s clothing (with the exception of heavier items such as top coats); men’s underclothing; haberdashery; small furnishing items such as sofa cushions; beauty products; toiletries and the requisites for knitting, crochet and embroidery.
The shop ceased to trade in the 1960s, although Flora may have traded from the back door of the premises as late as the 1970s. When Flora died in 1983 the shop, and indeed the rest of the house, was found to contain a large amount of unsold stock which provided a fascinating picture of the changing styles of working class women’s and children’s clothes from about 1918 to the mid 1950s.
When the house and factory complex became the Lock Museum (now The Locksmith’s House) there was insufficient room to store and display the Collection, so it was removed to Walsall Museum. In 1987 the collection featured in the 1920s episode of the BBC television series on the history of costume, “Through the Looking Glass”.
Besides the clothing, the Collection contains a large archive of most of the paperwork involved in the running of the shop, for example warehouse catalogues, communications from manufacturers and invoices. Recordings have also been made of the memories of customers, showing different aspect of the life of the shop.
The Rest of the Clothing Collection
The remaining Clothing Collection covers a period of about two hundred years; the earliest garment being a carriage cloak of about 1810, the latest being made in 2006. The collecting policy seeks to obtain items which complement the Hodson Shop Collection. In all, the Clothing Collection contains over 430 dresses from 1830 to the present day. There is very little men’s clothing, but the Museum is seeking to remedy this. There are over 80 girl’s dresses, and about the same number of baby gowns. The Clothing Collection is particularly rich in overalls, blouses and stockings, which are often not collected in large numbers by other museums.
Reference Material
Walsall Museum has its own library which has a good range of costume books. Illustrations from previous exhibitions are retained as a picture source, and photographs are also collected. Many of the items in the collection can be viewed as slides, and these are in the process of being converted to digital images. There are also collections of women’s magazines, dress and knitting patterns which can be referred to. All these items remain in the Museum, although loans can be made in exceptional circumstances.
Contact us
Walsall Museum
Lichfield Street
Walsall
West Midlands
WS1 1TR
United Kingdom
Telephone: 01922 653116
Email: museum@walsall.gov.uk