MUSEUM OF LONDON BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 26 November 1964)

§ THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CHAMPION)
My Lords, although I like an audience, I do not like a captive one. It appears that this will be very largely a captive audience awaiting a Statement which is to come. The timing is unfortunate—I have had nothing to do with this—but I must now proceed to move the Second Reading of this rather interesting, though small, Bill.
The Economist, just over a week ago, said that for the immediate future the legislative machine is being fed with pretty soft pap. I would certainly say that the Economist is right so far as this Bill is concerned. Certainly the Bill is a non-controversial one and will, I hope and expect, be acceptable to both Houses of Parliament. When this Bill was thrust into my hands and somebody said, "Will you look after this?", I read the Long Title and realised that up to the point of reading it, I just did not know that the Landon and Guild-hall Museums even existed. Such ignorance is inexcusable, but my mortification at finding myself so lacking was considerably lessened when, after I had asked a few Londoners what they knew about museums devoted to London's history, I found that they knew nothing either. Just in case some of your Lordships happen to share my ignorance, I propose to devote the major part of my speech to the background to this Bill.
The purpose of this Bill is to create a new Museum of London by amalgamat- 942 ing two existing institutions, the London Museum, which is Exchequer financed, and the Guildhall Museum, which is administered by the City of London. The London Museum owes its origin to the vision and initiative of the first Lord Harcourt, whose son is the present chairman of the Trustees, and the second Lord Esher, whose grandson is also a Trustee. Their idea was to found a museum which would be for London what the Carnavalet Museum had long been for Paris; that is, a museum illustrating life in the capital through the ages and acting thereby, also, as a mirror of life in England from century to century. They started in 1911 with some private funds which had been placed at their disposal for the purpose of forming a collection of suitable objects, and they soon succeeded in creating interest in the project and in attracting gifts and loans from other people, including King George V and Queen Mary, Queen Alexandra, the London County Council and numerous individual collectors. King George V gave permission for the new Museum to be housed in the State Apartments and other parts of Kensington Palace, where the Museum was opened to the public in 1912.
Kensington Palace was never intended to be more than a temporary home for the Museum, and in 1913 Sir William Lever (afterwards Viscount Leverhulme) bought the lease of Stafford House and gave it to the nation for the joint purposes of housing the London Museum and providing a setting for Government hospitality. The Trustees of the London Museum then placed their collections at the disposal of the Government for the term of the lease of Stafford House, and so long afterwards as the collections should continue to be exhibited there, or in some other equally suitable building maintained by the Government. If these conditions failed to be implemented the original collections were to revert to Lord Harcourt or his heirs. The Government accepted these offers and undertook financial responsibility for the maintenance of the London Museum. From that time onwards the Trustees, apart from some ex officio ones, were appointed by the Prime Minister.
The Museum was happy—a nice word that—in Lancaster House, as Stafford 943 House was subsequently renamed, from 1913 until the Second World War, when most of the collections had to be put away into safe storage and Lancaster House began to be used for international conferences. In 1940 the original lease of the building expired and a new 42-year lease was taken by the Ministry of Works from the Crown Estate. After the war the Government decided that the building would continue to be required for conferences and official hospitality, and that another home would have to be found for the Museum. At that time another suitable building was extremely hard to find, but in 1949 King George VI gave consent for part of Kensington Palace again to be used by the Museum for a term of fifteen years from December, 1950; and this term has been extended by the Present Queen for a further five years, to 1970. Again, however, this could never have been more than a temporary arrangement, and Kensington Palace is for a number of reasons not an ideal setting for the Museum, however well some of its possessions fit in there. It was not long, therefore, before the Trustees were making strong representations to the Government to provide them with a suitable permanent home.
To turn now to the Guildhall Museum, this was founded by order of the Court of Common Council in 1826. The first contribution to the collections consisted of Roman and other antiquities found during the excavations of the foundations of the new post Office in St. Martin's-le-Grand. The original concept of the Museum was simply that of an adjunct to the library where could be seen objects to illustrate books on the Library's shelves, but it soon became clear that the Museum must be much more than this. To begin with it occupied one single room in the library. In 1872, when the new library wing was opened, the Museum was housed in the basement beneath it and was opened to the public. The Museum has continued to be closely integrated with the library, and the library committee of the Common Council is directly responsible for its administration. Like the library and the art gallery, it was originally financed from the Corporation's private nurse, City's cash, but since 1921 has been supported financially from rates funds.
944 All the objects in the Guildhall Museum are connected with the City. A large number of them consist of archædogical material, including a great deal which has been unearthed in the course of excavations connected with the rebuilding of the City since 1946. The Guildhall Museum has always been closely associated with the scientific examination of sites cleared for rebuilding, and it has been generally agreed that all objects found during excavations should be given to the Museum. The result has been that in the last eighteen years there has been an increase of more than 50 per cent. over the total number of specimens in the Museum collected during the previous 120 years. Of the more recent acquisitions perhaps the most spectacular were those from the Temple of Mithras found on the site of Bucklers-bury House in 1955. Quite apart from objects dug out of the ground, there are many important and beautiful things which have never disappeared from view, including a most important collection of ecclesiastical plate belonging to City Churches. In addition, several collections belonging to the livery companies have been deposited with the Museum, including the world famous collection of the Clockmakers' and Glovers' Companies.
As a result of war and war damage, the Guildhall collection moved about and eventually, in 1955, the exhibition, comprising about 10 per cent. of the collection, came to rest in the Royal Exchange, but the greater part of the collection had to be left in store at the Guildhall. So the Guildhall Museum, like the London Museum, is still waiting for adequate accommodation in a permanent home.
Both the London Museum and the Guildhall Museum are essentially local museums, though the history of London obviously has a far more than local interest. It is a generally accepted principle in this country that local museums should be primarily a local responsibility. The Guildhall Museum is, of course, entirely a local responsibility, since it is administered and wholly financed by the City of London. The London Museum is entirely an Exchequer responsibility, except to the extent that the London County Council and a number of other local education authorities make a contribution towards the cost of the services rendered by the Museum to visiting schools. The L.C.C. have, how- 945 ever, always taker a great interest in the London Museum, particularly on the educational side, and the Chairman of the L.C.C. Education Committee is ex officio one of the Trustees.
This was the situation from which there developed the idea that the solution to the accommodation problems of the London Museum and the Guildhall Museum might be found in bringing the two together under one roof, with the costs shared between the Treasury and the two great London authorities. So tentative approaches were made, meetings were held, and by 1962 the way was clear for an announcement that the three authorities and the Trustees of the London Museum had agreed in principle on a scheme for a combined museum.
The essence or the scheme is that the two museums will be amalgamated to form a new Museum of London, which will be housed in a new building to be erected for the purpose on a site in the City of London. The capital and running costs will be borne jointly, and in equal shares, by the Exchequer, the City Corporation and the Greater London Council, which has agreed to accept the obligations entered into by the London County Council in respect of the project. The Museum will be managed by a Board of eighteen Governors, consisting of nominees in equal numbers of the three contributing authorities.
In order that preparatory work for the new Museum might be put in hand as soon as possible, an interim Board of Governors, constituted on the lines just mentioned, was set up in May, 1962. By agreement between the three authorities, Lord Harcourt, the Chairman of the Trustees of the London Museum, was appointed Chairman of the Interim Board. The first act of the Board was to appoint as Director and Deputy Director designate of the Museum of London the present Director of the London Museum and the Keeper of the Guildhall Museum respectively. They then, with the approval of the three authorities, invited a firm of architects to prepare a preliminary scheme and estimates for the Museum building on a site which is on the edge of the Barbican area, at the junction of Aldersgate and London Wall and, very appropriately, close to the remains of the Cripplegate portion 946 of the Roman and Mediaeval City Wall. The architects produced their preliminary scheme a few months ago. It was fully acceptable to the interim Board of Governors, and is now in the process of obtaining the blessing of the three contributing authorities.
So far as the blessing of the Government is concerned, there has to be one proviso. The architects' scheme provides for the Museum building to be on six floors arranged around a garden court, with its East side forming the base for a 200-feet high office tower block which would be leased separately by the City Corporation, and which, incidentally, would be so arranged that some 19,000 square feet of square could be made available for expansion of the Museum at a future date. The Government's approval of the scheme has, of course, to be subject to the decisions which will have to be taken in due course about office building development in this area of the City.
Quite apart from this factor, it would necessarily take some time for the final plans to be completed and for the building to get off the ground. The earliest date at which a start could be made would be some three years hence, which might enable the Museum to be opened in, say, the spring of 1970. Meanwhile, however, there is a great deal of preparatory work to be done in integrating the two collections and in planning their display in the new building. It will certainly be desirable for the amalgamation of the two institutions and their staff to take place well before the new building is ready. The Bill therefore provides for this to be done, and for the collections of the London and Guildhall Museums to be vested in the Board of Governors of the Museum of London on a date to be agreed between the Treasury, the City Corporation and the Greater London Council.
My Lords, we shall have an opportunity at a later stage to discuss the contents of the Bill in detail, so to-day I do not propose to take the House through the sixteen clauses of this simple Bill.

§ LORD CHAMPION
I thank noble Lords very much for those cheers: they help a lot. So to-day, as I say, I do not propose to take the House 947 through the sixteen clauses of this Bill. Nevertheless, I think that perhaps I ought to mention Clause 12, which makes provision for a payment by the Treasury of a sum not exceeding £150,000 in respect of furniture and equipment. This sum will be over and above the one-third of the capital cost, which, as I have previously said, will be borne by the Exchequer.
Before sitting down, I must also say a word about the position of the staff. Clause 8 of the Bill provides for the salaries of the staff of the Museum of London to be determined by the Corporation, after consultation with the Treasury and the Greater London Council, and for their terms and conditions of employment to be such as the Corporation may direct. Clause 9 provides for them to be brought within the Corporation's superannuation scheme. These provisions will no doubt have the effect that the pay and other terms and conditions of service of the staff will he on the lines of those applicable in local government employment, which seems entirely reasonable for a museum situated in the City of London and financed as to two-thirds out of City and Greater London rates.
Those of the staff of the Guildhall Museum who transfer to the Museum of London are therefore unlikely to find very much difference in their terms and conditions of service. For staff transferring from the London Museum, where Civil Service terms and conditions apply, the difference may be somewhat greater, and it is possible that there may be some feeling of apprehension on that score. I hope that what I am going to say may allay any such feeling. First, the day to be appointed for the amalgamation of the two museums will not be determined without ample notice being given. It is intended that this should take place sooner, rather than later, in the period of several years which must elapse before the new building is ready for occupation. But nobody need have any fear that the moment the Bill becomes law the appointed day will be fixed and the amalgamation will take place in a few days or weeks. That is certainly not the intention.
Secondly, nobody will be compelled to transfer to the Museum of London. If there are people in the London Museum 948 who do not want to transfer, every effort will be made to find them employment in one of the other national museums. If that should prove impossible, they would be entitled to compensation for abolition of office in accordance with the agreed rules. Thirdly, it will be the intention of the three authorities, and undoubtedly of the Board of Governors also, that the rates of pay and terms and conditions of employment of staff transferred to the new Museum will be such as, taken together, compare fairly with those which they now enjoy in the London Museum and the Guildhall Museum. Fourthly, there will be consultation with the staff on all matters affecting their transfer.
My Lords, I invite the House to welcome a measure designed to give Parliamentary sanction for a constructive and imaginative project. London has two fine museums whose separate development is hampered by their accommodation difficulties. The Bill will clear the way for their transformation into a single yet finer Museum, covering the history and archæology of the whole of the London area and of the people who have lived in it through the ages. The Bill will also break new ground in that it provides for a unique and, we all feel sure, a most fruitful partnership between the central Government and the two London authorities in an enterprise which is of interest and value to the taxpayer generally and, more especially, to the ratepayers of London. I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time.

§ THE EARL OF DUNDEE
My Lords, we warmly welcome this Bill and I have nothing to add to the very full statement which has been made. The agreement on which the Bill is based between the Treasury and the London Museum and the Guildhall Museum was made three years ago in 1961, oddly enough on the same week in which bank rate was last raised to 7 per cent. That did not prevent the agreement's being made, and I do not see why the 7 per cent. bank rate should prevent the Bill from being given a Second Reading now. One of the governors who took a great part in making that agreement was the late Lord Esher, whose views on these matters 949 were greatly appreciated by the House. The only other point I wanted to put was that your Lordships will undoubtedly remember that the Robbins Committee recommended that the administration of the arts should be removed from the Treasury. This was objected to by the noble Lord, Lord Cottesloe, Chairman of the Arts Council, largely on the grounds that the Treasury knows nothing about art and is therefore less likely to interfere with good management. I think this Bill is an example in favour of that, in keeping them under the control of the Treasury. I hope your Lordships will approve of it.