Ian Blatchford:
We should be adding to our nation’s rich story not subtracting, says head d of the Science nce Museumm
As Covid-19 haunts our daily lives and recession looms, many are engaged in a fraught debate about the “right” history to tell about this country, and there has been some speculation about the agendas of those who run the great national museums.
It might seem a strange priority right now, and yet it matters for a nation as ancient as ours. So, as the director of the Science Museum Group, running the largest group of science museums in the world and holding its greatest science collection, I feel that it is time to be less anonymous.
Pre-virus I spent a great deal of my year outside Britain, promoting exhibitions, scholarship and business with our international partners. And whether it was India, China, Brazil, Russia or Japan, I was always struck by the respect for our contribution to the global history of the arts and sciences.
Indeed, my international colleagues can be perplexed by our diffidence and ambivalence when it is so remarkable that our “sceptred isle”, with its small population, has achieved so much. This affection is poignant, and let us not underestimate its value as we make new trade deals across the world.
Britain has a rich and long history as a leader in scientific, medical and engineering innovation, and that is told across our five museums of the Science Museum Group. Today we can see that innovation alive and kicking in the urgent collaborations to find a vaccine against Covid-19, which is the subject of a major collecting project by our museums.
The stories and objects we select about the pandemic will reflect the broad and inclusive way we think about history these days. It will interrogate the wide array of scientists, technicians and other experts involved in developing new treatments and shed light on the experience of communities disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
Some of the seven million items we hold, on behalf of the nation, were gathered in the 19th century and reflect the mindsets of that era, and in many cases that was a time when the British Empire was in the ascendant. Each generation brings its own values to scholarship and the result is both gaps in the stories we tell and the opportunity for fresh perspectives.
The global discourse this summer about the importance of black lives has undoubtedly sharpened our focus on colonial history. But our agenda is not political, our agenda continues to be telling richer stories in more engaging ways; if you looked at our labels in 1920 you would laugh at their technical jargon, and only a few decades ago the story of science seemed to be almost entirely male.
But here is the crucial question: how to get the balance right between telling an honest, full story about our past, and avoiding a parade of clumsy ahistorical judgments? One answer to this is my mantra: additions not subtractions. This means a strong preference for revealing the story of the men and women forgotten by, or airbrushed out, of history and give
them their due respect because they are part of the sum of human knowledge.
For some time, we have reflected on the need to address omissions in our galleries because history is not a rigid box of facts; it evolves as fresh evidence comes to light, even if that means reflecting on uncomfortable aspects of our history. A fine example of this is new research by the National Railway Museum on the unofficial “colour bar” that was prevalent in the Fifties and Sixties and which denied promotion to black employees that British Rail had recruited among the Windrush generation.
Similarly, we are including the facts of Empire in our displays and so, for example, the textiles galleries and interpretation at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester now make explicit cotton’s links with slavery. However, our tone will recognise that the museum visitor is not a witness who needs to be led to a conclusion by activist language. Long experience has shown us that telling a story straight, with facts and evidence, always wins the day.
I have received a number of letters and emails making strident assertions about the violence of Empire, the museum’s complicity in concealment, and an insistence that we “call out” the racism of certain historical figures. At times like these one needs to pause, and then separate the wheat from the chaff. There are some truths and genuinely fresh evidence that must be addressed, as a decent evolution of history. A notable example is recent research revealing that James Watt was engaged in slave trading as a young man. This is a new discovery and so the question is how it should be deployed.
Our approach has been to make some sensible changes to gallery labels, but most certainly not to censor one of the greatest engineers of the Industrial Revolution. The display of his achievements, alongside those of his business partner Matthew
Our agenda is not political, our agenda continues to be telling richer stories
Bolton and including his legendary workshop, preserved as it was on his death in 1819, will remain in place. But we now know him to be a more complex person than the hero I cherished as a schoolboy.
There is much to be said for the “retain and explain” approach to statues in situ and museum displays, because it is thoughtful; and context is all, allowing us to look history in the eye. And at the same time, the goal of diversity truly matters, even if the language of inclusion grates with some.
The Science Museum in London receives more school visits than any other museum in Britain and in a normal year almost half of them come from ethnic minority backgrounds. These children might save us all with their scientific breakthroughs, and notion of public service and courtesy should mature to include the achievements, and difficult history, of communities too long invisible in our galleries.