A version of this blog was originally published on the Bearers of the Cross website.

The Museum of the Order of St John has opened its doors to the visiting public each
week since 1978, but the history of the Museum and its collections goes back much further than this.  As early as 1838 gifts of books were made to the Order, with the collection slowly but surely growing to its current c.60,000 items.  The collection now includes everything from medieval manuscripts to twenty-first-century first aid equipment.

The first Librarian, The Reverend Thomas Hugo, was appointed in 1867, at which point it can be assumed that the collection was thought to be large and significant enough to merit a dedicated person to oversee it. In 1912 the first full inventory of the contents of the Library was made, and this inventory included not just books, but also pamphlets, paintings, drawings, prints and photographs.

A reflection of the growth of the collections, a Library Committee was appointed in 1913, with the Librarian as the Chairman. The first resolution of the Committee was ‘That the functions of the Committee be the care of the Library, the consideration of all matters of an historical and antiquarian nature and the charge of all matters of an historical and antiquarian nature and the charge of all pictures and objects of antiquarian interest in the possession of the Order…’.

It had been possible to view and study the Order’s historic collections by appointment from the 1830s.  Items from the collection were first displayed in 1915, when two table cases were donated by Mr C.W. Bartholomew. H.W.Fincham, later the first curator of the Museum, approached the Library Committee regarding the need for a Museum Room in 1920.  It was not until 1923 that the ground floor room of the West Tower was given over for this purpose. In 1935 a second room – the west tower basement – was opened to visitors.

In 1978 the Museum commenced regular opening for visitors, not only by appointment. This is when the rooms on the ground floor of the East Tower were developed as galleries. In 2010 the galleries reopened having undergone refurbishment and redisplay, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and other donors.  It is now possible to see many of the treasures from the Museum’s medieval collection on display in our Order Gallery.

In 2015 the Museum became a partner on an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project, The Bearers of the Cross, with the University of Birmingham, led by Dr William Purkis. As part of this project the Museum hosted a Research Fellow, Dr Rosie Weetch, from October 2015 to September 2016. Dr Weetch comprehensively identified and catalogued the Museum’s medieval collections, which in early 2017 were made available through an open access online database on the Bearers of the Cross website.