The history and legacy of British Imperialism and colonialism are visible in almost every museum, gallery, and stately home throughout the UK. The question is how to address these legacies while keeping these venues educational and fascinating.
The Powell-Cotton Museum, in Birchington, Kent, is named after the collection of hunter and explorer Percy Powell-Cotton, who travelled the world collecting objects and shooting a hell of a lot of animals, many of which have been stuffed and are displayed in the impressive dioramas throughout the museum. I remember loving these types of dioramas when I was a child and not realising that every one of these animals was probably hunted down and shot so that we could view it.
There’s no denying it at this museum, as there’s a whole wall of trophy heads; in fairness, they don’t shy away from it. Despite how these animal specimens arrived in the UK, these dioramas are spectacular, and it’s important that future generations can view them and learn about these animals in the proper context.
One improvement the museum has made is to remove the Latin species names, given that many of these included the term cottonii as they were named after Powell-Cotton. Thankfully, the tradition of naming species that you ‘discover’ after yourself is a thing of the past, and this decision by the museum is a welcome one.
The museum has worked with East African partner museums and local communities on how to adapt its display better, including providing more details of the culture the artefacts come from and removing spears and animal skulls displayed above these objects. The museum hasn’t received any formal repatriation requests, but it has confirmed it would be open to such discussions if approached.
The decolonising project is ongoing, and you can see the stark contrast when visiting the rooms that haven’t been reinterpreted yet. These include a room of objects from the Pacific Islands and mentions of how Powell-Cotton’s ancestors were involved in the East India Company – one of the darkest chapters in British colonialism. In these rooms, there’s little representation of the cultures these items were taken from, and I look forward to visiting again when the same decolonising process has been applied to these rooms.
This was my first visit to the museum and its attached stately home, Quek House, and they are well worth a visit. The approach they’ve taken to decolonisation feels right, and while there’s more work to be done, it’s a step in the right direction and one that other similar venues looking to decolonise could learn from.
Powell-Cotton Museum, Quek House, and Gardens are in Birchington, Kent. Entry is ticketed, and the museum’s website provides more on its decolonising process.
Images copyright Mareike Günsche/Powell-Cotton Trust
