Paisley Museum

Name: Paisley Museum
Address: High Street, Paisley, PA12BA, GB
Telephone: +443003001210

A radical new cultural destination. Reopening in late 2026.

01/09/2026

Paisley born Alexander Wilson emigrated to America in 1794. Reinventing himself as a pioneering naturalist he was the first person to attempt to document all the birds of North America.

In 1810 he watched in awe as a single flock of passenger pigeons took four hours to pass overhead and estimated the flock to contain over 2.2 billion birds.
Yet in just over 100 years, this, the most abundant bird in North America was gone forever as Martha the world’s last known survivor died on 1 September 1914 in Cincinnati Zoo.��

Image description: �Drawing of a passenger pigeon by Alexander Wilson (1812). The image shows a long-tailed pigeon standing on a tree stump. It has a blue-grey head, wings and back, reddish breast and iridescent neck feathers, a red eye and red-coloured feet, the tail feathers are black and light grey. Also shown on the plate are two smaller birds both yellow breasted, with black and white wing feathers and one showing a greenish back.

Image copyright of OneRen, the trading name of Renfrewshire Leisure Limited.

16/08/2026

Heading to the Paisley 10k and Fun Run today? While our transformation is still underway, we’ll be popping up outside the Museum, joining the rest of our community cheering on the runners! Drop by to say hello and to hear a few fast facts from our collections 🏃‍♀️👋

13/08/2026

Hands up if you’re enthusiastic, collaborative and care deeply about quality visitor experience🙋

If you’d be motivated by the opportunity to support how people access, explore, and connect with Renfrewshire’s archival collections, you might just be the new Archive Assistant we’re looking for.

With the archive service set to relocate into the transformed Paisley Museum, you’ll play a key role in delivering a welcoming and accessible service for visitors, researchers, and local communities at one of Scotland’s most radical new cultural destinations.

Intrigued? Find out more and apply here 👉 https://bit.ly/ArchiveAssistant

The basics:
🪙£14.68 - £15.35 Per Hour
🕖Roles available: 2x14 hours & 2x21 hours
📅Permanent
📍On site, Paisley

12/08/2026

Today is World Elephant Day (Aug 12):
Many visitors will remember the Paisley Museum elephant. It came into the museum in 1908 and for over 60 years offered generations a rare, close-up encounter with nature’s majesty.
Today, that connection is more vital than ever: all three elephant species face extinction due to poaching, habitat loss, and human conflict. As we remember this iconic exhibit on , we are reminded of our responsibility to protect these endangered giants, so they remain more than just a memory in a museum.

Image description

Black and white image of the museum’s stuffed Asian elephant (the elephant species with the smaller ears). Two boys in flat caps, cloth jackets and long shorts tucked into long woollen socks just below the knee, stand just under its head slightly behind its truck. In front of the elephant is a large sign that says ‘Please do not touch’

Image copyright of OneRen, the trading name of Renfrewshire Leisure Limited.

04/08/2026

We’re looking for a skilled Heritage Researcher who can expertly connect the dots between stories, collections, and communities to deepen the understanding of Renfrewshire’s rich heritage.

As the archive service prepares to relocate into the transformed Paisley Museum, it’s a unique time to join us.

If you’re curious, collaborative, and excited by the opportunity to support the delivery of a people-centred archive service that places access, participation, and interpretation at its core, we’d love to hear from you.

Apply here 👉 https://bit.ly/HeritageResearcher

The basics:

🪙£31,243.97 - £32,557.96 p.a (£17.12 - £17.84 per hour)
🕖Full time – 35 hours per week
📅Permanent
📍Paisley Museum, Paisley

26/07/2026

Today is , celebrating one of our most overlooked but essential ecosystems - peatlands!
This painting from the Paisley Museum collection captures the beauty of this remarkable habitat. Whether it’s bogs, fens, swamps, or marshes, these incredible landscapes, cover just 3% of the Earth's surface, but they store twice as much carbon as all the world's forests. They're vital for tackling climate change, supporting wildlife and keeping our water clean—yet they're increasingly under threat.

To find out more visit https://bogday.org/ Because bogs are brilliant!��Image description: Oil painting of Peat Moss, Poolewe by Joseph Farquharson. In the fore and mid ground is a flat landscape of short green, hummocks of vegetation interspersed with areas of open water, aptly showing the wet boggy conditions of a peatland habitat. Large craggy mountains dominate the background under a cloudy sky. In the centre right of the picture is a man sitting in a cart being pulled by a white horse.

17/07/2026

Butterflies need our help now more than ever!
Butterfly Conservation’s annual runs from 17 July to the 9 August, sign up now and play your part in ensuring there is a future for all butterflies and moths.
The data you submit is used by scientists to help inform policies ensuring butterflies and moths have a thriving future.
Visit Butterfly Conservation to sign up and download the free Big Butterfly Count app and ID chart.
Then all you need to do is: Spend 15 minutes spotting butterflies and moths.

Image description
Advert for the Big Butterfly Count running from 17 July to the 9 August. It shows a Small Tortoiseshell butterfly, a mainly reddish orange butterfly, with black and yellow markings and a ring of blue crescents around the wing edge on a green background. On the bottom right of the image is the Butterfly Conservation logo and the words ‘Big Butterfly Count 17 July – 9 August’. Image courtesy of Iain Cowe.

06/07/2026

On this day, 260 years ago, Paisley’s own Alexander Wilson (1766 – 1813) was born.
This painting from the Paisley Museum collections shows Wilson as a young man before he left for America where he would become one of the founding figures in the scientific study of birds.
Known as the “Father of American Ornithology”, he was the first person to attempt to illustrate and document all the birds of North America producing the ground-breaking, nine-volume American Ornithology.
A trailblazer he set the standard for American ornithology, inspiring later figures like John James Audubon.

Image description: Painting of Alexander Wilson as a young man sitting at a desk. Only his top half is visible. Over a horizontally striped yellow and green waistcoat and a white shirt, ruffed down the front and tied at the neck, he is wearing a dark blue coloured jacket with gold buttons down the front and at the cuffs, He has dark hair tied at the back, dark brown eyes and a long thin nose. His left hand is raised to his face and in his right hand he holds a quill which is resting on a piece of paper.
Image copyright of OneRen, the trading name of Renfrewshire Leisure Limited

05/07/2026

Thanks to The National Lottery Heritage Fund Scotland for your amazing support

22/06/2026

This is Insect Week (22 – 28 June)

Organised by the The Royal Entomological Society this is a celebration of “the little things that run the world”.
Paisley Museum’s first curator Morris Young devoted his life to studying insects.
Insects play a variety of important roles, pollinating plants, providing food for other animals, eating pests and breaking down waste. They are crucial to life on Earth.
Some are stunningly beautiful, others are weird, but wonderful and all are fascinating – once you get to know them.
Visit https://www.insectweek.org/ to find out more.

Image description 1: Morris Young, curator of Paisley Museum from 1871 – 1897 painted by Christopher Meadows. Painting shows Morris as an older man with beard and moustache, dressed in a dark coloured jacket, white shirt with winged collar and dark-coloured bow tie. He is in the process of stuffing, a heron. The tall grey heron is standing on a table in front of Morris, also on the table are pliers, wires and books and another two birds, both Northern Flickers which are a North American species.
Image copyright of OneRen, the trading name of Renfrewshire Leisure Limited.

Image description 2: This image shows a drawing of an ichneumon wasp by Morris Young. The insect has a slender, elongated body with a distinct "wasp waist", six legs, two antennae, only one pair of wings are visible. The wasp’s body is a light orange colour with a black tip at the pointed end of its abdomen.
Image copyright of OneRen, the trading name of Renfrewshire Leisure Limited.

Address

High Street
Paisley
PA12BA

Telephone

+443003001210

Website

https://www.oneren.org/paisley-museum/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Paisley Museum posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Museum

Send a message to Paisley Museum:

Want your museum to be the top-listed Museum in Paisley?