by Chris Jones ·
Friday, May 15, 2026
A full body suit of armor (above) and a helmet collection (below) show the craftsmanship of metal workers of many eras and cultures. (Courtesy photos)
Last November, the second largest permanent exhibit of arms and armor in the country opened, putting nearly 2,000 artifacts on display. It didn’t open in New York or Chicago or Los Angeles: It opened at the Worcester Art Museum, just 35 minutes from Harvard.
Many area residents may remember the Higgins Armory Museum, a museum dedicated to arms and armor and created by John Woodman Higgins, a prominent industrialist who owned Worcester Pressed Steel Company. Higgins started his collection in the 1920s, storing artifacts in his house; in 1928, when the collection had outgrown his home, he built a steel and glass museum and connected it to his factory in Worcester. Higgins died in 1961, but the public could visit the collection right up to Dec. 31, 2013, when the armory closed for good, due to a lack of funding.
Bill MacMillan, project conservator of objects at the museum, started working at the Higgins Armory Museum as an “exhibits person” in the late 1980s, and 37 years later, he’s still connected to the collection. In 2014, the Higgins collection, along with a small endowment, came to the Worcester Art Museum: “There was no space for it here, and where the exhibit is now was the library. The collection came over, but with very little money, and the museum had to fundraise to create space. “It came down to logistics,” said MacMillan. This explains why the arms and armor gallery just opened this past November, 12 years after the museum received the Higgins collection.
The gallery consists of two spaces. The first space displays some of the best arms and armor in the collection, which includes, but is hardly limited to, a set of German Maximilian field armor (1510–1520), a Japanese general’s helmet formed in the shape of a conch shell (1618), the helmet of a Roman gladiator (100 C.E.), and gold and steel Katar punch daggers from India (1700s). The second space displays the vast majority of the collection—only 10% of the objects are in storage—, and the public is welcome to dive as deep as they like using an in-house database that connects artifacts to descriptions and explanations.
Interestingly enough, the exhibit isn’t organized chronologically or geographically, but according to MacMillan, this makes sense: “The power of the collection is the people … all the pieces I work on as a conservator involve people—I see the file work, I see the hammering, and to me, it is the story of people behind the objects.” MacMillan added that the creation of arms and armor has continued throughout history, “a line of antiquity to the present.” To him, it doesn’t matter when or where the artifact was made; a good set of armor or a good sword exhibits craftsmanship and thinking that is universal to the product. “This collection is very much alive and involves a story that’s still getting told,” he said.
Every now and then, MacMillan takes a break from his conservation work and wanders down to the gallery to interact with the public; he just likes to see how people react to and engage with the collection. During this reporter’s tour, two young women stood in front of an intimidating but cryptic object in the second room, a folding fan of blades that circled a large post. They couldn’t figure out what it was, and MacMillan stepped in: “We call that the Umbrella of Death. To be honest, we don’t know what it is or what it was used for, but it’s interesting. If you two have a good theory, the museum would love to hear it.”
The visiting teenagers smiled and continued the discussion. They remarked on a helmet and mask that could have been used in a horror film such as “Halloween” or “Friday the 13th.” “It was very creepy.” MacMillan said, “That’s the idea. That mask was designed to intimidate the opponent. Once you get in the head of the enemy, it’s easier to defeat them.” One of the age-old themes in arms and armor is intimidation—an appeal to fear. It’s a universal theme that transcends time and culture.
As for the oldest item in the collection, a visitor will find it in the second room. It’s an Egyptian sword/axe that dates to 2100 B.C.E. To put that in perspective, historians believe the legendary Trojan War occurred about 1150 B.C.E., so the axe materialized long before Achilles and Odysseus ever graced the pages of Homer’s epics. It’s not every day a person can stand a few feet from a 4,000-year-old man-made weapon, but one can in Worcester.
As for MacMillan’s favorite artifact, it isn’t a weapon, a shield, or a set of armor; it’s a set of small pen-like maker’s files from the mid-1500s that helped a blacksmith produce the artistic details one will find on so many of the gallery’s pieces. “You could take these files and put them on any metal worker’s desk today, and that metal worker would know exactly what they’re used for and how to use them,” he said. The files are just another example of the past connecting to the present; the tool transcends time and location.
For those interested in visiting the arms and armor collection—a collection for all ages—family passes to the museum are available from the Harvard Public Library for free, and arms and armor programs occur every second and fourth Saturday of the month. These programs are free with admission.