Gifts, Loans & Museum Collections

Wigan Heritage Service will consider gifts, loans and bequests for all (museums, local history and archives) its collections to be made accessible to, and for the benefit of the public.

Gifts
Gifts are accepted in accordance with our Acquisitions and Disposal Policies.

Loans In
We will only accept loans in for specific purposes and periods of time, eg exhibition, research or copying.

Loans Out
Items from all the collections may be borrowed by museums, archives, institutions and other bodies for specific purposes, eg exhibition. Each application is considered on its individual merit. The needs of individual items and any restrictions regarding loan, will also be taken in to account. Borrowers will be expected to meet relevant standards of care and security.

Withdrawal of Records
Archive Collections – only applicable to the Archive Collections.
Records which have been loaned to the archive may be removed temporarily, or permanently withdrawn, if;
• you are the original depositor,
• you have inherited the records if the original depositor has died,
• you represent the depositor and have a letter of authorisation.
Requests for withdrawals must be in writing (six months notice). We reserve the right to copy documents and make them available for public research. Owners must undertake to reimburse the cost of any conservation work we have carried out on any records which are to be permanently withdrawn.

Further information relating to loans, gifts and bequests may be obtained from Yvonne Webb, Collections Development Manager. Contact: 01942 828123 or e-mail y.webb@wlct.org

Museum Collection
There are over 20,000 objects in the Museum Collection. The main strength is our local social and industrial history, and Roman material from the archaeological excavations in Wigan town centre (1984 and 2006). There are also collections of coins and medals, fine art, ethnography, Egyptology, geology and natural history.

In the past, many objects of no relevance to the history of the Borough (and the boroughs that were once councils in their own right, but are now part of Wigan Borough) were accepted into the collections. The Heritage Service is currently working to establish which collections are most relevant to local people and local history. Eventually, irrelevant collections will be disposed of.

The remaining collections will be subject to further study and documentation, and made more accessible to the public, through exhibitions, outreach activities, educational activities, loans and handling collections.

Our Acquisitions and Disposal Policy will also change to reflect our new collecting priorities, and to ensure that we only collect objects which are of most importance to local people and the history of the Borough.

As the work on our collections is completed, more information will become available. It is our eventual aim to enable access to large parts of our collection on line.

In the meantime, if you have any queries concerning the collection contact Yvonne Webb, Collections Development Manager, 01942 828123 or e-mail y.webb@wlct.org