Collections
Archaeology
Archaeological collections are stored at the Museums Resource Centre at Burymead Road in Hitchin, where researchers may consult them by appointment. The more significant objects are displayed in Letchworth Museum; there are also some finds in Hitchin Museum that document the prehistory and early history of the town.
The collections displayed in the museum are important for demonstrating the cultures and societies of North Hertfordshire's past.
Art
The Art Collections principally comprise works by local artists, especially the Quaker brewers Samuel Lucas the Elder (1805-1870) and his son Samuel (1840-1919), while there are important works by early Garden City painters, including William Ratcliffe and Spencer Gore.
Ceramics
Letchworth Museum has a collection of ceramics dating mainly from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries.
Costume
The Museum Service's costume collection is thought to be the largest collection of its kind in Hertfordshire. It includes items from the eighteenth century to the present day. Among the wide range of garments are christening robes, wedding dresses and mourning clothes, evening gowns, wartime utility clothing, uniforms and modern high street clothing. The textile collection includes examples of the many different craft skills which were particularly popular among ladies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
We also have a collection of dolls from the eighteenth century to the 1990s, including elegant wooden, wax and china dolls, homely rag dolls to well known plastic figures like Barbie and Action Man.
Documents
Hitchin Museum holds a collection of documents including Reginald Hine's extensive notes, as well as scrapbooks of press cuttings. There are copies of nineteenth-century census returns, trade directories and student dissertations of local interest.
Football
Hitchin Town Football Club was an early foundation and collected memorabilia for a small museum. When the collection grew too large, it was passed to the Museums Service. It contains many items of national significance, some of which are on loan to the National Museum of Football in Preston, Lancashire.
Hertfordshire Yeomanry
The Hertfordshire Yeomanry Trust´s collection of uniforms, badges, weapons and other militaria is held by the Museums service, part of which is on display at Hitchin Museum. Its archive of records and photographs is held by by Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies in Hertford.
Pharmacy
The Perks and Llewellyn pharmacy in Hitchin stood in High Street until 1961. The last shop owner, Violet Lewis, who ran the business from 1930 to 1961, saved the historic interior of the chemist shop, the contents of which were eventually transferred to the Museums Service when the Hertfordshire Medical and Pharmaceutical Trust raises funds to find a permanent home for the collection.
Photography
The service has an extensive photographic collection, its earliest images dating from the mid 1850s. Thomas Benwell Latchmore and his son Thomas William documented Hitchin from the early 1860s, providing a valuable record of the town's development. Almost all the negatives were destroyed immediately after World War II for glass reclamation, but several of the photographers' stock albums and many display copies remain, a core of around 2,000 images.
In the 1980s, the Hitchin Comet newspaper transferred its back collection of glass negatives to the museum. These are mostly in 5" x 4" format.
Social history
There is an extensive collection of objects illustrating the social history of the past four or more centuries. Highlights include part of Baldock's first letterbox, dating from the reign of William IV (1830-37).
