‘City owes him a lot’ Tributes as ex-heritage chief dies
ANDY King, former senior curator of social, industrial and maritime history and working exhibits at M Shed died on Monday aged 65.
He was responsible for saving much of the heritage of Bristol’s past as a manufacturing centre and port, and for turning Harbourside into a significant leisure attraction.
His death comes just a few months after he was forced to retire by a longterm illness.
A colleague and friend said, “His final days were pain free … The family is devastated obviously, but also relieved that his stay in hospital was only two weeks following a lovely break in the Isle of Wight.”
Andy arrived in Bristol in 1981 to work at the Industrial Museum, and became a leading authority on Bristol’s maritime and industrial heritage.
He would go on to run the Industrial Museum himself until the site became the M Shed Museum.
His achievement in saving and conserving so many aspects of Bristolians’ working lives was huge. The more visible aspects included his work on the boats – the tugs Mayflower and John Kingand the fireboat Pyronaut.
His other responsibilities included the cranes, including the Fairbairn steam crane, the dockside trains, the iconic Lodekka bus and much more, including recording the memories of hundreds of Bristolians’ former working lives.
He also played a leading role in staging ACH Smith’s dockside community play Up the Feeder, Down the Mouth in 2001, which included an appearance by a working ship, an East European cargo vessel.
Underlying all this was his extraordinary skill in managing and motivating an army of hugely-committed volunteers, many of them retired or still-working engineers.
Their can-do spirit and know-how meant that so much machinery was brought back to life, conserved and maintained at little or no cost. It’s also the volunteers who provide the trainrides and boat outings which for decades now have been part of every summer weekend around the docks.
In a note to volunteers when he announced his retirement, he said: “I’m always credited as the person who restored three boats and four and a half cranes, put on Up The Feeder, took the Grenville steam carriage on the London to Brighton, masterminded the closure and decant of the Industrial Museum, took Pyronaut to London and managed the Crane Dance, but that’s far from the truth – it’s always been a huge team effort in which my role has usually been little more than to say ‘Yes’ (and to guarantee that it will probably rain if I’m involved!)”
He endured illness with his characteristic dry humour. Following the loss of an arm to cancer he made a number of You Tube videos about woodworking in his shed – see https://tinyurl.com/ywy9djdf
Without the pivotal role that Andy King has played in Bristol since the 1980s, Harbourside would be a very different place.
Bristolians would have lost priceless memories of their working lives, and those of their parents, and Harbourside would be a lot less fun for people of all ages. The city owes him a huge debt.