Public Servant Lifestyle

The HM Prison Service Museum collection has moved to a new home in the Nottingham Galleries of Justice.

HM Prison Service Museum

The Prison Services Museum collection has moved to Nottingham, after having been acquired by the Galleries of Justice in the city. The Museum has now moved to its new home in expanded galleries - based in the city's Lace Market's historic Shire Hall.

Prison Service Training College

The original museum – whose previous home was at the Prison Service Training College at Newbold Revel in Rugby - closed at the end of January. Ownership has now transferred to the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham.

Phil Wheatley, Director General of the Prison Service said: "The collection is a valuable resource representing more than one hundred years of rich custodial history in Britain, but we can only show a fraction of it in its current location. Moving it to the Galleries of Justice will mean improved public access and a greater space in which the collection can be shown to its best advantage. The move will also mean that the collection can be seen in a broader heritage context with complementary collections."

HM Prison Service Museum is a fully registered museum and its collection, which is of national significance, includes objects, archives, photographs, artwork, and uniform relating to punishment, imprisonment and HM Prison Service, which date from the establishment of the Prison Commission in 1878.

Oscar Wilde's Door

Among the artefacts in the collection are the door from Oscar Wilde's prison cell in Reading Gaol, a section of the treadmill from Holloway prison, a section of balcony acquired from Manchester’s former HMP Strangeways Prison - after the 1990 riots there - and an embroidery sampler from 1880 – which was embroidered using the only material available to a female prisoner: her own hair! Also on display is the last operational gallows in England, which came from HMP Wandsworth.

HM Prison Service Museum was founded following the success of a temporary exhibition held at the Officers Training School in Leyhill, Gloucestershire in 1978 to mark the centenary of the Prison Department. This led to the establishment of a permanent Prison Service Museum at Leyhill, which opened in 1982, and moved to Newbold Revel when a new training site was established there in 1986.

Negotiations involving the Galleries of Justice, Nottingham City Council, Nottinghamshire County Council, the Heritage Lottery Fund and EMDA have led to an agreement for the City Council to buy the Shire Hall for £1.5m. The sale will enable the Galleries to refurbish its existing facilities and reopen parts of the Shire Hall that have been closed for many years to accommodate the Prison Service Museum collection.

National Centre for Citizenship & Law

Speaking ahead of the big move, Mich Stevenson OBE, Chairman of the Galleries said: "The current Museum in Rugby is too small to show more than a small percentage of the collections and it's a real tribute to the international reputation of the Galleries that it was considered the most suitable home for this prestigious national collection. It means more jobs and a bigger and better Galleries of Justice which has got to be good news for Nottingham."

"Just as important is the way in which we use this material to teach young people. The National Centre for Citizenship and the Law (NCCL) does a great deal of work behind the scenes teaching hundreds of young people about their rights and responsibilities including work with hard-to-reach kids in danger of drifting into crime. The museum is a dynamic and interactive resource with, for example, young people and actors re-enacting famous trials in the old courtroom."

Visit the HM Prison Service Museum website for opening times and further details about arranging your visit. Alternatively, visit the Nottingham Galleries of Justice website.

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