Museums Sheffield's story so far

Museums Sheffield was created in 1998 as an independent charity to take over the running of the city’s non-industrial museums and galleries from Sheffield City Council.
Our first major project was the launch of the newly-built Millennium Gallery in 2001, a cornerstone of Sheffield’s Heart of the City regeneration project. The Millennium Gallery set the tone for our work over the following decade; fundraising for and delivering major improvement projects to enhance the city’s galleries and museums.
Major successes have included:
- The £19m redevelopment of Weston Park museum, culminating in nomination for the Gulbenkian Prize and winning the Guardian Family Friendly Museum Award 2008
- Achieving ‘Designated Collection’ status from the Department of Culture, Media & Sport for the city’s unique metalwork collection
- Fundraising for the acquisition of significant artworks and historic objects for the city, including the Bill Brown cutlery collection and The Kiss by Marc Quinn
- Fundraising for largescale refurbishments and redisplays of the Graves Gallery, Ruskin and Metalwork Collections
- Becoming an Arts Council Major Partner Museum for the period 2015-2018
- Securing a £650k HLF grant to improve Weston Park museum in 2015-17
- Welcoming over a million visitors annually across all sites
Find out more about our work by reading our recent annual reviews
As we look to the future, it’s clear that museums and galleries across the country face tough economic challenges in the coming years. We hope to meet these challenges head on, and will continue to champion the culture which now forms an essential part of the life of our great city.
Latest
Apr 02 2021
A New Era for Sheffield’s Museums
The start of April marks a huge moment for Sheffield's museums, galleries and heritage sites – this week, Museums Sheffield and Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust officially join together to become Sheffield Museums, a new unified museums service for the city and its people.
Jan 07 2021
Museums by Mail
Throughout the pandemic we’ve been working hard to bring our collections, exhibitions and events to you online. However, we know not everyone can access digital content, so we're very pleased to have created a project to enable us to reach a wider audience during this often isolating time.