Qualla: Royal Albert Memorial Museum

Royal Albert Memorial Museum: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrew Abbott, CC BY-SA 2.0. A million objects sit inside the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, only a sliver of them on display at any one time. The rest live in the Ark, an off-site collections store built during the museum's £24 million refurbishment. The Gothic Revival sandstone building on Exeter's Queen Street looks small from the street. It is not. Founded in 1868 as a practical memorial to Prince Albert, the place was meant from the start to fuse a museum, art gallery, free library, reading room, and schools of art and engineering. RAMM kept growing into that vision, and it has never quite stopped.

Image: Andrew Abbott | CC BY-SA 2.0

Royal Albert Memorial Museum: Albert wanted something useful

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pymouss, CC BY-SA 4.0. After Prince Albert died in 1861, Britain wanted to remember him. Sir Stafford Northcote, MP, proposed something more interesting than another statue: a practical institution built around the principles Albert had championed. Land was donated by Richard Sommers Gard, MP for Exete...

Image: Pymouss | CC BY-SA 4.0

Royal Albert Memorial Museum: Sladen's sea stars

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Paul Berthon, Public domain. If you can name the four major collection areas at RAMM, you get a sense of how omnivorous Victorian curators could be. Antiquities. Art. Natural history. World cultures. The UK government has designated RAMM's world cultures collection as being of national and international sign...

Image: Paul Berthon | Public domain

Royal Albert Memorial Museum: Names on the walls

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit George Townsend, Public domain. The art collection runs to over 7,000 objects, leaning into the South West's contribution to British art. Gainsborough, Reynolds, Pompeo Batoni, Richard Wilson, Joseph Wright of Derby. Twentieth-century names: Walter Sickert, Barbara Hepworth, John Nash, Edward Burra, David Bombe...

Image: George Townsend | Public domain

Royal Albert Memorial Museum: The four-year overhaul

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MichaelMaggs, CC BY-SA 3.0. By the early 2000s the Victorian building needed serious work. A four-year, £24 million redevelopment closed RAMM and stripped it back. The Heritage Lottery Fund contributed nearly £10 million. The team repaired the fabric, refurbished the interiors, completely redisplayed the co...

Image: MichaelMaggs | CC BY-SA 3.0

Royal Albert Memorial Museum: Opening the doors wider

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit (Lobsterthermidor (talk) 21:29, 1 October 2013 (UTC)), Public domain. In 2024 RAMM announced an open access strategy: it would make its public domain collections available to anyone. The reasoning was both philosophical and practical. Wider awareness means longer preservation. A digital echinoderm photograph sitting on someone's website is one more...

Image: (Lobsterthermidor (talk) 21:29, 1 October 2013 (UTC)) | Public domain