Dear Adriaan (and others who have also commented),

The UK situation must be seen in the context of a tradition going back
over 150 years of free admission to government-funded museums (as with the
Smithsonian and many major State and City museums in the USA, for
example): that if the citizens are already paying for these museums
through taxes the Government has no right to "make us pay again" at the
museum's front door.

There is clearly a cultural difference here, and I would be the first to
say that what might be termed the Anglophone experience may not
automatically transfer to countries with very different cultural
traditions, and where museums have never been free.

All three attempts over the past 80 years or so to impose compulsory
admission charges in the national museums has led to what amounted to mass
boycotts. In 1973 charges were imposed by law - even over-riding by Act of
Parliament donor conditions requiring free admission, but all charges were
removed after the change of government in 1974.  The latest round of
introducing charges began in the mid-1980s - when the Directors
and Trustees of some of the national museums and galleries felt they were
forced into this by government grant cuts, and almost all suffered massive
losses of visitors - even when some limited free admission periods were
retained. Also, several of the largest and most important national museums
always refused to introduce charges including the British Museum, National
Gallery, Tate Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery - and in each
case their visitor numbers continued to grow at a considerable rate.

Although the situation is much more complicated and uneven in relation to
local government museums, outside major national and international tourism
centres most attempts to introduce compulsory admission charges have
arguably been very far from cost-effective in economic terms, and many
authorities have followed the government in scrapping them after a few
years experimenting with admission charges. (For none of the
nationals and no more than half a dozen (or less) of the local
authority museums and galleries has admission charge money been more than
a fairly marginal percentage of total running costs - while the loss of
visitors greatly increased the unit cost per visit in the majority of
cases, raising serious cost/benefit questions.)

The British public has always seemed able to distinguish between what
they believe should be free, and those museums, historic sites and
monuments etc. run by charities - where a payment is expected and
willingly paid.  There is also no evidence at all that here at least
receiving any public service - whether health, education or museums -
"free at the point of delivery" makes the user less appreciative of it,
though this is a very common argument in many other parts of the world.

On Adriaan's specific point, I haven't seen any figures yet which might
indicate the impact (if any) on neighbouring museums to the nationals
which have gone back to their traditional free admission policy.  However,
in geographical terms the non-nationals most likely to be affected would
be those local authority community museums or specialised charitable
ones in London, and I think it has been accepted for a long time that
their visitors are either local or specialised and not likely to be
seriously affected by what's going on at the major nationals.


Patrick Boylan

=====================


On Thu, 2 May 2002, Adriaan Linters wrote:

> Has anyone information on the effects of this on the small local and
> independent museums who often have to live from their entrance fees ?
> What's the psychologic effect on public if one museum is free and the other
> have to charge ?
> Are the visitor numbers of the museums that are charging going up or going
> down ???
>
> Adriaan Linters
> Vredelaan72
> B-8500 Kortrijk
> Flanders-Belgium
> +32.56.253373
> http://www.eur-heritage.org
> http://www.conservare.be
>
>
> At 02:10 2/05/02 +0100, you wrote:
> >Since the provision of extra Government funds to permit the abolition of
> >all remaining admission charges at national museums and galleries in
> >England on 1 December 2001, visits to those that previously charged for
> >admission has increased by 1.7 million (75%) compared with the same
> >period of the previous year.
> >
> >There has also been a further increase of 10% in visits by children over
> >the period, in addition to previous large increases following the
> >introduction of free admission for children (and senior citizens) at all
> >national museums and galleries the previous year.
> >
> >See Department of Culture, Media & Sport Press Release of 30th April 2002:
> >
> >http://www.culture.gov.uk/role/search.asp?Name=/pressreleases/role/2002/dcms087
> >
> >
> >
> >Patrick Boylan
> >
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