Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery's natural history collections include an estimated 90,000 insects, 10,000 minerals, 10,000 plants, 3000 jars of wet-preserved specimens, plus hundreds of birds, mammals, eggs, shell, corals, skeletons, fossils and rocks. Many of these collections are important due to their age, associated information and the personal histories of the collectors.

Highlights include the Plymouth Marine Fauna Spirit Collection of over 3000 marine animals from Plymouth Sound, herbaria materials collected by Thomas Bruges Flower (1817-1899), Sir John St. Aubyn (1758-1839), I.N.W. Keys (donated 1909) and G.C. Bignell (1826-1910) and some 10,000 minerals - the bulk of which was assembled by a few avid collectors, all closely linked with Plymouth and the South West including Sir John St. Aubyn (1758-1839), Sir William Serjeant (1857-1930), René Gallant (1906-1985) and The Richard Barstow (1947-1982) Collection.

The Human History collections include:

Archaeology

Locally excavated objects from Plymouth, West Devon and the South Hams. Items include prehistoric artefacts from Dartmoor, important Bronze Age and Iron Age material from Mount Batten and medieval and post-medieval finds from Plymouth. The Museum also houses material from ancient Egypt and other Mediterranean cultures.

Social History

The Social History collections cover different aspects of social, domestic and maritime life.

Ethnography

The ethnographic collections contain objects from all over the world including Africa, Asia, the Americas and Oceana.

Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery has large and important fine and decorative art collections. These include:

Fine Art

A substantial collection of some 750 paintings, 3000 watercolours and drawings, over 5000 prints and small collections of sculpture and miniatures. There are many works by prominent local artists such as Sir Joshua Reynolds, James Northcote, Samuel Prout, Charles Locke Eastlake and Benjamin Robert Haydon. The Museum also has a large representation of work by artists of the 19th century Newlyn School as well as good 20th century collections including works by the St Ives and Camden Town Groups.

Cottonian Collection
This 18th century collection comprises small groups of ceramics, bronzes and paintings, several hundred Old Master and English drawings and watercolours, several thousand fine and rare prints and a library of some two thousand volumes. A collection of Designated status. For more information visit the Cottonian Collection website.

Decorative Art
The decorative art collections contain ceramics, glass, furniture, costumes, textiles and silver, particularly Plymouth silversmiths. It also includes one of the most extensive collections of the historically important Plymouth and Bristol porcelain.