Assessing the Thatcher legacy
Nationals received more autonomy, but publicly funded museums suffered years of neglect
The choirs have fallen silent and Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead has slipped out of the top 10. Margaret Thatcher’s funeral may be over, but the debate over her legacy and how she should be commemorated has just begun.
Thatcher was no friend of museums and by the end of her reign in 1990, many publicly funded museums were in crisis after years of neglect. A glance back over old issues of Museums Journal from the era (see box) reveals that museums were “haemorrhaging key staff” after a virtual standstill on government expenditure, which rose just 1% per annum throughout the mid-1980s.
Visitor numbers at some national museums had dropped by up to 55% after lack of subsidy compelled some to charge admission. Budgets came under further pressure when they were given responsibility for carrying out their own building repairs, a task formerly undertaken by the Property Services Agency (PSA).
Elsewhere, gloomy headlines warned that the Poll Tax, which forced local authorities to cap spending, heralded “the dawn of a new dark age” for museums.
At the same time as reining in public spending, Thatcher also turned down a proposal to introduce a national lottery as an alternative means of providing capital funding, which would have gone some way to mitigating the decline.
Museum professionals working during that time recall a government that could be “nasty, aggressive and threatening” towards people in the public sector. The fractious atmosphere created led to a minister being loudly heckled at one Museums Association (MA) conference.
But history takes a longer view. Through the Heritage Act 1980, the Thatcher government replaced the National Land Fund with the more successful National Heritage Memorial Fund, and also provided indemnities for objects on loan from museums.
The Heritage Act 1983 moved nationals such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, Science Museum and Royal Armouries out of government control and allowed them to be governed by boards of trustees. The act also made provision for funding armed forces museums and created the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission (now English Heritage).
Increased autonomy
Giving national museums more autonomy caused disruption in the short term, but it is now universally accepted as a beneficial move. The nationals were obliged to become more visitor focused and to better tailor their services to audiences, while also being freed up to diversify income streams and keep more of the money they made.
In addition, without the PSA, museums had greater control over their buildings, allowing them to embark on ambitious capital projects when their funding eventually improved.
Another impactful measure for the sector was the Education Reform Act 1988, which brought in far-reaching changes to schools and a new national curriculum. In local authority museums, where funding for their education facilities was once pooled centrally and staff directly employed by the local authority’s education department, the new legislation reclassified such services as “discretionary exceptions” that schools had to commission themselves.
Museums could start charging for these services, but they were in competition with other education providers for funding. The effects were initially painful, with many education departments forced to close, but the MA’s head of policy, Maurice Davies, believes that museum education improved significantly as a result and became far more responsive to the needs of schools.
But as these legacies move further into the past, thoughts are now turning to how the undeniably significant life of the first female prime minister should be remembered.
Just after her death, the conservative-backed Cherish Freedom Foundation (CFF) announced its intention to create a £15m memorial museum and library near Westminster, in the manner of a US-style presidential library. The museum, which won’t receive any public funding, would also serve as a training and learning facility.
A spokesman said the museum was not intended to be a shrine, and exhibitions would face up to the divisive issues of Thatcher’s reign. But he also made it clear that for events such as the miners’ strike, she would be portrayed as the “hero”.
The spokesman added that the CFF was seeking advice from “conservatively minded” museum professionals.
MA president David Anderson said any proposed museum should involve communities affected by Thatcher’s policies closely in its development, and must be set up “with the academic rigour and independence of judgement that the public has come to expect of our sector”.
“I suspect that the last thing Margaret Thatcher… would want is a museum that presents a one-eyed view of the past or promotes a leadership cult of the kind we normally associate with the totalitarian regimes she so despised,” added Anderson.
1989
“There is no crisis in our museums,” Richard Luce [minister for the arts]
1989
“Roy Strong speaks out… against Mrs Thatcher’s appointment of ‘philistines’ to key posts on boards of major arts organisations”
1989
“National Gallery, British Museum, Tate Gallery, V&A and Science Museum have taken the unprecedented step of writing to the prime minister about their desperate financial plight”
1989
“Artists march through Cardiff in protest at the introduction of admission charges at the National Museum of Wales”
1990
“The Natural History Museum reveals that 17 staff are to visit Disney World to learn about the ‘Disney approach to quality service’”
1990
“Poll Tax capping hits Peterborough Museum”
Thatcher was no friend of museums and by the end of her reign in 1990, many publicly funded museums were in crisis after years of neglect. A glance back over old issues of Museums Journal from the era (see box) reveals that museums were “haemorrhaging key staff” after a virtual standstill on government expenditure, which rose just 1% per annum throughout the mid-1980s.
Visitor numbers at some national museums had dropped by up to 55% after lack of subsidy compelled some to charge admission. Budgets came under further pressure when they were given responsibility for carrying out their own building repairs, a task formerly undertaken by the Property Services Agency (PSA).
Elsewhere, gloomy headlines warned that the Poll Tax, which forced local authorities to cap spending, heralded “the dawn of a new dark age” for museums.
At the same time as reining in public spending, Thatcher also turned down a proposal to introduce a national lottery as an alternative means of providing capital funding, which would have gone some way to mitigating the decline.
Museum professionals working during that time recall a government that could be “nasty, aggressive and threatening” towards people in the public sector. The fractious atmosphere created led to a minister being loudly heckled at one Museums Association (MA) conference.
But history takes a longer view. Through the Heritage Act 1980, the Thatcher government replaced the National Land Fund with the more successful National Heritage Memorial Fund, and also provided indemnities for objects on loan from museums.
The Heritage Act 1983 moved nationals such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, Science Museum and Royal Armouries out of government control and allowed them to be governed by boards of trustees. The act also made provision for funding armed forces museums and created the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission (now English Heritage).
Increased autonomy
Giving national museums more autonomy caused disruption in the short term, but it is now universally accepted as a beneficial move. The nationals were obliged to become more visitor focused and to better tailor their services to audiences, while also being freed up to diversify income streams and keep more of the money they made.
In addition, without the PSA, museums had greater control over their buildings, allowing them to embark on ambitious capital projects when their funding eventually improved.
Another impactful measure for the sector was the Education Reform Act 1988, which brought in far-reaching changes to schools and a new national curriculum. In local authority museums, where funding for their education facilities was once pooled centrally and staff directly employed by the local authority’s education department, the new legislation reclassified such services as “discretionary exceptions” that schools had to commission themselves.
Museums could start charging for these services, but they were in competition with other education providers for funding. The effects were initially painful, with many education departments forced to close, but the MA’s head of policy, Maurice Davies, believes that museum education improved significantly as a result and became far more responsive to the needs of schools.
But as these legacies move further into the past, thoughts are now turning to how the undeniably significant life of the first female prime minister should be remembered.
Just after her death, the conservative-backed Cherish Freedom Foundation (CFF) announced its intention to create a £15m memorial museum and library near Westminster, in the manner of a US-style presidential library. The museum, which won’t receive any public funding, would also serve as a training and learning facility.
A spokesman said the museum was not intended to be a shrine, and exhibitions would face up to the divisive issues of Thatcher’s reign. But he also made it clear that for events such as the miners’ strike, she would be portrayed as the “hero”.
The spokesman added that the CFF was seeking advice from “conservatively minded” museum professionals.
MA president David Anderson said any proposed museum should involve communities affected by Thatcher’s policies closely in its development, and must be set up “with the academic rigour and independence of judgement that the public has come to expect of our sector”.
“I suspect that the last thing Margaret Thatcher… would want is a museum that presents a one-eyed view of the past or promotes a leadership cult of the kind we normally associate with the totalitarian regimes she so despised,” added Anderson.
MJ reports from Thatcher’s final years
1989
“There is no crisis in our museums,” Richard Luce [minister for the arts]
1989
“Roy Strong speaks out… against Mrs Thatcher’s appointment of ‘philistines’ to key posts on boards of major arts organisations”
1989
“National Gallery, British Museum, Tate Gallery, V&A and Science Museum have taken the unprecedented step of writing to the prime minister about their desperate financial plight”
1989
“Artists march through Cardiff in protest at the introduction of admission charges at the National Museum of Wales”
1990
“The Natural History Museum reveals that 17 staff are to visit Disney World to learn about the ‘Disney approach to quality service’”
1990
“Poll Tax capping hits Peterborough Museum”