Jesse Norman says there’s no point in free entry to the arts if you can’t get to them, as two-thirds of the country live beyond affordable travel to national cultural organisations.
The record number of visitors to the British Museum last year – up 19 per cent to 6.7 million – has been taken as proof that sex sells, since it was risqué exhibitions on Pompeii and Japanese art that drew the crowds. But it also highlights the Government’s wisdom in ruling out museum entry charges after 2015. In the words of Ed Vaizey, the arts minister, “it has been an absolute core part of our approach that the national museums should remain free in order to access the national collections”.
At about £50 million, that is a substantial commitment of public funds, especially at a time of austerity. Yet few would argue that it’s not worthwhile. In England, visitors to the national museums have risen from just over seven million in 2000-1, when free entry was introduced, to around 20 million now. When the V&A dropped its £5 entry charge, visitor numbers more than doubled in the first year.
In this country, open access is not an add-on – it is, uniquely, part of the basic ethos. The British Museum was founded in 1753 as the world’s first “universal museum”: a national institution, owned by neither church nor monarch, open to all at no charge, and dedicated to human culture. When its director, Neil MacGregor, was courted by New York’s Metropolitan Museum some years ago, he reportedly turned the offer down on the grounds that, because it charged for admission, the Met was not a genuinely public institution.
The record number of visitors to the British Museum last year – up 19 per cent to 6.7 million – has been taken as proof that sex sells, since it was risqué exhibitions on Pompeii and Japanese art that drew the crowds. But it also highlights the Government’s wisdom in ruling out museum entry charges after 2015. In the words of Ed Vaizey, the arts minister, “it has been an absolute core part of our approach that the national museums should remain free in order to access the national collections”.
At about £50 million, that is a substantial commitment of public funds, especially at a time of austerity. Yet few would argue that it’s not worthwhile. In England, visitors to the national museums have risen from just over seven million in 2000-1, when free entry was introduced, to around 20 million now. When the V&A dropped its £5 entry charge, visitor numbers more than doubled in the first year.
In this country, open access is not an add-on – it is, uniquely, part of the basic ethos. The British Museum was founded in 1753 as the world’s first “universal museum”: a national institution, owned by neither church nor monarch, open to all at no charge, and dedicated to human culture. When its director, Neil MacGregor, was courted by New York’s Metropolitan Museum some years ago, he reportedly turned the offer down on the grounds that, because it charged for admission, the Met was not a genuinely public institution.