Bury Art Museum still shines thanks to a Victorian family's gift

Bury Art Museum exists because of a remarkable act of generosity. Thomas Wrigley, a Victorian paper manufacturer, assembled a collection of more than 200 oil paintings, watercolours, prints and ceramics, and in 1897 his three children gave it to the town to mark Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.

There was one condition: Bury had to provide a suitable building. The design competition was won by Woodhouse and Willoughby of Manchester, Oswald Osmond Wrigley laid the foundation stone on 29 April 1899, and the gallery was opened by the 16th Earl of Derby on 9 October 1901. A museum followed in the basement in 1907.

The Wrigley Collection remains the heart of the building. Highlights include J.M.W. Turner's Calais Sands, John Constable's Hampstead Heath, Sir Edwin Landseer's The Random Shot and George Clausen's Spring Morning: Haverstock Hill, while 20th-century holdings include work by Victor Pasmore and Edward Burra.

Today the venue is Bury Art Museum and Sculpture Centre, and it has close links with the Irwell Sculpture Trail, the public art route that follows the river through the borough.

Recent exhibitions have shown how well the museum connects with local life. From October 2024 to March 2025 it hosted Going to the Match, a football-themed show built around an L.S. Lowry masterpiece, which proved a natural fit for a proud football town.

Contemporary art has a strong place too. The exhibition Now You See Her Now You Don't ran at the Sculpture Centre from September 2025 to April 2026, and the museum regularly works with groups such as Bury Art Society, which marked its 75th anniversary with a special show.

Care for the building and its treasures continues. The museum secured £589,545 for essential works to protect its artworks, including a new roof, helping secure the future of this much-loved civic gallery for the generations of visitors still to come, just as the Wrigley family intended more than a century ago.

Current exhibitions and events are listed on the Bury Art Museum website. It sits in Bury town centre, so it is easy to combine a visit with a wander around the shops or a trip to the famous market.