The theft of hundreds of artefacts from a Bristol museum archive has renewed attention on how cities like Bristol confront their past, and how museums across Britain protect collections that shape public understanding of history.
00:00Bristol is a city that has spent recent years taking a closer look at how its history is understood, discussed and preserved,
00:07and now part of that history has been taken away altogether.
00:10More than 600 artefacts of significant cultural value were stolen from Bristol Museum's archive.
00:16Among the missing objects are military memorabilia, jewellery including necklaces, bangles and rings,
00:21carved ivory, bronze and silver figurines, and natural history items such as geological specimens.
00:27So it's a very shocking event. This is a collection of national and international significance.
00:33It includes irreplaceable historical material from all around the world.
00:37It was collected as a unique collection really 20 or 30 years ago.
00:43So really it's something quite unique and it's something that's a huge value if we want to understand the history of the British Empire,
00:50British colonialism, the history of many African and Asian countries in the Pacific.
00:54So it really is quite a shocking development.
00:57So it's a hugely diverse collection.
00:59It's got paper archives, scrapbooks, photographic collections.
01:03It's got one of a totally unique collection of 1950s photographs of Kenya, for example.
01:09From what we've been told, it sounds like it is small, high value items that might have obvious resale appeal.
01:17It is things like military badges and enzymes. It's some geological samples, militaria, jewellery, small statues, arts, items like that.
01:32It's incredibly hard to protect and safeguard these enormous collections which take up a huge amount of space.
01:41So this is perhaps a reflection of a much bigger set of problems that museums face, particularly in times of austerity where funding for public institutions is at risk.
01:54How do you prioritise safeguarding these collections when so many of your resources are stripped away?
02:01The cultural value of these items and the fact that they are unique and irreplaceable and that they form part of collections built up by major institutions,
02:11like what was called the Colonial Institute, the Commonwealth Institute in London, which was there to promote public understanding of empire.
02:20That in itself is something that scholars study and think about how these collections were used in the past for imperial purposes.
02:28If we lose that, we lose our ability to understand large areas of the imperial history of Britain,
02:34but also the colonial history of many countries in Africa and Asia and the Pacific.
02:39I think it's a real loss to our understanding of a really important aspect of the past if those collections aren't safeguarded.
02:46Detective Constable Dan Bergen of Avon and Somerset Police said the theft represents a significant loss for the city,
02:53noting that many of the items were donations and provide insight into a multilayered part of British history.
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