Heritage, history, and collections

An incredible collection of artworks compiled by Cornwall Council to inspire and educate young people in Cornwall.

An online collection which outlines how Cornwall is coping with the COVID-19. Browse the collection and learn how to get involved.

The RIC’s photographic collection from the First World War features over 200 images of the Women’s Land Army at Tregavethan Farm, near Truro. Reproduced from a series of glass plate pictures, taken by local photographer A W Jordan, they form an extraordinary record of the Land Girls’ time in Cornwall – including their training and friendships.

Within the RIC’s collections lie two small, leather-bound autograph albums from the Royal Cornwall Infirmary in Truro. Remarkably, these unassuming objects contain entries written and illustrated by injured soldiers during the First World War. The messages offer a rare insight into life at the Infirmary, along with the thoughts and feelings of those convalescing.

2018 marks 100 years since the end of the First World War. It is also the bicentenary of the founding of the Royal Institution of Cornwall (RIC). Research into the RIC journals published between 1914 and 1918 has revealed much about the trials faced by the RIC, and the continued importance of the museum during wartime.

The Citizen Curators project is a Change Makers initiative supported by Arts Council England and the Cornwall Museums Partnership, with the RCM acting as its host venue.

Elsie Haslam's diaries - housed and digitised at the Courtney Library and Archive, Truro - and the people in them offer a rare insight into the progression of the War on the Homefront as well as on overseas French battlefields. In this section we explore several themes invoked by 'Charlie' Haslam's war story.