McLean Museum and Art Gallery

The museum proudly displays a wealth of local material in it’ s social history collection, a history that includes such varied industries as sugar refining, ship building and whaling and long traditions in seafaring and trading. The sense of civic responsibility in the town is reflected in the collection’s inclusion of items from a wide range of public services such as fire brigade, health and housing.

The rich military history of the area can be seen in items related to local militia, volunteer and defence units and includes badges, medals and uniforms.

The Museum is home to a fascinating Egyptology collection containing items covering all periods of Ancient Egyptian civilisation, including a mummy cartonnage excavated from Herakleopolis Magna. Also in the archaeological collection is the famous “Greenock Hoard” a cache of coins dating from the reigns of Queen Mary and James VI contained within a cow horn,  believed to have been buried around 1570.

The role of Greenock as a major seafaring and trading centre is represented in the World Cultures collection, which contains around 1800 items, particularly from Africa, Asia and Oceania, including Polynesian war clubs, Japanese armour and wooden instruments from Africa.

The McLean boasts a large Natural History collection, including over 950 examples of birds, several thousand insect specimens and molluscs. The big game specimens of R.L. Scott of Scott’s Shipbuilders, Greenock are also on view. There are also large numbers of herbarium, fossil and mineral specimens.

The McLean’s Fine Art collection, built up over 130 years is one of Scotland’s most interesting, containing works by Boudin and Courbet as well as other European, American and British artists, and of course, the Glasgow Boys and Scottish colourists are well represented.

Naturally Greenock’s most famous son, James Watt, who laid many of the foundations for the industrial revolution, is lauded in the museum with a wealth of artefacts and archive material.