“I’m an oddball in the museum world,” says Tony Hill, the director of the Museum of Science and Industry (Mosi) in Manchester. “I will hold my hand up and say I don’t think I would be employed by any other museum.”
So why does Hill think he’s such an oddball? Well, before he joined Mosi five years ago as the head of marketing and business development, he had never worked in a museum or any other cultural organisation. He also had no experience of science or industry, save for a science degree gained 25 years earlier.
What he did have was a long career in advertising and marketing that included periods as the UK communications manager for sportswear giant Nike and later the head of marketing for the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester.
“That Commonwealth Games job was a fantastic gateway into understanding how Manchester ticks,” says Hill. “It really honed my enthusiasm for the city.”
Gobsmacked by the museum
When his job at the Commonwealth Games ended, Mosi was looking for a new director. Hill was interested, but he soon realised that he stood no chance of getting it as he had no experience, so he moved on.
After a being made redundant from his next job he returned to Manchester and a friend, who was a recruitment consultant, encouraged him to apply for a job as the head of marketing and business development at Mosi.
Hill was reluctant, the salary was £20,000 less than his previous post, but he says the museum kept on ringing and he eventually went in and got the job.
“I was absolutely gobsmacked by the museum,” Hill says. “I describe it as a bit like running a mini-city. We have transport system, we have education, and we have all the historical stuff. All of that and more, and great development opportunities.”
Hill fell in love with the museum and two and a half years after joining he became acting director when Ian Griffin, the man who got the job Hill was thinking of applying for in 2003, suddenly quit. Griffin’s resignation came only weeks after Mosi had revealed plans for a £54m redevelopment.
Hill spent eight months as the acting director, during which time the Heritage Lottery Fund bid to support the redevelopment was rejected. He applied for the director’s job on a permanent basis, but was beaten to it by Steve Davies. This could have marked the end of the road for Hill at Mosi, but he chose to stick around.
“Steve and I got on very well and I have to give him a great amount of credit. It is always difficult to come in after you have got the job against the incumbent. We both said give it six months, see how it goes, but we had 18 fantastic months.”
Then a job came up that the train-mad Davies was bound to go for – director of the National Railway Museum in York. Davies got his dream job and the way was open for Hill.
“I still had to go through the mincing machine of interviews,” says Hill. “At one point I thought: ‘I don’t want to do this.’ To fail once is OK, but to fail twice…”
Hill didn’t fail and started work as director of Mosi on 4 February. “I have a passion for this museum, and a passion for Manchester,” he says.
“I certainly see my tenure being five to 10 years, it is that sort of level of time that we need. It is such a fantastic place. And with the current climate, my five-year plan might take 15.”
Hill has not had much time to draw breath since starting as director. The £54m redevelopment plan might have been a non-starter, but the museum did not give up, and simply scaled back its plans.
Mosi has now focused its energies on just one of its buildings. Called Revolution Mosi, the first phase of the £8.5m redevelopment of its former railway warehouse opened in early October with the unveiling of a coffee shop, gift shop, conference facilities and new entrance.
Two new galleries, restaurant and education facilities will be completed by early December. Funding has come from the European Regional Development Fund, the Northwest Regional Development Agency, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the Garfield Weston Foundation and a number of other trusts and foundations.
“I had been the person who started off the plan to reinvigorate the main building,” says Hill. “For me, being able to see it to completion as the director is a dream come true, but it is just the start.”
A challenging site
Hill has ambitious plans for the museum, but it is a big site with lots of challenges. The redeveloped railway warehouse is one of five museum buildings that showcase the scientific and industrial achievements of Manchester.
Mosi is one of the DCMS’s sponsored institutions, although it is a non-national museum. It was one of the organisations hit by the collapse of the Icelandic banks in 2008 and so far has only recovered £200,000 of the £900,000 it invested. Hill is keen for the museum to diversity its income streams.
“The DCMS funding is great and vital to us at the moment, but I look at the models in business and if you have 80% of your funding coming from one client, or sponsor in this case, you are at risk. I don’t want the DCMS to reduce its funding to us, but I do want to reduce what that means as a percentage of our revenue.”
Like all museums directly supported by the DCMS, Mosi will have to cope with a 15% fall in its funding over the next four years. But Hill
is optimistic about the museum’s future.
Dealing with the cuts
“I don’t think there is any point in being fearful, I know that sounds slightly glib. The truth is that it is going to be tough out there. We will have to find a business model that addresses what we have in the coffers in the first year then the next year, then the next year.”
The museum’s annual visitor numbers have been strong in recent years, but they have often been boosted by popular temporary exhibitions. These included Doctor Who in 2007-08 when the attendance for the year reached a record 820,000.
It was 745,000 the following year, when it was boosted by Bodyworlds 4, although annual visitor figures fell back to 568,000 in 2009-10.
Hill would like to see visitors figures rise to about 1 million a year, but he is not sure that focusing on temporary exhibitions is the best way to achieve this.
“The problem with temporary exhibitions is that they are hit or miss. They are expensive to bring in and, if you have monthly fees or minimum guarantees, you can be stung. I don’t believe it is necessarily the way forward.”
What Hill wants to do is attract new audiences to the museum’s permanent exhibitions. Among those he says are underrepresented are the groups market, ethnic minorities and young people. And as well as redeveloping the buildings, Hill wants to make Mosi more of a destination that people will visit during the day and night.
“We have got to think far more about our core offer and keep enhancing that,” he says. “People have so much choice these days and, for me, temporary exhibitions are a difficult sell and they are becoming more difficult. I kind of think that temporary exhibitions may have had their day.”
Using connections
A museum oddball or not, Hill is determined to make Mosi a success and will use his extensive Manchester connections to make this happen.
“It took so much for the city to put the Commonwealth Games on, and you needed to have people pulling in the same direction. And
I am going to use some of that spirit, garnering the enthusiasm people have, to say things are really moving at this museum now and I think you can help in this way.”
Whatever lies ahead, Hill’s passion for Manchester and the museum should help ensure that Mosi has a bright future.
“I do believe in the Mancunian spirit of we won’t be pushed into a corner, we will come out fighting, and get it to work. Everybody is committed to keeping this museum as the best example of its type, not just in the north-west, but in the country.”
- 1965 A funding partnership is set up between the University of Manchester, the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology and Manchester City Council to create a museum of science and industry.
- 1969 The Manchester Museum of Science and Technology opens at the former Oddfellows Hall on Grosvenor Street, Chorlton on Medlock.
- 1972 The museum changes its name to the North Western Museum of Science and Industry to reflect the regional scope of its collections. By
this time it is outgrowing Grosvenor Street and its off-site store in Newton Heath. - 1978 British Rail offers its Liverpool Road site to Greater Manchester County Council at the token price of £1, with an endowment of £100,000 towards restoration. The council takes on sole responsibility for funding the museum.
- 1983 The Greater Manchester Museum of Science and Industry opens at Liverpool Road Station.
- 1985 The museum takes over the Air and Space Museum, which Manchester council had opened two years earlier.
- 1986 Metropolitan county councils are abolished, so central government takes over responsibility for funding the museum.
- 1990 Wins Museum of the Year award.
- 2007 The museum is rebranded Mosi.
- 2010 The £8.5m redevelopment of Mosi’s main building is completed.
Tony Hill started his career at an advertising agency in Edinburgh in 1986. He moved to Manchester in 1992 to take on a new job and a year later became communications manager for Nike (UK).
In 1997 he became the head of marketing for the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester.
He joined Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry (Mosi) in 2005 as the head of marketing and business development. He became acting director when Ian Griffin resigned in December 2007.
Hill applied for the director’s job on a permanent basis but it was given to Steve Davies. When Davies left to join the National Railway Museum in York, Hill applied for and got the director’s job at Mosi. He started work in February 2010.
Hill was born in 1962 in Easington, County Durham.