liverpoolmuseums.org.uk

@NML_Muse

National Museums Liverpool

Annual Review2015/16

liverpoolmuseums.org.uk

In 2016 we celebrate 30 years of being a national museum service, so in this report

we reflect on our achievements not just in 2015/16, but over the past three decades.

In recognition of the birth of National Museums Liverpool

in an impressive musical year, and of Liverpool’s major contribution to the pop music industry, we hope you enjoy our

1986 music-themed Annual Review.

Presenting our achievements in this way is fitting for a celebratory year, but it also serves as a

reminder of how important museums are to the economy, to our partners and to our

visitors from all over the world.

The role National Museums Liverpool plays in society is hugely important to the economy of the Liverpool City Region, as well as to the wider North West and UK. Culture is a vital part of community development and strengthening, and we are among the UK’s leading visitor attractions.

We thank all of our staff, trustees, volunteers, members, supporters, donors

and visitors for helping to make 2015/16 another impressive year despite testing times,

and we look forward to an exciting 2016/17.

We still face financial constraints, but we continue to work hard to find new ways to provide an exciting programme and

preserve our cultural heritage for generations to come.

This is as true in 2016 as it was in 1986, and it’s a privilege to continue to provide an internationally-

respected museum service for the enjoyment of all.

A note from our Director Dr David Fleming OBE

© Dave Jones

Our visitors

In 2015/16, we attracted more than 2.8

million visits – a healthy 7% increase on the previous year. Our

visitors come from around the world, and contribute to Liverpool’s growing

reputation as a top tourism destination.

This year more than one million visitors said that National Museums Liverpool was the main reason they

were visiting the city. This figure has grown since 2014/15, so we’re delighted that our museums and galleries continue

to be such a key attraction. Just over 37% of visitors were on staying trips, and 14% of visitors were

from overseas, primarily from Europe, but also from further afield, including North America,

Australia and New Zealand. Our waterfront museums – the International Slavery

Museum, Merseyside Maritime Museum, Museum of Liverpool and the Seized!

Gallery (Border Force National Museum) – are especially popular with our overseas visitors. At the same time as growing our international visitor base, we remain committed to our loyal local and regional visitors, and aim to offer families and communities a museum service of which they can be proud. This year, 34% of our

visitors were from the Liverpool City Region and a further 16% were from the wider North

West. Almost a quarter of our visitors (22%) came in family groups, reflecting our popular ongoing free

events programme and our reputation in the city region as a fun day out.

We are pleased that, in addition to the overall growth in visitor numbers, there was an increase in the

number of visits from people with disabilities and from those aged over 75. This reflects our

ongoing commitment to taking an active role in supporting health and wellbeing, and

our dedication to making our venues accessible for all.

© Dave Jones

© Dave Jones

We aim for every child within the Liverpool City Region to visit a National Museums Liverpool venue, and we welcome children from much further afield too. In 2015/16, more than 370,000 schoolchildren and young people benefited from educational visits to our museums.

During the year, more than 1,000 trainee teachers took part in a project to learn about the collections of our waterfront museums (the International Slavery Museum, Merseyside Maritime Museum and the Museum of Liverpool).

It was particularly exciting when we played host to the Destination Space programme. World Museum was

selected as one of 21 UK science centres and museums to celebrate the European Space

Agency’s first British astronaut, Tim Peake. Designed to inspire young people about

science and space, the project engaged more than 17,000 people through education visits and family-friendly activities.

More than 500,000 pupils in 58 countries tuned in live to see Tim’s video call to schoolchildren at World Museum. This

was his only video call to schoolchildren during his time in space as part of the

Times Educational Supplement (TES) #cosmicclassroom. The call resulted in seven

million Tweets and saw it trending in the UK for six hours – comparable with One Direction

releasing an album, or the US Presidential race!

Elsewhere across the museums our programme of free events engaged schoolchildren and young people,

adult learners, older people, families and community groups. Highlights in 2015/16 included 3,000 people attending Chinese New Year celebrations at the Lady Lever Art Gallery as part of a project to highlight the Gallery’s Chinese collections; students creating their own Magna Carta using stained glass (now on display at the International Slavery Museum’s Martin Luther King Junior building); and the award-winning Old Dock Tours, funded in partnership with Liverpool ONE, which continued to increase visitor numbers and receive enthusiastic feedback.

© Dave Jones

© Dave Jones

Our education offer

Our exhibitions

In 2015/16, we hosted 13 special exhibitions. These included

Mayas: revelation of an endless time at World Museum, in partnership

with the Mexican Government and the Mexican Institute of Anthropology and History

(INAH), for the Mexico-UK dual year of cultural cooperation 2015. This exhibition of 385 national

treasures from the ancient Maya civilization led to an 18% growth in visitor numbers at World Museum and

was visited by TRH The Prince Of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall.

It’s Glam Up North at the Museum of Liverpool, was curated by world-renowned

photographer Rankin in support of Claire House Children’s Hospice. The exhibition

featured artworks available for auction from Turner prizewinner Martin Creed, Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park CBE, and Peter Saville, Factory Records director, as well as works by Vivienne Westwood, Burberry, and Rankin himself. The new year of 2016 saw the return of Eye for Colour, our award-winning interactive exhibition for families, for its 10th anniversary. The exhibition has been

seen by more than one million people across the UK and Europe. Pre-Raphaelites: Beauty

and Rebellion opened at the Walker Art Gallery in February 2016. It featured more than 120 artworks

from institutions and private collections, including some never before seen in public.

Other highlights included Broken Lives, a powerful

exhibition about modern slavery in India, at the International Slavery Museum; Picturing Venice,

a beautiful collection of paintings at the Lady Lever Art Gallery; and On the Waterfront, an

exhibition marking the 300th anniversary of Liverpool’s Old Dock at the

Merseyside Maritime Museum.

© Gareth Jones

© Dave Jones

© Gareth Jones

Collections

Our collections are important historically, socially and culturally, and attract interest from our visitors, researchers, academics and other museums and organisations. In 2015/16, we loaned 6,000 objects from our vast and varied collections to UK partners and

34 to overseas venues, including major loans to an exhibition in Japan. This was a 63%

increase on the previous year and we worked with 12 more countries, making it

our busiest year to date for loans.

One of the most exciting achievements in 2015/16 was the redisplay at the Lady Lever Art Gallery of Lord Leverhulme’s outstanding collections of 18th century English furniture and portraiture, Chinese ceramics, Napoleon collections, Victorian

and early 20th century sculpture, and the world’s best collection of Wedgwood

jasperware. This was part of a £2.8 million refurbishment of the Gallery’s South End,

funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and others, to return the spaces to their original

architectural glory. Despite having to close part of the Gallery in 2015/16 for this work, we still saw

growing visitor numbers and engaged new audiences.

To further support access to our collections for people worldwide, we have added even more to our online collections, including antiquities, maritime history, decorative arts, archaeology, transport, art prints and social history. These new website pages have been very popular with the 2.1 million visitors who used our website in 2015/16.

© Dave Jones

© Mark McNulty

© P

ete

Carr

Our social impact

We believe that museums change lives, and our work in 2015/16 has contributed to

enhanced wellbeing, education, confidence and social connections.

For example, our award-winning House of Memories dementia programme has trained more than

10,000 carers across the UK, increasing partnerships across health, housing and family

care. We are currently responding to interest from the US, Japan and other countries

following a hugely successful year in the UK partnering with other museums, hospitals and healthcare bodies. Ed Vaizey MP, former Minister of State for Culture, referred to House of Memories in a BBC Radio 4 interview, as being a “good example of how you can put culture and heritage at the heart of what you do”.

In 2015/16 we worked with colleagues in many countries, including Argentina,

Australia, Austria, China, Finland, Georgia, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Norway,

Sweden and Ukraine. We are committed to making a difference locally in the Liverpool

City Region and North West area too. In 2015/16, we became the first museum service to sign up to

the Autism Charter, part of an innovative project by the Autism Alliance and the Department of Health, to build autism-friendly communities.

We also contributed to Liverpool’s One Magnificent City campaign in 2015, a six-week programme of events that saw the ‘Three Queens’ ships in the River Mersey for the first time, attracting more than one million visitors. To celebrate, we hosted a series of events at our waterfront museums, which included special displays, trails, family-friendly activities and private functions.

© Pete Carr

© Dave Jones

Our income generation

National Museums Liverpool continues to work

hard to supplement funding from the Department for Culture, Media and

Sport (DCMS) with self-generated income. We raised 31% of our total income in 2015/16,

amounting to £9 million.

We’re innovative in our income generation objectives in that all our commercial operations are fully managed in-

house. The teams are completely integrated into the wider organisational aims and all work undertaken in commercial

operations is for the direct benefit of National Museums Liverpool.A new income generation team was established to

maximise commercial opportunities and to develop sustainable projects, including the innovations

linked to the hugely successful Pre-Raphaelites: Beauty and Rebellion exhibition.

The group has developed feasibility studies for charged facilities and has streamlined the process for prioritising projects with the strongest business case. Plans are now in place to generate additional income through new models such as sharing our skills, developing exhibitions with touring income potential, increasing voluntary donations, and charging for elements of our offer.We have prepared for the launch of a new strategy to increase philanthropic support,

created a commercial strategy, and developed a framework to increase our advisory services.

We also continue to enhance our offer for business opportunities, such as corporate sponsorship and membership,

conferencing and private events.

Other income has included support from generous funders, including the Heritage Lottery Fund, Arts Council England,

Esmeé Fairbairn Collections Fund and significant personal donations, to develop and protect our

collections, build our audiences and bring culture to life. We thank all our supporters, including

trusts and foundations, sponsors and individuals, who have helped us

throughout 2015/16.

© Dave Jones

© Mark McNulty

Our achievements

Our achievements

2.1millionwebsite visits

17,000 learners worldwide join

our Massive Open Online

Course (MOOC)

7,000downloads of the My House of Memories mobile app

of visitors likely to recommend a visit

of our visitors told us they

were in Liverpool because

of our museums

1.1 million

31%self-generated

income

of our visitors come in family groups

6,000loans

to 150 venues

in UK and 34

overseas

51,000Facebook

fans

4 millionobjects in our

collections

That’s our oldest object – the material inside a meteorite, which fell in Mexico in 1969

4.6 billion years!

£9millionself-generated income

of our visitors are

from the Liverpool

City Region

£2.7mexternal

funding tosupportour work

13exhibitions

9k people took part in our Meet the Scientist events

of our visitors are from overseas

14%

£212k

came from

donation

boxes last yearTHANK

YOU

27kscones eaten

17k engaged with our

Destination Space

programme

2,000Instagramfollowers

684,856visits

264,776visits

765,368visits

MERSEYSIDE MARITIME MUSEUM

652,955visits

434,567visits

234,114visits

44,083visits

370,000children onschool visits

78,000Twitterfollowers

70,000marblessold

20,000canapes servedto our corporate

clients

5,000mediamentions

carers trainedas part of the House of Memories dementia programme

liverpoolmuseums.org.uk

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