Arms and armour collections are important to many museums, none more so than the Pitt Rivers in Oxford. Its founder, General Augustus Pitt-Rivers, was asked by the army to improve the efficiency of firearms and soon became curious about their technical development. This inspired an interest in other weapons and later many types of objects.
The artefacts he collected led to the founding of the Oxford museum in 1884 and now comprise about 7 per cent of its total holdings. In a sense, the institution has come full circle, with this month’s reopening of its Upper Gallery completing the current £9.6m redevelopment of the museum.
The firearms have been reunited with the rest of the museum’s arms and armour collections in the Upper Gallery. Nearly 20 per cent of the items in the firearms displays were collected by Pitt-Rivers.
The Royal Armouries in Leeds is the national museum of arms and armour, but there are other significant collections at the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Wallace Collection. Many smaller collections are dotted across the UK.
Curators working with arms and armour are enthusiastic about the way the artefacts can tell stories, not only of violence and conflict, but also of art, commerce, social status and much more. But visitors will struggle to find these narratives in many displays.
“People can be turned off very quickly by big displays of arms and armour,” says Tobias Capwell, the arms and armour curator at the Wallace Collection. “They tend to be dense, with a lot packed in and that can be overwhelming. Good displays should have lots on show, but I want to see them presented in a way that makes sense.”
Capwell moved to the Wallace from Glasgow Museums, where he was responsible for the redisplay of its arms and armour collection as part of the £27.9m redevelopment of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Like the rest of the displays at the museum, the Conflict and Consequences gallery, as the arms and armour section is called, uses a narrative approach.
Capwell thinks some things work better than others, but is pleased with the overall look. Eight of the best suits of armour in the collection are displayed in a single group.
The Marmite effect
“I am really proud of the mood of the displays that you get when you walk into the arms and armour gallery,” he says. “I had this feeling that the first few seconds in the gallery were really important for the visitor. The first impression is, ‘Wow, these are really amazing things and not what I expected’.”
Capwell’s replacement at Glasgow Mu-seums is Ralph Moffat. He says the approach taken at the Conflict and Consequences gallery, which covers subject such as animals and armour, the cult of the warrior and souvenirs of war, does divide people.
“It has that sort of Marmite effect: some people love it, some hate it,” says Moffat. “Academics can find it quite frustrating as the information they expect is not there. Others are really engaged.”
Moffat, who is exploring areas such as the nature of Scottish weaponry and how weapons are made, feels there are lots of other topics that need research. “There is several lifetimes’ work in this collection, and I can’t do it all, so I am constantly encouraging people to come and investigate for themselves.”
Museums without arms and armour specialists are even more dependent on outsiders providing information about their collections. As the special projects officer responsible for selecting, researching and interpreting the objects for display in the Pitt Rivers Museum’s firearms display, Helen Hales called on a variety of specialists.
They included Martin Hinchcliffe, formerly of the National Army Museum; David Edge of the Wallace Collection; and David Penn, the former keeper of exhibits at Imperial War Museum. The Police Bomb Squad and representatives from Thames Valley Police were also on hand.
The firearms display at the Pitt Rivers replaces one that was created in the 1960s. The number of objects on show has increased from just over 100 to more than 300, and includes firearms, airguns, and accessories such as ammunition, powder horns and tools. Still densely packed, the new displays are also arranged typologically, focusing on the evolution of their design and technology.
The nearby Ashmolean Museum, which opened last year after a £61m redevelopment, uses its arms and armour in a different way, although it also has the challenge of having no specialist curator.
“Arms and armour, because there has never been a subject specialist on board, has been a grey area for some time,” says David Berry, project curator, medieval and later Europe, at the Ashmolean.
The Ashmolean does not have any displays dedicated solely to the subject, although the objects are scattered about the museum, including a number in the From Ark to Ashmolean gallery, which focuses in the history of the museum and its collections. Ball-headed clubs and a shield are among the objects that tell the story.
“The arms and armour in the galleries are part of the narrative that the displays are trying to relate,” says Berry. “What we do is use them as a storytelling device.”
Live interpretation
Many arms and armour specialists working in the UK, such as Moffat and Capwell, have worked at Royal Armouries, which has its headquarters in Leeds. It has one of the largest collections of arms and armour in the world, and comprises the UK’s National Collection of Arms and Armour, the National Artillery Collection, and the National Firearms Collection.
As well as the museum in Leeds, it has responsibility for the museum in the White Tower at the Tower of London; Fort Nelson in Hampshire; and galleries at the Frazier Museum in the US.
The three UK venues have different visitor profiles, but the Royal Armouries uses similar devices to help the artefacts come alive for visitors. Its Hands-On History concept allows people to touch replica objects. This idea was first introduced at Leeds and now also features at the Tower of London.
Live interpretation is important, particularly at Leeds, which has regular costumed demonstrations and re-enactments. The Leeds museum also tries to bring the story of arms and armour up-to-date with displays related to issues such as knife and gun crime.
The Royal Armouries is also increasingly using technology to enhance interpretation. Dressed To Kill, the exhibition at the Tower of London’s White Tower featuring armour and weapons associated with Henry VIII, closed in January. Among the audiovisual devices was a 3D film at the end of the exhibition where visitors could find out how different pieces of armour fit together.
But not everyone is going down the high-tech route. The Royal Collection, which has 95 per cent of its 15,000 arms and armour objects out on display, is among those with a more conventional approach. Simon Metcalf, the Queen’s Armourer, says the displays at Windsor Castle are based on a tradition that goes back many years.
“They are still doing the job that they did in the 16th century when massed ranks of weapons were used to impress your importance on whoever was visiting,” he says. “Part of my job is to preserve the history of traditional arms and armour trophy displays.”
Metcalf says this approach has its drawbacks because it makes it difficult to interpret objects as there is very little space for labelling among the packed showcases and wall-mounted objects.
But there is an audio guide and he is providing more information to the public in a number of other ways, including putting on temporary shows featuring arms and armour. Objects are also loaned to museums and, like others, he is trying to make more information about the artefacts available online.
With so many approaches to displaying arms and armour, what will be the main developments in the future?
For some, using new technology will be an important way to improve interpretation. Karen Whitting, head of creative programmes at the Royal Armouries, has just completed work on Fit for a King, which opened last month at the White Tower and showcases 500 years of royal arms and armour.
New approaches
She is also thinking about ways to enhance the displays at Leeds, particularly techniques that layer information and cater for different levels of interest.
“It is about trying to find new ways to put in as much information as possible, which is being driven by new technology such as the internet, where people are used to finding out every fact about a subject,” says Whitting, who comes from a theatre background. “It is up to us to step up and raise our game. But we still have the real thing and I don’t think anything will replace that.”
Devices such as interactive labelling on touchscreens are among the things being considered for the displays at Leeds.
Capwell at the Wallace Collection is working on an exhibition about Renaissance swords and swordsmanship that will be linked to the fencing competition at the London Olympics in 2012. He is keen to see more interdisciplinary displays that show how arms and armour is featured in art, craft and many other disciplines. He also argues that one of the major problems is a lack of specialist curators.
“When a museum does not have a curator of arms and armour, the institution loses touch with the collection,” he says. “Museums have a desperate need for people who are passionate about their subjects but who are also really knowledgeable.
“There is huge public interest in the subject, but that is under-appreciated by many institutions,” Capwell adds. “Arms and armour is not something to be stuck in the basement.”
Samurai suit of armour, 1700s, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
This suit of armour arrived in Oxford in about 1937 when it was given to Magdalen College by Prince Chichibu, who had studied at the university. It is now on indefinite loan to the Ashmolean. It was made in the 1700s during the Edo period, when samurai only wore armour on ceremonial occasions.
Clare Pollard, the curator of Japanese art at the Ashmolean, says it is a popular item, so she wanted to show as much of it as possible when it was redisplayed as part of the 2009 redevelopment of the museum. It is part of a display on the arts of war in the Japanese gallery, which also includes a display on the arts of peace, as the samurai had to master both disciplines.
Double-barrelled percussion gun, 1902, Royal Collection
This gun is among the exhibits on display at Victoria & Albert: Art & Love, which is at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, until 31 October.
The exhibition, which brings together more than 400 items from the Royal Collection, looks at Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s shared enthusiasm for art. The French king Louis-Phillippe I presented the gun to Albert in 1844.
It was displayed at the Exposition de l’industrie française in Paris in the same year. It was made to highlight the skill of the maker, thought to be Leopold Bernard, rather than having any practical use.
Equestrian armour, Wallace Collection, London
The Wallace recently completed a three-year project to clean, evaluate and photograph its 2,000-strong collection of European arms and armour.
This museum has also redisplayed its European arms and armour collections across three galleries. Revitalised objects include this Gothic armour for man and horse that was made in about 1480. Tobias Capwell, the curator of arms and armour at the Wallace, says the rider now has a realistic riding position with a more dynamic pose.
Afghan war rug, 2008, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
The only item that was acquired specifically for the Pitt Rivers Museum’s new display of firearms is this Afghan war rug, which was made near Kabul.
Helen Hales, the Pitt Rivers’ special projects officer, says a member of the museum’s staff had seen rugs of this type, which depicts semi-automatic firearms, on a research visit to the North-West Frontier. Hales says it shows how firearms have literally been “woven into” the region’s artistic culture.
Images of weapons started to appear on the traditional hand-knotted rugs produced by Afghan women shortly after the invasion of the country by Soviet forces in 1979.
The artefacts he collected led to the founding of the Oxford museum in 1884 and now comprise about 7 per cent of its total holdings. In a sense, the institution has come full circle, with this month’s reopening of its Upper Gallery completing the current £9.6m redevelopment of the museum.
The firearms have been reunited with the rest of the museum’s arms and armour collections in the Upper Gallery. Nearly 20 per cent of the items in the firearms displays were collected by Pitt-Rivers.
The Royal Armouries in Leeds is the national museum of arms and armour, but there are other significant collections at the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Wallace Collection. Many smaller collections are dotted across the UK.
Curators working with arms and armour are enthusiastic about the way the artefacts can tell stories, not only of violence and conflict, but also of art, commerce, social status and much more. But visitors will struggle to find these narratives in many displays.
“People can be turned off very quickly by big displays of arms and armour,” says Tobias Capwell, the arms and armour curator at the Wallace Collection. “They tend to be dense, with a lot packed in and that can be overwhelming. Good displays should have lots on show, but I want to see them presented in a way that makes sense.”
Capwell moved to the Wallace from Glasgow Museums, where he was responsible for the redisplay of its arms and armour collection as part of the £27.9m redevelopment of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. Like the rest of the displays at the museum, the Conflict and Consequences gallery, as the arms and armour section is called, uses a narrative approach.
Capwell thinks some things work better than others, but is pleased with the overall look. Eight of the best suits of armour in the collection are displayed in a single group.
The Marmite effect
“I am really proud of the mood of the displays that you get when you walk into the arms and armour gallery,” he says. “I had this feeling that the first few seconds in the gallery were really important for the visitor. The first impression is, ‘Wow, these are really amazing things and not what I expected’.”
Capwell’s replacement at Glasgow Mu-seums is Ralph Moffat. He says the approach taken at the Conflict and Consequences gallery, which covers subject such as animals and armour, the cult of the warrior and souvenirs of war, does divide people.
“It has that sort of Marmite effect: some people love it, some hate it,” says Moffat. “Academics can find it quite frustrating as the information they expect is not there. Others are really engaged.”
Moffat, who is exploring areas such as the nature of Scottish weaponry and how weapons are made, feels there are lots of other topics that need research. “There is several lifetimes’ work in this collection, and I can’t do it all, so I am constantly encouraging people to come and investigate for themselves.”
Museums without arms and armour specialists are even more dependent on outsiders providing information about their collections. As the special projects officer responsible for selecting, researching and interpreting the objects for display in the Pitt Rivers Museum’s firearms display, Helen Hales called on a variety of specialists.
They included Martin Hinchcliffe, formerly of the National Army Museum; David Edge of the Wallace Collection; and David Penn, the former keeper of exhibits at Imperial War Museum. The Police Bomb Squad and representatives from Thames Valley Police were also on hand.
The firearms display at the Pitt Rivers replaces one that was created in the 1960s. The number of objects on show has increased from just over 100 to more than 300, and includes firearms, airguns, and accessories such as ammunition, powder horns and tools. Still densely packed, the new displays are also arranged typologically, focusing on the evolution of their design and technology.
The nearby Ashmolean Museum, which opened last year after a £61m redevelopment, uses its arms and armour in a different way, although it also has the challenge of having no specialist curator.
“Arms and armour, because there has never been a subject specialist on board, has been a grey area for some time,” says David Berry, project curator, medieval and later Europe, at the Ashmolean.
The Ashmolean does not have any displays dedicated solely to the subject, although the objects are scattered about the museum, including a number in the From Ark to Ashmolean gallery, which focuses in the history of the museum and its collections. Ball-headed clubs and a shield are among the objects that tell the story.
“The arms and armour in the galleries are part of the narrative that the displays are trying to relate,” says Berry. “What we do is use them as a storytelling device.”
Live interpretation
Many arms and armour specialists working in the UK, such as Moffat and Capwell, have worked at Royal Armouries, which has its headquarters in Leeds. It has one of the largest collections of arms and armour in the world, and comprises the UK’s National Collection of Arms and Armour, the National Artillery Collection, and the National Firearms Collection.
As well as the museum in Leeds, it has responsibility for the museum in the White Tower at the Tower of London; Fort Nelson in Hampshire; and galleries at the Frazier Museum in the US.
The three UK venues have different visitor profiles, but the Royal Armouries uses similar devices to help the artefacts come alive for visitors. Its Hands-On History concept allows people to touch replica objects. This idea was first introduced at Leeds and now also features at the Tower of London.
Live interpretation is important, particularly at Leeds, which has regular costumed demonstrations and re-enactments. The Leeds museum also tries to bring the story of arms and armour up-to-date with displays related to issues such as knife and gun crime.
The Royal Armouries is also increasingly using technology to enhance interpretation. Dressed To Kill, the exhibition at the Tower of London’s White Tower featuring armour and weapons associated with Henry VIII, closed in January. Among the audiovisual devices was a 3D film at the end of the exhibition where visitors could find out how different pieces of armour fit together.
But not everyone is going down the high-tech route. The Royal Collection, which has 95 per cent of its 15,000 arms and armour objects out on display, is among those with a more conventional approach. Simon Metcalf, the Queen’s Armourer, says the displays at Windsor Castle are based on a tradition that goes back many years.
“They are still doing the job that they did in the 16th century when massed ranks of weapons were used to impress your importance on whoever was visiting,” he says. “Part of my job is to preserve the history of traditional arms and armour trophy displays.”
Metcalf says this approach has its drawbacks because it makes it difficult to interpret objects as there is very little space for labelling among the packed showcases and wall-mounted objects.
But there is an audio guide and he is providing more information to the public in a number of other ways, including putting on temporary shows featuring arms and armour. Objects are also loaned to museums and, like others, he is trying to make more information about the artefacts available online.
With so many approaches to displaying arms and armour, what will be the main developments in the future?
For some, using new technology will be an important way to improve interpretation. Karen Whitting, head of creative programmes at the Royal Armouries, has just completed work on Fit for a King, which opened last month at the White Tower and showcases 500 years of royal arms and armour.
New approaches
She is also thinking about ways to enhance the displays at Leeds, particularly techniques that layer information and cater for different levels of interest.
“It is about trying to find new ways to put in as much information as possible, which is being driven by new technology such as the internet, where people are used to finding out every fact about a subject,” says Whitting, who comes from a theatre background. “It is up to us to step up and raise our game. But we still have the real thing and I don’t think anything will replace that.”
Devices such as interactive labelling on touchscreens are among the things being considered for the displays at Leeds.
Capwell at the Wallace Collection is working on an exhibition about Renaissance swords and swordsmanship that will be linked to the fencing competition at the London Olympics in 2012. He is keen to see more interdisciplinary displays that show how arms and armour is featured in art, craft and many other disciplines. He also argues that one of the major problems is a lack of specialist curators.
“When a museum does not have a curator of arms and armour, the institution loses touch with the collection,” he says. “Museums have a desperate need for people who are passionate about their subjects but who are also really knowledgeable.
“There is huge public interest in the subject, but that is under-appreciated by many institutions,” Capwell adds. “Arms and armour is not something to be stuck in the basement.”
Killer objects
Samurai suit of armour, 1700s, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
This suit of armour arrived in Oxford in about 1937 when it was given to Magdalen College by Prince Chichibu, who had studied at the university. It is now on indefinite loan to the Ashmolean. It was made in the 1700s during the Edo period, when samurai only wore armour on ceremonial occasions.
Clare Pollard, the curator of Japanese art at the Ashmolean, says it is a popular item, so she wanted to show as much of it as possible when it was redisplayed as part of the 2009 redevelopment of the museum. It is part of a display on the arts of war in the Japanese gallery, which also includes a display on the arts of peace, as the samurai had to master both disciplines.
Double-barrelled percussion gun, 1902, Royal Collection
This gun is among the exhibits on display at Victoria & Albert: Art & Love, which is at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, until 31 October.
The exhibition, which brings together more than 400 items from the Royal Collection, looks at Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s shared enthusiasm for art. The French king Louis-Phillippe I presented the gun to Albert in 1844.
It was displayed at the Exposition de l’industrie française in Paris in the same year. It was made to highlight the skill of the maker, thought to be Leopold Bernard, rather than having any practical use.
Equestrian armour, Wallace Collection, London
The Wallace recently completed a three-year project to clean, evaluate and photograph its 2,000-strong collection of European arms and armour.
This museum has also redisplayed its European arms and armour collections across three galleries. Revitalised objects include this Gothic armour for man and horse that was made in about 1480. Tobias Capwell, the curator of arms and armour at the Wallace, says the rider now has a realistic riding position with a more dynamic pose.
Afghan war rug, 2008, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
The only item that was acquired specifically for the Pitt Rivers Museum’s new display of firearms is this Afghan war rug, which was made near Kabul.
Helen Hales, the Pitt Rivers’ special projects officer, says a member of the museum’s staff had seen rugs of this type, which depicts semi-automatic firearms, on a research visit to the North-West Frontier. Hales says it shows how firearms have literally been “woven into” the region’s artistic culture.
Images of weapons started to appear on the traditional hand-knotted rugs produced by Afghan women shortly after the invasion of the country by Soviet forces in 1979.