Celebrating our National Lottery support
18th Nov 2024
Since the first draw was held in 1994, the National Lottery has raised over £49 billion for good causes and awarded over 690,000 individual grants to projects and organisations, making a real difference to local communities.
We’ve been hugely supported by the National Lottery through the National Lottery Heritage Fund over the years, most recently to make our 1940s-1960s town possible.
We’re joining in with the National Lottery’s 30th birthday celebrations, and to say a big thank you we’re looking back at all of the amazing game-changing projects their support has enabled us to do.
Moving the iconic Workers’ Institute
Known locally as the ‘stute, the impressive Workers’ Institute building stands as a symbol of the resilience and fighting spirit of the Cradley Heath women chainmakers. In 1910, the women chainmakers of Cradley Heath, led by Mary Macarthur, went on strike after employers refused to pay the new minimum wage set by the government. After a 10-week strike the women chainmakers won the battle for the new higher rate. Money was left over from a strike fund to help the chainmakers and Mary had the idea to use this money to build the Workers’ Institute and benefit the local community.
Mary was a notable trade unionist and campaigner. In addition to helping the women chainmakers in 1910, she also campaigned for universal suffrage as a way of ensuring that all women and working class men would be given the vote.
When the opportunity arose to preserve this impressive building, we set about moving it from Cradley Heath to the Museum brick by brick, so that we could preserve and remember these game-changing women who won the nation’s first minimum wage.
Preserving the region’s manufacturing story
The Black Country played a key role in the height of transport manufacture from as early as the late 1800s. Alongside other key industrial areas in the West Midlands, many different types of vehicles were made either whole or in part in Black Country foundries and factories.
The collection at Bradburn & Wedge Motor Garage hosts a range of local marques, from Wolverhampton’s Sunbeam and AJS to Bean of Dudley. It also spans the decades too, with some examples from as far back as the 1910s.
We celebrate this history at our annual Festival of Vehicles event in June, a must-see opportunity for petrolheads to come along and see many of our vehicles in action on our historic streets.
The collection is maintained by talented mechanics and volunteers who have a huge combined knowledge of the region’s motoring history. Some say that the collection of Bradburn & Wedge Motor Garage is somewhat of a hidden gem. Don’t forget to explore this rare collection on your next visit and chat to our knowledgeable team.
Bringing the Museum back into living memory
The largest capital development at the Museum to date, work started on BCLM: Forging Ahead as early as 2016. Through a meticulous process of research, oral histories, archive work and design, an entire new town has been added to the Museum, bringing our storytelling up to 1968.
It encompasses a high street bustling with new shops, an industrial area with key examples of 1950s manufacturing, and an Infant Welfare Centre which showcases the history of the NHS and child care from the 1960s. Most recently, three additional shops were opened, Spring Hill Post Office, Langer’s Army & Navy Stores and Hasbury and Halesowen Co-op.
Our ethos of “real lives, real stories” drives everything we do. Therefore it’s important to us that the development is populated with a host of newly developed characters, inspired by the real people whose stories we’re sharing. The expanded timeframe of the new development has allowed us to explore stories of the changing communities of the Black Country, from families who have lived here for generations to those who came later and now call the region their home.
In September 2022, alongside the historical elements of the project, some modern spaces were also introduced. Our new Visitor Centre, an award-winning space designed by Napier Clarke architects, brings a brand new Museum shop and cafe along with a modernised welcome space for visitors. April 2023 saw the opening of our refurbished Museum Conference and Learning Centre, providing a dedicated entrance and new classroom facilities for school groups and corporate clients alike.
The centrepiece of the development, Woodside Library, which is being rebuilt brick by brick, is well on the way to completion and will be the crown jewel in the impressive new development.
Thanks to you, Lottery players, and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, we have been able to completely transform our storytelling and our landscape for future generations of the Black Country and beyond to discover. It’s a joy and privilege to mark the National Lottery’s 30th birthday, and we are hugely grateful for their support.