Historic pharmacy fixtures and fittings lost in warehouse fire
Historic pharmacy fixtures and fittings belonging to the museum of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society were destroyed in the fire that devastated an industrial estate in Leyton, east London, on the night of 24 May.
The museum’s property was in a warehouse used by art storage firm
Momart. The fire made headline news at the time because the losses included
more than 100 items from the Charles Saatchi collection, among which
were artworks by leading figures in the “Britart” movement
of celebrated modern artists.
Momart warned the Society’s museum within 24 hours that its property
may have perished, but it was only able to provide confirmation last
week. The delay was partly because Momart was at the time moving material
between warehouses and could not immediately establish whether or not
specific items were still in the destroyed unit. In addition, access
to the burnt-out site was held up by safety checks and forensic investigations.
The Upper Tachbrook Street pharmacy shortly before the fixtures
and fittings were sold to the Society’s museum |
The German Hospital dispensary |
The Society’s museum acquired the pharmacy fixtures and fittings
from two London sites in the 1990s. One was a community pharmacy at 24
Upper Tachbrook Street, Pimlico, and the other was the dispensary of
the former German Hospital in Dalston. The community pharmacy items,
dating from the end of the 19th century, were acquired with the aid of
a grant in 1997. The German Hospital items, dating from the 1930s, were
donated to the museum in 1999.
The fixtures and fittings had been in storage with Momart since the museum
acquired them. The acquisitions also included other objects such as storage
jars, but only a few of these were lost in the fire. Most are stored
or on display at the Society’s Lambeth headquarters. Although many
objects from the museum collections are currently in storage away from
the headquarters building, no others were with Momart.
Briony Hudson, keeper of the Society’s museum collections, said: “The
destruction of these two collections is a really sad loss to the museum.
Both sets of fittings were extremely good examples of their type, and
a great deal of work had been carried out by museum staff to ensure their
entry into the Society’s collections. The only consolation is that
most of the smaller objects from both sites have survived, so we can
still tell the stories of these pharmacies in the future.”
The Society is to negotiate with its insurers about compensation for
the lost items.
|
The
Pharmaceutical Journal