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NATIONAL
MUSEUM
OLD RESIDENCY
CALABAR
Brief:
 The
museum was established at the Old Residency building (built in 1881)
Located on top of the old Government Hill, the prefabricated colonial
building was used as the first Government House in 1883 and later, as
office and residence of the Resident of Old Calabar Province. It was declared
a National Monument in 1959 and opened as a museum in 1986.
The museum exhibition tells the story of Old Calabar as a cluster of native
settlements on the Calabar River, early cultural, economic and missionary
centre and first Headquarters of the British colonial administration of
the Niger Coast Protectorate, Oil River Protectorate and later Southern
Nigeria Protectorate. It was the base for hinterland expansion in south-eastern
Nigeria. It also illustrates Calabar’s place in Nigerian national
development up to Independence in 1960.
The museum has a collection of ritual terracotta and other materials
excavated locally by Prof. Ekpo Eyo and dated to 400AD – 1500AD.
It also contains Slave Trade History collections and exhibition.
Near-by are the famous Hope Waddell Training Institute, the 19th century
trading establishments on the Marina and missionary Mary Slessor’s
house-museum at Okoyong.
Collections:
Colonial history
Ethnographic
Aarchaeological
Slave trade history
Permanent Exhibition:
The Story of Old Calabar
Other Facilities:
Museum Kitchen
Museum Shop
Craft Village
Children Playground
Research library
Publications:
The Story of Old Calabar (museum guidebook), 1986
Old Calabar Revisited, 1986
History and Culture of the Upper Cross River People, 1988
Akwanshi, Calabar Museum Society Newsletter
Akwanshi, Calabar Museum Journal
Address:
Ekpo Eyo Drive
P.M.B. 1180
Calabar
Cross River State
Tel. +234 (0) 803 713 4706 ( website)
E-mail: calabar@nigerianmuseums.org
Curator:
Adaka, Sunday S.
E-Mail: adaka.sunny@nigerianmuseums.org
sunnidaka@yahoo.com |
