This exhibition is a selection of the items that have been added to the collection over the last seven years.
The Aratoi collection has been steadily growing over that time, particularly in the history category. Contemporary and historic art works and photographs have been purchased and donated, and several local collections of textiles and objects from the 1800s and early 1900s have been gifted or placed on indefinite loan.
Two collections that originated in Masterton have been returned by Te Papa, where they had been kept until there was a suitable facility to hold them in the Wairarapa. The Phoebe Maunsell Collection of antique china and textiles, originally from the Rathkeale homestead, arrived back in 2011, and this year the Masterton Museum Collection, which left town when the museum closed in 1954, was also returned. The Masterton Museum held a very diverse range of objects, from curios to Taonga Maori and natural history specimens.
Ships biscuit from the H.M.S Galatea.
From The Masterton Museum collection.