The Friends of Cromer Museum

The Friends are pleased to have been awarded a two-year grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Working with the Cromer Museum team, we aim to create a new gallery and online digital display about Alfred Savin (1860-1948) and his importance as a geologist and palaeontologist, together with fossil collector Anna Gurney (1795-1857) and contemporary collectors. The gallery and online module will use 3D modelling, video and interactivity around the collections and add photographs and digital models to the existing catalogues. It will give opportunities through activities, events and volunteering by children and families and support the "Deep History" project.

This website will develop as part of the project and we look forward to welcoming you to Cromer Museum for the Spring season from 31st March. Lots of special events to come as well!

Alfred Savin of Cromer (1860-1948)

Alfred Savin in a picture from the British Geological Survery Collection. It was photographed, probably in the Cromer shop, by William Harrison in 1886.Alfred is best-remembered today from the 1937 publication "Cromer - A Modern History"1. He meticulously pulled together his own and others' memories of the town from a variety of documents, directories and recollections. He lived through that period of growth experienced by many coastal towns when the railways arrived, and for north Norfolk that was primarily at the end of the 19th century. But by 1887 as a 27-year-old, he had already published "A Short Guide to the Geology of Cromer and Neighbourhood, with Lists of Fossils" and one has only to read his introduction to appreciate his depth of knowledge and confidence as a young explorer of the coastline. He built on the works of geological scholars such as Charles Lyell and Clement Reid both of whom had visited and written about the area. Alfred is already in correspondence with and cross-referring to fellow collectors. In 1882, when just 22 years old, he already warranted a special note of thanks for access to his collection from Clement Reid in the latter's preface to "The Geology of the Country Around Cromer"2, Reid's volume for the National Geological Survey.

Alfred's father Daniel had opened a small shop as a watchmaker and jeweller; he would later describe himself as an artist and photographer. The shop was doubled in size and on Daniel's death in 1892 Alfred continued there as a dealer in antique silver, jewellery, china and amber until 1928.

The scope of Alfred's knowledge and collections is illustrated by the catalogues and his notes now at the Castle Museum in Norwich and at the Natural History Museum in London, and as this web site develops we'll illustrate those. Within the records we can see he collected not only himself but received specimens from others along the coast and there are numerous examples of bones from earlier eras from around the British Isles.

With the shop closing, he retired to rooms at 3, Beach Road. There the cabinets of his collections could be viewed by curious visitors. Oliver Locker-Lampson recalls, "There is a rattle of keys as Mr Savin opens a treasured desk, screws a magnifying glass into his eye to inspect the latest find, bringing it to the window for examination; or I picture him seated in his arm-chair - the only one I have ever known with a window-pane let into the side - through which the green light of the Colza lamp pours its mellow rays at night."

In his own words in 1937, "I have many thousands of specimens of the Forest-Bed Vertebrata; a large collection of English Silver and Copper Coins, Roman Silver and Bronze; Norfolk 17th, 18th and 19th Century Copper Tokens; Flint and Bronze Implements: Norfolk Amber: British Birds' Eggs; British Butterflies and Moths; British Beetles; and many oddments of various kinds which I am always pleased to show to anyone interested."

In this project, we plan to combine information on aspects of Savin's collection, with illustrations through 3D digital imagery. You'll find an example on this page of a digital image of part of the Savin collection held at Cromer Museum. There are various methods for generating such images, and on a further page, we'll explain how we are using photogrammetry at the Museum to make the images.

References

2

A Short Guide to the Geology of Cromer and Neighbourhood with Lists of Fossils, pp. 56, plus blanks for notes, Fletcher and Son, Norwich (printed by), 1887