Chadwick Museum
Like many of the country’s museums, Bolton’s first museum building was created from an act of philanthropy.
In 1876, Samuel Taylor Chadwick, a local medical doctor of some wealth, died. Chadwick had already gifted the Chadwick Orphanage to the town, and had done many other good works related to children’s health and welfare.
Chadwick left a bequest of £5000 to the Bolton Corporation for the ‘building, furnishing and maintenance of a Museum of Natural History in the Bolton Park’ (later renamed Queen’s Park). The bequest came with the conditions that the museum had to be free entry and the museum building had to be erected in 4 years, or the fund would be lost.
The Corporation of course accepted the bequest and building began in 1878. The sub-committee concerned with overseeing the building of the museum was chaired by Councilor B. A. Dobson from the family of cotton machine manufacturers that had founded the firm Dobson and Barlow. Dobson provided a great deal of support to the fledgling museum donating and facilitating donations to the collections. The Chadwick Museum was opened by Dobson on the 12th June 1884. Today there are statues of both Dobson and Chadwick either side of the Town Hall in Victoria Square.
