Malton Museum is 90 years old!
Make 2025 the year you get involved in Malton Museum!
Malton Museum is celebrating its 90th birthday this year, and inviting everybody to get involved!
Malton Museum first opened its doors to the public on 10 January 1935. Then called the Roman Malton Museum, it showed the finds from archaeological digs led by Dr J.L. Kirk and Philip Corder at Malton Fort, Langton Villa and Crambeck in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Commenting on the museum’s opening in January 1935, the Yorkshire Post reported the museum showed, ‘numerous coins, examples of Samian pottery, third century cinerary urns, portions of skeletons, animal bones, boars’ tusks, carbonised wheat, oyster shells, glass, beads and rings’ as well as a collection of flints manufactured by Yorkshire’s notorious fake antiquities dealer, ‘Flint Jack’, aka Edward Simpson.
Since opening, the museum has further developed its collections, moving from very traditional display cases to a more engaging presentation of Malton’s history, from the Neolithic period the the Twentieth Century, with hands-on activities for all ages.
The museum, which is open to the public Thursday – Saturday from April until the end of October, is inviting everyone to be part of its celebrations this year.
Rachael Bowers, Museum Coordinator said, ‘Although we have been here for 90 years and are very much part of our local community, lots of people still haven’t visited Malton Museum. So we’re encouraging everyone to make 2025 the year that they come and visit us, see our amazing collections and meet our friendly volunteers. Our new exhibition for 2025 is ‘A Sense of Place: Trade and Industry’ and we are also displaying some of Flint Jack’s fraudulent flint stones, first displayed in Malton Museum 90 years ago! We’ll be sharing the museum’s history throughout the year, and celebrating our progress with our volunteers and the public.’
The museum relies on volunteers to open, with people of all ages and from all walks of life getting involved in every aspect of its work, from welcoming visitors to delivering guided tours of the town and outreach visits for schools and groups. The museum’s chairman, Phil Crabtree, added, ‘It is an absolute pleasure to work with such a nice and dedicated team. We’re immensely proud of everything our volunteers achieve, and we look forward to celebrating with them later in the year. Malton Museum has come a long way from 1935, and we’re looking forwards, to securing a permanent home for our nationally significant collection and a space where we can really tell Malton and Norton’s story.’
If you would like to be part of Malton Museum’s volunteer team in 2025, please visit our volunteering page and download an application form. Roles required include Front of House, Learning, Town Tour Guides and Social Media Volunteers.