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Museums and the Future*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2015
Extract
It has long been obvious that a new policy is wanted for our museums and their buildings. The need, often discussed, now takes on a new urgency. The second world war has visited our cities with insensate destruction on a scale which we have hitherto associated only with Acts of God. Some of our museums have already suffered —and as yet we cannot say when or where more will be damaged or destroyed. Replanning schemes will see old museums rebuilt, new museums established in many places; and now, while such schemes are being blocked out, is the time to see that individually and as a body the museums are planned and developed to the best advantage. The necessary driving force must come from a comparatively small body of people. For as a nation we can hardly be called museum conscious: we have no official museum policy, and the local efforts which are the substitute for it operate so unevenly that a large part of the population is quite without a service which ought to be of great educational and cultural value to all.
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- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1944
References
1 The Museums and Art Galleries of the British Isles, p. 22.
2 But see also below.
3 Actually a New Forest Museum should be established independently at Lyndhurst and its arrangement and care would provide a heaven-sent opportunity for an active curator who should be a naturalist with a geologically-minded archaeologist as his assistant. But this does not absolve Southampton and Bournemouth from the charge of having failed to develop their contacts with it. There appears to be some hope that the expansiveness induced by replanning projects may result in a more positive policy in Southampton in the future, although the bulk of its potentially useful historical collection had been allowed to remain in a situation of great danger until the summer of 1941. In Bournemouth the fight for an adequate museum has been waged at intervals from 1906 to 1931, and came nearest to success in 1906, when property was bought which has ever since been leased to private persons, instead of being used for its advertised purpose. The latest campaign, led by Mr J. B. Calkin and fully and sympathetically publicised by the local press, found the City Fathers unmoved to more than lip-service by all arguments, whether based on the urgent need to save valuable local collections for the area, on cultural and educational needs, on local patriotism or self-interest. Bournemouth has a population of over 100,000 people. A penny rate brings in over £5000 in a year.
4 As the only permanent official body concerned with museums in any general sense the Standing Commission has had thrust upon it by circumstances executive and initiatory functions which it does not constitutionally possess and which therefore it performs half-heartedly and belatedly. In December 1941, some months after the worst air-raids (up to that time) had ceased, it was circularizing museums in target areas with offers of help in the evacuation of important specimens—and this, apparently, not from any inner conviction, but on the representations of the President of the Museums Association. The Commission cannot of course be blamed for this delay. The fault lies with a ‘system’ which either ignores the national interest or leaves it to the accidents of a fluctuating local enterprise and foresight.
5 The aim being to produce an efficient museum service factors like past record and the presence or absence of local initiative are irrelevant in the apportioning of grants. It is illogical to expect existing museums to improve or new museums to appear when the wherewithal is lacking by which alone improvement and development are possible. The vicious circle which leads from neglect to a steadily deepening indifference must be broken by a state grant attended by statutory obligations on the authorities in the area. The resulting appointment of a trained curator with proper equipment, combined with a responsible administration, will automatically raise the standard of the museum without the imposition of external controls or conditions. To those who question whether such a policy would be successful the answer is to be found in just those museums which at present are provided with trained staff and an enlightened governing body.
6 It may be that the central unit should work through regional bodies covering areas like those of the present Federations. This question should be considered.