It is the day of reckoning for Bradford’s photographic treasures as museum grandees in London decide whether to ignore howls of protest and move a world-famous collection down to the capital.
The move, announced to cries of outrage last month, will see 400,000 objects from the Royal Photographic Society collection at Bradford’s National Media Museum (NMM) transferred to the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London to create an “international photography resource centre”.
The decision, described as “an appalling act of cultural vandalism” and “Londoncentric nonsense”, will be discussed at a board meeting in London on Wednesday by the trustees of the Science Museums Group (SMG), which owns the NMM.
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. Writing in the Times, cultural critic Richard Morrison said the plan ranked “in the premier league of crassness” and called on John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, to “halt this nonsense immediately”.
A spokesman for the SMG confirmed on Tuesday that the trustees had been responsible for the decision. But he refused several times to make clear whether the 16-strong SMG trust, chaired by Dame Mary Archer, could reverse it.
Almost everyone on the board is based in London or the south-east, including the former BBC chairman Lord Grade, Guardian columnist Matthew d’Ancona and Dame Fiona Woolf, former lord mayor of London.
In a statement the SMG said: “Following the recent announcement about our ambitious plans for the National Media Museum and the transfer of some art photography objects to the V&A we have had further conversations with local MPs and other key stakeholders. We have agreed that it would be helpful for the Science Museum Group Board to review their feedback and some ideas around the specifics of the proposed transfer of objects between national collections.”
A spokeswoman for the V&A said the museum expected the transfer of the art photography collections to “move forward in due course”.
Asked why the V&A needed more photographs when it already had half a million in its collection, she said: “The V&A was convinced by SMG’s proposal that grouping the art of photography collections in one institution and the science of photography in a different institution was in the best interest of the study and enjoyment of these collections, and of the audiences who will benefit from enhanced access, display and digitisation.”
The SMG operates four museums: the Science Museum in London, the NMM in Bradford, the National Railway Museum in York and the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. In June 2013, the group threatened to shut one of its north of England outposts to save money but had to climb down following protests and an intervention by minister Ed Vaizey.
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