From: Antony F Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Marconi Archives.
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 23:35:58 -0000
Latest article in the Times of 13th Feb.
Best wishes
Antony Anderson
February 13 1997
ANALYSIS
A century after radio, Marconi could soon reinvent
museums
George Simpson took over as managing director of the General Electric Company from
Lord Weinstock, its modern creator, five months ago. Since then GEC has sold three
companies for more than £100 million. More are expected to follow, doubtless
demonstrating that Mr Simpson is just as tough-minded, profit-conscious and
unsentimental as the legendary figure who sat in his seat so long. Allied to GEC's £2
billion of cash resources, they could be the prelude to vast strategic deals to unify
Britain's electronics and defence industry or cede more of it to French control.
Exciting times ahead, perhaps.
Pending such earth-shattering moves, however, the wider public image of Mr
Simpson's GEC may well be set by a deal with rather fewer noughts on the end,
financially trivial in terms of this £10.7 billion multicontinental enterprise.
GEC-Marconi, the electronics company at the centre of its operations, has
arranged to flog in 1,000 lots at Christie's the company archive built by
Guglielmo Marconi, founder of his eponymous company as well as much of the
radio, telegraph and broadcasting industries. Only the best items will be retained for
their marketing value.
The collection, which took five months to catalogue, covers anything from laboratory
experiments to business letters from 1896 to the 1930s. It may fetch £1 million, though
high prices for Marconigraphs from the Titanic at a previous Christie's sale could
boost the total. GEC has 3,000 of them.
Correspondents to The Times, including the late Signor Marconi's daughter Elettra,
have not, on the whole, been amused at such "irresponsible" re those who can use secure storage maintained at
taxpayers' expense. Even then, someone has to choose which items are to be kept in
such luxury. Doubtless, many will set their hopes on the overdrawn well of lottery
money.
For big companies and most others, however, no such easy answer is available. There
is no case for taxpayers to look after the papers of great companies, just to save
shareholders the cost. They are responsible for their own heritage, like any other
community, and should be held accountable for it. In the vogue competitive model of
business, however, companies do not last for ever and cannot bear irrelevant
overheads. Much of our industrial history has been lost in takeovers. More will be.
Aside from selling ephemera to collectors, a sensible solution might be for companies
to endow their archives when times are good and to contract out their care to properly
financed commercial museum companies.
Before that can happen, a properly commercial archive industry would have to
develop. Museums conform to the immutable Law of Morally Superior Bodies.
Worthies believe their own higher purposes absolve them from standards they impose
on ordinary folk. Newspapers are secretive, police cars habitually break speed limits,
the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds kills birds and, as lenders such as
GEC-Marconi have discovered, many museums lose treasures or stuff them in the attic
for the rats. This will continue so long as they are above commercial disciplines and
can blame slackness on lack of funds.
In our cash-measured age, museums undervalue free gifts just as much as those
allowed to view them free undervalue the experience. If big companies apply their
business acumen to their own archive problems, they may help to revolutionise
museums and to give more hope for our less imediately glamourous heritage. Ideally,
museums should contract with companies, donors and trusts for a fee to store and
display treasures at legally enforcable standards. To help the transition, perhaps the
Government should set up Offmuse to vet and certificate those authorised to hold the
nation's archives.
This debate may do nothing for Mr Simpson's reputation as a corporate citizen. But it
could open great business opportunities for a new ethically conscious generation of
venturers.
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