Description

Admin History:

Thomas Sheppard, (1876-1945) was known as Hull’s great collector and had a passion for collecting what was representative of Hull and the East Riding and was a firm believer in ensuring that the specimens reflected the area. Born in South Ferriby he was educated in Hull, to elementary level. His first job was a railway clerk in the dock offices and by the time he had been appointed as the municipal museum’s curator in 1901, Sheppard was already a skilled field archaeologist and an active member of the East Riding Antiquarian Society.

When the corporation acquired the Hull Literary and Philosophical Society’s run down museum primarily just to extend it as an art gallery, Sheppard worked hard and developed it as a major museum and by the time he retired he had been involved in the creation of 9 museums in the area: The Hull Municipal Museum on Albion St (1902), The Wilberforce Museum (1906), the Natural History Museum also on Albion St , (1910), the museum of Fisheries and Fishing in Pickering Park (1912), the Commerce and Transport museum on the High St (1925), the Tithe Barn Museum, Easington (1928), the Mortimer Collection of Prehistoric Antiquities (initially Albion St then in the City Hall, 1929), the Railway Museum in Paragon Station (1933), and Hull’s Old Time Museum (which never officially opened).

A formidable man in many ways, the Keeper of prehistoric and medieval Antiquities at the British Museum, T.D. Kendrick in a great tribute on Shepherd’s retirement added ‘I cannot personally pay you a higher complement than to say that I have always been very thankful that you and I never deliberately wanted the same object!’ Shepherd retired reluctantly in 1941 and died in 1945 after a break down in health. Perhaps the loss of the museum on Albion St and much of his prodigious correspondence and day books in 1943 due to fire from incendiaries devices and the lack of interest by the corporation in the old time museum and the tithe barn museum contributed to this.

Description:

Manuscript and typescript notes