Harris Museum

In the 19th century, it became legal to raise money for libraries by local taxation, and the town of Preston wanted a grand museum and library for its inhabitants. From 1850, local people held fund-raising events; and in 1877 Edmund Robert Harris, a Preston lawyer, left in his will £300,000 to establish a trust and support a public library, museum and art gallery with Preston Corporation.[2]

In 1879, the first Preston lending library was set up in the Town Hall basement, while a public museum was set up on Cross Street, opening 1 May 1880. Success led the council to erect a new building for both. Work started on the museum in 1882 during the Preston Guild, and it officially opened in 1893.[2]

The building was designed by a local architect, James Hibbert, who chose a Neo-Classical style. For the 1880s, this was in some ways contrary to the Gothic Revival style which was popular at the time and features in numerous contemporary buildings in Preston, including the old Town Hall which stood on the western side of the Harris.[3]

The Harris collections cover fine art, decorative art, costume, textiles and history including collections on archaeology and local history. The museum has a permanent history gallery called Discover Preston which covers Preston's history but also includes a Discovery Room featuring the wider collections. Highlights of the Discovery Room include a display of the complete skeleton discovered in 1970, of the 13,500-year-old Poulton Elk, a skeleton of an Ice Age elk with two embedded man-made barbed points, the earliest relic of human occupation of Lancashire.[5]

The fine art collection includes over 800 oil paintings featuring work by Richard Ansdell, George Frederick Watts, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Stanley Spencer, Lucian Freud, Ivon Hitchens and Graham Sutherland as well as local artists Anthony Devis and Reginald Aspinwall.[6] The decorative art collection includes collections of British ceramics and glass, and are displayed in the Ceramics and Glass Gallery. In addition there is a contemporary art programme of national and international artists, touring shows and in-house exhibitions.[7]

A Foucault pendulum hangs in the central foyer, through all the floors, over a butterfly-shaped plate marked with the hours of the day. As a result of the rotation of the Earth, this functions as a decorative and reasonably-accurate clock. The building is also decorated with a number of plaster casts of classical friezes throughout the central atrium and a 19th-century copy of the Baptistery doors from Florence is located on the ground floor. These were part of the original design scheme by the architect James Hibbert.[8]

The building also houses Preston City's Public Library,[9] which is run by Lancashire County Council. The first librarian of the Harris Free Public Library was a William Bramwell who retired in 1916 aged eighty-one. The Harris library holds important book collections including the Shepherd Collection donated to Preston by Dr Richard Shepherd in 1761, with additions funded by the Shepherd bequest,[10] local studies material, nineteenth-century journals, rare books and art books. Also the Spencer collection of illustrated children's books and chapbooks.[11] At the time of the opening of the Harris, William Bramwell was also the librarian of the Dr Shepherd Library which found a home at the Harris having been located in various buildings and institutions across the town.[12]

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  The Harris
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  Detail of the sculptures above the columns
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  The front of the building, as seen from the Flag Market
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  The pediment, with the central figure of Pericles
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  The entrance and rotunda from the first floor
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  The gallery entrances from the first floor landing
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  The skylight pyramid at the top of the main atrium
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  In the Bey's Garden, by John Frederick Lewis, in the museum
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  Copy of The Gates of Paradise - the east doors of The Florence Baptistery.
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  In the Golden Olden Time, by John Atkinson Grimshaw, oil on canvas, c1870
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  Scapa Flow by B. F. Gribble, depicting the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow on 18 November 1918, oil on canvas, 1920
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  Blue hour photograph of the Harris Museum taken in the morning 5 March 2022

Following a successful bid for support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, in October 2020 plans were submitted for a £10.7M renovation and restoration project called #HarrisYourPlace with the aim "to establish the Harris as the UK’s first blended museum, art gallery and library". The project is said to include "much-needed conservation works" on the roof, stonework and basement to help address the building's "long-standing damp problem". It will also reveal some of the Harris’ original architectural details which have been hidden by previous building works, including reopening an original entrance way to improve accessibility. A new lift and toilet on the ground floor will improve the building's accessibility to disabled visitors, and a new staircase will replace the existing fire exit stairs.[13]

These proposed works are in addition to a £150K Children's Place scheme scheduled to open in 2024, which will redevelop the children's library space and improve facilities for school groups and families.[14]

The Harris features in the Preston version of Monopoly, launched in October 2020.[15]

• Listed buildings in Preston, Lancashire

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• www.theharris.org.uk