Ensuring there are "no stolen items" in Glasgow's museums will be the challenge for a cross-party of group of city councillors tasked with making recommendations on the repatriation of items in the collection.
The city council has agreed to reconvene the group, which will develop a new approach to returning cultural objects to other nations.
Talks will continue with groups in Nigeria over the possible return of eight bronzes looted from Benin City by British soldiers, which are now in city collections.
It is estimated over 4,000 artefacts were taken by British forces during an 1897 raid. A request for the return of the treasures was refused in 1996, but now the cross-party group will consider their future.
Deputy leader David McDonald, who is also the chairman of Glasgow Life, which runs the city’s museums, said part of the process “should be about ensuring there are no stolen items in our museums”.
“We believe the time is right to reconvene the group in order to ensure that our processes are still fit for purpose and fit for our expectations as a city that respects the rights, the histories and traditions of other world cultures.”
Cllr Allan Young said the Green group wholeheartedly supported the proposal to reform the working group, and asked whether the council should agree to the principle of “no stolen items in our museums”.
“The paper doesn’t specifically set out that,” he said. “I completely appreciate Cllr Graham’s points about the complexity of certain issues, but I think as a point of principle we should be declaring that.”
Labour’s Archie Graham had said: “This is an extremely complicated area of work. It may seem quite straightforward if items have been taken, by some methodology or other, that we simply give them back, but it’s an awful lot more complicated than that.
“It’s great to have a working group that can really get its teeth into the details of these requests.”
Cllr McDonald added: “I am very clear in the political principle we are setting out that we shouldn’t have stolen items in our museums, but as Cllr Graham has rightly pointed out this is a very complex issue, with a lot of legal complexities in the background.”
He said sometimes you “maybe do get requests that aren’t as strong”.
A council officer urged “caution” over making a declaration. “It is a complex issue,” she said. “I think the whole point about the working group is that they will look at all the issues.”
Cllr Young added: “I wasn’t implying in any way we should override proper due diligence.
“I don’t think if we were to adopt that principle that would in any way undermine that process. Every claim would have to be properly checked.”
The Benin Dialogue Group — a group of national cultural institutions in the UK and Europe — is working with the Edo State Government, the Royal Court of Benin and the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in Nigeria to find solutions for the artefacts.
It will support negotiations over smaller collections, like the one in Glasgow. As well as the bronzes, the city has another 21 artefacts from Benin.
A council officer said the provenance of these items is “less clear”. “Some of these items continued to be produced in Benin beyond the point of the looting.
“They may be later reproductions, although still of significant age.
“It may transpire that they are legitimate assets of the collection and there is no interest in returning them.”
