Henry Syer Cuming

rdf:langString Henry Syer Cuming

rdf:langString Henry Syer Cuming FSA Scot (1817 – 7 October 1902) was a British collector of objects, art and antiquities, notable for exposing the Shadwell forgeries, and who bequeathed his collection to what is now the Cuming Museum, in Southwark, South London. Cuming spent his life building on the work of his father Richard Cuming (1777–1870), a collector from Walworth in South East London. Father and son were both fascinated by collecting things from the everyday lives of people all over the world, but Cuming's interests were more local than his father's, and he pursued them more seriously. Cuming collected thousands of objects from the ordinary lives of south Londoners in the 1800s, from theatre adverts and rail tickets, to cheap toys and good luck charms. His collection included thousands of ancient objects dug up by labourers building the canals, docks and railways that profoundly changed London in the 18th and 19th centuries.