A Coventry councillor has asked that certain artefacts on a disposal list drawn up by Culture Coventry Trust (CCT) be retained because of their links to the city. CCT is the organisation that manages the city’s art collections and archives.
Photographic plates, crockery, bottles and a matchstick model were among things highlighted by councillor Roger Bailey, member for housing and communities, at this week’s cabinet meeting of the city council.
Keeping memories of old Coventry
Nearly 600 pieces have been earmarked for disposal including vintage camera equipment and old tools from various shops around the city. Some items of food are also listed and set to be destroyed because of a contamination risk.
Cllr Bailey scrutinised the entire list of 588 items. While accepting that some of the pieces might be duplicates or in poor condition, he flagged up a number that he thought should stay within the city.
In the meeting, he said: “One of the things that I’m keen on protecting is anything with the word ‘Coventry’ on it. There are reasons why you don’t think they are relevant and I get that but there are a number of plates with the coat of arms on and I think those sort of things are important.”
Artefacts to be saved
“We have one piece with the name of the mayor on it from 1782 and I think it is a very relevant piece of history, anything with the name of a mayor. There are glass plates showing a crowd fishing in Coventry. These are old scenes and you don’t get the chance to see them going that far back.”
He also referred to a model of medieval Coventry made out of matchsticks dating back to around 1600 and bottles made by Coventry companies. One of these was described as a ‘torpedo’ mineral bottle marked ‘HJP Pearson Soda Water Manufacturer Coventry’.
He said: “My problem is that if it has the word Coventry on, even if it’s not in good condition, I have a problem with it going. They are hard enough pieces to find, especially bottles and plates.
“It is shame that we are not going to build a street scene because having a camera shop with some of these items in would be an obvious thing to do. It is the same with the food items. We have had something like that in the past at Coventry Transport Museum.”
Clearing the clutter
Marguerite Nugent, cultural director at CCT, explained that keeping things relevant to Coventry was important but such a clear-out was normal. She explained that a number of items would be offered to other museums or public collections before being sold, destroyed or passed on to the handling collections.
She added: “The thing now is that we have more robust measures for accepting things which was not the case in the past. A good healthy approach to collecting is carrying out that review. The reason why such a large quantity of items is coming forward is that it’s not really been done before.”
A Local Democracy press release by David Lawrence (edited).
