National Media Museum > Science Museum North & the loss of the RPS collection to London

I've been following a story in the Guardian about the appalling decision to move the Royal Photography Society’s world-renowned collection of more than 400,000 objects dating from 1827 to 2016 from its home (since 2003) at the National Media Museum in Bradford, to the already overstuffed Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The thinking behind this move defeats me, and I am not alone it seems, as local MPs Judith Cummins [Bradford South] and Imran Hussain [Bradford East] are both shocked and enraged by the move too. Meanwhile, Simon Cooke, the leader of the Conservatives on Bradford council, described the move as an “act of cultural rape on my city” and called for the deal to be reviewed.

As part of the move, the support for the international film festival has also been withdrawn, thus putting the city's UNESCO City of Film status at risk. Ms Cummins said, “The economic and cultural ramifications of abandoning the film festival could be enormous for Bradford. How can we seriously have an international film festival and honour our status as the world’s first Unesco City of Film without the National Media Museum at its centre? It just doesn’t make any sense.”

The V and A already holds a collection of 500,000 photographs, so the transfer of the RPS collection will almost double their holding. In the Guardian article dated 1st Feb. 2016, Martin Barnes, the senior curator of photographs at the V and A, said putting the two collections together made “a huge amount of sense”, a statement it is hard to argue with, but one can (and should) dispute the need for it all to be housed in London! Given the already crowded nature of London's big museums, and that they already attract huge tourist visits and footfalls, wouldn't it have been a better option to move the V and A collection north to Bradford and expand the National Media Museum into a larger world class museum? Bradford already has the reputation to back this up, it just needs the political will and the realisation that there is intelligent life beyond the M25 ring to follow it up.

The NMM's director, Jo Quinton-Tulloch, wrote a lengthy explanation about why she and the Trustees made the decision, that as a part of the Science Museum group there needed to be a bigger focus on all science, etc. This totally misses the point that the National Media Museum is not a general science museum! In fact it opened as the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in 1983, which is why leaving the RPS collection there should be a no-brainer. Surely it would make far more sense to move other collections, many of which are probably gathering dust in the vaults of huge London museums, up to Bradford to enhance the National Media Museum, rather than migrate everything southward and change the NMM into a general science visitor centre?

It's also worth mentioning here that Halifax, not far away, is home to EUREKA! a marvellous independent science museum aimed at children, and that Manchester just over the Pennines has the Museum of Science and Industry, so it is not as if there is a lack of general science museum provision nearby. There is, however, nowhere else locally with the same brief and kudos as that of the National Media Museum.

Apparently there is a "crisis meeting" planned for next Wednesday (2 March) where the Trustees will discuss the ongoing campaign to prevent the downgrading of the NMM into an SM northern outpost and the loss of the RPS collection. If you would like to tell the Trustees what you think of the move, you still have a couple of days to do so, and of course you can sign the petition on 38 Degrees too.

I've done both of these, and a copy of my message to the Trustees is below. I wanted to show that this is something which matters not to the people of Bradford but to many more of us in the North, and that the London-centric focus for arts and culture is just plain wrong! If you agree, why not join me?

My letter to the Trustees of the National Media Museum:

Dear Science Museum press team and Media Museum Board of Trustees,

FAO Board of Trustees 

As an enthusiastic amateur photographer and film aficionado living in Cumbria I am writing to ask that you please halt plans to move the Royal Photography Society’s collection from Bradford to London, and reverse the decision to abandon the Bradford international film festival.

For me in Cumbria I can visit the collection in Bradford easily as it is less than 90 minutes drive (as opposed to 5+ hours to London), or it can be reached by train from here in half the time it would take to travel to London by train. Accessibility to such collections is just as important to us in the North as anywhere else, and indeed it could be argued, more so, as we have proportionately less of them!

It is also vital to keep the National Media Museum name to highlight this important area of science history.  Surely changing the NMM into Science Museum North will change its fundamental nature and demote it into a regional offshoot of the London Science Museum. The North already has an excellent Science Museum in Manchester but the NMM is unique in the North.

If the Trustees are serious about the value of such collections to the whole population not just Londoners, then allowing them to remain in Bradford is essential.  Moving the RPS collection to the V and A in London helps concentrate the UK’s cultural resources away from the North and sends the wrong message: that only the south of the country is worthy of important collections. 

Bradford has hosted the RPS collection, and the international film festival, for many years;  urgent steps should be taken to protect and enhance these in Bradford, not ship the collection off wholesale to London. Please reconsider. 

The National Media Museum in Bradford
The original uploader was Dupont Circle at English Wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Cloudbound., CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9780968