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National Maritime Museum

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For the equivalents of other nations, see National Maritime Museums.
The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.
File:United Kingdom - England - London - Greenwich - National Maritime Museum.jpg
Entry portico of the museum.
Portrait of Captain James Cook by Nathaniel Dance at the National Maritime Museum.
The Bretagne, painting by Jules Achille Noël, 1859, at the National Maritime Museum

The National Maritime Museum (NMM) in Greenwich, England is the leading maritime museum of the United Kingdom.

Creation and official opening

The Museum was created by the National Maritime Act of 1934 Chapter 43 [1], under a Board of Trustees, appointed by H.M. Treasury. It is based on the generous donations of Sir James Caird (1864–1954). King George VI formally opened the Museum in April 27, 1937 when his daughter Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth II accompanied him for the journey along the Thames from London. The first Director was Sir Geoffrey Callender[2].

Collection

Since earliest times Greenwich has had associations with the sea and navigation. It was a landing place for the Romans; Henry VIII lived here; the navy has roots on the waterfront; and Charles II founded the Royal Observatory in 1675 for ‘finding the longitude of places’. The home of Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian since 1884, Greenwich has long been a centre for astronomical study, while navigators across the world have set their clocks according to its time of day.

The Museum has the most important holdings in the world on the history of Britain at sea comprising more than two million items, including maritime art (both British and 17th-century Dutch), cartography, manuscripts including official public records, ship models and plans, scientific and navigational instruments, instruments for time-keeping and astronomy (based at the Observatory). Its British portraits collection is exceeded in size only by that of the National Portrait Gallery and its holdings relating to Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson and Captain James Cook, among many other individuals, are unrivalled.

It has the world's largest maritime historical reference library (100,000 volumes) including books dating back to the 15th century. An active loans programme ensures that items from the collection are seen in the UK and abroad. Through its displays, exhibitions and outreach programmes the Museum also explores our current relationship with the sea and the future of the sea as an environmental force and resource.

By virtue of its pairing with the Royal Observatory, the Museum enjoys a unique conjunction of subjects (history, science and the arts), enabling it to trace the movement and accomplishments of people and the origins and consequences of empire. The outcome of the Museum's work is to achieve, for all its users at home and overseas, a greater understanding of British economic, cultural, social, political and maritime history and its consequences in the world today.

Looted art/War trophy controversy

The collection of the National Maritime Museum also includes items taken from Germany after World War II, including several ship models[3] as well as several pictures by marine artist Claus Bergen[4][5] ("Wreath in the North Sea in Memory of the Battle of Jutland", "The Commander U-boat", "Admiral Hipper’s Battle Cruiser at Jutland" and "The German Pocket Battleship Admiral Von Scheer Bombarding the Spanish Coast")[6], Carl Saltzmann [7]("German Fleet Manoeuvres on the High Seas")[8] and Ehrhard ("Before the Hurricane at Apia Samoa" and "During the Hurricane at Apia").[9][10][11]. The Museum, however regards these cultural objects as "War trophies", removed under the provisions of the Potsdam Conference.

Some of the pictures were probably removed from the Mürwik Naval Academy (Marineschule Mürwick) at Flensburg, as documented [citation needed] by a 1965-66 Ministry of Defence fileCite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page)., one picture ("Before the Hurricane at Apia") was lent to HMS Calliope in 1959, lost, and formally written-off in 1979. The National Maritime Museum disclosed in January 2007, that "the documentation at the NMM and the National Archives is not complete". In the view of The Art Newspaper writer, Michael Bailey, [10] according to spoliation guidelines, the pictures should be regarded as having been "wrongly taken".[10][12]

The museum has, allegedly, already turned down three requests for restitution: in 1965 the Dr. Barnartz Historical Marine Institute in Cologne [citation needed] contacted Prince Philip, a National Maritime Museum Trustee[3] and Admiral Karl-Adolf Zenker[13], the Inspector of the German Navy, visited London in 1965 and personally issued a claim for ship models seized from Mürwik [citation needed].[3] Although Sir Harvey Druitt[14], HM Government’s legal advisor and Treasury Solicitor warned the museum on July 16 1965, that "it was on weak ground"[citation needed],[3] the claims were rejected, on the grounds of "insufficient evidence and the difficulties of deaccessioning".[15] The third claim[citation needed], from January 1989, was submitted to the British naval attaché in Bonn, and forwarded to Lord Lewin, Admiral of the Fleet and chairman of the National Maritime Museum.[15] The Cultural Property Advice report of the National Maritime Museum states, that out of 394 oil paintings investigated, only 180 have proper provenance, 7 are war trophies, 16 are of possibly suspect origin, 143 have gaps in provenance and 44 paintings have no provenance information at all. [16]

The site

The museum was officially established in 1934 within the 200 acres of Greenwich Royal Park in the buildings of what was the former Royal Hospital School (or Royal Naval School). It includes the Queen's House (part of the historic park-and-palace landscape of "Maritime Greenwich", which was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997) and the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, until 1948 the home of the Royal Greenwich Observatory.

The gardens immediately to the north of the museum were reinstated in the late 1870s following construction of the cut-and-cover tunnel between Greenwich and Maze Hill stations. The tunnel comprised part of the final section of the London and Greenwich Railway and opened in 1878.

Flamsteed House (1675-76), the original part of the Royal Observatory, was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and was the first purpose-built scientific research facility in Britain. In 1953, the Old Royal Observatory became part of the Museum. Flamsteed House, designed by Christopher Wren, was first opened for visitors by Queen Elizabeth II in 1960.

The 17th-century Queen’s House, an early classical building designed by Inigo Jones, is the keystone of the historic ‘park and place’ landscape of maritime Greenwich.

All the Museum buildings have been subsequently upgraded. A full redevelopment of the main galleries, centring on what is now the Neptune Court, and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, was completed in 1999. The Queen's House was refurbished in 2001 to become the heart of displays of art from the Museum's collection.

In May 2007 a major capital project Time and Space, opened up the entire Royal Observatory site for the benefit of visitors. The £16 million transformation features three new modern astronomy galleries, four new time galleries, facilities for collections conservation and research, a learning centre and a 120-seat planetarium designed to give a magnificent introduction to the world beyond the night sky.

National Maritime Museum Cornwall

NMM Cornwall, Falmouth

The National Maritime Museum Cornwall is a fully independent museum, a development of the original FIMI (Falmouth International Maritime Initiative) partnership created in 1992 and the result of collaboration between the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich and the former Cornwall Maritime Museum in Falmouth.

See also

References

  1. ^ National Maritime Museum, Governing Acts of Parliament.
  2. ^ ODNB article by Michael Lewis, ‘Callender, Sir Geoffrey Arthur Romaine (1875–1946)’, rev. H. C. G. Matthew, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [1] accessed 23 Sept 2007.
  3. ^ a b c d Martin Bailey. How the London Maritime Museum rebuffed a German claim in 1965. The Art Newspaper. February 1, 2007 "Nine trophy models were subsequently identified by the NMM, including those of the Kaiser Friedrich II, the Admiral Scheer and Hitler’s yacht the Grille; these appeared to have come from Mürwik". . . "On 30 June 1966 the First Sea Lord responded to Admiral Zenker, pointing out that it was not possible to prove which models had come from Mürwik—and there was therefore little to be gained 'by going further into the matter'”.
  4. ^ Biography and illustration of pictures by Bergen held at Greenwich.
  5. ^ German wikipedia article on Claus Bergen.
  6. ^ Bombardment of Almería see German_pocket_battleship_Admiral_Scheer#Raiding_career
  7. ^ German wikipedia article on Carl Salzman
  8. ^ Carl Saltzman:"German Fleet Manoeuvres on the High Seas"
  9. ^ These title may refer to the Hurricane of March, 1889, when large numbers of German and American sailors died.
  10. ^ a b c Martin Bailey. Revealed: six paintings in Maritime Museum were seized by British troops from Nazi Germany. The Art Newspaper. February 1, 2007
  11. ^ Martin Bailey. Revealed: Nazi painting in London’s Maritime Museum looted by British. The Art Newspaper. January 3, 2007
  12. ^ Martin Gayford. Please May We Have Our Swastika Picture Back? Bloomberg. January 17, 2007. Gayford reports Bailey's article but questions his conclusions. He asks the general question "how far do you go with restitution?"
  13. ^ German wikipedia article on Karl-Adolf Zenker.
  14. ^ Who was Who: DRUITT, Sir William Arthur Harvey (1910-1973) HM Procurator-General and Treasury Solicitor, 1964-1971
  15. ^ a b Martin Bailey. Germans call for return of paintings seized by British troops. The National Maritime Museum in London has turned down two previous requests for restitution. The Art Newspaper. April 5, 2007, Issue 179
  16. ^ Cultural Property AdviceHolocaust or WWII Spoliation of the National Maritime Museum Accessed: September 19, 2007


External links

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