About UKMCS

The United Kingdom has maritime collections that are second to none. The collections are necessarily dispersed in museums, archives and libraries across our islands. In 1998, HRH The Duke of York launched an initiative to survey and examine the maritime collections of the UK. Since that time, maritime museums have held a series of meetings, in a spirit of co-operation, to discover the size and scope of the British maritime collection as a whole, and to consider the potential for coordinating collecting policies and sharing expertise.

The intention is to create a national network, based on regional centres, to allow all maritime museums and related organisations to share expertise and information. A number of ‘lead museums’ have been identified and their directors meet as a group to plan this strategy. A representative of the Maritime Curators’ Group attends these meetings, and it is envisaged that the MCG will help to cascade information throughout the network and enable smaller museums to feed their ideas into the discussion.

The Directors’ Group of lead museums currently includes:

• National Maritime Museum
• The Imperial War Museum
• The National Museum of Science and Industry
• Royal Naval Museum
• Mary Rose Trust
• Chatham Historic Dockyard
• The Scottish Maritime Museum
• National Museums Liverpool
• Aberdeen Maritime Museum
• National Maritime Museum Cornwall
• Tyne and Wear Museums

The objectives of the United Kingdom Maritime Collections Strategy are to:

• exchange collecting policies and work towards coordinating them, developing ‘spheres of interest’ for key museums, and making those collecting policies more widely known.
• facilitate long-term loans for permanent displays and loans for short-term exhibitions.
• participate in joint ventures to increase public access to collections, particularly including using information and communications technology.
• develop policies for the sharing and exchange of maritime expertise, and promote the growth of expertise in core subjects.
• agree to exchange or transfer collections to other museums and institutions, where this is in the best interest of public access and the promotion of collections.
• actively explore opportunities for the sharing of resources and expertise and making those resources accessible to smaller museums and like organisations.

The role of a lead museum is to:

• be the regional focus of a network of museums and related organisations with maritime interests and collections, and/or to be the focus for a particular ‘sphere of interest’ within the scope of the UK maritime collection
• promote the public presentation, interpretation and understanding of collections, focusing on their particular sphere of interest
• develop partnerships and joint activities with museums and related organisations with interests and collections in common.
• help represent the interests and views of the subject network to official bodies
• develop and maintain expertise in the subject in order to provide an authoritative focus for the answering of research enquiries
• encourage the use of ICT for the sharing of information between organisations and to promote the subject/collections to the public and researcher

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