The Wisbech & Fenland Museum is in Wisbech, in the Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, England. It is one of the oldest museums in the UK that was built specifically for its purpose. The museum serves as a local place for sharing and preserving history and culture. Its logo is “W&F.” The museum started as a member-based organisation, but it is now a registered charity (311307). Since 1 April 2015, it has been governed by the Wisbech and Fenland Museum Trustee Company Limited (09432722). The Museum Society was founded in 1835 and first opened in July in two rooms at 16 Old Market Place, with collections shown every Friday. After changes in staff and a sale of the original building, the museum moved in 1847 to a purpose-built site later merged with the Literary Society in 1877. The Grade II* listed building, designed by George Buckler, opened with a lecture and has since been extended, while some subsidence has occurred due to its position over the old moat area. Today it holds important local history items, including Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations manuscript, items linked to anti-slavery campaigner Thomas Clarkson, and a service said to have been from Napoleon’s Sèvres collection. In 1910, Baron Peckover was re-elected president of the Museum and Literary Institution, and the museum later showed its large map collection in several exhibitions. In 1947 the trustees considered selling Dickens’ manuscript Great Expectations, but this was blocked after officials refused without strong reasons; it had been left to the town on the condition it should never be sold and stay in the museum. In the 1950s, the Fenland Archaeological Society also used the museum as its base. In 2018, the museum grounds hosted a community archaeological dig with Archaeological Project Services, involving Fenland Archaeological Society members and the public. That same year the building was put on the Heritage at Risk Register, and the museum received several notable visits and partnerships, including with Cambridge University Library and University of Cambridge Museums. In 2021 it received a £616k Historic England grant for roof repairs, and in 2022 the Friends celebrated the museum’s 175th anniversary with a concert held in Wisbech Castle due to building work.

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