Wedgewood Woes

This week there has been quite a bit of news and response regarding the endangered Wedgewood Museum in the UK.  A high court ruling has deemed that artefacts are able to be sold off "to pay off debts, which include £134m liability owed to the pension scheme".  I'm certainly not across the hair splitting (Read: hair raising) minutiae of legal ownership and clauses in individual Acts to make this possible,  but it is always frightening to think that collections in our care might be sold off because of what is basically an opportunistic technical loophole that has developed over time (in this instance). The whole idea of museums as a notion is for keeping. For posterity, for collective memory, for research, for knowing about ourselves but not just for a rainy day; to be sold off.   Of course I would certainly not deny any pensioners the retirement funds they have worked so hard for, but selling national heritage and history as a fiscal policy or short term resolution is simply shameful. I thought we were past that.  When the chips are down, apparently not.

This is a warning out there to Collection Managers and Museum Directors all over to check that muddy area (Read: can of worms) regarding ownership of objects and whole collections and where that might fit in  - or not - with an overriding Trust, body, orgnaisation or entity who's main purpose might not be that of being a museum.   University museums/collections come to mind, such as the Grainger Museum at the University of Melbourne.





Back to the UK context, is this the controversial "Big Society" policy starting to bite?  Entrepreneurship and ownership or simple abandonment by the government when they're broke? The Museums Association (UK) are trying work that out from the pointy end. With all sorts of UK museums struggling at the moment this court decision really does hurt and shine a spotlight on truly endangered collections.  Before it was theory, now its real.

Lawrence Hall, Royal Horticultural Society

In the same week the RHS sells a 999 year lease of Lawrence hall  to Westminster School. That's no biggie.  It's an active venue for hire, will continue to have a relationship with the public and the Horticultural show and from what I've found seems like a win-win all around. Very different. May heritage professionals and the media not get confused between these two different situations so as not to blurr the issues.

My previous Wedgewood review from the (safe) NGV collections.