APPENDIX 1
Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Master of the Armouries (PAC 2000-01/153)
THE LEEDS
SUPPORT GROUP—QUESTIONS
31, 32, 33, 95, 109
Following the hearing, I contacted the Royal
Armouries Association at Leeds (the current name of what was the
Leeds Support Group) to check that my answers were correct. Members
of the Association agreed that at no time had the Support Group
criticised the management of the Royal Armouries in the manner
suggested at the hearing. They were disturbed that the name of
the Support Group was being used in an attack upon the museum
that the Association exists to help.
Question 31 suggested that the Support Group
was composed solely of "museum experts". This is not
the case. It did contain some people who did or had worked in
museums, but also collectors, enthusiasts, students of the subject,
members of re-enactment groups and those simply with a general
interest in helping a major new cultural project in the Leeds
area.
Question 33 mentions two people by name, Amanda
McCaig and Alan Radford. I have checked with the officers of the
Association and find that Ms McCaig left the Support Group in
1995—in a letter of 15 May 1995 she indicated that she was
not prepared to pay the membership fee that was then being introduced.
Existing records do not indicate when Alan Radford left, but the
memory of one officer is that, although he did attend the opening
in 1996, he was not a regular attender after 1994. Since the opening
of the museum Ms McCaig has attacked the museum and its management
in the local press. Her letter to the Committee[1]
should be seen as part of a personal campaign against the museum
not as a fair reflection of the views of the Support Group then
or the Association now.
G M Wilson
Master of the Armouries
1 May 2001
1 Not printed. Back
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