Many of the people involved in the Museum professionally, as donors, and in other ways, have lived in or originated from Bolton. Also, the buildings that house the collections – Mere Hall, Hall i’ th’ Wood, Le Mans Crescent and Smithills Hall – are part of the local landscape. The key building missing from this list is the Chadwick Museum, once located in Queen’s Park, and the pride of Bolton’s civic amenities.

In 1852 following the adoption of the Libraries Act, Bolton’s first free public library was established in Victoria Square. The library quickly established a collection of natural science specimens and ethnographic objects, indeed the first item of the Library’s register is not a book but a ‘small collection of fossils’.

This library building still stands in Victoria Square - a stones throw from the present day Library and Museum on Le Mans Crescent.