A Longer History of the Museum
In 2010 plans and fund raising are in an advanced state to relocate the Museum and create a major museum and heritage site at the Palace House and Palace House Stables.
In the spring of 1983 Howard Wright wrote an excellent article in Pacemaker magazine about the origins and formation of the then soon to be opened National Horsearcing Museum. Large extracts are gratefully quoted here.
Something Old, Something New…
The first National Horseracing Museum will be officially opened on 2,000 Guineas day. Howard Wright looks at the events which have led to it being set up.
David Swannell need have no fears about whiling away the hours following his recent retirement as the Jockey Club’s Senior Handicapper. He will simply assume a role as the Arthur Negus of racing.
The cap is a perfect fit, since Major Swannell was responsible for the introduction of a museum devoted to racing as part of the new grandstand opened at York in 1965, and was both instigator of and inspiration behind the National Horseracing Museum at Newmarket which the Queen will open on the morning of the 2000 Guineas on April 30.
Why British racing, from which all other countries have taken their lead, has never previously produced tangible and lasting public evidence of its equine heritage is a mystery. That it should do so now is the result of strenuous efforts by a relatively small number of individuals, whose goal has been to see established a fitting tribute to all aspects of the sport from which some get their living and millions take their pleasure. Without the vision and zeal of a handful of people, the National Horseracing Museum on the scale about to be unveiled to the public would still be a figment of Major Swannell’s imagination ; it would remain a dream he has nurtured for 20 years.
The York collection was founded on one item, a whip carried by John Osborne when he won the 1869 Derby on Pretender. He was the last Yorkshire-trained Derby winner at Epsom; the whip was the first exhibit around which Major Swannell, then secretary of the Country Stand at York, built his opening display of bits and pieces.
“It was intended purely as a northern museum,” says Major Swannell, “ but because there was nowhere else like it, we began to collect things from all over. No-one had heard of Arthur Negus then, and it was easy to get hold of memorabilia. Nowadays people have got an inflated idea of what things are worth and some of them are not so keen to loan items; they’d rather try and sell them at some enormous price. Still, the museum at York grew and grew, we got a little more room and expanded our range, but we were always going to be limited for space and had to work on a shoestring.”
The constraints of space were always likely to prove a difficult problem at York, whatever the level of enthusiasm among members of the local Race Committee, but it was not long before Major Swannell, like thousands of other visitors to the Derby Day 200 Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1979, was able to see what could be achieved by the professionals.
“I was enchanted by what I saw,” says Major Swannell. “I thought it was marvellous. The skill with which the team had set it up, from finest art to fascinating trivia, within small confines amazed me.”
The Royal Academy exhibition, commemorating the 200th running of the Derby, provided the spark that rekindled the fire in Major Swannell’s ambition, but though he got the go- ahead to produce a feasibility study for putting the York collection on a professional footing, the idea foundered. “For one reason or another York decided that if it was going to be on a national basis, they would need the approval of the turf Authorities,” he explains. “But when Lord Halifax approached the Senior Steward of the Jockey Club to see if they could support a National Racing Museum at York, I think they thought that if one was set up, it should be in Newmarket.”
There the matter rested, though when Major Swannell left Yorkshire in the autumn of 1979, returning to his native Northamptonshire and handing over his Country Stand job to John Sanderson, the idea went with him. It surfaced again in the summer of 1980 during conversation with another Clerk of the Course.
While discharging his duties as Jockey Club Handicapper, Major Swannell visited Yarmouth, and among his fellow overnight guests at a local hostelry was Nick Lees, Clerk of Course at Newmarket. Talk got round to the question of a national racing museum; Capt Lees said it ought to be at Newmarket, and from there the idea blossomed, fed by a piece of good fortune which no-one could have foreseen then and of which Major Swannell admits he had reservations when it presented itself.
Capt Lees’ trump card was that the Tote were relinquishing a building on the Rowley Mile course and he suggested it would make a possible site for the museum. Major Swannell was sufficiently interested, while admitting doubts about limitations of security and general appeal, to seek the advice of his great friend and neighbour David Oldrey, who as well as having run such useful horses at Crozier, Oats and Consol from the Peter Walwyn stable, is a chartered accountant and in Major Swannell’s words, “a financial expert”.
It was largely as a result of David Oldrey’s encouragement that Major Swannell got together a group of people to continue the exploration. They comprised Nick Lees; David Oldrey; Michael Wyatt, then Deputy Senior Steward of the Jockey Club; solicitor Wyndham Rogers, a friend of Major Swannell and a partner of Mr. Oldrey; and Robert Fellowes, the Jockey Club’s agent in Newmarket. Soon after, Lord Howard de Walden accepted an invitation to become chairman of a properly-organised council, from which Capt. Lees stepped down and Major Wyatt relinquished his watching brief, and to which were added the Marquess of Tavistock; Lord Halifax; Lt-Col Douglas Gray, Former director of the National Stud and present owner of the Stetchworth Park Stud at Newmarket; David Sieff, former President of the Racehorse Owners Association; and John Sanderson, to represent the link with York.
Having successfully applied for charitable status and turned the national museum into a limited company, so as to give it the business foundation the York venture never sought, the new council met for the first time in 1981. They faced an important but unexpected decision for Robert Fellows arrived with news that an opportunity had arisen to take over the lease of the Subscription Rooms, the attractive Regency building adjacent to the Jockey Club Rooms in Newmarket High Street. They were the headquarters for a local club, largely frequented by racing folk, but says Major Swannell, “They were apparently in financial difficulties and unlikely to be able to carry on over the turn of the year. The museum were asked if they were interested in taking over the lease and a majority element in the committee were in favour.
“I must admit I had reservations because of the financial question. It was going to be a big undertaking and I thought we were going to be pushed to collect the sort of money it would need.”
For once, Major Swannell was beaten, but the enthusiasm of his colleagues enabled him to carry on, and visitors to the new site will be able to appreciate how fortunate it was that the Subscription Rooms lease became available. The Rowley Mile position would have limited the venture largely to a static display of trivia; the move to a more accessible focal point in Newmarket has ensured that expensive works of art can take their place securely alongside the less serious but nonetheless valuable exhibits.
Yet the raising of finance to meet the £450,000 needed to cover the cost of opening the museum illustrates the industry of a small number of private individuals. “The committee decided to launch an appeal for funds,” Major Swannell explains, “but they thought it would be best to keep it private and raise the money within the confines of people in racing who might be interested. At the time, new premises for the Stable Lads Welfare Trust were being arranged in Newmarket and so we didn’t want to provoke adverse criticism that money was being spent on a museum when it might go towards what would be described as a more worthy causes. The committee were also aware that the public were already being encouraged to contribute to appeals connected with the Grand National and the Falklands War.”
It was natural that Major Swannell should return to his original source of inspiration, the Derby Day 200 exhibition, to acquire the expertise needed to mount a professional exercise worthy of the venture. Patricia Connor, as joint director and editor, and Ivor Heal, as a designer, had worked together on the Royal Academy exhibition; they produced the feasibility study for York that was not adopted, and now they were reunited for Newmarket.
The aim of the museum, with each of its six galleries devoted to a specific aspect, is to tell the story of racing through its characters, from horses to administrators, owners to gate men, and jockeys to stable lads.
At the beginning of 1983 32-year-old Richard Kilburn was appointed as the museum’s first curator. Mr Kilburn, a Yorkshire man educated at Pudsey, spent a year teaching Eskimo children in Labrador, and graduated in archaeology, geography and sociology at Durham University, before he joined a team responsible for setting up the Bede Museum, dedicated to the vulnerable monk, at Jarrow.
The refurbished Subscription Rooms says Richard Kilburn, had taken on “a very nice air” in time for the visit of the Queen on Guineas morning. Inside, the Queen will soon feel at home since she has loaned to the museum several pictures and items of memorabilia, while The Queen Mother has loaned a Sickert painting of King George V and his racing manager.
Photograph: Major David Swannell on the left and Richard Kilburn on the right.
Manchester City Art Gallery have loaned one of the most famous racing paintings, Frith’s Derby Day scene which was prominent at the Royal Academy in 1979; four paintings by Munnings have been sent from a museum at Dedham, including the famous Under Starters Orders; Stubbs’ paintings of Eclipse has been loaned by the Jockey Club; and 11 bronzes by Paul Skeaping have been donated by Paul Mellon.
“Our policy was to open with the best pictures we could borrow,” says Major Swannell, who nonetheless has maintained his sharpness of eye for what he calls “fascinating trivia”, The stuffed head of Persimmon, released by the Queen from Sandringham, presumably comes into the category, along with saddles, whips, horseshoes, even an invitation to Fred Archer’s wedding, much of which Major Swannell has at some time carted around in his car, á la Arthur Negus.
“We’ve been given an extraordinary spectrum of stuff,” said Major Swannell. “It really is amazing the things that lie about in people’s drawers and attics.”
The range has been quickly impressed on curator Richard Kilburn: “We’ve been very pleased with the response from individuals who’ve heard about the museum, and we hope material will continue to come in, so that we can ensure that when visitors come back for a second time there will be something fresh for them to see. Only recently Mr. Brian Bartholomew, who retired from running a shoe shop in Newmarket High Street, offered a collection of items which he had kept privately and included some very fine Jockey’s shoes, and even a pair of Lily Langtry’s boots. It’s things like these that will give our collection its depth and breadth.”
In one respect the National Horseracing Museum already has the perfect dimensions, following the significant decision by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and the National History Museum to transfer the skeleton from Eclipse from South Kensington to Newmarket. Previously on show by appointment only, Eclipse nevertheless attracted consistent attention from veterinary students keen to note the finer details of his admirable conformation and bone structure that made him such a giant in the 18th century. Now Eclipse becomes a major feature for the public visiting Newmarket and the irony will not be lost on David Swannell. [Eclipse’s skeleton has since returned to the Royal Veterinary College]
As a Jockey Club handicapper for 27years, it was David Swanell’s task to bring horses as near as was humanly possible. In retirement he finds himself a custodian of a horse whose exploits inspired one of the most famous sayings in racing “Eclipse first, the rest nowhere.” Maybe one day the same sentiment will be applied to Britain’s newest sporting museum.
Acknowledgement:
Howard Wright in Pacemaker magazine, 1983.