The National Justice Museum in Nottingham, which opened in April, breathes new life into a historic court (1375) and jail (1449), and in doing so encourages visitors to explore how crime and punishment has changed through the ages and question how concepts of right and wrong are interpreted by law.
Located at the city’s former Shire Hall and County Gaol, the museum replaces the Galleries of Justice Museum, which opened in the mid-1990s. The new venue comprises two contemporary galleries, which are free to visit, while exhibitions and activities located in the historic courtroom, cells, dungeons and exercise yards have to be paid for.
An introductory video effectively sets out the common theme running through all the
interpretation, which is that justice is not a static concept and that society has the power to change it. The core message is that behaviour that breaks the law isn’t necessarily wrong, just as legal actions are not always morally right. It is with these questions in mind that visitors explore the rest of the spaces.
The first of the free galleries is content-rich and contains some fascinating objects, including the dock from Bow Street magistrates court, which was situated in the West End of London and saw many high-profile cases, including that of famous writer Oscar Wilde.
There are also some impressive interactives and videos, including a humorous head-to-head quiz show between 19th-century criminologist Ceasare Lambroso, who believed crime was a characteristic trait of human nature, and social researcher Henry Mayhew, who argued people turned to crime because of their environment.
Material on how crime was interpreted by culture, referencing Sherlock Holmes and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, adds colour but is slightly at odds with the other content.
Thought crime
There are clear explanations about what crime is and how definitions of what constitutes
a criminal act have changed. For instance, begging used to be a crime in the 16th century and workers organising themselves to protect their wages was considered a crime in the early 19th century.
These themes are complemented by the second gallery, which, when I was there, was hosting a temporary exhibition by Journey to Justice – an organisation that aims to raise public awareness about the history of civil rights movements in the UK and abroad.
The content in this gallery is largely devoted to the 1960s civil rights movement in the US, but some of the material also looks at struggles for justice a bit closer to home, including community campaigns in Nottingham itself.
The most memorable moments for visitors, however, take place in the chilly cells and dungeons of the prison below. The galleries dedicated to punishment are not for the faint-hearted, particularly the large section on capital punishment. Trapdoors from Wandsworth Prison gallows are presented under glass so visitors can stand in the place of those who were executed.
Interestingly, much of the focus in this part of the gallery is on the people who worked as executioners. The text panels on the individuals read like biographies and I found the lack of detail on what day-to-day life was like in this insalubrious profession disappointing. More could also be done with some of the fascinating items on display, such as the manuscript written by Henry Albert Pierrepoint, who worked as an executioner from 1901 until 1910. The writing isn’t entirely legible and there should have been a transcription presented alongside the original artefact.
Standing trial
Elsewhere in the gallery a storytelling approach reminiscent of the BBC programme Horrible Histories is used to good effect. A video featuring a beheaded King Charles I, with severed head in hand, sees a number of historical characters arguing why their execution was more gruesome and painful than the others.
Some historical parts of the building – including a few prison cells and dungeon – are refreshingly free of interpretation, and there are several occasions when visitors can simply experience the sounds and murkiness of prison life. The network of tunnels and cells is haunting and extensive enough that I often found myself alone down there.
A series of performances by costumed interpreters depicting former inmates or social reformers takes place in the jail and exercise yards outside at regular intervals. During my visit, the trial of Daniel Diggle, who was arrested for an attempted shooting during a frame-breaking rampage in 1817 – as a Luddite, Diggle blamed the introduction of new machinery for taking away people’s jobs – was being re-enacted in the courtroom.
Visitors hear the defence and prosecution before discussing with the museum’s educational facilitators whether or not Diggle paid a fair price for his crime. These re-enactments not only illustrate the internal workings of the court, but are also a fantastic way of getting children to question and engage with judicial decisions.
The National Justice Museum encourages audiences to reflect on contemporary issues that are shaping modern notions of justice, such as the refugee crisis. But I found the interpretation on this topic too basic and underdeveloped. There are no explanations of individual asylum cases or how the UK’s legal system addresses immigration.
However, items such as an escape rope made from bedsheets, and a bed frame made by a prisoner at the Dover immigration centre in 2003, make for remarkable viewing and illustrate the museum’s potential for expanding interpretation in this area. Displays featuring artworks by current prisoners also provide an interesting and colourful contrast to the sometimes text- heavy historical displays.
At times the interpretation can be dense and not tied to an obvious narrative or theme. The number of topics covered is admirably ambitious, but there were occasions when I felt that the most interesting stories had not been fully drawn out or exploited, and were lost in the sheer volume of content.
Overall, though, the museum is a fantastic educational resource for children and adults. It is crammed with fascinating objects, games for children and state-of-the-art interactives, and the live performances and re-enactments draw out the drama of the courtroom and the atmosphere of the other historical spaces.
In 2005 the National Justice Museum acquired the HM Prison Service Museum collection. This acquisition kickstarted a partnership with the prison service that has evolved over the years. We first developed a partnership with HMP Sudbury, which is an open prison. It has provided support by offering the museum volunteers in the form of offenders coming to the end of their sentence.
Offenders are required to complete six months voluntary work, after which they can look for paid work. By working alongside museum staff, offenders are able to develop the skills and confidence needed to fit back into the community, and a work environment.
While this rehabilitation has obvious advantages for the offenders, the museum is able to draw on their vast range of skills to help improve our services to the public. Over the past 12 years we have recruited 47 offenders as volunteers, which equates to seven and a half years of work.
Most recently the museum has worked closely with Lowdham Grange Prison as part of the museum’s Heritage Lottery Fund redevelopment project. The partnership has resulted in three core projects. The first is the collection of oral history interviews with current offenders and prison staff. Stuart Hall, the inside media coordinator for the prison, conducted interviews with six adult male offenders and six staff at Lowdham Grange Prison, and the equivalent at Swinfen Hall Young Offenders Institute. The recordings were edited by offenders in the prison’s dedicated media suite.
The edited recordings have formed part of the interpretation in the museum, and the original recordings have been added to the museum’s contemporary collection of stories from the justice system.
Secondly, the museum is also working with the art department at Lowdham Grange to create an annual exhibition of prisoner artwork. Each year there will be a different theme – this year’s is justice – which prisoners will respond to for the exhibition.
Thirdly, a reflective garden space has been created at the museum. Prison gardening staff worked with offenders to make garden furniture and planters from pallets for visitors to sit on during their visit to the museum. Bev Baker is the senior curator and archivist at the National Justice Museum, Nottingham
Cost £1m
Main funders Heritage Lottery Fund; WREN; Charles Hayward Foundation; Museum Development East Midlands; Big Lottery Fund: Awards for All; Arts Council England; Jones 1986 Charitable Trust; JN Derbyshire Charitable Trust; Forman Hardy Charitable Trust
Architect Mabers
Exhibition design RFA Design Graphic design RFA Design Interpretation In-house
AV interactives Fuzzy Duck, AV hardware Fusion
Display cases Armour Systems; Workhaus
Installation Workhaus; J. Tomlinson Lighting Illuma
Contractors 360 Project Management; DBA Sustainability T4 Sustainability
Admission Museums Association members, free entry
Located at the city’s former Shire Hall and County Gaol, the museum replaces the Galleries of Justice Museum, which opened in the mid-1990s. The new venue comprises two contemporary galleries, which are free to visit, while exhibitions and activities located in the historic courtroom, cells, dungeons and exercise yards have to be paid for.
An introductory video effectively sets out the common theme running through all the
interpretation, which is that justice is not a static concept and that society has the power to change it. The core message is that behaviour that breaks the law isn’t necessarily wrong, just as legal actions are not always morally right. It is with these questions in mind that visitors explore the rest of the spaces.
The first of the free galleries is content-rich and contains some fascinating objects, including the dock from Bow Street magistrates court, which was situated in the West End of London and saw many high-profile cases, including that of famous writer Oscar Wilde.
There are also some impressive interactives and videos, including a humorous head-to-head quiz show between 19th-century criminologist Ceasare Lambroso, who believed crime was a characteristic trait of human nature, and social researcher Henry Mayhew, who argued people turned to crime because of their environment.
Material on how crime was interpreted by culture, referencing Sherlock Holmes and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, adds colour but is slightly at odds with the other content.
Thought crime
There are clear explanations about what crime is and how definitions of what constitutes
a criminal act have changed. For instance, begging used to be a crime in the 16th century and workers organising themselves to protect their wages was considered a crime in the early 19th century.
These themes are complemented by the second gallery, which, when I was there, was hosting a temporary exhibition by Journey to Justice – an organisation that aims to raise public awareness about the history of civil rights movements in the UK and abroad.
The content in this gallery is largely devoted to the 1960s civil rights movement in the US, but some of the material also looks at struggles for justice a bit closer to home, including community campaigns in Nottingham itself.
The most memorable moments for visitors, however, take place in the chilly cells and dungeons of the prison below. The galleries dedicated to punishment are not for the faint-hearted, particularly the large section on capital punishment. Trapdoors from Wandsworth Prison gallows are presented under glass so visitors can stand in the place of those who were executed.
Interestingly, much of the focus in this part of the gallery is on the people who worked as executioners. The text panels on the individuals read like biographies and I found the lack of detail on what day-to-day life was like in this insalubrious profession disappointing. More could also be done with some of the fascinating items on display, such as the manuscript written by Henry Albert Pierrepoint, who worked as an executioner from 1901 until 1910. The writing isn’t entirely legible and there should have been a transcription presented alongside the original artefact.
Standing trial
Elsewhere in the gallery a storytelling approach reminiscent of the BBC programme Horrible Histories is used to good effect. A video featuring a beheaded King Charles I, with severed head in hand, sees a number of historical characters arguing why their execution was more gruesome and painful than the others.
Some historical parts of the building – including a few prison cells and dungeon – are refreshingly free of interpretation, and there are several occasions when visitors can simply experience the sounds and murkiness of prison life. The network of tunnels and cells is haunting and extensive enough that I often found myself alone down there.
A series of performances by costumed interpreters depicting former inmates or social reformers takes place in the jail and exercise yards outside at regular intervals. During my visit, the trial of Daniel Diggle, who was arrested for an attempted shooting during a frame-breaking rampage in 1817 – as a Luddite, Diggle blamed the introduction of new machinery for taking away people’s jobs – was being re-enacted in the courtroom.
Visitors hear the defence and prosecution before discussing with the museum’s educational facilitators whether or not Diggle paid a fair price for his crime. These re-enactments not only illustrate the internal workings of the court, but are also a fantastic way of getting children to question and engage with judicial decisions.
The National Justice Museum encourages audiences to reflect on contemporary issues that are shaping modern notions of justice, such as the refugee crisis. But I found the interpretation on this topic too basic and underdeveloped. There are no explanations of individual asylum cases or how the UK’s legal system addresses immigration.
However, items such as an escape rope made from bedsheets, and a bed frame made by a prisoner at the Dover immigration centre in 2003, make for remarkable viewing and illustrate the museum’s potential for expanding interpretation in this area. Displays featuring artworks by current prisoners also provide an interesting and colourful contrast to the sometimes text- heavy historical displays.
At times the interpretation can be dense and not tied to an obvious narrative or theme. The number of topics covered is admirably ambitious, but there were occasions when I felt that the most interesting stories had not been fully drawn out or exploited, and were lost in the sheer volume of content.
Overall, though, the museum is a fantastic educational resource for children and adults. It is crammed with fascinating objects, games for children and state-of-the-art interactives, and the live performances and re-enactments draw out the drama of the courtroom and the atmosphere of the other historical spaces.
Focus on outreach
In 2005 the National Justice Museum acquired the HM Prison Service Museum collection. This acquisition kickstarted a partnership with the prison service that has evolved over the years. We first developed a partnership with HMP Sudbury, which is an open prison. It has provided support by offering the museum volunteers in the form of offenders coming to the end of their sentence.
Offenders are required to complete six months voluntary work, after which they can look for paid work. By working alongside museum staff, offenders are able to develop the skills and confidence needed to fit back into the community, and a work environment.
While this rehabilitation has obvious advantages for the offenders, the museum is able to draw on their vast range of skills to help improve our services to the public. Over the past 12 years we have recruited 47 offenders as volunteers, which equates to seven and a half years of work.
Most recently the museum has worked closely with Lowdham Grange Prison as part of the museum’s Heritage Lottery Fund redevelopment project. The partnership has resulted in three core projects. The first is the collection of oral history interviews with current offenders and prison staff. Stuart Hall, the inside media coordinator for the prison, conducted interviews with six adult male offenders and six staff at Lowdham Grange Prison, and the equivalent at Swinfen Hall Young Offenders Institute. The recordings were edited by offenders in the prison’s dedicated media suite.
The edited recordings have formed part of the interpretation in the museum, and the original recordings have been added to the museum’s contemporary collection of stories from the justice system.
Secondly, the museum is also working with the art department at Lowdham Grange to create an annual exhibition of prisoner artwork. Each year there will be a different theme – this year’s is justice – which prisoners will respond to for the exhibition.
Thirdly, a reflective garden space has been created at the museum. Prison gardening staff worked with offenders to make garden furniture and planters from pallets for visitors to sit on during their visit to the museum. Bev Baker is the senior curator and archivist at the National Justice Museum, Nottingham
Project data
Cost £1m
Main funders Heritage Lottery Fund; WREN; Charles Hayward Foundation; Museum Development East Midlands; Big Lottery Fund: Awards for All; Arts Council England; Jones 1986 Charitable Trust; JN Derbyshire Charitable Trust; Forman Hardy Charitable Trust
Architect Mabers
Exhibition design RFA Design Graphic design RFA Design Interpretation In-house
AV interactives Fuzzy Duck, AV hardware Fusion
Display cases Armour Systems; Workhaus
Installation Workhaus; J. Tomlinson Lighting Illuma
Contractors 360 Project Management; DBA Sustainability T4 Sustainability
Admission Museums Association members, free entry
