Museums and the Formation of National and Cultural Identities

This chapter focuses on what might be interpreted as the moment of a more self-consciously political conception of the roles available to museums in general. It explores a case study situated at a comparable historical conjuncture in 1902, when the Education Act of that year announced the same objective of ‘Education for AH’. The chapter is concerned with the problem of attracting a larger and more diverse public, proving the museums’ capacity as a serious educational resource and, in the case of the ethnographic collections, as a serious ‘scientific’ resource. 1902 was a significant year in other respects since it marked the renewal of concerted strategies by both contending parliamentary parties to promote the concept of a homogeneous national identity and unity within Britain. The general consensus delegated the former as the responsibility of the national collections and the latter as that of the local museums.