Rather Trivial Things? Finding the Precious in an Alternative Museum History

Societies and individuals keep things which are precious to them in museums – and have done for centuries now. Yet over the last two centuries, the things which are kept, the people who put them in museums, and the precise purposes for which they are kept, have varied enormously. The histories of smaller and more specialist museums, whose collections generally had significantly lower financial, aesthetic and scientific value than those of, for example, the British Museum, offer a different window into what was precious, and to whom, at different times.