• Learn in regards to the museums shortlisted for the Artwork Fund Museum of the 12 months 2022 right here
The Horniman Museum and Gardens in Forest Hill, south-east London, is an establishment of its time trying—with optimism—in the direction of one other. A various assortment, spanning pure historical past, anthropology and one of the vital holdings of musical devices on the earth, is housed in a purpose-built limestone constructing topped by a particular round-cornered clock tower. This idiosyncratic web site is the product of the accumulating frenzy of Frederick Horniman, the Quaker inheritor to a Victorian tea firm.
Horniman had beforehand saved his increasing assortment within the household dwelling, opening its doorways to the general public twice per week. Legend has it that his spouse declared that it was both the gathering or her. Horniman opened the brand new museum in 1901 and gifted it to the general public. Right this moment, the museum and its expansive gardens are Grade II*-listed and run by a charitable belief.
Whereas the museum’s colonial-era origins have by no means been hidden, they had been forged in a brand new mild following the rise of the Black Lives Matter motion and the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol. Analysis into the historical past of the founder’s fortune was instigated by Nick Merriman, the Horniman’s chief government and director of content material since 2018. Throughout his time on the museum Merriman has confronted maybe probably the most troublesome of challenges for a director of any establishment: assessing the deserves of its founder and the wealth on which its safety relies.
The Horniman is the one museum in London the place you may see nature and tradition side-by-side
Nick Merriman, director
“The Horniman cash was, not less than initially, from tea in China which was shipped to London. However [the tea] was paid for [with] opium, which was grown by the East India Firm in India and smuggled into China,” says Merriman. The household weren’t plantation homeowners, he says, and Horniman is broadly seen as a benevolent philanthropist. Nevertheless, there have been points down his provide chain. The results of this deep dive into the museum’s historical past is its “Reset Agenda”, which has “amplified the data” surrounding the household’s enterprise, each within the museum’s interpretation and on its web site. This has additionally affected its programme.
Whereas the core assortment stays free to view, the museum’s enterprise mannequin has modified over the previous decade to incorporate prices for visiting child-oriented exhibitions, the butterfly home and the aquarium. The Horniman has flourished throughout this time because it harnessed the gentrification of Forest Hill. However the demographic narrowed because it gained an inflow of white, middle-class households. “Range of the guests has gone down because the numbers have gone up,” explains Merriman.
The museum’s tower, like the remainder of the constructing, is Grade II*-listed Picture: Shutterstock/cktravels.com
The Reset Agenda was created to deal with this disparity. Final summer time, the native Caribbean neighborhood was welcomed again with the reinstatement of a “jerk cookout” in its gardens, whereas the latest exhibition Hair: Untold Tales addressed the worldwide hair commerce. Most importantly, final 12 months’s 696 Pageant—named after the racially discriminatory kind utilized by police to evaluate who was placing on, and even attending, music occasions—checked out “the connection between public house and Black stay music”. Resident artists sampled devices from the gathering, intimate gigs had been staged within the conservatory and bigger park live shows drew crowds of as much as 2,500.
Customer surveys present that the museum’s actions have borne fruit. Within the galleries on a weekday afternoon, you can find guests of many various ages and backgrounds. There are mother and father with toddlers and youngsters with buddies. As with many Victorian collections, the rooms have their curious objects, from a Seventeenth-century Spanish torture chair and a Nineteenth-century German Apostle clock to gothic items of taxidermy. Its enormous, overstuffed walrus is an area superstar: Merriman calls it “our Dippy”, referring to the much-loved Diplodocus skeleton that used to welcome guests to the principle corridor of London’s Pure Historical past Museum.
In the event that they win the museum of the 12 months award, Merriman explains that the prize cash would fund the continued engagement between youth teams and the music assortment, with maybe a spotlight this time on the Asian neighborhood. “Provided that our objective is to widen our viewers and make ourselves extra accessible, music appears the easiest way in,” he says.
Wanting ahead, the museum additionally goals to handle environmental issues. A brand new challenge, Nature + Love, will see the pure historical past galleries refurbished to include local weather and extinction data; a former boat pond within the gardens reworked right into a nature-themed play space with café; and entry opened as much as a wildlife path on the outdated railway line to Crystal Palace (a scene painted in 1871 by Camille Pissarro).
These new ventures, with their worldwide and academic emphasis, are of a chunk with the museum’s founding mission. Frederick Horniman “wished to convey the world to Forest Hill”, Merriman says, and the consequence was “the one museum in London the place you may see nature and tradition facet by facet on a worldwide stage.”
Courtesy of the Horniman Museum and Gardens
Should-see: taxidermy mount of two extinct passenger pigeons
“I’ve chosen these two specimens of male passenger pigeons as a result of the story of the passenger pigeon represents a warning from historical past. It was as soon as probably the most populous chicken species in North America, with flocks of as much as 5 billion birds taking a day to go a single level. It was additionally the ingredient within the fashionable dish pigeon pie. By means of searching and the destruction of habitats, numbers declined steeply within the late Nineteenth century, and so they had been uncommon sufficient for Frederick Horniman to need to purchase a pair of stuffed examples. The final stay chicken died in Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.”
Nick Merriman, director, Horniman Museum and Gardens
