ABSTRACT
British museums are held in high regard internationally, but this disguises the fact that they have failed utterly to reflect working-class culture, in their drive to satisfy the tastes of a wealthy elite. This has meant that British museums have traditionally elevated the study and display of high art at the expense of looking at the lives of ordinary people. Indeed, many British museums have completely let down the diverse general public in omitting many aspects of life which some regard as lying outside the mainstream.
Latterly, the bigger British museums, under funding pressure, are increasingly directing their efforts towards winning tourist audiences which are able and prepared to pay significant admission fees; expensive blockbuster shows are being mounted (and often funded by commercial interests) rather than less elaborate shows which are more likely to appeal to (and to be afforded by) local people.
This chapter will refer to the original, nineteenth-century intentions of many British museum founders, and the way in which these original aims were subverted by elites during the later nineteenth century and pretty much the entirety of the twentieth century. The rise of social history in the 1980s (and subsequently) will be analysed, and the chapter will make explicit reference to the failure of successive British Governments to realise/accept there is a museum problem with regard to the lack of representation in museums of all but a wealthy, white minority.
There is evidence that museums which target people from non-traditional, poorer backgrounds can be successful in building diverse audiences (examples include Tyne & Wear Museums and National Museums Liverpool) and this evidence will be considered, in order to show what can be done.
This chapter considers contentious views of museums, such as their oft-repeated claims to be ‘safe spaces’ and ‘neutral’ when in fact they are anything but. Museums are becoming much more politically aware and socially relevant than they once were, and thus they are challenging what has become the standard, neutered version of the museum that remains so common in Britain.
