| Description | Papers deriving from the work of Derbyshire Museum Service director David Sorrell as Curatorial Adviser to Eyam Museum Ltd, including:
Management Committee minutes 1989-1991, with some subcommittee minutes and reports of the Curatorial Adviser
Incoming and outgoing correspondence, fundraising ephemera, news clippings etc.
Correspondence re provisional registration of the museum with the Museums and Galleries Commission, 1989
Business plan, 1990
Funding Strategy, 1990
Acquisition and Disposal policy, 1990
Papers relating to the proposed conversion of part of Home Farm to serve as museum, including the planning application rejected by Peak Park Planning Board in 1990. |
| Administrative History | Eyam Museum grew from the collections of lifelong resident of the village Clarence Daniel, who published a number of books on the history and traditions of Derbyshire, including The Story of the Eyam Plague. Daniel collected local fossils, archaeological materials and documents, which he cared for in a private museum in his home. The collection, which passed to the Eyam Village Society on his death in 1987, was described in 1990 as a "unique basis for exhibiting Eyam's history in a new museum" in the business plan of a newly-formed company, Eyam Museum Ltd. The company's Memorandum and Articles of Association were incorporated on 7 July 1989, and it was registered as a charity on 4 October of that year. Its Management Committee included representatives of Derbyshire County Council and Derbyshire Dales District Council, and its Curatorial Adviser was the director of Derbyshire Museum Service, David Sorrell. The service provided assistance with storage of the collections, an arrangement which came to an end when Derbyshire Museum Service was wound up in 1991. Sorrell reported to the Management Committee that "the disappearance of the DMS presented members with the problems of the storage of their collection" but that "an arrangement with [Derbyshire Dales District Council] solved the problem for the immediate future". An enduring solution was found in the shape of a Methodist chapel ("Top Chapel") on Hawkhill Road. The company took out a lease on the premises, which opened to the public as Eyam Museum in April 1994, before purchasing the property in 1999 with financial assistance including National Lottery funding. The church, founded in 1906, continued as a place of worship throughout this period, until its final service was held in June 2011. |