Great Yarmouth Museums

As its geography suggests this is solely a maritime collection of significant importance with the focus being on Yarmouth, Norfolk and the North Sea. The collection comprises a wide range of maritime subjects that includes fishing, fish curing, shipwreck and lifesaving, merchant trade, shipbuilding and supporting maritime trades such as sailmaking. Other subjects represented are seaside holidays, offshore exploration and Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson.

There is a fine collection of marine art with works depicting vessels and beach and quay scenes by such artists as William Joy, Joseph Nash, Rowland Fisher, Stephen Batchelder, Frank Mason, Noel Spencer, Campbell Mellon, Harmony Harrison and members of the Norwich School and nineteenth-century Italian marine artists. The art collection also includes a number of Pierhead Paintings and naïve ship portraits influenced by the Mediterranean tradition by Tom Swan and others. There also exists thousands of information files and newspaper cuttings on various topics from fishermen’s poems and maritime arts and crafts to tall ships and flags and signals all of which provide a valuable and regionally significant resource.