Bolton Art Gallery, Library & Museum

Bolton Art Gallery, Library & Museum is a public museum, art gallery, library and aquarium in the town of Bolton, England, owned by Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council. The museum, Bolton Museum, is housed within the grade II listed Le Mans Crescent near Bolton Town Hall and shares its main entrance with the library, Bolton Central Library, in a purpose-built civic centre.

The origins of the current museum date to 1852 when the town adopted the Libraries and Museums Act, leading to the opening of the town's first Library in Victoria Square, now site of the Nationwide Building Society. At that time, the town did not have a public collection to create a museum. The first collection donated was of fossils in the Library's opening year of 1853. The collections of the Museum grew slowly, and by 1876, hosted a good collection of scientific specimens and ethnographic objects. With the collections growing, there was public support for a separate museum, however, the local authority was not willing to use its funds for this purpose.

In 1876, Dr Samuel Taylor Chadwick, a wealthy medical doctor and a benefactor of the town, left a bequest of £5000 to create a museum in Bolton. This also encouraged many others to donate items for the museum. His bequest specified the funds were to be used for the 'building, furnishing and maintenance of a Museum of Natural History in the Bolton Park' with free entry, this early museum was located at Queens Park. The Chadwick Museum was chaired by Councillor B.A. Dobson and its first professional curator William Waller Midgley was employed in 1883. The museum opened in 1884 with three floors with displays.

The Museum added collections of national importance including items of textile machinery, textile samples and Egyptian antiquities with an organised structure, with minerals, rocks and fossils in the basement displays, on the ground floor were zoology displays of stuffed animals, birds' nests and eggs, shells, and insects, the first floor consisted of displays of anthropology, Egyptology and other antiquities and other curiosities. A donation of meteorological instruments in 1885 saw Midgley given the role of 'Observator' and became a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society.

The Chadwick Museum was demolished in 1956 and its collections of Egyptian, industrial and local history moved to the Le Mans site, industrial collections were put on display in Tonge Moor library until the 1990s.

Mere Hall was donated to the town as an art gallery by J.P. Thomasson in 1890, the art comprising mostly 19th-century oil paintings and some older works, including Noah Leaving the Ark by Adam Colonia. From 1897, the local authority began to buy North West contemporary art, often from summer exhibitions held at Mere Hall including artists Fred Balshaw, Alfred Heaton Cooper and Samuel Towers. In 1938, the collections of Mere Hall were transferred to a purpose-built gallery at Le Mans Crescent. Most of its collection was subsequently disposed of before 1948 to make way for new acquisitions. Mere Hall became local authority offices used for weddings until 2016, becoming a music and performance education centre in 2019.

The grade 1 listed Hall i' th' Wood was donated as a museum for Samuel Crompton by Lord Leverhulme in 1899, opening in 1902 after restoration. Leverhulme had also proposed a total redesign of Bolton which included an expanded Chadwick Museum at Queen's Park, this plan was rejected but parts of it gave rise to the building of the current Le Mans Crescent in the 1930s. The 'Hall i' th' Wood' museum has continued in its original purpose.

Smithills Hall opened in 1963, a nature trail museum opened in its Park in 1975, and Little Bolton Town Hall operated as a museum from 1979. All branch museums except Hall i' th' Wood and Smithills closed due to budget cuts, a gallery at Le Mans Crescent became the local history and archive section, now managed by the museum. Large collections of over 400,000 museum objects formerly displayed are held in storage off-site; details are contained within the museum's Acquisition and Disposal Policy.