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The Case of Thomas Holloway's Picture Collection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2010

Derrick Chong
Derrick Chong
Affiliation:
School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London Egham, Surrey TW20 OEX, England, Tel: 0044-1784-443786, Fax: 0044-1784-439854
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Type
Case Notes
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , January 1996 , pp. 167 - 184
Copyright
Copyright © International Cultural Property Society 1996

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References

Notes

1 The College's official name remains Royal Holloway and Bedford New College (RHBNC) as set out by the 1985 Act of Parliament that merged Royal Holloway and Bedford, two University of London colleges. Since the autumn of 1992, as part of a broader corporate identify programme. Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL) has been the preferred name.

2 The Independent's leader “An unaccountable decision” (17 November 1992) was followed by a rebuttal by the Principal of the College (18 November). Critics of the College and the Charity Commissioners who wrote to The Independent included the directors of the Tate Gallery, the Victoria and Albert, Ashmolean (Oxford), and Fitzwilliam (Cambridge) Museums, and the chairman of the National Art-Collections Fund.

3 United Kingdom, House of Lords, Hansard, “Royal Holloway College: Sale of Bequests,” (21 January 1993), col. 958–962.

4 The art critic, Brian Sewell, supported the College's decision of selling three paintings to renew Founder's Building: “When it's best to let great paintings go,” Evening Standard, (29 July 1992), p. 9. The opposite position was exemplified by “Betrayal of trust,” an editorial in Burlington Magazine CXXXV/1078 (January 1993), p. 3.

5 McConkey, Kenneth, “Foreword,” in John Hayes, The Holloway Gainsborough (London: Pyms Gallery, 1995), p. 3Google Scholar. (Gainsborough's Peasants Going to Market through the generosity of the new owner was included in the 1995 New Displays at the Tate Gallery. To mark the event the Dr John Hayes, former director of the National Portrait Gallery, was commissioned to prepare a short catalogue placing the picture in the context of the artist's oeuvre.)

6 For example, in 1985 Newcastle University collected £600,000 from selling items of ethnological interest from the George Brown Collection and in 1988 Manchester University sold £1.8 million worth of mediaeval and renaissance books from the John Rylands Library. Moreover, in order to help clear debts and repair buildings, Edinburgh University, in the early part of 1993, was contemplating selling two important works from the Torrie Bequest, one being an oil painting by Jacob van Ruisdael, The Banks of the River, on loan to the National Gallery of Scotland since the Gallery was established in 1850.

7 On three separate occasions (6 June 1989, 8 May 1990, and 23 October 1990) the Academic Board voted against the decision to sell works from the picture collection. The third occasion was after the Council of the College had decided to approach the Charity Commissioners.

8 United Kingdom, Charity Commissioners for England and Wales, Annual Report of the Charity Commissioners 1992 (April 1993), para 44.

9 One often neglected characteristic of a “national museum or gallery” is the following: “… the Government is able to call on their staff from time to time for such expert advice in their field assist may require.” See Museums and Galleries Commission, The National Museums: the national museums and galleries of the United Kingdom (HMSO, 1988), p. 3. From 1 June 1992 the Secretary of State for National Heritage assumed responsibility (from the President of the Board of Trade) for export controls exercised on heritage grounds upon works of art, antiques, and collectors' items.

10 United Kingdom, Committee on the Export of the Works of Art, First Report of the Reviewing Committee appointed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in December, 1952 (HMSO, 1954), p. 16, para 11.

11 Williams, Sharon, The International and National Protection of Movable Cultural Property: a comparative study (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publications, 1978), p. 114.Google Scholar

12 United Kingdom, Department of National Heritage, Annual Report 1993. para 2.72.

13 Museums Association, “Museums briefing” issue 7 (April 1995), “Export regulations: a guide for museums.”

14 See, for example, Clark, Rosemary, “Government policy and art museums in the United Kingdom,” in Feldstein, Martin, ed., The Economics of Art Museums (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 322.Google Scholar

15 Babbidge, Adrian, “Disposals from museum collections,” Museum Management and Curatorship 10/3 (1991), pp. 259, 259.Google Scholar

16 This is the position adopted by the prestigious North American organization. Association of Art Museum Directors, with regard to “university and college museums” in its publication Professional Practices in Art Museums (1992). Comparisons between the Holloway case and the decision of the New York Historical Society to deaccession artworks to support ongoing operations have been invited. For example, Michael Conforti, director of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, in a keynote speech entitled “Museums and the history of art” at the Association of Art Historian conference in London (8 April 1995) drew attention to the deaccessioning case at the New York Historical Society. The Society, as a member of the American Association of Museums, has adopted a course of behaviour which violates the AAM's code of conduct concerning the acceptable uses of funds received from deaccessioning. The Society was established in 1804, that is six and a half decades before the founding of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, thus for a time the Society was considered the city's leading art museum. Since the establishment of art museums during the last three decades of the nineteenthcentury the Society's collection has evolved from painting and sculpture to archives and books such that old master paintings are now viewed as anomalous with the Society's aims and objectives. Moreover, the current financial situation is marked by a shortfall in operating funds and the need for repairs to the fabric of the building. The College and the Society are motivated to deaccession to address what each has perceived to be fiscal urgencies serve as an instructive point of intersection (even though the museological status and obligations of the two institutions are different). If art museums and universities with art collections can offload works of art to support ongoing operations there seems to be little justification for arguing against allowing virtually all not-for-profit organizations and charitable trusts the same “artfor-cash” opportunities.

17 Thomas Holloway (1800–83) was described as a “patent medicine vendor” in the Dictionary of National Biography. Moreover, his entry in the pantheon of British notables and worthies gave only cursory mention to his philanthropic activities: Holloway Sanatorium at Virginia Water and the College, both of which were located near his Berkshire estate Tittenhurst Park.

18 In May 1874 Holloway purchased the Mont Lee Estate at Egham in preparation for his planned college “to afford the best education suitable to women of the Middle and Upper Middle Classes.”

19 Accounts of the initial value of the endowment have recorded it at £200,000 and £300,000. In any case the endowment, though important, was not deemed to be essential as the College was “intended to be mainly self-supporting.”

20 Bedford College-named after its first site Bedford Square in London's Bloomsbury-was founded in 1849 by Elizabeth Jesser Reid. As a women's college, therefore, it predates Royal Holloway College. At the turn of the century both Colleges were incorporated as part the University of London (which had been established in 1836).

21 Crook, J. Mordaunt, “Holloway's architect and chateau,” in Moore, Morton, ed., Centenary Lectures 1886–1986, (RHBNC, 1988), p. 35.Google Scholar

22 Chapel, Jeannie, Victorian Taste: the complete collection of paintings at Royal Holloway College (London: A. Zwemmer, 1982), pp. 13, 13.Google Scholar

23 Norman Gowar, “Letter to The Rt. Hon. Peter Brooke, Secretary of State for National Heritage,” (16 November 1993).

24 In 1869 Holloway purchased the house and contents of his neighbour Captain Josh Dingwall when the latter decided to live abroad. The contents included a collection of seventy-eight paintings by old masters. Holloway's relatives sold these paintings shortly after his death.

25 Apart from the Turner, Gainsborough, and Constable other notables include William Frith, The Railway Station (1862), Sir Edwin Landseer, Man Proposes. God Disposes (1864), Sir John Millais, Princes in the Tower (1875), Luke Filde, Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward (1874), and Edwin Long, The Babylonian Marriage Market (1875).

26 Chapel, Victorian Taste (1982), p. 9.

27 Arnold-Foster, Kate, The Collections of the University of London (London: Museums Service, 1989), p. 19.Google Scholar

28 Both Royal Holloway and Bedford Colleges remained relatively small women's-only colleges until the 1960s, when there was a request by the Government for national expansion of higher education. To increase the student population, male postgraduates and undergraduates were admitted to both colleges by the mid 1960s. However, both still remained small compared to other University of London colleges including the two oldest ones University and King's. During the 1970s attention was drawn to the vulnerability of the smaller colleges, yet little action was taken until Government cuts in 1981 forced the issue to the top of the University of London community's agenda. This climate fostered London's smaller colleges to unite.

29 John Smith, “Royal Holloway and Bedford New College: an independent assessment of the financial position, May 1990,” (5 June 1990), para 20.

30 RHBNC, Council (30 November 1990).

31 In letters published in The Independent the directors of the Tate Gallery (30 September 1992) and the Victoria and Albert Museum (24 October 1992) confirmed that the Charity Commissioners did not seek advice from their staff.

32 Nicholas Serota, “Letter to the Editor,” The Independent (3 December 1992).

33 In terms of rigid chronology Gainsborough (1727–88) was the only artist in the collection outside the Victorian period (1837–1901). If the collection really does exit to support the College's Centre for the Victorian Art and Architecture-which was founded in October 1990 with the aid of a £250,000 grant from Christie's-it is rather queer that the comparative value of paintings by Turner and Constable were not accorded greater credence (given that both artists went against the grain of the prevailing aesthetics of the day). Moreover, the breakup of the collection mitigates against issues pertaining to taste, the formation of collections, and wealth in Victorian England which one assumes would be addressed in the Centre's curriculum.

34 Richard Fries, Chief Charity Commissioner, “Letter to the Editor,” The Independent (29 September 1992).

35 The Attorney General usually acts on the advice of the Charity Commissioners though he can act independently of it. Key to the Attorney General taking action-which he did not do in the Holloway case with a summons in the Chancery Division of the High Court-is the breach of a trust or neglect of a duty that requires remedy. If the Court, upon the evidence presented, is satisfied that the action taken or proposed was against the public interest an injunction for its restitution or prohibition of disposal could be ordered.

36 The appeal to the Parliamentary Ombudsman was based on a charge of maladministration being levied against the Charity Commissioners: the Commissioners failed to consider expert advice from the relevant keepers at the Tate or the V&A, for example, and took a very narrow interpretation of the purposes of decoration without a full regard of the “benefit” Thomas Holloway wanted the paintings to have for all the members of the College. Finally the seriousness of the financial crisis at the College was challenged. The failure to sell the paintings would not cause the College to be insolvent or Founder's Building to uninhabitable. In other words, extraordinary steps were deemed to have been taken to address a financial situation that, albeit unfortunate, is not uncommon to British universities.

37 There was not unanimous support for the sale among the twenty-five Council members who attended: one abstention was recorded; moreover, two votes were cast against the sale.

38 United Kingdom, Department of National Heritage, Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art, Annual Report (1992/93), case 19.

39 The letter by the Principal (see n. 23) was in response to the portrayal of the College by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art.

40 Reviewing Committee, Annual Report (1992/93), case 19.

41 Cf: Prior to the sale of the College's Turner the highest recorded price for a work of art by a British artist was £10.78 million for Constable's The Lock, which was bought by the well-known collector Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, in 1990.

42 At the time of the Constable sale it was not known if the same private British collector had purchased the Gainsborough. However, it was later revealed that Graham Kirkham, a Yorkshire furniture tycoon and serious British collector of art, was the owner of both Holloway paintings. See Martin Bailey, “Collector profile: Who is Graham Kirkham?” Art Newspaper (June 1995), p. 33.

43 Kleinwort Benson manages the proceeds from the sale of the Turner (£ 10,935,881 net) and the Mercury Asset Management manages the proceeds from the sale of the Gainsborough (£3,195,142 net). See RHBNC, Council (22 September 1994) for details of the Founder's Endowment Fund. Mercury Asset Management was been selected to manage the proceeds from the Constable sale.