Why has someone written on the exhibits?

Look closely at almost any object on display in any museum and you may find some numbers and letters written upon it, usually discretely on the least important area of the artefact. This is the museum’s Accession Number, a reference identification given to the object when it was accepted into the museum’s collection.

Every museum maintains an Accessions Register which is a catalogue of each object that it holds. This contains vital information such as a description of the item, where it originated, when it was made, how it was acquired, from whom and when, plus, very importantly, its Accession Number, a unique identification reference to that particular object.

This number is also physically attached in some way to the object so that its provenance can always be determined via the Accessions Register. There are standard methods for doing this and for the archaeological artefacts that I’ve been working with it is usually written directly onto the object, or else has a label attached to it. If you’d like to read more about this topic the Collections Trust provides guidance HERE.

The Collections Trust (formerly the Museum Documentation Association) also maintains a list of MDA Codes, five-letter codes uniquely identifying each museum. Prior to it merging with the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery in 2005, and their later rebranding in 2013 as The Higgins, Bedford Museum was a separate organization and had its own MDA code, BEDFM, so all of its collection’s accession numbers begin with this code.

Bedford Museum’s collection was founded upon that formed by Bedford Modern School (BMS) and its accession numbering scheme was a simple incrementing number, so these became BEDFM 1 to BEDFM 13,203. At this point, in 1963, Bedford Museum adopted a different numbering scheme, still in use today, based upon the year of accession followed by an incrementing number restarting from 1 each year, so, for example, BEDFM 1989.23 was the 23rd object accessioned in 1989.

Below is an example using the original BMS numbering system, number 3691, now referred to as BEDFM 3691. This late Iron Age (1st century BCE) wheel thrown pottery bowl was collected by Reverend P.G. Langdon (teacher and honorary curator at BMS) from Kempston in 1913 and subsequently donated to the BMS collection. This is not how objects would be marked these days. The number would now be discretely written on the base and the remaining information in the Accessions Register.

The following image shows the front and rear of a bronze Roman 4th century CE nail cleaner found at Farndish and added to Bedford Museum’s collection in 1989 using the current numbering system as BEDFM 1989.23.

Having worked on a museum’s collection for a while it has affected how I look at objects in other museums’ collections and I now have fun figuring out what numbering systems they have used when I visit or look at their collections online. I sometimes even look at the objects(!)

Written by Keith Balmer, Collections Volunteer