Mc Gregor Museum - Overview

Overview

Housed at first in a purpose-built museum building in Chapel Street, Kimberley, the museum was, and still is, governed by a Board of Trustees, aided financially by the municipality (up to the 1950s), then by the Cape Provincial Administration and, today, by the Northern Cape Administration through the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture.

Alexander McGregor had been a Mayor of Kimberley, whose wife bequeathed the building to perpetuate his memory.

Today the museum has its headquarters at the old Kimberley Sanatorium building in Belgravia, Kimberley, and it has several satellites including the original building in Chapel Street. The museum opened its doors on 24 September 1907. By coincidence 24 September was chosen as Heritage Day, a public holiday in South Africa post-1994.

The McGregor Museum is a primary research institute in and for the Northern Cape (a province with a National Institute for Higher Education, but still lacking a university) in fields of natural and cultural history (including zoology, botany, general history, South African struggle history, archaeology, social anthropology). It curates important collections and archival material (see below) and, on the basis of its collections and research activities, performs educational and outreach functions to the community locally and throughout the province. Research programmes include international collaborative projects.