Provenance
Researching provenance
Suggested steps for researching the provenance of an item in the collection:
If you have an accession number check Transcribe Wellcome or follow guidance in Stock Reply below.
Check Sierra/CALM for any additional information.
Check the Collections Files in Sharepoint.
Keyword search of Sharepoint sometimes leads to background information.
Particularly for visual material: check the inventory of the Visual Collections filing cabinets.
Transcribe Wellcome
The Wellcome Historical Medical Museum archive documents the activities of the Wellcome museum and library from the 1890s onwards, including the histories of acquisition, provenance, and dispersal of the collections items, and comprises almost 600 boxes of mostly handwritten or typescript documentation. Although most of this archive (archive collection reference: WA/HMM) was digitised in 2018 and is available online, it remains a very large, complex, and difficult to navigate aggregation of material.
By transcribing the main series of accession and registration records Transcribe Wellcome aims to help researchers explore the provenance and collecting histories of items acquired for the Wellcome museum and library between 1897 and 2000, and to trace the recipient museums and libraries to which Wellcome collection items were transferred between 1936 and 1983.
Whilst transcription is still in progress you can use Transcribe Wellcome to look up provenance details for most museum and library items if you know the relevant accession and/or registration numbers, and for some items accessioned into the visual collections.
Stock reply
Dear [name]
Thank you for contacting Wellcome Collection.
The Wellcome Historical Medical Museum archive contains information about the acquisition of objects and their history within the collections.
The archive of the former Wellcome Historical Medical Museum (WHMM) includes accession and transfer records that researchers can use to identify an object and trace its history in the museum collections, from acquisition to transfer to another institution. In most cases, there will be information about an object in a number of records.
The records vary in the amount of detail they contain about an object. Earlier records tend to be less detailed and less systematic than later ones, reflecting the development of museum methodology. All the records are accessible via the collections pages.
ACCESSION RECORDS
Accession records may provide some or all of the following information about an object:
description
details of transfer or disposal
method of acquisition
name of the donor or vendor of the object
place within the collections
price or value
provenance.
Three distinct series of accession numbers were used:
‘A’ numbers [e.g. A2310]
‘R’ numbers with a date suffix [e.g. R5736/1936]
an annual series of numbers with a date suffix [e.g. 3370/1939].
The easiest way to find information about an object is if you already have an accession number.
I know the accession number
The accession number can be used to locate entries within several series of archive records:
Some objects were re-assigned new numbers in the 600 000 range at a later stage; these higher accession numbers do not appear in the collection management records.
Any names of vendors or donors identified from accession records can be used to search the correspondence files [WA/HMM/CO] in the catalogue. Donor or vendor correspondence may give further information on the provenance or history of the object, or the existence of other similar objects.
I don't know the accession number
If you don’t know the accession number, you can try searching the accession registers by date to find an entry for the object.
In the early days of the museum, objects were not always accessioned on arrival due to the fast growth rate of the collections. It was only after Wellcome’s death in 1936 that accessioning was systematically tackled.
After 1936, objects were grouped into categories in the accession registers; for example, scientific instruments may be entered in sequence. If you know the type of object you are looking for, this can help to speed up browsing the register. Once you find an object entry, use the accession number to track down related records.
Collection dossiers
From the 1960s-1980s WHMM staff compiled a series of collection dossiers [WA/HMM/CM/Col]. These files are a valuable source of information about the major collections acquired by the Museum. They include original and copy records and correspondence extracted from elsewhere in the archive, as well as inventories, published catalogues and research notes.
TRANSFER RECORDS
Soon after Henry Wellcome’s death in 1936, most of the objects in the WHMM collections were transferred to other institutions. The process was finally completed in 1985. The transfer records [WA/HMM/TR] recording this process vary in their level of detail. Early records often provide scant information, however, in the 1980s an attempt was made to collate information about the earlier transfers of collections, from 1936 to 1977. If the name of the receiving institution or dealer and date of transfer is known, access to the records is relatively straightforward. Transfer information can be found in several sequences of records:
files arranged by the name of the receiving institution [WA/HMM/TR/Ret]
inventory cards [WA/HMM/TR/Inv] 1936-1983, arranged by institution, type of material and accession number.
The files and cards together act as points of entry into other series of transfer records reflecting distinct periods of transfer activity:
Search the correspondence files [WA/HMM/CO] for the names of individuals or institutions identified in the transfer records. A history of the transfer process, including appendices of materials sold at auction, receiving institutions, and subject or collection listings with their receiving institutions is available in:
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