Spring 2012 programme of museum study days

Museum study days are arranged to give local people opportunities to find out more about the museum and its collections.  We are now able to announce the programme for Spring 2012.

Tuesday 27th March 10.30am to 1pm.  Stagecoaches, Turnpikes and Island Roads: The joys and perils of early 19th century travel. An illustrated talk by Bob Longton with material from our museum library and picture collection.  Tickets £7

Saturday 21st April 10.30am to 2.30pm.  Princess Beatrice: Museum Founder and Island Governor.  A talk by Sarah Lang and Sheila Caws with a tour of relevant parts of the building.  Tickets £10

Saturday 19th May 10.30am - 1pm.  Fanny Minns (1847 - 1929): Professional Isle of Wight artist.  A talk by Nick Minns with the opportunity to see paintings by this Newport artist.  Tickets £7

For further details and to book your place please email carismus@lineone.net or call 523112.  BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL as places are limited.  The charge includes admission to the castle.

Winter tours

Carisbrooke Castle Museum is now able to offer pre-booked guided museum tours on winter weekdays to parties of between 10 and 40 people.  So if you are a member of a special interest group or society please email carismus@lineone.net for more information.  We are now taking books for winter 2012 - 2013.

Earl of Wessex launches museum image library

Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, officially launched 'Historic Images' on 30th July 2011.  Our new website which aims to hold on-line images of Carisbrooke Castle Museum's pictorial collections, ranging from oil paintings, watercolour drawings, prints and photographs. mostly relating to the Isle of Wight.  The museum holds many thousands of such images and it will be working over the next couple of years to place these on the website.  To view the new website clock on the link www.historicimages.co.uk

Ground-shaking achievement - an exhibition about the pioneer seismologist John Milne FRS 1849 - 1913

Despite receiving global acclimation for his work, fellowship to the Royal Society, and the Order of the Rising Sun from the Emperor of Japan, the pioneer seismologist John Milne FRS never gained the recognition he deserved among his fellow Islanders.  An introduction to the life and work of this local hero are celebrated in an exhibition at Carisbrooke Castle Museum which opened with help from the Royal Society.  This exhibition will remain on show until the staging of a comprehensive exhibition on his achievements being planned for 2013.  The museum has also set up a working seismometer in its Lower Gallery, which is detecting earthquakes around the world.

Supplementing the Milne exhibition in the Upper Gallery are exhibits on other notable Islanders, namely the museum's founder Princess Beatrice; the artist John Nixon; the portrait silhouettist John Buncombe; the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson; and members of the Gough-Calthorpe family.

Donation of watercolour paintings to the museum by Dr Michael Turner

A major donation has been presented to the museum by a Dr Michael Turner of Wembley, Middlesex.  It comprises some eight bound volumes of watercolour paintings by his grandfather Charles W. Turner (1872 - 1934), an Islander who for 32 consecutive years taught art at Sandown and Newport secondary schools.  He was involved in many local good causes and was active in natural history, music and amateur dramatics on the Island.  The watercolours are a valuable document of Turner's enthusiasm for the medium.  They were painted for his own edification and cover locations including the Isle of Wight, Hampshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and other English counties.  No locations are named.  Ordinarily the museum might be unable to accept a collection like this because the subjects are by no means all Island related, but in this case every painting is by the same artist, whose profession was in art teaching, and who was born, worked and died on the Island.  This aquisition is the first large body of artwork of a local artist working in the late 19th / early 20th centuries to come into the collection.