National Museums Liverpool Blog

Hello there
Well what a momentous year for the museum it has been.   Where shall I start?  Well how about the fact we have had over 500,000 visitors since we opened, which makes us one of the most visited museums outside of London in a very short space of time.  We launched our exhibitions programme with 'We are one' that celebrated and reflected on the International Slavery Museum's first year and were visited by well known personalities and advocates such as the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the footballer Lillian Thuram, Doreen Lawrence, Floella Benjamin and the noted academic Eric Foner and a host of other dignitaries.   The year continued as it had finished in 2007 with a high level of media interest from around the world.  Probably the most high profile was a live link from the museum for the Today Show which has over 6 million viewers.  I was interviewed by Al Roker for several minutes so no pressure then!  Thankfully I did not make any gaffs.

Me being interviewed for the Today Show

The museum has been the site of several pilgrimages and has had first time visits from citizens from a plethora of countries from around the world; in particular those from the Diaspora. Not only did many visitors want to visit a museum which focused on one of humanities most heinous acts, transatlantic slavery, but which actively campaigns against contemporary forms of injustice, discrimination and racism.  From the feedback I have personally received, from the thousands of responses left in our response zone area, and the support and interest we have had from some of the leading human rights organisations, we are living up to that objective.

It has also been a year which has had a number of personal high points.  I have been able to attended conferences from Atlanta to Belfast and my personal highlight was the Commonwealth Association of Museums conference in Georgetown, Guyana - the country of my father’s birth.   It is always a pleasure visiting Guyana, a country with unparalleled natural beauty and a rich history but to visit in my capacity as Head of the museum was a very proud moment for me and my family.   In fact, if I had to chose a moment of the year then I would say it was climbing (ok, walking very slowly) up to the peak of Turtle Mountain and overlooking the mighty Essequibo River in the heart of the Guyanese rainforest. 

The museum was also shortlisted for a number of awards which on several occasions we narrowly missed out on.   My own view is that the museum world was not quite ready for a museum which makes such bold statements, being an active and vocal campaigner, challenging contemporary issues.  In time, maybe people will acknowledge this rather than steer away from it.  We are still to hear if we have been successful in being named the European Museum of the Year. The judges who visited were impressed with what we are doing so hopefully 2009 will start with the museum receiving such an accolade.

For those of you who may have visited the museum I look forward to your continued support and hope that those of you who have not feel that 2009 is the year to come to Liverpool and visit the International Slavery Museum.  Liverpool might not officially be the Capital of Culture in 2009 but it is a city rich with culture and cultural institutions on par with any city in the country, London included. 

We are now actively planning the next stage of the International Slavery Museum – a world class educational and research centre located in the Dock Traffic Office adjacent to the current galleries.  We plan to open in 2011 and it will take the museum to a new level.  At times it can be a very challenging job but I would not want to work on any other project.  One that in my view can change the world in which we live.

Bye for now and happy holidays.

A future Black achiever visits the museum. Photograph copyright Mark McNulty 2008.

Hello there

Well I have to start by saying what a momentous, historic and exciting past few weeks it has been. Not only the election of the first Black President of the United States, but the first Black (and youngest), Formula One World Champion.  

People have rightly contacted me to say that both President Elect Obama and Lewis Hamilton need to be included on the Black Achievers Wall in the museum (remember you can email the museum with your nominations). But I am also aware that these two fantastic achievements, often against all the odds, expectations and indeed wishes of many who are not too pleased to see Black people achieve, or be in positions of power, were done with the support of other, and often unrecognized, Black achievers. Namely Anthony Hamilton, his father, who has supported him since a young boy and Michelle Obama, the strong and charismatic partner of Barack Obama.  

I have also been recently reminded of the many Black achievers that have now passed away but who have played a great part in challenging both personal and institutional forms of racism in Britain. I am referring in particular to Walter Tull, who was the subject of an excellent dramatization recently on TV called Walter’s War.

It was in fact written by ISM advocate Kwame Kwei Armah about Tull’s life and the racism he regularly encountered. Even so, he became the first commissioned Black officer in the British Army and led his troops into various battles before being killed on the Western Front in 1918. Tull was also one of the first professional Black footballers and played for amongst others Northampton Town. In fact Arthur Wharton, the first Black professional football player, is already on our Black Achievers Wall.

Staying on the theme of Black achievers, the museum held a reception recently at the House of Lords, hosted by the indefatigable Baroness Howells of St Davids who was recently voted as one of the greatest 100 Black Britons. Baroness Howells is a well respected advocate of the museum and she brought together a range of high profile achievers from all walks of life (politics, sport and business to name a few) to highlight the current and indeed future work of the museum. Some of the attendees were from Liverpool such as Levi Tafari, one of the country’s greatest poets and the fantastic singer/songwriter Jennifer John. David Lammy MP, who was interviewed for our Freedom and Enslavement Wall, Baroness Amos (the first Black woman cabinet minister); ex footballer and TV pundit Garth Crooks and Doreen Lawrence were also present.

On an aside I think I slightly surprised Baroness Amos when I told her I had once sped past her home village of Wakenaam, a village on an island in the middle of the Essequibo River in Guyana, on a speedboat whilst travelling to Fort Zeelandia as part of the Commonwealth Association of Museums conference I attend earlier this year. Let’s just say it was the type of journey where you felt every bump!

It was great to see such support form prominent members of the Black community. For me it showed just how far reaching the museum actually is, yes, transatlantic slavery is central to the museum, but the recognition, and indeed celebration, of Black achievement, often against all the odds and a plethora of obstacles, is also key to the museum, and something we aim to promote in some small way by having displays like the Black Achievers Wall. Hopefully in the future we will be visited by those who have recently achieved so much. So Michelle and Lewis, if you read my blog, please have a word with your husband or take a nice drive up to Liverpool for the day respectively!

Bye for now.

July 1941 convoy pre-sailing conference in the Liver Building. Courtesy Liverpool Daily Post and Echo

I have been up the towers of Liverpool’s Liver Building several times to witness the breathtaking views across land and sea. Recently I learnt that this world-famous edifice once housed offices and personnel vital to the convoy system in the Second World War.

Liverpool was the most important convoy port in Britain during the war when groups of merchant ships, escorted by the Royal Navy, maintained a lifeline of supplies across the Atlantic. The Royal Navy was desperately short of ships suitable for convoy escort work at the outbreak of war. All it had were 24 old destroyers, a handful of sloops and a few anti-submarine trawlers.

In September 1940, 50 old American destroyers were transferred to the Royal Navy in return for the use of British naval and air bases in the western Atlantic. Despite this, that winter there were only enough escorts to provide two for each convoy. The Admiralty had to draft in 70 trawlers from the fishing fleets. The original convoys consisted of between 30 and 40 merchant ships sailing in lines or columns. In the later war years, the convoys became much larger, often exceeding 70 ships.

Most ocean-going ships travelled to and from Britain via her western coastal waters. From October 1939, defence of these waters came under the naval operational control of Western Approaches Command based in Plymouth. This HQ was moved to Liverpool, the most central west coast port, in February 1941. It developed into a vast organisation responsible for the day-to-day direction of Britain’s entire north Atlantic campaign.

In Liverpool the Naval Control Service Officer (NCSO) was based on the first floor of the Royal Liver Building at the Pier Head. This officer was responsible for the routing of ships individually or in convoy.

Displays at the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Battle of the Atlantic gallery include a photo of a July 1941 convoy pre-sailing conference in the Liver Building (shown here). These meetings were also attended by ships’ masters and their chief engineers, the convoy commodore and representatives of the sea and air escorts.

Also on display are remarkably-detailed coloured sketches showing some of the ships which made up convoys.These drawings are believed to have been begun during the convoys themselves by the commodore, Rear Admiral Hugh Hext Rogers. He probably completed them soon afterwards. They show side views of the ships with each one named.

Next week we look at life on board the U-boats which hounded the convoys.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

Hello there

One of the great things about my job is how incredibly varied it can be. I have frequently written about the different themed conferences I have attended, the many well known dignitaries I have met and the trips to other exciting and sometimes challenging museums. But I also get to do some curatorial work now and again, well, for an afternoon anyway!

The International Slavery Museum is part of a collaborative project with UNESCO which developed the Transatlantic Slavery gallery touring exhibition. The exhibition consists of over 30 panels which were part of the now closed Transatlantic Slavery gallery which was located up until last June in the Merseyside Maritime Museum. We have also designed some new panels for the exhibition explaining the work of the International Slavery Museum. It is a great project for two reasons in particular. Although some years old, the panels from the previous gallery are well written and informative and ideal for museums around the world who might not be able to resource new panels on the subject of transatlantic slavery. Secondly, it shows how committed we at the museum are in forging new international partnerships and links with sometimes smaller and less well resourced museums around the world, particularly in Africa.

Before the launch of the exhibition in Paris in July though the panels had to actually get there and this is where I came in! I was for an afternoon under the supervision (bossed around in my view!) of Angela Robinson - curator of transatlantic slavery here at the museum. We needed to get all the panels ready to be picked up by the specialist haulage company who would take them to Paris. This sounds easier than it was. The panels are quite heavy and needed to be carefully packed and inventoried ready for transportation. They were being stored in one of several specialist storage facilities that National Museums Liverpool has in Liverpool (I am afraid I cannot divulge the location though!).  

I have to say I was pretty excited at going behind the scenes of the organization so to speak. Not something I always have the time to do. Well we put in some hard graft as we say in Yorkshire. It is also worth stressing for those of you wanting a career in museums that it is definitely not the quaint profession that people often expect. Museums can be bustling hives of activity where most professionals in various departments have to multitask on most days... me included!

In contrast, earlier today I met with Doreen Lawrence OBE, mum of the murdered Black teenager Stephen Lawrence. Many of you will have heard of the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 and the subsequent inquiry but I also know that many younger people have not. Indeed not everyone here in Liverpool or Merseyside has heard of Anthony Walker who I spoke about in my last blog post. So it was a very poignant moment for the museum when someone as well respected and determined as Doreen Lawrence visited us. I am pleased to say she liked how we presented the subject of transatlantic slavery and its legacies in the museum. She told me about the newly opened Stephen Lawrence Centre in Deptford, South London  and we also discussed how our two organisations might collaborate in the future.

Watch this space for any developments.