Navigation
- Home
- How to find Us
- East Grinstead Museum
- Guinea Pig Club
- The Collection
- Research Room
- Just for Children
- Exhibitions
- Activities
- Group Visits
- Souvenirs of East Grinstead
- How you can help
- Hiring the Museum
- Contact Us
Wednesday - Saturday 10am to 4pm
Sundays and Bank Holidays 2pm to 5pm
Closed over the Christmas period
The Collection
Queen Victoria Hospital Collection
In November 2009, East Grinstead Museum became the guardians of the collection of the former Queen Victoria Hospital (QVH) Museum. The collection has tremendous local significance and includes objects, archives, books and images which had been retained, collected and cared for by Bob Marchant (Honorary Curator) since the 1970s on the suggestion of two surgeons that the Hospital have a museum. .
The QVH can trace its origins back to 1863 as one of the first cottage hospitals in England, eventually moving to the present fourth and larger purpose built hospital in 1936. The collection traces the transformation of the hospital from these modest beginnings to an acclaimed plastic surgery and burns centre. It became particularly famous during the Second World War for the treatment of burned aircrew when Archibald McIndoe, the Civilian Consultant in Plastic Surgery to the Royal Air Force, established a Maxillo-Facial Unit at the hospital pioneering a remarkable treatment regime for severely burned airmen, famously known as his “Guinea Pigs” who in July 1941 formed the Guinea Pig Club as a social support group. Through McIndoe's complementary holistic and psycho-social rehabilitation treatment, East Grinstead soon became known as the ‘town that did not stare’, referring to the townspeople’s active acceptance of disfigured and convalescing service personnel in their midst.
The collection, which had been placed in storage at a local furniture depository, was received uncatalogued, unlabelled and with little written information as to what the collection comprised. The Museum's Collection Team has now inventoried the collection in it's entirety and each item has been labelled, repacked and stored correctly to minimize damage. Details of each item have also been added to the Museum's Collection database along with a basic snap-shot, this is available to visitors on the PC in the Research Room. A small selection of items are now on display in the Museum.
This is a fantastic achievement but the plans are far greater than this. To make the collection fully accessible, the trustees plan to build an extension to the Museum to house a gallery dedicated to the work of Sir Archibald McIndoe and the Guinea Pigs, an area for learning and research and increased storage. They also plan to make the collection available online, along with many learning resources and to employ a learning officer. This will cost over £1million pounds and fund raising is already underway.
Meanwhile work continues on the collection as the Museum's staff and volunteers revisit every single item in much more detail to find out what it was used for, who made it, its age, its rarity and cross reference it to other parts of the collection.
.
