Social History

The local history collection features objects, photographs and ephemera. It tells the story of North Lincolnshire and its people from the post-medieval period to the modern day. The collection covers agriculture, industry, transport, and domestic life.

A large part of the collection covers the local iron and steel industry. Objects relating to iron and steel are on display in the Steel Town gallery of North Lincolnshire Museum.

Part of the agricultural collection is on display at the Rural Life Museum at Normanby Hall Country Park. This includes machinery from Fletchers of Winterton and Marshall’s of Gainsborough. Also on display at the Rural Life Museum is the transport collection. This includes bicycles, motorcycles and farm wagons.

Most of the domestic life collection dates from between the mid-19th Century and mid-20th Century. Highlights of the collection include washing and drying machines by Scunthorpe company Cotto.

The archive and ephemera collections contain historic documents, books, posters, leaflets, maps and sound recordings. This includes a number of family and personal archives. Among them are the Sheffield Family and Estate papers, which are on deposit at North East Lincolnshire Archives, and the Peacock Family archive including their dialect card index of local words and phrases. The Ethel H. Rudkin Archive relates to the local history and folklore research of Ethel H. Rudkin. It includes objects related to the Plough Jags and Haxey Hood game.

For more information about the photographic collection please visit the Image Archive page.