Young Curators bringing Sunderland history to museum

Four ‘Young Curators’ are delving into the past to help shape the future of Sunderland’s Museum & Winter Gardens (SMWG).

The four young Wearsiders are helping Anneke Hackenbroich, Collections Care Development manager at SMWG, to search through the museum’s storerooms to find objects and stories suitable for display in new spaces created by a major redevelopment at the museum.

It was announced in 2022 that Sunderland City Council had been granted £300,000 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to draw up detailed plans for a proposed multi-million pound development of the museum.

The four Young Curators share a passion for history.

They are: Bethany Molloy who works for the NHS, Rebecca Stonehouse, who would like to work in a museum, Benji Newman a student at Durham University and Charlotte Matlock who works for wealth management company St James’s Place.

As part of their volunteering, they have put together their own exhibition, currently on show at SMWG and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

After spending several months helping out in the museum’s collection stores, the four wanted to showcase a selection of the items they had found.

They chose a handful of their favourite objects, which they believe capture Sunderland’s working history and will be memorable for different generations.

The Young Curators meet at the museum every Wednesday, 5pm-6.30pm, to help Anneke in the its 18 storerooms.

Anneke said: “They’ve been a huge help and I’ve really enjoyed working with them. They’re very reliable, trustworthy and keen to learn and help. I can set them away with a task and they just get on with it; their work is very much part of the major redevelopment of SMWG.

“They’ve been helping to sort items and artefacts; they’ve helped identify objects and when items haven’t been catalogued then they’ve helped do that too.”

Charlotte, who has a history degree, said: “We agreed a theme, which was ‘work and leisure’ and looked at objects connected to Sunderland’s traditional industries and also its public services; so there are items from the shipyards and items which were used by the city’s fire brigade and police officers.”

The council will apply for a full grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund later in 2024.