Nelson Provincial Museum - Collection

Collection

Collections include:

• Kingdon-Tomlinson family silver collection dating from 1594–1800 and consists of over 140 pieces. It was gifted by Deed of Trust to the people of Nelson and the surrounding region by Julie Annie Tomlinson in 1959.

• Bett Collection (the nucleus of an extensive and growing historical library and archives). Dr Francis Arnot Blackader Bett (1873–1957) passionately collected books, photographs, maps, documents, sketches and paintings relating to the Nelson province.

• Marsden Collection. A rare and beautiful collection of eighteenth and nineteenth century antique furniture, plate, glassware and porcelain - including Sèvres, Dresden and Worcester. This has been consolidated from an original bequest together with separate holdings formerly held by the Cawthron Institute and the Anglican Diocese of Nelson The Marsden Book Collection is also held at the museum dating from 1773 to the early 1920s and relates to natural history, discovery and exploration of the Pacific.

• Tyree Studio Collection of more than 105,000 photographic negatives is one of the most comprehensive social history collections in New Zealand. William Tyree (1855–1924) and Frederick Tyree (1867–1924) were the sons of a master boot-maker from Surrey, England. In 1871, the Tyrees arrived in New Zealand. By 1878, William had established the Tyree Studio in Trafalgar Street, Nelson, and by 1884 his younger brother, Frederick, and Rosaline Frank were working as his assistants. Their Aunt's Victorian decorative tiled fireplace is installed in Amber House nearby.

Until 1895, William Tyree methodically documented and recorded the social history of the region and from 1910, when he moved to Sydney, Rosaline Frank managed the Tyree Studio. Frederick Tyree established his own photographic business in Takaka, Golden Bay, and continued his interest in photography until his death in 1924. The Tyree Studio continued to operate until 1947 under the ownership of Rosaline Frank.

• The Nelson Mail Photographic Collection of images from 1979 to 1994. More than 205,000 individual negatives and growing.

• Other collections: Geoffrey C Wood Collection, F N Jones Collection, Manson Collection, Prouse Collection, Nelson College Collection, Jenkins Collection, F G Gibbs Collection, Greenwood Collection, Knapp Collection, W E Brown Collection, Ellis Dudgeon Collection, Reg & Hugh Kingsford Collection, The Nelson Evening Mail Newspaper Collection, The Examiner, The Colonist.