Museums and heritage

Historic England has awarded 57 projects a total of £774,000 from its Everyday Heritage Grants: Celebrating Working Class Histories fund.

Selected via an open call that attracted more than 500 applications, awards range from £6,000 to £25,000 for each project. 

The successful projects include ones looking at the working-class histories of boxing clubs around Halifax, an exploration of 50 years of nightclubbing in Leicester focusing on Black, African and Caribbean culture, and research into Deptford's 19th century 'slaughterhouse girls' who worked in the area's cattle markets.

Historic England described the projects as "community-led and people-focused, with a focus on heritage that links people to overlooked local historic places and celebrating working-class histories". 

Chief Executive Duncan Wilson said the awardees "demonstrate that heritage is all around us and accessible to everyone".

"They will highlight that wherever people live they are surrounded by historic buildings, landscapes and streets, industrial and coastal heritage that can help bring communities together."

The grants form part of Historic England’s Strategy for Inclusion, Diversity and Equality, published in November 2020 which aims to ensure a diverse range of people in England is able to "connect with, enjoy and benefit from the historic environment".

A second world war Ukrainian Cross in Cornwall has been awarded Grade II listed status by DCMS.

It is being granted to “recognise its significance as a symbol of Ukrainian gratitude for refuge in Cornwall and will serve as a reminder of the impact of wars on displaced communities throughout history,” the DCMS says.

The cross was built by Ukrainian refugees in 1948 as a symbol of gratitude to the UK and to mark their strong Christian faith. The year before hundreds of displaced Ukrainians were housed on the land opposite the cross in temporary military buildings, before being moved to permanent accommodation in surrounding villages.

Recently settled refugees visited the landmark today (21 July) with Heritage Minister Nigel Huddleston and Deputy Ambassador of Ukraine to the UK Taras Krykun.

“This poignant Ukrainian Cross is an important symbol of Britain’s solidarity with the Ukrainian people,” Huddleston said.

“Just as we welcomed those fleeing Soviet Russia 75 years ago, the whole country stands alongside Ukrainians escaping the atrocities of Putin’s illegal war today.”

The Natural History Museum (NHM) is “set on a course that can only lead to irrelevance and failure”, a former member of staff at its Department of Life Sciences has warned. 

In an article entitled The tragedy of the Natural History Museum, Fred Naggs, an honorary Scientific Associate at the museum, criticised its “utterly inappropriate leadership and funding model".

He said that the NHM is the only public sector research establishment to be funded through the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, adding that “role of DCMS has been an unmitigated disaster”. 

Founded in 1881, the museum’s collection includes around 80 million items spanning botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology and zoology and has long been recognised as a world-leading institution. 

Naggs said the museum’s declaration of a planetary emergency has been undermined by the “inappropriate” leadership, he wrote, diverting its research in directions that overlap with other academic agencies and “undermining the reason and justification for the museum’s existence”. 

“Rather than responding to a planetary emergency, the museum is tragically descending into irrelevance,” he wrote, adding that during a period of mass extinctions it is prioritising “aspirational virtue signalling” over science.

“Its current strategy, vision and priorities are fundamentally flawed”, he warned in his conclusion, adding that “the upbeat assertion that we can deal with the environmental and biodiversity crisis and dismissive rejection of so-called doom-mongering, is not just irresponsible and dishonest, but deluded and dangerous.”

Naggs outlined some steps he believes the NHM should take to regain its relevance.

Establishing an external review body made up of international scientific authorities would be a “first step” towards changing direction, he wrote. “This would need to be followed up by the restoration of regular external reviews.”

He called on the museum to return to a collections-based focus and establish a new model for building collections based on shared objectives.

“There is an urgent need to build new collections both for future research and to contribute to safeguarding and restoring a biodiverse world,” he wrote.

“Existing collections do not begin to meet the need for a collection’s legacy for a future in which much of Earth’s biodiversity will have been lost.”

A Natural History Museum spokesperson said: "Our scientifically-critical collections and world-leading research expertise both play a pivotal role in finding solutions to the planetary emergency. 

"We are committed, through initiatives such as our planned digitisation and science facility, to ensuring the collections and the vast data contained in them are safe, accessible and digitally available for researchers all over the world, enabling cutting-edge analysis and major scientific collaboration to help tackle issues such as biodiversity loss, climate change and food insecurity."

An open letter signed by more than 400 teachers and educators is calling on the Science Museum to drop oil giant Adani as sponsor for its new Energy Revolution Gallery.

Co-ordinated by the Fossil Free Science Museum collective, the letter is the latest expression of concern over the museum’s oil sponsors, BP, Shell and Equinor and Adani, the latter of which was announced last year and led to several high profile boycotts and resignations.

Due to open next year, the Energy Revolution Gallery's target audience is Key Stage 3 and 4 students studying geography and science and young people aged 11-18, according to internal museum documents obtained following a Freedom of Information request.

The signatories pledge not to bring students to the new gallery, or any other gallery, sponsored by a fossil fuel company.

Stating that eco-anxiety amongst young people is on the rise, the letter asks how students are “supposed to feel when they see the Science Museum aligning itself, through multiple projects, with some of the world’s biggest polluters”.

“These sponsorship deals are not altruistic acts, but part of a wider strategy by fossil fuel-producing companies to convince the public that they are the ones solving the climate crisis, rather than the ones creating it,” the letter says.

Three Sudanese museums that received £1 million in funding from the British Council are demanding the return of colonial artefacts taken by imperial troops in the 19th century.

The museums, overseen by Sudan’s National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums (NCAM), were awarded the grants in 2018 to help with restoration efforts after they were damaged by regional conflict.

The head of the NCAM has now demanded that the UK repatriate looted Sudanese cultural treasures including banners, armour and human remains taken after the Battle of Omdurman in 1898, suggesting that they could be moved to the museums that received the funding.

The artefacts in question are currently held at Durham University’s Palace Green Library, the Royal Armouries and the University of Edinburgh’s Anatomical Museum.

“We have to have a big campaign. These people are our brothers, our heroes. They unified and defended our country. It is a very special story of resistance to imperialism,” said Dr. Eglal el-Malik, the NCAM’s Conservation Director, according to a report in the Telegraph.

The choice to fund organisations lobbying for repatriation of artefacts has raised questions about how cash is awarded by organisations such as the British Council, which is partially government funded.

A British Council spokesperson said: “We are proud of our cultural protection work in Sudan. It has helped to strengthen the cultural ties between the UK and Sudan.

"The grant, which was provided in 2018, aimed to protect cultural heritage at risk and does not have a remit on repatriations of cultural artefacts."

Herefordshire Council has agreed to invest £8m of capital funding for the complete refurbishment of Hereford Museum and Art Gallery. 

A further £500,000 will be allotted to help relocate Hereford Library to a renovated Maylord Orchards centre.

The funding will be awarded in addition to £8m from Stronger Towns and £2m from another fund, bringing the total budget for the museum refurbishment to £18m, with a further £3.5m allocated for the relocation and renovation of the library. 

The new Library and Learning Resource Centre will provide rentable space for organisations including the council’s adult learning services and health and wellbeing clinics.

“I’m delighted cabinet members reached agreement on these two significant proposals for Herefordshire,” councillor Gemma Davies told Gloucestershire Live.

“Our investment in cultural services is so important to support local people and adds exciting destinations and support for both residents and tourists.”

She said that the new museum is expected to attract around £2.5m annually to the local economy.

“These projects represent good value for money for the people of Herefordshire and put culture at the very heart of our city’s future,” she said.

Young people aged 16 to 25 have helped to curate a new exhibition at Ulster Museum in Belfast, assembling objects that represent their experiences, interests and opinions.

The exhibition was spearheaded by Reimagine Remake Replay, a creative programme that has connected over 4,000 young people with heritage through creative media and the latest digital technologies. It is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Kick the Dust programme.

A group of young people who have been active in the programme were selected to work on the exhibition Power to the Young People. 

The exhibition is based on themes including climate justice, arts and wellbeing and LGBTQIA+ rights, which developed naturally as a reflection of the priorities, interests and concerns of the young co-curators. It took a year to put together and features creative activities and digital interactives including a VR experience, a bespoke AR app and projection mapping.

“The programme recognises that this age group is under-served within heritage and within museums, so, for us being here is not just about the content, it’s also about changing the experience,” Niamh Kelly, Project Assistant and Youth Ambassador for Reimagine Remake Replay, told the Belfast Telegraph.

“It’s about making it more of a space that reflects young people, where they actually can see something that not just appeals to them, but speaks to them and is something that they want to get involved in.”

UNESCO has reported that 143 culturally significant buildings have been damaged in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began in February. 

The total includes 65 religious sites, 12 museums, 27 historic buildings, 17 buildings for cultural activities, 15 monuments and seven libraries. Damage has occurred across nine regions in Ukraine, mostly in the east of the country.

The global heritage body’s findings form part of its preliminary damage assessment into cultural properties in Ukraine, which it is conducted by cross-checking reported incidents with satellite images.

None of the seven World Heritage Sites in Ukraine appear to have been damaged to date.