Handel Cossham: Thornbury’s Man of Substance

2024 marks the bicentenary of Handel Cossham’s birth in Thornbury on 31st March 1824.

To mark the occasion, our museum’s first exhibition of the year was “Handel Cossham: Thornbury’s Man of Substance“.

As a result of popular demand, we’re reinstalling the exhibition from August to December.  Clearly, there is a great deal of interest in this local boy made good, who was such a benefactor to the town of Thornbury.

Handel was the son of a joiner and builder but, instead of following in his father’s footsteps, he became a clerk in a colliery and taught himself about the geology of the local coalfields.

He went on to become a leading colliery owner in this area and one of the West Country’s major employers. He was also a lay preacher, a temperance advocate, an educationalist, a politician and a public benefactor.

On the day of his funeral it was estimated that 50,000 people were present at the cemetery or lined the route.

Handel Cossham never forgot his native town. In 1862 he paid for the setting up of a British School at Gillingstool in Thornbury and then, in 1888, he gifted the former Wesleyan Chapel building to the people of Thornbury for use as a public hall.  We know the building today as the Cossham Hall, right next to the museum.

Our exhibition includes the story of the Cossham Hall.

Come along and find out more about this major West Country figure – a man who did so much for Thornbury.