Professor Mary Beard addresses 'Who owns the past?' An Octavia Hill Lecture with the National Trust
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Published 2024-03-22
Professor Beard asks ‘Who owns the past?’ She examines what the past is for, how we can learn from and challenge it, and how we can bring it to life. Throughout her lecture, Professor Beard considers issues of authenticity and ownership and questions who makes the decisions about collection displays. She looks at how the past is reconstructed and how it's discussed and presented.
Professor Beard uses the National Trust and the historic houses in our care as a gateway to speak on wider debates around history, heritage and ownership, and to shed a light on what the past says about society and the wider world.
The histories, people and artefacts explored in this talk are drawn from a variety of the places in our care, including Dyrham Park in Gloucestershire, Wimpole in Cambridgeshire and The Children’s Country House at Sudbury in Derbyshire.
This lecture was recorded in front of a live audience on 19 March 2024 at The Royal Society, London, UK. We’re working in collaboration with Times Radio to bring history to everyone. Times Radio provides intelligent and thought-provoking live coverage of news, politics and culture. Together, through this series of annual lectures, respected voices and commentators lead us in reflecting on nature, beauty and history.
For more information about Times Radio, you can find it on their website.
Selective Bibliography for ‘Who owns the past?’ recommended by Professor Mary Beard as follows, or visit
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/discover/history/octavia-…
Jennifer Jenkins and Patrick James, From Acorn to Oak Tree: Growth of the National Trust, 1895-1994
John Gaze and Len Clark, Figures in a Landscape: History of the National Trust
Paula Weidegger, Gilding the Acorn: Behind the Facade of the National Trust
R. Fedden, The Continuing Purpose: A History of the National Trust, its Aims and Work
Merlin Waterson, The National Trust: The First Hundred Years
Howard Newby (ed), The National Trust: the next hundred years
More specialised and academic contributions include:
Elizabeth Baigent and Ben Clarke (eds), Octavia Hill, social activism and the remaking of British society
Melanie Hall, ‘The Politics of Collecting: the early aspirations of the National Trust, 1883-1913’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 13 (2003), 345-57
Gillian Darley, Octavia Hill: a life
C. R. Ashbee and the Guild of Handicraft (Cheltenham Art Gallery)
Patrick Wright, A Journey through Ruins
Patrick Wright, On Living in an Old County
Peter Mandler, The Fall and Rise of the Stately Home
Polly Bagnall and Sally Beck, Ferguson's Gang: The Remarkable Story of the National Trust Gangsters
Anna Hutton-North, Ferguson's Gang - The Maidens behind the Masks
Adrian Tinniswood, A History of Country House Visiting
Stephanie Barczewski, Country Houses and the British Empire, 1700-1930
Important ‘primary’ texts include:
Clough Williams-Ellis, On Trust For The Nation
C. R. Ashbee, American Sheaves & English Seed Corn: Being a Series of Addresses Mainly Delivered in the United States, 1900-1901.
G. M. Trevelyan, Must England's Beauty Perish?: A Plea on Behalf of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, The Gilt and the Gingerbread
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All Comments (7)
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Brilliant thank you
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This was a wonderful presentation! I'm just finishing my undergraduate thesis on Country Houses, the Interim Report, and cultural politics in places of collective heritage. You've arrived at many of the same conclusions I have and spoken them very well. I'm glad to see the trust continuing to open up conversations and new approaches in their properties to make the past come alive for newer generations. Professor Beard's point on explicitly instructing thought as being as exclusionary as red ropes was very well put!
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much appreciated and enjoyed.....
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I found one of the speakers statement interesting. The Trust complained about the original owner of Stonehenge surrounding it with barbed wire and charging 5d. Going there last year I found it was surround with wire and they were charging 25.00 pounds.
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I had been a member of the NT for over 30 years, sadly no more. 'National Trust" is more concerned with a Globalist agenda. I would encourage anyone still contributing to withdraw your support now.
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Anyone watching the videos online, reading the seasonal magazine or visiting any of the houses, can clearly see the obnoxious and encroaching DEI agenda. I don't think it's appropriate to lecture at the membership, to tell them it isn't happening. Can we please have a rebuttal? Or better still, a removal of the Quick Vote so that dissenting opinions can be presented without being suppressed?
