THE AVAILABILITY OF THE PAST

Historic sites survive by accident. Previous generations either deemed them of sufficient value and importance not to demolish them, pillage the stone or rebuilt the site or the historic site was not in a key location and escaped redevelopment. Collections too, reflect more what

has survived, than any comprehensive record of the past. As Richard Doughty, Heritage Manager of the N. F.H.C observed;

"I think one of the biggest problems that the m u seum community has inherited is, f rom the way in which collections have been built up that they have to a very large extent collected passively and they have relied on people coming forward with offers of objects or collections of objects and they have not in any way sought to build up a representative collection and of course obviously the further you go back in time the harder it is to have a representative

collection so it is a subject fraught with problems" (Doughty 1992).

For a museum like Ryedale, which explores the local history of the area, the museum is swamped by gifts of flat irons, old sewing machines,

christening gowns, butter churns and the like. Its curator, Martin Watts, argues that in many ways the museum is as much a product of

culture, as the actual curator who selects and displays those artefacts. The Museum has been interested in acquiring a stone water trough of the type once found in most farm yards, but because these are now papular as garden tubs, the museum is yet to be offered one and would be unable tD purchase one at their present cost. Ironically the museum could have as many stone mill wheels as it wished, since these are not presently in demand. Museums, contain the objects society no longer has any use or need for. As Martin Watts remarked; "No one wants a hearse in their back garden, but somebody ought to have it. S o you end up having it in

the museum" (Watts 1992).

As with historic sites many of the objects that still survive are products of chance and accident. It tends to be the less fragile and hard wearing that survive- the flat irons and the mill wheels. As one goes further back in time, much less survives. Tolson is in the process of planning a new archaeology gallery, in which one of the key messages, as John Rumsby explained, will be;

"we are trying to say in the archaeology gallery, that everything in

the vallery is exceptional simply because it has survived and ^

therefore what it tells us about the past is biased in those terms (Rumsby 1992).

It is not only the less fragile material that is likely to survive, but that which society deems of value. Like many other museums the Ryedale Folk Museum has a large collection of Christening gowns, which have been carefully looked after and preserved by their original owners and then donated to the museum. This process can be seen in the extensive

collections of paintings, fine hangings, porcelain and objet d'art found in many Stately homes. As Roger Whitworth, the Yorkshire Regional

National Trust Historic Buildings Representative commented;

"The everyday mundane objects, purely because they are mundane and common place, tend not to survive, and are no longer available for display. It is the beautiful objects that have survived and the paintings of the wealthy who could commission portraits that have survived, which makes it inevitable that it is the objects of the rich that dominate displays such as Benningborough" (Whitworth 1992).

This tendency to preserve objects connected with the rich and powerful, was a theme taken up by John Rumsby who gave an example from a Military Museum he had previous worked in;

"You get lots of officers uniforms, very f e w other, very f e w other ranks uniforms. It is simply that they don't survive. Officer 's* uniforms were made of better material, they were more expensive, they were worn for a shorter time. Officers who left the army or what ever, had the space to put a uniform in and keep it for sentimental reasons, whereas other ranks, i f they still had their uniform after they left the army, wore it" (Rumsby 1992).

The accident of survival can therefore make the collection that the curator has to work with unrepresentative of the period they are seeking to recreate. The lack of material evidence thus constrains the themes or stories that can be explored. It is also the case that certain aspects of the past did not produce substantial material evidence. Martin Watts

further developed this point by giving the example oi the history of farm animals in Kyedale. Cows, horses and pig* ^ v e a much larger archive of material than sheep merely because they have much more "clobber" associated with them. let he arguesi

"The sheep had an enormous impact hut there is nothing left really

tn talk about. Sheeo are sheep, just a pair oi sneers, lull stop,

n e r e is no s p e c i e / miihing machines or f

Inevitably giving a coloured view oi histoiy Watts 1JVC