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Copyright: © Authors 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.63674/veve5246

Number of pages: 320

Number of illustrations: 14

Publication date: 3 December 2026

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Museums and Patronage

The History and Ethics of Industrial Funding

Scott Anthony (Editor), Alice Byrne (Editor), Harry Parker (Editor)

Open Access publication funded by AHRC

Raucous protests, disrupted exhibitions and soup-splattered artworks: in the present moment the corporate patronage of museums attracts controversy, conflict and media spectacle. But while the discourse is urgent and polarised, the problems are complex and long in the making. Museums have often relied on the support of industrial benefactors. Why have these relationships only recently been considered unethical?

Museums and Patronage addresses the issue of industrial sponsorship with a particular focus on museums of science and industry, institutions whose histories are inextricably tied up with industrial patrons. It features a range of examples from across Europe and North America from the nineteenth century to the present that explore how ethical dilemmas around the industrial patronage of STM heritage were the consequence of, as well as prompts for, larger social, cultural and political change. Themes include the role of individual patrons, professional development, political relationships with the state and future possibilities for ethical models. In the book’s epilogue, a roundtable of ethicists and museum professionals reflect on how the essays can help us navigate the problems of today.

This is a timely contribution to scholarship on museum history and an invaluable resource for policymakers and heritage practitioners grappling with present-day ethical dilemmas.

Introduction
Histories of museum patronage: three provocations and some novel possibilities
Part I Patrons
1 From humbug to high culture: P. T. Barnum and the cultural economics of nineteenth-century American museums
2 ‘The nature and art of patronage is subtle and delicate’: the Sainsbury family as patrons for Food for Thought: The Sainsbury Gallery at the Science Museum, London
3 Life Sciences, travelling exhibitions, audiences and corporate museum ownership: La Caixa’s Barcelona Science Museum, 1981–1993
Part II Professionals
4 A ‘crusade for museums’: education, patronage and the postwar modernisation of the museum at ICOM-UNESCO, 1946-1956
5 Professionalisation and patronage: an analysis of the professional history of the Danish Museum of Science and Technology since the 1950s
6 The Louvre heist: bureaucratic patronage, managerial failure and the post-cultural state
Part III Politics
7 Museums as ‘cultural patrons’: ideology, museology, and industry in Stalinist Poland
8 ‘A most altruistic form of advertising’: British cultural policy and the evolving ethics of state patronage
9 The Spirit Sings: museum legacies of extraction and activism in Canada
Part IV Possibilities
10 ‘A valuable insight into the British way of doing things’: the UK Atomic Energy Authority and the possibilities of public-private patronage at Expo 58
11 Landscape for a new museum: patronage and urban development at Ironbridge Gorge
12 Mining heritage and its patrons in the Ruhr Valley, Germany
Part V Ethics
Museums and Patronage: a closing roundtable featuring Dinah Casson, Sir Mark Jones, Camilla Rossi-Lindemann, Ines Prieto, Laura Ronzon and Michael Terwey
Afterword: Towards full disclosure? Shifting relationships between patrons and museums

PDF: 9781912250806

Hardback: 9781911507994 / 320 pages / 220mm x 144mm

Paperback: 9781912250783 / 320 pages / 216mm x 140mm

Scott Anthony (Editor)

Scott Anthony is Lead, Modern Britain at The National Archives. He was previously Deputy Head of Research & Public History for the Science Museum Group, where he was PI of the Museums and Industry: Long Histories of Collaboration project (MaILHoC). His books include The story of propaganda film (2024), Shell: art and advertising (2021), and Public relations and the making of modern Britain (2012).

Alice Byrne (Editor)

Alice Byrne is the former Co-I of the Museums and Industry: Long Histories of Collaboration project (MaILHoC) at Aix Marseille University where she is a senior lecturer in British Studies. Her current research focuses on international cultural relations in the context of colonialism and decolonisation.

Harry Parker (Editor)

Harry Parker was a Research Fellow on the Museums and Industry: Long Histories of Collaboration project (MaILHoC) and is now a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Leeds. His research focuses on the cultural and environmental history of modern Britain.

Subject: History, Social and Cultural History

BISAC codes: ART059000, BUS008000, BUS100000

Thema codes: ABQ, GLZ, JBCC8, KJG

Keywords: Funding, History of Science, Patronage, Sponsorship, ethics, museums