‘Cancelling’ history is anathema to the way the cultural sector works
This week the Culture Secretary met with 25 organisations, including the National Trust and our largest museums, to discuss the approach we all take to telling the history of Britain. There has been considerable speculation, some understandable but much of it conspiratorial, about the motivations and agendas of all concerned. I was there, and can reflect on a refreshingly sane discussion.
At the heart of the cultural sector lies a commitment, much of it set out in statute, to preserving items of historical significance and exploring their context.
That juxtaposition of stunning buildings and artefacts with wellresearched and diverse storytelling is something our audiences value hugely. It is one of the reasons why cultural venues have a huge role to play in our economic recovery.
The stories we tell reflect the times we live in. In some cases that means responding to momentous change, as with the prodigious collecting activity under way at the Science Museum Group and elsewhere to provide a permanent record for future generations of medical, scientific, cultural and personal responses to the coronavirus pandemic, and to chronicle its impact on society. In other cases, it is about filling in the gaps that previous generations of curators and historians have left. Visitors to the Science Museum want to know both about the great engineering achievements of James Watt and the fact that he was involved in trafficking a young black man, and the same visitors can make their own judgments. It is a fine example of my mantra that our approach should be about additions not subtractions, and especially not about making sweeping ahistorical judgements about the men and women who shaped the history of our remarkable country.
Some people have put it to me that this week’s meeting stemmed from ministers’ desire to “ride roughshod over the arm’s-length principle”; that the independence of our great national museums was at risk. If reassurance is needed, then I’m happy to report that the importance of independence was underlined, not undermined at the meeting. There is no desire to meddle in the thousands of curatorial decisions that museums make every day: which objects to display or rotate, what to collect, and how to write content for labels or our enormous digital audience. All that is being asked of us right now is that, if we value our independence, a principle that has made our museums so trusted by our audiences at home and abroad, then we should be robust about that independence.
We should not be at the beck and call of every loud voice, or rush to change our museums at the first sign of complaint from a particular lobby, and we should steer clear of political activism. Although a concern has been raised by the current minister, a Conservative, one can well imagine that politicians of other hues would have the same expectation. It should also be remembered that barely any of the major museums are affected by the threatened removal of statues. “Cancelling” history is anathema to the way we work.
There might be an impression among some that museums have been unduly focused on certain groups, neglecting the history of the majority, but that is inaccurate. The interest in shining the spotlight on previously
We should not be at the beck and call of every loud voice
overlooked stories is not a new fad, and we aim to be comprehensive. The Information Age Gallery opened early in my decade at the Science Museum, and among my favourite stories within it are the submarine cable that allowed the American singer and activist Paul Robeson to perform live for a London audience despite a travel ban, the prominence given to the female telephonists who operated the Enfield Exchange, and Tommy Flowers, the son of a bricklayer, who went on to play a vital role in developing the Colossus computer. We are on a restless hunt for all great stories regardless of gender, race or creed.
On a personal level, I am sure that many readers will join me in hoping that when museums use their own independent voices, they can also push back on some of the divisive language deployed by some campaigners, and the world of “safe spaces”. Our job, instead, is to deploy the glories of plain English to reach millions, rather than to preach.
That a meeting between cultural leaders and the Culture Secretary about the importance of telling a balanced history of Britain should be characterised as a threat to democratic norms tells us something about the nature of debate in these polarised times. It makes the independence of our work all the more important. While those organisations that receive public funding do have obligations to government, our most important responsibility is to our audiences. So it’s vital that those audiences can trust the stories they encounter in our spaces, in the knowledge that we aren’t seeking to skew the story to favour any particular political agenda.