Grant for museum display amid reparation calls

A museum has received a £100,000 grant to revisit its links with an African community amid a campaign for reparations.

Kendal Museum features a display of hunting trophies from western Kenya donated by Colonel Edgar Garston Harrison, a British Army officer who served there between 1895 and 1905.

Research from sociologist Dr Joe Rigby, an expert in the social and environmental history of Cumbria, discovered links between the collection and a campaign for reparations from the Nandi community in Kenya.

According to the project set up with the grant, the Nandi community was "cleared" from about 1,235 sq miles (3,200 sq km) by Harrison's troops, who destroyed their crops, homes and seized livestock.

The grant is funding the two-year project called "From Kenya to Kendal and back again: reconnecting communities through Kendal Museum's natural and social history collection".

Rigby, who grew up in Kendal and is a lecturer at the University of Chester, said he was working with Kendal Museum and Nandi community members "to retell the story of this collection, and to explore the shared history of Kendal and Nandi".

Harrison had funded an extension to Kendal Museum to house his collection and the museum presented him as a "benefactor" for decades.

But the project said research showed Harrison's life and collection were "deeply entangled with the violence of colonialism".

Westmorland and Furness Council, which owns the collection, said the project would bring the two communities together "to research and interpret the collections connected to their intertwined histories".

They would then work with the museum to help shape how they are represented in the future.

The Lib-dem led authority said cultural exchange opportunities would also be explored, with one idea being to invite keen runners from the Nandi community to a fell race in Cumbria.

The project will be delivered by the Cumbria Development Education Centre and the Nandi-Kendal Association.

Coordinator of the association, Kinyango Seroney, who is a member of the Nandi community living in the UK, said: "For the best part of a century Harrison's 'hunting trophies' have been on display to the people of Kendal, but without mention of Harrison's actions against the Nandi.

"After the operation led by Harrison, the Nandi were pushed out of their homelands and suffered great loss and pain."

A request to return cultural objects, such as horned instruments believed to have been taken from the Nandi community, has been submitted to Westmorland and Furness Council.

The authority said the project was not designed around "any predetermined outcome for the collection" and decisions on its future interpretations would be informed by "those most closely connected to them".

Cabinet member for culture Helen Chaffey said: "The project is about bringing people together to explore history, build new relationships and ensure that a wider range of voices help shape how our collections are understood and interpreted."

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