In a sign of the times, the Imperial War Museum has announced that it is closing the gallery devoted to Lord Ashcroft’s personal collection of Victoria and George Cross medals. They were displayed so that anyone could see them and read the stories of astonishing bravery involved. The scandalous decision was made without even bothering to tell Lord Ashcroft.
The Telegraph has the story:
The billionaire businessman said the museum “had not even the courtesy” to inform him before the public announcement on Tuesday of its decision to close down the landmark gallery displaying his £70 million collection of 230 Victoria Cross and George Cross medals.
The Lord Ashcroft Gallery was opened in 2010 following a £5 million donation from the life peer and the medals were loaned out for 15 years.
However, the museum has since announced that the gallery will permanently close on June 1st and the entire collection will be returned to Lord Ashcroft.
According to the IWM they need the space for other exhibits:
In a statement, the museum said its own, far smaller, collection of Victoria and George Cross medals would be “displayed across our UK branches [and] integrated within galleries that tell the full story of the conflicts in which these acts of bravery occurred”.
The display is being closed to make way for new exhibits exploring post-Second World War conflicts, including the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan. The museum added that these wars were less represented.
Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman is unconvinced, saying:
This needs to be reversed and is a great shame. The IWM must ensure that it isn’t taking the knee to woke politics. Our brave soldiers’ sacrifice shouldn’t be left to gather cobwebs in a vault.
Lord Ashcroft wrote in another piece for the Telegraph about his sadness at the decision, which he only learned about while travelling in Ukraine speaking to soldiers:
It is my 11th visit to the war-torn country including several visits to the frontline. Championing bravery has played a major part in my life for the past 40 years. Sadly, the closure of the gallery on June 1st marks the end, for now at least, of arguably my greatest achievement in this area.
Since 1986 I have – patiently and sensitively – devoted significant resources and time to building up a collection of Victoria Crosses (VCs), by some way the largest in the world, so that these stories of incredible gallantry could be enjoyed by visitors to London. For the past 15 years these decorations have been on public display in a free exhibition.
It was with a heavy heart that I broke off my interviews with some of the bravest men on the planet to read the statement from the IWM, about which they had not even had the courtesy to inform me. The Chairman of the trustees, Sir Guy Weston, never spoke to me about it. Should I not have been the first to know?
HRH The Duke of Kent, President of the Museum, and High Commissioners from Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and Sri Lanka plus two senior military figures are amongst the serving trustees. They were presumably involved in the decision. Did none of them ask whether I had been informed?
The Lord Ashcroft Gallery was opened by HRH The Princess Royal in 2010 and has displayed my collection of some 230 VCs and George Crosses (GCs), along with a number of VCs and GCs either owned by or loaned to the IWM. I not only agreed to loan my collection but I also paid more than £5 million to create a spacious gallery for the medals and associated memorabilia. Now, my sincere hope is that those who have not visited the gallery so far will do so over the next three months before it is too late. I would love nothing better than the gallery to go out on a ‘high’ in terms of visitor numbers.
I have had a passion for the concept of bravery since I was a small boy and was told by my father, Eric, about his experiences as a young officer taking part in the D-Day landings of June 6th 1944. My father was wounded during the landings on Sword Beach but fought on until ordered from the battlefield for treatment. My fascination with valour transformed itself over time into an interest in gallantry medals which are a tangible memento of service and courage.
God willing, I will be 80 early next year, and I had hoped that my VC and GC collection would remain on public display at the IWM for the rest of my days. Especially so as I had enjoyed my years as a trustee of the IWM. I had already made arrangements to leave the collection to the IWM when it was time for me to meet my maker.
It is inevitable that the collection will go into storage because it is impossible, in the short term at least, to find a suitable ‘home’ for it. The medals seem destined to gather dust in secure vaults – away from the public eye.
Readers of the Daily Sceptic will scarcely raise an eyebrow at yet another instance of Britain’s past being consigned to oblivion. Collections like these are the bedrock of museums and a nation’s cultural heritage. A society that does not value them reveals its true nature.
The Telegraph piece is worth reading in full, as is Lord Ashcroft’s comment.
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Our Past is Turned to Dust
Another slap in the face for our history and culture. One of my great uncles was awarded the George Cross. I remember attending a ceremony in Westminster Abbey some years back now, to celebrate VC and GC awardees. Mrs. T was there, and later at a garden party, Prince Charles was doing the rounds.
The fabric of this country is being dismantled around us.
Yes I had a Great Uncle who was on the D-Day landings. Lived on the Isle of White and at the dinner table of my Grandads funeral told the story of how he has had knee pain since the landings, when someone caught his knee with the oar, he gave a loud howl to illustrate the pain with everybody on the room looking.
I like stories like that. It’s all part of your personal hinterland, and our collective heritage.
Let’s just get this straight – Lord Ashworth loans to the IWM a dedicated collection of VCs and George Crosses put together at his own expense…
…And fifteen years later, without even consulting Lord Ashcroft, the Trustees propose to distribute Lord Ashcroft’s collection of medals will-nilly around the museum, “within galleries that tell the full story of the conflicts in which these acts of bravery occurred.”
You can guess what progressive full story that will be, laden with imposed British guilt and re-contextualisng the past by the progressive cliches and mores of the present.
Yet more of the long march through institutions nowadays run by feeble-minded twerps and malcontents travelling first class, all-expenses paid (by us) aboard the state-sponsored gravy train.
You are right, but you read it so quickly that you skipped over this bit:
It is the museum’s own smaller collection that they’re going to scatter about, doused with huge helpings of White Guilt, and White Privilege laid on with a trowel.
Whoops, you’re right. Apologies, too busy commenting, not busy enough dligently reading to the end.
The Imperial War Museum is a shadow of its former self, dull and lightweight.
The Victoria Cross is awarded for acts of selfless bravery.
What an example, it might have been thought, for future generations.
Their removal from the museum reflects very badly on the senior figures responsible for it.
If I was Ashcroft I would vary my will and leave them to someone else more welcoming and more worthy.
Disgusting decision. I visited the gallery several times and was grateful to Lord Ashcroft for buying the medals and allowing the public to hear the stories behind them.
There are still some stately homes in private hands that might take them. Really the King should intervene and have a gallery made so they can be displayed to the public.
I can imagine it will only be days before the collection are labelled far right. I despair.
It has gone the way of the National Trust and many other organisations. Did we really win the Cold War in 1991?
I’ve just watched an IWM video on YouTube on the Battle of the Somme where in the VERY FIRST words of spoken intro the wrong date was given.
They had one job
Admittedly not IWM but when I visited an exhibition on the naval Battle of Jutland at Greenwich Maritime Museum there was a prominent notice about the many men and women who gave their lives. I do not believe for one moment that there was a single woman on any of the battleships involved. Clock striking 13 and all that
The rudeness of this decision defies belief. As Lord Ashcroft also donated a substantial sum to fund the gallery itself he should now request the return of his £5 million.
The IWM and the National Army Museum have been in my bad books since they refused to stock my book “Faces from the Front” about facial surgery in WW1, lest the images, admittedly graphic, upset people. But how will the public understand the consequences of war without seeing evidence of the personal stories of gallantry and harm?
Hardly surprising from the latest collection of cowards, vagabonds and vandals supposedly running our institutions nowadays. Disgraceful doesn’t even cover it.
In fact I’ve just finished reading my Uncle Jack’s exploits during WWII. He was in the RTR and joined as a volunteer reservist. He fought in the desert first against the Italians and then against the might of Rommel’s army. He was captured escaped, recaptured and sent to a POW Camp in Northern Italy where he spent the next two years. When Mussolini was overthrown they were told they had 24 hours to escape which my Uncle and a couple of his friends did. They were bravely helped by local farmers and members of the Italian resistance. He walked hundreds of miles down Italy including crawling through graveyards to escape detection and crossing various rivers to eventually cross the British lines only to be taken for a spy! Having negotiated a gruelling interrogation he was given fresh clothes something to eat accommodation and sailed back to England. After resting on leave with my Grandmother and my mother in Croydon he was sent back to his regiment to fight at the Battle of the Bulge. His war ended a few miles short of Berlin on Armistice Day 1945. He became the Chief Executive of a Life Insurance company based in Canada. What a hero what a man! And he was a true Gentleman.
LEST WE FORGET.
Very sad not to mention bad mannered on the part of the IWM