In 1876, Dr Samuel Taylor Chadwick, a wealthy medical doctor and a benefactor of the town, left a bequest of £5000 to create a museum in Bolton.

From 1897, the local authority began to buy North West contemporary art, often from summer exhibitions held at Mere Hall including artists Fred Balshaw, Alfred Heaton Cooper and Samuel Towers.

[6] The grade 1 listed Hall i' th' Wood was donated as a museum for Samuel Crompton by Lord Leverhulme in 1899, opening in 1902 after restoration.

Leverhulme had also proposed a total redesign of Bolton which included an expanded Chadwick Museum at Queen's Park, this plan was rejected but parts of it gave rise to the building of the current Le Mans Crescent in the 1930s.

[3] The current Le Mans Crescent Museum was opened by the Mayor in 1934, displaying natural history and art.

Within this collection are approximately 3500 archaeological textiles of Egyptian and Sudanese origin dating from c.5000 BC to the 20th century from excavations in Egypt and Sudan.

There is also a selection of textiles from British excavations at Antinoe, Armant, Tell el Amarna, Fayum, Hawara, Illahun, the collection includes a dozen Roman hats and hairnets, Napata/Sanam Abu Dom, Oxyrhynchus, Qau el-Kebir, Saqqara, Tanis and Tarkhan.

In 2007 a collection of over 3000 objects dating to the Roman/Meroitic through to the Ottoman period was also obtained from the Egypt Exploration Society of textiles from Qasr Ibrim.

The display commences with a gilded Egyptian mask in a setting created to reflect the original Victorian parlour as the items would have been displayed on first arriving in the UK, alongside a soldiers uniform from the same period and incorporates an electronic presentation of the influence of Ancient Egypt in popular art, culture and design.

[7] The Walker Galleries had advised Bolton to form its Art collection on four criteria, The policy of acquiring British oil paintings was more recently defined to focus on post war drawings and prints.

[7] An iconic painting of local importance held at the Bolton Art Galleries is Rivington Lakes by Frederic William Hulme created in 1872.

[7] The Decorative Arts collection comprises 900 mostly British ceramic items dating from the medieval period to present; 180 glass objects dating from the 18th century to present; 85 electrotype reproductions acquired from the Victoria & Albert Museum in the 1870s; and 20 decorative carved panels by the Victorian wood grainer and marbler Thomas Kershaw.

[3] A Japan-focused collection was a bequest in 1959 and includes 150 pieces that are mainly 19th century inro, netsuke and scent bottles.

[3] The objects included in this section cover the aspects of birth and death; marriage; family and domestic life; work; business and technology; transport; health and medicine; conflict leisure and sport; religion and belief; politics; civic and national life; law, punishment and control; childhood and education; and industry.

[15] In March 2019, Bolton Museum hosted the OUTing the Past Festival which featured talks and presentations on LGBT+ history and two performances of "The Adhesion of Love", a dramatization of a visit by a member of the Eagle Street College to Walt Whitman in 1891.

Displays included recalling the progress and creation of 'Bolton Pride' and looked back at the local history of activism, campaigns, events and figures from Bolton's LGBT+ past including displays of photographs and documents of Bolton's first LGB youth group, YGLIB volunteers meeting Anne, Princess Royal.

There were also exhibits illustrating the roles of James William Wallace (of the Eagle Street College), Vesta Tilley and Humphrey Spender.