{{Short description|Former museum in Walsall, England}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Use British English|date=February 2023}} thumb | right | Bust of John Henry Carless VC outside Walsall Museum, England. '''Walsall Museum''' was a small, local history museum located in the centre of Walsall in the West Midlands. The holdings of Walsall Museum ranged from seventeenth-century firemarks to twenty-first century posters. There was also a large collection of costume and textiles; notably The Hodson Shop Collection, a unique collection of unsold shop stock of working-class clothing dating from the 1920s to the 1960s. The museum closed permanently in March 2015.<ref>[https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/27022015-walsall-museum-to-close-cuts "Walsall Museum to Close Next Month"] ''Museums Journal''. Retrieved 3 October 2016.</ref> The collections were placed in secure storage and remain under the care of Walsall Council's Museum Service.<ref name="culture24">{{Citation | title = Culture24 | url = http://www.culture24.org.uk/wm000047 | accessdate = 8 November 2015 }} </ref>
==Collections== Walsall Museum’s collection included products of local industries, particularly those of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as curios and costume.
===Metalworking=== A very large collection of lorinery, locally made locks, brass wares and chains.
===Twentieth-century industry=== Innovative stainless steel homewares made by Old Hall of Bloxwich, and Gaydon and Beetleware items made by BIP's Streetly Plastics, are represented in the collection.
===Walsall at War=== Objects from the First World War and Second World War, including gas masks and soldiers' equipment.
===The Hodson Shop=== The nationally significant Hodson Shop collection comprises the unsold stock of a small drapers' shop in Willenhall, and includes everyday clothing from the 1920s to the 1970s - the sort of garments that rarely find their way into museum collections.
===Curios=== The collection also included a scold's bridle; a preserved crocodile; and a preserved child's arm, found in a chimney at the White Hart Inn on Caldmore Green. The arm was discovered in 1870 and thought to be a 'hand of glory', but tests showed it to be a medical specimen that has been injected with the preservative formalin. It is known that a doctor was residing at the White Hart, but not how he came by the arm.<ref> {{ Citation | title = The Hand of Glory and the White Hart | url = http://www.walsall.gov.uk/the_hand_of_glory_and_the_white_hart.pdf | accessdate = 8 November 2015 }} </ref>
===Local notables=== There were also a few items relating to famous Walsall figures including the local author Jerome K. Jerome, the nursing pioneer Sister Dora and John Henry Carless, a recipient of the Victoria Cross in the First World War.
==References== {{reflist|colwidth=30em}}
==External links== * [http://www.walsall.gov.uk/walsall_museum.htm Walsall Museum website]
Category:Buildings and structures in Walsall Category:Museums in the West Midlands (county) Category:Defunct museums in England Category:Local museums in the West Midlands (county) Category:Museums established in 1976 Category:1976 establishments in England Category:Museums disestablished in 2015 Category:2015 disestablishments in England