Rural Museums Network

Rural Relevance: How to identify, care for & share rural collections

Free Training: Thursday 21 March 2024 1-3pm, Online

Do you want to feel more confident about using your rural collection in a greater range of stories and activities, creating a better visitor experience? 

Do you want to develop better awareness of routes available to access information, advice or help about rural collection issues?

If you are a non-specialist working with, or looking after, rural and agricultural collections in any role, the Rural Museums Network (Specialist Subject Network for rural collections) has created a FREE practical knowledge-development training session specifically for you. 

Be inspired and acquire practical experience from our trainers who will draw on a variety of resources related to using, identifying, and caring for rural collections to create better experiences for visitors, and more sustainable organisations. 

Experience the value of rural collection networking with two years’ free membership of the RMN to develop your learning.

How to book: Please complete this form and email to Elizabeth.Bennett@gov.wales

Deadline to book by: 5pm Wednesday 13 March 2024

Platform: Microsoft Teams Supported by funding from Art Fund for Museum Development, Welsh Government

Perthnasedd Gwledig: Sut i adnabod, gofalu am a rhannu casgliadau gwledig

Hyfforddiant am ddim: Dydd Iau 21 Mawrth 2024 1-3pm, Ar-lein

Ydych chi eisiau teimlo’n fwy hyderus am ddefnyddio eich casgliad gwledig mewn ystod ehangach o straeon a gweithgareddau, gan greu profiad gwell i ymwelwyr? 

Ydych chi eisiau datblygu gwell ymwybyddiaeth o’r llwybrau sydd ar gael i gael gwybodaeth, cyngor neu gymorth am faterion ynglŷn â chasgliadau gwledig?

Os ydych chi’n gweithio gyda chasgliadau gwledig ac amaethyddol neu’n gofalu amdanynt, mewn unrhyw rôl gyffredinol, mae’r Rhwydwaith Amgueddfeydd Gwledig (Rhwydwaith Pwnc Arbenigol ar gyfer casgliadau gwledig) wedi creu sesiwn hyfforddiant datblygu gwybodaeth ymarferol AM DDIM yn benodol i chi. 

Cewch eich ysbrydoli a’ch caffael profiad ymarferol gan ein hyfforddwyr a fydd yn defnyddio amrywiaeth o adnoddau sy’n gysylltiedig â defnyddio, adnabod a gofalu am gasgliadau gwledig i greu profiadau gwell i ymwelwyr, a sefydliadau mwy cynaliadwy. 

Profwch werth rhwydweithio casgliadau gwledig gydag aelodaeth RMN am ddim o ddwy flynedd i ddatblygu eich dysgu.

Sut i archebu: Llenwch y ffurflen atodedig a’i anfon at Elizabeth.Bennett@gov.wales

Dyddiad cau i archebu erbyn: 5pm Dydd Mercher 13 Mawrth 2024

Llwyfan: Microsoft Teams

Gyda chefnogaeth ariannol gan Art Fund for Museum Development, Llywodraeth Cymru

Image credit: The Museum of English Rural Life/University of Reading

The Rural Museums Network’s Autumn Rural Voices seminar series concluded with the opportunity to hear from four leaders in their field as we critically examined the issues of contemporary and near-collecting tractors and agri-tech more broadly. Together with Stuart Gibbard, Felicity McWilliams, Ben Russell and David Rose we discussed collections development as it pertains to new and evolving farm technologies, the current gaps in museum holdings in these areas, and explore past challenges and future opportunities.

This session was hosted by Ollie Douglas , Curator at the Museum of English Rural Life.

Felicity McWilliams is a curatorial museums professional with a specialist interest in the history of technology. She recently completed a PhD at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (CHoSTM) at King’s College London on the use of draught power technologies in British farming c.1920-1970. As a recipient of an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award, she was based primarily at the Museum of English Rural Life, where she worked prior to starting her PhD on the redevelopment of the Museum’s permanent galleries.

As well as the history of technology, whilst at King’s she also became interested in the growing field of animal history, and is a co-founder of the Animal History Group, the London-based research network with the goal of inspiring, creating and developing new knowledge about animals within history. Felicity is currently widening the scope of her research from agricultural to urban technological and industrial history as the Research Assistant for Science & Industry at Birmingham Museums Trust.

Ben Russell is Curator of Mechanical Engineering at the Science Museum. He has curated five major permanent galleries and temporary exhibitions at the museum, including Robots (2017) and James Watt’s Workshop (2011), as well as Cosmonauts (2015).

Watt’s Workshop led on to his book, James Watt: Making the World Anew, (Reaktion Books, 2014). Most recently, Ben edited Robots (Scala, 2017).

Ben was unfortunately unable to present in person, and so his notes were shared by Dr Oliver Douglas who was also able to offer his own comments and experience. Oliver shared a number of links during the discussions, which are also included here:

• https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/our-work/our-collection/national-collections-centre
• https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8662137/cottam-power-station-control-desk-control-desk
• https://abtemguidelinesorg.wordpress.com/
• https://ntet.co.uk/code-of-practice/
• https://www.ruralmuseums.org.uk/?page_id=1024
• https://www.ruralmuseums.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Tractors-and-Combines-%E2%80%93-Icons-of-the-Twentieth-Century.pdf
• https://www.ruralmuseums.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Distributed-National-Collection-%E2%80%93-Tractors-in-Museums.pdf
• https://www.ruralmuseums.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Important-Tractors-not-represented-in-Museums.pdf
• https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/what-was-on/robots#highlights
• https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/what-was-on/agriculture
• https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co39117/1-12-scale-model-of-nuffield-460-tractor-model
• https://collecting20thcruralculture.blogspot.com/search?q=toy

Dr Oliver Douglas has worked at The Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading, for over a decade where his role focusses on curation, interpretation, management, research access, and public engagement.

During this time, Ollie has both led and participated in numerous projects that have sought to reimagine rural heritage and museums in a range of creative ways. He sits on the Committee of the RMN and The Folklore Society and has previously served as President of the ICOM-affiliated International Association of Agricultural Museums.

The presentations sparked an extended discussion, and it was great to hear from so many participants who shared their own thoughts and experiences including a project exploring the farming collections with the Museum of Cornish Life in Helston and David Matless’ article on the history of the Science Museum’s agriculture galleries.

Image credit: The Museum of English Rural Life/University of Reading

The Rural Museums Network’s autumn Rural Voices seminar series continued with the chance to hear from three curators who have developed prominent food-themed temporary exhibitions.

This session was hosted by Guy Baxter, archivist at the University of Reading and the Museum of English Rural Life.

Marianne Templeton is a Project Curator and Collections Registrar at Wellcome Collection. She co-curated ‘Milk’, a major exhibition developed by Wellcome as part of their prominent programme.

Marianne shared her experiences of working with contemporary creative responses and the focus on decolonial and critical narratives, as well as the challenge of working with a range of media including films, artwork, archival documents, photographs, and objects.

Rupert Cole is the Curator of Scientific Instruments at the Science Museum, London.

He is currently developing ‘Future of Food’, a major food-related exhibition that will explore the challenges of using the past to look to the future.

He addressed the ever-problematic complexities of explaining new science and technology, contextualising it socially and culturally.

Guy Baxter has led the archive service at the University of Reading – including The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) archive – since 2008, achieving UK Accredited status and contributing to several interdisciplinary projects across stewardship, access, research and engagement.

He convenes the department’s working groups on Income Generation and Digital and is a member of the Research Libraries UK working group for the Digital Shift. Guy has long-term professional and research interests in copyright and compliance, cross-domain and interdisciplinary working and in image collection management.

Image credit: The Museum of English Rural Life/University of Reading

The first seminar of the Rural Museums Network’s autumn Rural Voices series saw us joined by Guy Baxter, archivist at the Museum of English Rural Life, to discuss the opportunities and challenges of collections commercialisation.

In what proved to be a fascinating insight, Guy shared his experiences of dealing with the constant demands for The MERL’s vast photographic archive from researchers, the media, and the wider community.

This session was hosted by Rachael Thomas, Rural Museums Network Secretary.

Guy Baxter has led the archive service at the University of Reading – including The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) archive – since 2008, achieving UK Accredited status and contributing to several interdisciplinary projects across stewardship, access, research and engagement.

He convenes the department’s working groups on Income Generation and Digital and is a member of the Research Libraries UK working group for the Digital Shift. Guy has long-term professional and research interests in copyright and compliance, cross-domain and interdisciplinary working and in image collection management.

Rachael Thomas (Secretary of the Rural Museums Network) is a museum curator and conservator, based in Inverness, who has worked with collections across the Highlands of Scotland. Most recently this has included time as Assistant Curator at Auchindrain Township in Argyll, and as Project Conservator during Gairloch Museum’s award-winning reinterpretation.

The Spring 2023 Rural Voices Seminar Series concluded with the opportunity to explore how rural museums can better represent D/deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people in our museums and using our collections.

Karen Sayer, Professor at Leeds Trinity University presented on the topic of ‘Listening to Livestock: A reflection on rural museums’ support for disability historical research’. This presentation reflected on the sensory histories associated with livestock management. Focusing on hearing and hearing loss, coupled with objects and sources from museums and archives in the network, Karen questioned how we might discover the history of disability in rural museums.

Emily Goff, Project Manager at Curating 4 Change noted that Arts Council England statistics show that only about 6% of those working in the arts are disabled, despite forming 21% of the working age population. She stated that underrepresentation of D/ deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people in our museums isn’t just a problem for disabled people, but for the museum and heritage sector as a whole. As well as hindering authentic disability stories with insights from the inside, it also makes it more difficult for museums – even if committed to access – to properly understand practical barriers for its visitors. Emily discussed why we need to tackle the recruitment problem, and how to enable and retain a more diverse work force, essential for museums to remain relevant for themselves and their communities.

In the resulting discussions resources created by Curating for Change on the Equity of Recruitment were highlighted, and – on the topic of historic terms for D/ deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people which could be found within museum object descriptions – the Buried in the Footnotes project was referenced.

This session was hosted by David Rounce, Project Director with Glencoe Folk Museum with guest speakers Emily Goff and Professor Karen Sayer.

Emily Goff is Project Manager for Curating for Change, the ground-breaking 3-year National Lottery Heritage Funded programme tackling the underrepresentation of D/deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people in our museums.

Emily is an experienced volunteer manager, museum educator and qualified primary school teacher who has worked for a range of independent, national and university museums and collections over her 12-year career.

Professor Karen Sayer is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Co-Dir of the Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies at Leeds Trinity University and a Senior Fellow of the HEA. Her research focus is on the rural, that is conceptualisations of rural communities, landscapes and environments; human and animal relations in agricultural work and on the farm; labour in field, farm and home; the interior spaces of farmhouse and cottage, as represented, worked and lived.

Reading the material culture of objects held by the Thackray Medical museum, Leeds, she has collaborated on Managing the Experience of Hearing Loss, 1830-1950 (Palgrave, 2017) with Prof Graeme Gooday, Professor of the History of Science and Technology, at the University of Leeds. This addresses the circulation of knowledges about adult ‘deafness’ in the Victorian period and twentieth-century Britain until just after the First World War, and seeks to recover the histories of those who experience hearing loss through the histories of those technologies supposed to ‘correct’ it.

David Rounce is Project Director with Glencoe Folk Museum. He has worked in curatorial roles for thirteen years in a number of independent museums, most recently managing the award-winning rebuilding of Ravenglass Railway Museum in Cumbria.

David has particular interests in rural and industrial history, as well as a passion for curatorial work and thrives on the infinite variety of a career in the heritage sector. @RounceDavid and orphaned-objects.blogspot.com

The Spring 2023 Rural Voices Seminar Series continued with a thought-provoking session exploring rural crafts, some of which are becoming endangered, and consequently being added to the Heritage Crafts Red List.

Heritage Crafts is the national charity for traditional crafts skills and the only UNESCO-accredited ICH NGO in the UK focusing solely on the domain of traditional craftsmanship. Daniel Carpenter, Executive Director of Heritage Crafts, and Greta Bertram, Curator at the Crafts Study Centre, outlined the work of the organisation and the way in which it has partnered with museums to raise awareness of Intangible Cultural Heritage, as well as the challenges museums face in incorporating ICH into their offering in a way that actively supports the continuation of embodied craft knowledge, skills and practices.

Other useful resources that were shared included the online exhibition which grew out of the Stakeholders project, developed by The Museum of English Rural Life on the topic of basketmaking. This saw the museum working with The Basketmakers’ Association. The Museum of English Rural Life has also created a toolkit to enable other organisations to make their own museum of the intangible.

The recently-launched global campaign Wiki Loves Living Heritage was also referenced, as was some important ongoing work to gather information on Gypsy, Roma, Traveller, Showmen and Boater Crafts of Cultural Significance to be added to the Red List of Endangered Crafts in 2023.

This session was hosted by Dr Ollie Douglas, Curator at The Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading with guest speakers Daniel Carpenter and Greta Bertram.

Daniel Carpenter has worked in the arts, crafts and heritage sectors for over 15 years. He was one of the founders of Heritage Crafts back in 2009 when he was working for Creative Lives (formerly Voluntary Arts) which exists to promote active participation in everyday creativity. He led Heritage Crafts’ Pre-Apprenticeship Pilot project in West Somerset in 2017, and was commissioned in 2018 to lead the research on the second edition of Red List of Endangered Crafts, before being recruited onto the staff team in 2019. He is a Trustee of Arts&Heritage and an Ambassador of The Fathom Trust.

Greta Bertram joined the Crafts Study Centre in 2017. Previous roles have included work on a variety of cataloguing and research projects at the University of Hertfordshire, the Polar Museum, University of Cambridge, and The Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading.

She was a Trustee of the Heritage Crafts Association 2011–2018, during which time she conducted a major piece of research into the current state of traditional crafts in the UK to produce the ‘Red List of Endangered Crafts’. Her research interests include craft, especially basketry, intangible heritage, and the role of museums in supporting the transmission of craft and other skills.

Dr Ollie Douglas has worked at The Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading, for over a decade where his role focusses on curation, interpretation, management, research access, and public engagement. During this time, he has both led and participated in numerous projects that have sought to reimagine rural heritage and museums in a range of creative ways. He sits on the Committee of the RMN and the Folklore Society. He is a previous President of the ICOM-affiliated International Association of Agricultural Museums. @OllieDouglas

To kick off the Spring 2023 Rural Voices Seminar Series, we were delighted to be joined by a fascinating panel of speakers to explore the topic of dialect.

The Dialect and Heritage Project is a national project based on a partnership between the University of Leeds and five member museums of the Rural Museums Network. Supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the team had been taking dialect and heritage resources out of the archive and putting them back into the local communities where they truly belong.

At the same time, they had encouraged members of the public to share their present-day dialect with them. The project has tapped into massive public appetite for sharing dialect leading to huge media coverage.

In this session, participants were introduced to the rich dialect archives held at the University of Leeds, shown what the project has been up to and how we could all access the resources. It was great to also hear from museum partners about what they have got out of participating, and there were plenty of ideas and suggestions on where the team might head next.

The team at The Dales Countryside Museum also shared information on their Voices from the Dales podcast which is certainly worth a listen!

This session was hosted by Lisa Harris of the Food Museum, and speakers included Dr Fiona Douglas from the University of Leeds, Poppy Oldham and Fiona Rosher from Dales Countryside Museum, and Laura Kloss and Kate Knowlden from the Food Museum.

Lisa Harris is Collections and Interpretation Manager at the Food Museum in Stowmarket, Suffolk. She joined the museum in 2001 and has responsibility for c.40,000 objects, ranging from homewares to working steam traction engines.

She is currently leading the restoration of Alton Watermill to enable the story of ’seed to sandwich’ to be demonstrated (and tasted!) at the museum. Lisa studied History of Art at Stoke on Trent, and Museum Studies at Leicester. She has also worked at Ipswich Museums Service and Gainsborough’s House. @LisaMuseum

Dr Fiona Douglas is Associate Professor in English Language, University of Leeds and Project Lead for the Dialect and Heritage Project. She researches dialects of English (in England and Scotland) and the link between language and identity with a primary interest in dialect words and how they contribute to a sense of belonging.

Fiona Rosher works for the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority as Museum Manager of the Dales Countryside Museum in Hawes. She has been in the museum profession since 1990, her first post being at the Yorkshire Dales Mining Museum. In 1993 Fiona was appointed to the newly created role of District Museum Officer for Richmondshire and Hambleton. She worked across two districts providing advice and support for independent and military museums. The enjoyment she found in working within a rural area led to her move in 1996 to the role of Curator at the Dales Countryside Museum. The Museum was at a point of significant change and Fiona has been involved in several major NHLF building, display and community engagement projects. Together with the DCM team she has introduced an events and temporary exhibitions programme and established a learning and engagement offer. She is keen to work in partnership with others to enable the Museum service to grow and to share the stories of the Dales in different ways, for different audiences. The partnership with Leeds University is a long standing one that has brought many mutual benefits.

Laura Kloss is the Learning Manager at the Food Museum and was one of the Engagement Officers for the Dialect and Heritage Project. She has a background in collaborative multi-media projects with young people in the museums and cultural sector formerly working for Chocolate Films, BAFTA, Curzon Cinemas, British Library, Imperial War Museum and Flatpack Film Festival.

Laura is also the founder of Lightbox Cinema producing events for young people which explore cinema heritage.

Kate Knowlden is the Curator at the Food Museum. She joined the museum in 2019 taking on the Search for the Stars digitisation project, managing 500+ volunteers to create an online catalogue of the museum’s 40,000 objects. She helps with the programme of temporary exhibitions and projects and took the museum on the road in 2022 as part of working in partnership with the University of Leeds and their Dialect and Heritage project. Kate studied Photography at the University of Brighton and then a Masters in Curation at Norwich University of the Arts.