History of the Friends

The Horsham Museum that was founded in 1893 was a very different organisation from the current one.

The Free Christian Church (now the Unitarian Church) started a Museum Society in 1893 which collected objects of educational and general interest which they stored in the church and brought out a few times a year.

The objects included geological specimens, birds’ eggs and less educational photographs of strange potatoes and a hairless horse, which are still in the collection.

By the late 1920s the collection had grown too big for the Church and, thanks to Stan Parsons’ lobbying, in 1930 Horsham Urban District Council gave the Museum the use of the kitchen at Park House which they staffed with volunteers from the Society.

In 1941 the council needed the space at Park House and offered the Society in exchange two rooms in Causeway House, still run by volunteer staff. Over the years the Museum expanded into the whole house.

In the yard at the back a barn was acquired and an archive store, the bicycle gallery and a meeting room were built with the help of lottery money.

Volunteers have laid out the sheltered garden.

Originally the collection belonged to the Museum Society but in 1974 after protracted negotiations the Council took over the running of the Museum and all new objects acquired after 1966 belong to them.

The Museum Society agreed to a permanent loan of their objects and that is the situation still today.

The Council appointed professional curators and in 1988 Jeremy Knight came to Horsham.

Now there are three full-time members of staff. The curator is Nikki Caxton who came to Horsham after working as an Exhibition Manager at the V&A in London.

George Graham is the assistant curator with a background in collections conservation and helps the volunteers.

Jess Reeves is the Visitors Service Officer who organises the popular children’s activities. She studied History at Lancaster, gaining a First Class Honours degree.

Over the years the Museum was lucky to have the support of many local people including Sir Cecil Hurst and William Albery with his collection of horse harness and many documents.

At the Denne Park Sale in the 1940s Stan Parsons persuaded the council to buy the splendid Eversfield double portrait which now hangs on the stairs.

The legal position at the Museum is a little complicated. A charity can claim Gift Aid and other financial benefits, but the Museum Society was unable to claim charity status because they owned part of the collection.

In 2010 the Committee decided to form a separate Friends of Horsham Museum which could be a Charity.

The sole purpose of the Museum Society now is safeguarding the artefacts in the pre-1966 collection.

Members of the Friends are automatically members of Horsham Museum Society as well and Trustees for both organisations are elected from the members.