Bristol online Commonwealth Museum collection launched

Road construction workers in Sri Lanka, 1910s taken by George H. Golledge

A new website documenting some of the thousands of items from Bristol's former British Empire and Commonwealth Museum has been launched.

The museum, located in the Engine Shed, closed in 2008 after financial problems, and the entire collection was handed to Bristol Archives.

Many of the newly digitised items show daily life in former British colonies.

"To understand racism you really need to understand empire," said archivist Jayne Pucknell.

"We don't look at our past, and this collection can really help us look at that."

Ms Pucknell said despite making "good inroads" on digitisation, only up to 10% of the collection, made up of photos, videos, paintings and other items, had been digitised.

Somali women dancing, c. 1940, Wright Collection

Some of the items in the collection would have been lost were it not for their previous owners.

"Photos in the Wright collection were rescued by Armine Wright from Italian-administered Mogadishu during the war; the local Somali community is really interested in seeing them.

"A big push of ours is to make them accessible so we can repatriate digital images to the country of origin," said Ms Pucknell.

A picnic in Abazai, then part of British India, 1920, Winthrop Collection

Because a lot of the collection was captured by amateurs, Ms Pucknell said it was different to records of this time held by other institutions.

"Although most of it was by white British people who worked in the colonies, they had a broad range of views featured - you get films of people living nearby, town and street scenes.

"The museum just happened to be in Bristol, but we think it's an important place to have it because of Bristol's history with the transatlantic slave trade.

"It's important for people to explore its connections so the fact the collection is here is very pertinent."

Rope sellers in British Ceylon, 1936, Huxley Collection