List of Objects
Telling a history of our world through objects
Click on the titles in the blue bar below [Location, Theme, Contributor Type, etc.] and then choose a category to see a list of objects - e.g. click Theme and then click War. (All objects have been classified by their contributor.)
You can also chose to see objects from a particular time period by clicking on the dates in the box below.
To start again and see all the objects, click this link: Start again
1925 - 1950
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Olympic Torch from 1948 London Olympics
This torch was one of the 1688 torches designed and manufactured in the UK for the ‘Relay of Peace’ which took place ...
Contributed by Museum
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YZ bird matchstriker
A YZ bird matchstriker in the shape of a pelican made from cast phenolic resin and ebony, by Henry Howell & Co. about ...
Contributed by Individual
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Red Cross butter tin from Colditz Castle
This Canadian Creamery Butter tin comes from Colditz Castle in Germany. The tin was part of a Red Cross parcel, sent to ...
Contributed by Individual
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Polish Cooking Pot journeyed to Scotland
It belongs to my father-in-law, Leon. His mother took it from the Polish farm where he was born. The pot went with them ...
Contributed by Individual
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Colossus World's 1st Electronic Computer
Colossus was designed to break the Lorenz cipher, used by German High Command.
Contributed by Museum
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My Father's Rice Box
This box contained my father's daily rice ration when he was a Prisoner of War in Japan. My father was arrested in ...
Contributed by Individual
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Royal typewriter
This object is a link to my boyhood, both my parents, and a reminder that had it not been for the Second World War, I ...
Contributed by Individual
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Felinfoel Brewery beer can
The small brewery at Felinfoel was the first brewery outside the USA to commerically can beer
Contributed by Museum
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Bomb Disposal Poster from 1942
This poster came to me from my father, who was in the Royal Engineers as a sapper during the Second World War, in the ...
Contributed by Individual
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Mrs Beeton's Cookery Book
This book is a real treasure. It's a second edition of Mrs Beeton's world famous cookery book. It belongs to my mother, ...
Contributed by Individual
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Test tube with early Penicillin
This test tube, thought to contain early Penicillin from 1942, has been given to me by my mother.
She was Ruth ...
Contributed by Individual
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Marmalade cutter
This marmalade cutter has been in the family for as long as I can remember. I have also seen one at the Ulster Folk and ...
Contributed by Individual
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Drinking water vessel from Lifeboat
During the Second World War the Merchant Navy sailed back and forth across the dangerous Atlantic keeping supply lines ...
Contributed by Individual
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A CURTA high precision calculator
This calculator was used by my Father in Law he was an electrical engineer for the CEGB and died at the age of 72 in ...
Contributed by Individual
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Small useful cupboard
My family moved to Highbridge after the Bath Blitz. A neighbour made the object out of wood packaging from the ...
Contributed by Individual
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Bronze Shield from Northern Rhodesia
Jean Mottram my neighbour writes: "I worked in the Secretariat (Government HQ) in Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia from May ...
Contributed by Individual
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A Japanese flag from Burma in WW2
One wet Saturday afternoon, when I was in my early teens, I decided to take all the records out of the record cabinet - ...
Contributed by Individual
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A small Davy Lamp
My Granddad worked in the mines with this Davy lamp nearly 40 years ago in Doncaster. He told me a story about what it ...
Contributed by Individual
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Fire Axe from the first Queen Elizabeth
The SS "Queen Elizabeth" sailed from Southampton to New York for decades. I would see its funnels over the rooftops, ...
Contributed by Individual
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a postcard from Theresienstadt 1944
This is the only link I have to my grandmother,Sophie Storch, this postcard from Theresienstadt Poland 1944 was a ...
Contributed by Individual
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Stop watch
A Barrington's chronoscope watch that is engraved "Donald Pain from Harold M Abrahams XIVth Olympiad 1948". It was left ...
Contributed by Individual
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Audio Disc - Voices of the Forces
Becky Lowe - 12/07/2010
My grandad Kenneth Curley sent messages to his parents on discs such as this between 1942 and ...
Contributed by Individual
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Eritrean Pipe
Acquired by my father in Eritrea in mid 1940's during the British occupation of Ethiopia.This represents a ...
Contributed by Individual
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British India coin smallest denomination
A coin of British India Rule era, minted in 1945 minimum denomination of only 1 piece still could manage to fetch 1 ...
Contributed by Individual
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Hiroshima Jam Jar
This object was recovered from the debris of Hiroshima after the world’s first atomic bomb at the end of World War II. ...
Contributed by Individual
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Unopened letter to the Russian Front '43
My object is a letter written by my father in 1943 to his brother, who was a soldier on the Russian Front. The family ...
Contributed by Individual
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souvenir programme from changi prison
My father, Geoffrey Knight, was one of 6 musicians who made up the Changi Chamber Sextet.They played at Smokey Joe's ...
Contributed by Individual
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Wooden Toy Spitfire 1940
Icon of the Battle of Britain and the pivotal events of 1940 following the occupation of Europe and threat of invasion ...
Contributed by Individual
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Ruskin Vase
Ruskin Pottery Sang de Bouef vase, presented to a thrower at the factory, by the owner, William Howson Taylor.
Contributed by Museum
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D-Day Map
This map was left to me by my father who served in the Royal Navy during WW2. He commanded a landing craft that landed ...
Contributed by Individual
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Shrapnel from V1 Flying Bomb
This volume of Dickens contains a piece of shrapnel from a V1 flying bomb, or doodle-bug,that fell on Landseer Close, ...
Contributed by Individual
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Scout Log of a trip to Europe in 1939
This A5 exercise book contains a log of a holiday in Switzerland by boys from the 1st Huddersfield Scout Troop written ...
Contributed by Individual
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Aircraft Logbook
I was Aged 13 in 1943 and kept a logbook of aircraft that I saw mainly where I lived. This was South Norwood SE25, ...
Contributed by Individual
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Travel Communion Set
"Air Ministry" Communion Set
Silver chalice and paten, glass wine and water cruet with silver caps, and a wooden host ...
Contributed by Individual
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Blanket
My uncle's blanket was sent with him from India 'home' to England in 1936. He and my mother went to boarding school and ...
Contributed by Individual
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A type writer for the people.
Ernest Vincent Clwyd Crumpton was described as the Keir Hardy of the Leamington Spa Labour Party. I do not know if he ...
Contributed by Individual
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Dinnington Colliery pit lamp
Used at Dinnington Colliery (South Yorkshire)which first opened in 1905 and closed in 1992 with the loss of over 1,000 ...
Contributed by Individual
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A book signed by Maurice Cornforth
In the mid 1980s I bought a copy of the Webbs’ “Soviet Communism- a New Civilisation?��? from a Communist bookshop. On ...
Contributed by Individual
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Telephone Exchange Ringing Tone Generatr
It is a Walter Jones & Co. 17Hz ringing tone generator, an example of the emerging ingenuity applied to the early ...
Contributed by Individual
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Dan Snow's piece of shrapnel
Historian Dan Snow has been given many things during his research trips around the world. The object that stands out, ...
Contributed by Individual
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Sadler's Wells theatre programme, 1931
This theatre programme is from the first performance held at a new Sadler's Wells theatre in January 1931.
There have ...
Contributed by Museum
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Murphy A4 Radio
This is a Murphy ‘A4’ Radio from 1933. In the first 10 weeks that these sets were available 6,032 were sold at the price ...
Contributed by Museum
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1928 Austin Seven Fabric Saloon
My family supplied this car to it's first owner (Mr Ward) new in 1928. In 1954 he traded it back in with us and we have ...
Contributed by Individual
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Colonial era carving, Nigeria
This object commemorates a short moment in the British colonial presence in Africa. It is a relief carving of my ...
Contributed by Individual
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Club Miners Fortnight Badge
This badge given to the children of the members of the Non Political Club in Ogmore Vale on the occasion of the annual ...
Contributed by Individual
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A.R.P First Aid Kit
This is a tin First Aid Kit used during the Second World War. The letters A.R.P stand for Air Raid Precautions. They ...
Contributed by Individual
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Highly decorated Arab Chest
This highly decorated,carved chest was bought by my parents for £4 in Zanzibar when they were on their way to be ...
Contributed by Individual
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NSU HK 101 Kettenkrad (Kuninchen)
In 1938, and around this period, heavy draught horses were conscripted into the German army, which was over 90% ...
Contributed by Individual
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Swan Ink Bottle from bottom of Scapa Flo
Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands to the north of Scotland is a natural harbour used by the Royal Navy for over 100 ...
Contributed by Individual
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Nuclear Weapon Effects Computer No. 1.
This object belonged to my mother in law who was a member of the Royal Observer Corps during the Cold War. In an ...
Contributed by Individual