Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens

Council Blind School teaches a blind child the shape of First World War helmets through handling them. Beginning in 1913, John Alfred Charlton Deas, a former curator at Sunderland Museum, organised several handling sessions for the blind. This included an invitation to the school to handle some of the museum collection, which was 'eagerly accepted'.]] It was established in 1846, in the Athenaeum Building on Fawcett Street, the first municipally funded museum in the country outside London. The first recorded fine art acquisition was commissioned by the Sunderland Corporation, a painting of the opening of the new South Dock in 1850. This may have been the first time that an artwork was…