The St Helens Metropolitan Borough Collection

First established in 1892, the St Helens Metropolitan Borough Collection is in two parts. The first part consists mainly of regionally significant items illustrative of the social and industrial history of the area, including items relating to mining, brewing, the pharmaceutical and chemical industry, and glass making.

The glass collection includes a large number of highly unusual and rare apprentice pieces such as friggers, early bottles and containers. It also includes a range of trade samples reflecting the products manufactured over the decades by local firms such as Pilkington Brothers, Cannington Shaw and United Glass Bottle Manufacturer, which date from the 19th Century to the present day.

The Collection also contains local geological samples and items of industrial archaeology, including a collection of clay pipes manufactured at Rainford in the 18th Century. There are also artefacts illustrative of the transport revolution which occurred in the area encompassing the 1829 Rainhill Trials, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and the Sankey Canal.

The second part of the Collection includes paintings by local artists of industrial scenes, and some of more general interest from the private collection of Victorian oils which once belonged to Sir Joseph Beecham. The Guy and Margery Pilkington water - colour bequest includes studies by Samuel Proust Peter de Wint and Miles Birket Foster.

The Collection is important from the heritage point of view, because most of the artefacts were made in St Helens and demonstrate the age and the nature of its industrial past. The Beecham collection of paintings too is of heritage importance, for Beechams, which is now one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, had its beginning in St Helens. Thomas Beecham, the founder of the firm, first sold his famous pills from a stall in St Helens Market.

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