Stuart Butler – Radical Stroud

Walking a Pop-up Museum

I’ve been giving a question some thought: Can a walk (be it themed and purposeful or just ad hoc recreational) not only create a pop-up museum, in consequence, when back at home (individually and/or collectively), but also create a mobile pop-up museum itself whilst in the very act of walking?

Sometimes, of course, this happens automatically, serendipitously and solipsistically, when you’re out and about: that Penny Lane feeling: “And though she feels as if she’s in a play, she is anyway”, and that Truman Show illusion you get sometimes when staring at the world.

In short, when you’re Feeling Groovy, life seems to be a sort of pop-up museum … “Hello lamp-post, what you knowin’, I’ve come to watch your flowers growin’…” And you can get that flight of individual imagination whilst out walking in a group, too, of course, as well as on a solitary ramble …

I tend to drift in and out of company while out on a group-walk; in the main, I like to let my thoughts roam free and unconstrained, making unusual connections and correspondences; but, obviously, and on the other hand, we learn a lot from conversation too: ‘Every day’s a school day’ – surely, it’s only the arrogant fool who believe they know absolutely everything …

William Hazlitt, however, wrote a wonderful essay on the joys of solitary rambling back in the early 19^th century. It’s food for thought.

Where do you stand on walking and talking?
On rambling and ranting?
On orating and hiking?
I’m more of a Hazlitt strider myself:

‘One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey; but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room, but out of doors, Nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone … I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time … “Let me have a companion of my way,” says Sterne, “were it but to remark how the shadows lengthen as the sun declines.” It is beautifully said: but, in my opinion, this continual comparing of notes interferes with the involuntary impression of things upon the mind, and hurts the sentiment … ‘

I know what Hazlitt means:
Wordsworthian pantheism,
Or William Blake flights of fancy,
Or psycho-geographical musing,
Or Zen-style footfall mindfulness,
Are often inhibited by the clang of voices,
And the din of conversation;
But on other occasions, it’s true
That the knowledge of a companion
Can act as a stimulus to a new understanding,
Or a novel re-creation of a landscape;
And, sometimes, of course, we need to catch up
On ‘news’ with friends or family –
It is all, I suppose, a matter of balance:
A dynamic harmony of opposites
Help make for an enriching walk in company –
Sometimes alone, and sometimes alive
To conviviality and congeniality,
And sometimes finding empathy,
Shared meanings and understanding
When exploring the land in shared silence –
Followed by a post-ramble sharing
Of individual and collective experience
In mutual discourse on how we read our walk,
A deconstruction and re-creation
Of how we made sense of it all;
For as William Hazlitt put it:

‘I am for the synthetical method on a journey in preference to the analytical. I am content to lay in a stock of ideas then, and to examine and anatomise them afterwards. I want to see my vague notions float like the down of the thistle before the breeze, and not to have them entangled in the briars and thorns …’

Well said, William.

But it’s time now to return to pop-up museums. Let’s remind ourselves of what a pop-up museum is so that we can properly assess whether a walk fits the bill. What exactly is a pop-up museum? This is the definition we work with at Radical Stroud: a temporary exhibition carefully curated, but with changing displays created by visitors with a widening circle of participants: a sort of curated happening but with serendipitous happenstance: an inclusive community show and tell with artefacts and memories and texts and photos and artwork.

Well, a walk is certainly temporary; exhibits can include maps, photographs of the route from the past, documents, texts, artefacts carried in rucksacks etc.; the display obviously changes as the walk unfolds, and conversation adds to the mix; then talking with strangers and people you meet along the way widens the circle of participants; there might be information boards and plaques along the way, and we sometimes have a bit of performance on a walk – so it certainly can be ‘a sort of curated happening but with serendipitous happenstance: an inclusive community show and tell with artefacts and memories and texts and photos and artwork.’

We can all learn, of course, from the walking practices of different people and groups. When I accompanied Walking the Land, their practice often involved silent walking with occasional breaks for sketching, photography, writing, recording, video and so on. I often take photos not for social media but as an aide memoire for writing up later – I deliberately avoid making notes so as to strengthen my powers of recall. I write long hand at home first of all: I feel that my mind is more creative and lateral when not circumscribed by the linear A-Z keyboard of my computer.

When on seaside walks with my family, I collect driftwood, and pen lines about the day. Some we leave around the house or in the garden as surprise ‘theatres of memory’ while there is also the joy of seeing pieces in my daughters’ homes celebrating the birth of their children. Stroud railway station has an information board that echoes those acts of creation: NATURE WEAVING

When you next go out on a walk make a collection of natural items that you find interesting. These could be twigs, bark and leaves and fallen feathers. If you have some additional items such as wool at home use these too.

When you are at home make yourself an easy weaving board out of thick cardboard and carefully cut some matching slots at the top and the bottom of the card (about A5 size).

Next, take a long length of wool or string and wrap it around the slots … Once you have completed wrapping the wool around the cardboard start adding your finds from your walk and any additional materials you may have at home.

Attach the items by putting them under and over alternate threads on the board … do the same with pieces of wool or anything else you would like to add.

Charlotte Rooney is a colleague who is also worth following when out on a walk:

“I have always been a bit of a magpie when out and about, unable to resist picking up anything that catches my eye – leaves, feathers, sticks, stones, bits of rusty metal. Sometimes these things form the basis of simple creations or photos or ‘organisings’ that I make when I get home.

It’s hard to deconstruct what feels like such an instinctive, organic act – I hesitate even to call it a practice, it’s just what I do. If pushed, I would say that there’s something in the act of walking – as many artists and writers will attest to – that allows for untethered thought, a state of mind that enables loose connections to be made, for the subconscious to churn away doing its thing. Maybe this informs what I collect. Certainly, if I am walking with a theme or intent in mind, it shapes what catches my eye, what commands my attention, though just as often the connections are only apparent when I get home, sift through my haul, let my hands and mind wander over the objects I unearth from pockets and bag.

In this way, at the end of a walk I’ve often assembled a miniature, ephemeral, temporary cabinet of curiosities – items that are assembled randomly for the love of the things themselves and their intrinsic, aesthetic beauty – but for all that, sometimes a coherent story can arise from the collection even if was not the collector’s intent.”

And now some words from another colleague: KATIE MCCUE:

‘A corner of a path turned, a brow of a hill reached, a sweeping vista revealed, a secret glade beckoning.

Whether experiencing the joys of a flaneur or being guided by those who now more than I will ever know, (of history, geology, politics or nature) … I see in my own way.

Now seeing is different to looking and my way of seeing is full of shape, colour, movement, light & dark whether macroscopic or microscopic.

Seeing is a feeling thing and an act of creation in itself, it’s an inspiration that often fills me with a need to write or paint or draw.

A guided walk triggers my imagination to people the landscape with folk from the past. I see the men and women of pre-history before our valleys were formed by se and glaciers. I see the medieval farmers in ancient fields, I see the workers and weavers, I see laughing Victorian children paddling in streams, I see the tired eyes of children working in the mills.

These same images can come to mind when I wander as a flaneur with no particular plan in mind. However, it is these walks that truly make my soul sing & my eyes drink in the sight of an insect, the pattern of grasses in the wind, the way the light filters through trees when I stand so small beneath the canopy looking up.

I see in my own way. It feeds my creativity.’

That mention of creativity by Katie reminds me of the notion of writing your own heritage trails – old railway lines offer such scope for industrial archaeology, oral history/memory collection, Shelleyesque Ozymandian reflection, and also William Blake’s doors of perception.

I begin with industrial archaeology at the site of the old Dudbridge railway station in Stroud. These are my words for the nascent heritage trail on the branch line to Nailsworth:

Dudbridge Railway Station

I often walk the cycle track below Rodborough Hill,
The old Midland Railway spur from Dudbridge,
And I often cycle the track on to Nailsworth,
Musing on the springs and watercourses, the ancient holloways,
The Roman villa, medieval ridge and furrow, the woollen mills,
The occasional mill chimney, still rising high into the Stroudwater sky.

But, today, I stand at the blue brick retaining wall

At the old Dudbridge railway station,

Watching the cars career around the roundabout,

Drivers mostly oblivious of the history of Dudbridge;

But when I ignore the roar of the traffic,

And I find my mind’s historical eye,

I can see a medieval pilgrim crossing the bridge,

A packhorse with Cotswold wool a mile behind.

For here I stand by the confluence of two rivers.

But also, at the junction of two railway lines:

The interface of water power and steam power,

The inexorable march of the industrial revolution:

Foundries and forges and furnaces

And cranes and pulleys and chains and smoke:

A century-old pandemonium at Dudbridge,

Where once there was an orchard and there is still a Meadow Lane.

Carefully cross the road and study the information plaques

On the wall at Sainsburys; the clothier’s 1646 doorway too;

The inscription at REDLERS from 1910;

The information board at Kimmins Mill,

Then retrace your steps carefully back to the blue brick wall,

And recite these words from T.S. Eliot to yourself:
“And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

Now for Ozymandias (and the industrial relics on the cycle track spur of the Nailsworth line running from Stroud through Rodborough to Dudbridge):

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

It’s a motif that runs through much of my rambling.

But it’s getting to the point where I need to conclude this opening chapter. This essay is turning (indeliberately) into a self-referential piece of writing: the piece is almost turning into a performative pop-up museum itself. Time to stop before I get carried away with myself. I’ll finish with a nod to William Blake which will add as a bridge to the next post on this subject.

‘To see a World in Grain of Sand,

And Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,

And Eternity in an hour.’

It’s another motif.

Pop-up Museums Musing

Radical Stroud and Pop-up Museums

I suppose we ought to start this piece with our own working-definition of a Pop-up Museum: ‘a temporary exhibition carefully curated, but with changing displays created by visitors with a widening circle of participants: a sort of curated happening but with serendipitous happenstance: an inclusive community show and tell with artefacts and memories and texts and photos and artwork.

We have created such museums in pubs and art spaces and churches before – Rodborough Church, The Prince Albert, Stroud Valley Arts, the Gloucestershire Regimental Museum in Gloucester. We hope to create further pop-up museums in the future: a further Railway Pop-Up Museum (hopefully at the railway station or again at SVA or The Prince Albert) and a series of Stroud community pop-ups (again at SVA or The Prince Albert or in a church or at a closed-down shop or even in the streets).

The possible benefits are obvious: attracting people who wouldn’t normally visit museums might be one. Encouraging people (including some who wouldn’t normally feel that they had anything important to say) to speak in public in a group, or one-to-one with a ‘curator’, could be another. Encouraging people to visit ‘proper’ museums in Stroud, Gloucester, Cirencester, Cheltenham, Bristol and Bath etc. could be another. Revitalising closed-down shops might be another.

But let’s leave our area now; indeed, let’s leave the country, via some perceptive observations from Nora Grant in the USA: ‘Pop Up Museums: Participant-Created Ephemeral Exhibitions’:

‘The term “pop-up” has become an international buzzword used to describe ephemeral, experimental projects—from pop-up restaurants to pop-up boutiques—but a pop-up museum is still puzzling: how can you take something as substantial and precious as a museum and add a pop-up twist? What happens when you do?

At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH), we host “pop up museums” (we do not hyphenate the name) that are both ephemeral and mobile; however, content comes from participants rather than museum staff or museum collections. Part exhibition, part program, part story-potluck, our pop up museums offer a hybrid experience that allow us to facilitate conversations around community issues and personal stories.

How does this work? Imagine a potluck in which, instead of a dish, everyone brings an object and/or story to share with others. We collaborate with community partners and choose the pop up museum’s theme and venue together. We then invite people to bring something on-topic to share … Our primary goal for pop up museums is to bring people together in conversation through stories, art, history, and objects …but by calling it a “museum” the project encourages people to rethink museum spaces and experiences. The Name “Museum” Sparks Confusion—But Also Meaningful Conversations.’

‘During the event, one participant commented, “People were willing to talk about what they made, how and why. And it can be loud, unlike museums. I think of museums as . . . you can’t touch anything, you can’t be noisy. It’s nice how you can touch anything. It was casual, but official-feeling at the same time.” This participant’s comment suggests a discomfort with museum spaces and with the inability to touch exhibited content. The pop up museum offers a hands-on experience in which people can touch the objects and speak directly with the exhibitor. We all have interesting things, but people rarely share them with strangers or display them in a museum context. Calling it a “pop up exhibition” or a “pop up show” would describe the physical structure, but it wouldn’t ignite as much conversation about the conceptual space of a museum. We want the project to activate museum space both physically and conceptually.’

‘The pop up museum is a fill-in-the-blanks space that prioritizes conversation over objects. Call it relational aesthetics, potluck, exhibition, museum, or non-museum—its changeability is its charm. Our primary goal for pop up museums is to bring people together in conversation through stories, art, history, and objects.’

I suppose, too, that pop-up museums could be, in a way, virtual and on-line. We have been collecting family stories here at Radical Stroud with ‘A People’s History A Miscellany of History A Textual Weaving of a Cabinet of Curiosities A Textual Sampler’ – we have been adding chapters over the last couple of years and when complete, we shall put in all online in one continuous post. This incremental story-telling has involved the local history society and the community at large. It is a model, perhaps, for future engagement in the locality on different themes. (We have also posted on how to create your own museum and how to create tongue in cheek ludic ‘counter-heritage’ events: see links at the end.)

But it’s time now for a bit of on the other handery, courtesy of Eben Diskin and the USA again (2021): ‘It’s Time to Stop Using the Word “Museum” to Describe Pop-Up Museums’:

Eben enjoys ‘mindless family excursions as much as anyone else, but pop-up museums are more than just benign diversions – they’re a symbol of the growing culture … where people think of themselves as the main character in their own movie. Now that’s metastasizing from social media to our cultural and intellectual institutions… As a highly efficient vehicle for vanity and self-aggrandizement, social media has been the primary catalyst of “me” culture … Pop-up museums are an extension of this … to offer museum-esque experiences without the learning or cultural value. They capitalize on our vanity and shrinking attention spans to tempt people away from museums with actual cultural significance. They contribute to the anti-intellectualization of culture.’

Well, I don’t disagree with some of that. And I don’t agree with some of that too. But it’s good to be mindful of such a polemic to keep us on our toes. But I finish this section with another trip to America as a judgment on the above: “It Ain’t Necessarily So”.

Now to conclude: we started off with our definition of the pop-up museum; but what definition of museum should we use? Here is the International Council of Museums 2022 definition: ‘A museum is a not-for-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage. Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing.’

We look forward to contributing further to that ethos in our own idiosyncratic pop-up manner, so as to build upon our successes and achievements outlined in the second paragraph. We have the experience and expertise to take this further on the GWR, in Stroud, the county or region. We have developed a model that others can use and would be more than willing to talk about the nuts and bolts of our pop-up practice so as to spread the word.

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/you-dont-have-to-be-rich-or-famous-to/

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/making-your-own-museum-guerrilla/

STOP PRESS!

Making pop-ups in the moment to catch the mood: I have created two over the last couple of days to catch the attention of passers-by as they walk past our front garden. One was for the Mexico v England football match involving an England shirt, a football, a pair of old football boots, two pieces of Stroud scarlet cloth, and a poem about the historic links between Stroud scarlet cloth and Mexico (the cochineal beetle). There will be a performance of the poem at the local pub showing the match in the early hours, with the possibility of further group performance in the event of an England victory.

The other pop-up involves two collages created to mark the 250^th anniversary of the USA. These will be co-created with my colleague Katie McCue and displayed in the front garden of my house. It will also feature on social media, as has the football creation.

England v Mexico

Rodborough Fields

Mexico v England

The Prince Albert

Estadio Azteca

Hard to imagine these places conjoined

By anything other than a football match,

But the cochineal beetle from Mexico

Provided the dye for Stroud scarlet cloth,

Once stretched out on tenterhooks

In Rodborough Fields,

As in that iconic painting.

We too shall be on tenterhooks, but in the pub.

But if we win, in the gloaming after the match,

I shall stretch out a piece of Stroud scarlet cloth

In Rodborough Fields in quiet celebration.

Forest of Dean, the GWR and the General Strike

Radical Stroud day out on Thursday July 2nd: a look at the Dean Forest Railway and a reflection on the 1926 General Strike in the Forest of Dean and on the GWR. Nine o’clock train to Gloucester and we’ll see what happens after that. Who knows? Be good to see you if you fancy it.

Glocal History and Stroud

The Museum in the Park

Local and Global History

‘Glocal History’

A Critique

Let me say at the outset of this critique that I absolutely love the Museum in the Park and I absolutely love visiting there to learn more about Stroud’s local history: my Stroud connections go back for generations and I’ve been a regular visitor to the museum as historian, teacher, father and grand-father for donkey’s years.

I cherish that feeling of losing myself in its successive cabinets of curiosities, rather like Alice through the Looking Glass.

The museum is indeed a treasure: it’s free; there are a variety of activities for children; the staff always welcome visitors, as do the initial notices: ‘Discover and Explore’; ‘Welcome to the Museum Wander whichever way you choose Look, listen, linger … Ask if you want to know more.’ Which is what I am about to do.

The museum is a wonderful example of how to exhibit local history and tell tales of local heritage. But I wonder if something is missing when we discover and explore and wander whichever way we choose, looking, listening and lingering … are the links between Stroud & district’s history and global history missing? How can the museum fill that gap?

Admittedly there is a room entitled Worldwide Impact; and, elsewhere, Home from Home Our Migration Stories with some contextual information about colonialism, empire, enslavement, migration, and another information board Missing Histories Black presence in Georgian and Victorian Gloucestershire – but it felt like a bit of a bolt-on to some degree. A valiant effort when space is at a premium, it is true, for it would be impossible to change the existing overall lay-out, but I ask: ‘Would it be possible to find space somewhere for a permanent display, or temporary exhibitions, so as to expand on that contextual information about colonialism, empire and enslavement, so as to give it some emphasis to their local connections?’

Talking of which, on the day of my visit in June 2026, I noticed an exhibit in a display case, Stroudwater Strip by Fay Allwood: ‘Contemporary artists and students are always being inspired by the Museum’s collection which is displayed in the old mansion house you see across the courtyard. This piece of textile art references the Wallbridge painting showing strips of red, blue and white cloth drying in green fields in the late 1700s. It also celebrates the teasel, a significant plant in local textile history.’

If you have created work inspired by the museum or garden and would like to show it here, please let us know! Email museum@stroud.gov.uk

Well, I suppose that is what I am doing as I write this critique.

But I have also, of course, created work in the past with colleagues at Radical Stroud about Stroud scarlet and its global links: exhibitions (with performance) at the Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum (July-September 2023) and Stroud Valley Arts (November 2022). I have written extensively about this history at www.radicalstroud.co.uk and was a member of the original committee looking at the Black Boy Clock for SDC (as well as co-writing the script for Freedom’s Arch to celebrate the abolition arch with a performance at Archway School at the turn of the century). More recently, I teamed up with Black Ark Media and the GWR for the development of a Black History map linked to the county’s railway stations. Radical Stroud is also currently receiving support for permanent and temporary exhibitions at Stroud railway station, including:

‘A Pop-Up Museum: a temporary exhibition carefully created and curated but with changing displays created by visitors with a widening circle of participants: a sort of curated happening with serendipitous happenstance: an inclusive community show and tell with artefacts and memories and texts and photos and artwork.

We have created such museums in pubs and art spaces and churches before – we now intend to create a Railway Pop-Up Museum. Watch this space!’

Stuart Butler and Katie McCue

www.radicalstroud.co.uk

Here endeth chapter one of this critique. Thank you for reading it and I hope you have enjoyed reading it. Chapter two – based on observations made at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum – to follow.

Chapter Two

The Museum in the Park

Local and Global History

‘Glocal History’

A Critique

An account of my visit to Kelvingrove: transcripts from information boards

Racism –

a legacy of Empire

Glasgow Life Museums has a legal and moral duty to play its part in eliminating the evil of racism in our city. Racism has its roots in transatlantic slavery and colonialism. Both systems have been crucial in the development of Glasgow as a city, as well as its museums. As museums engage people with the past, we can do more to build on understanding of how racism has developed as a legacy of colonialism.

Regardless of the colour of our skin, we should all have the right to access culture and heritage equally. That heritage should be presented as honestly and fully as possible, which involves confronting how racism is part of our history.

Some of our galleries, displays and narratives no longer reflect Glasgow Life Museums’ views or ambitions when it comes to tackling racism and addressing the legacies of slavery and empire. We know we can do more, and we are examining the museums service to identify how we need to change.

Language

Language is constantly evolving and we are reviewing the way we write and speak about racism, slavery and colonialism. Here are some of the key words that we think are relevant to this work, taken from sources such as Oxford Languages, Museums Galleries Scotland, and the Merriam-Webster dictionary. If you have any comments or would like to suggest other words, get in touch with us at VisitorStudies@glasgowlife.org.uk

Colonialism

The policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.

Legacies

Things transmitted by, or received from, an ancestor or predecessor or from the past. In this context, historic events which have had consequences that shape present-day societies.

Race

A social construct (that is, human invention) based on skin colour and facial features (shape of eyes, nose, lips, hair texture etc.). Even if it isn’t biologically ‘real’, its impact on people is very much a reality.

White supremacy

The belief that white people are a superior race and should dominate society, typically to the exclusion of other racial and ethnic groups.

Empire

An empire is where a central or main power rules over other territories outside of the main power’s original borders.

Chattel Slavery

A form of slavery in which the enslaved person is treated as a piece of property belonging to their owner. An enslaved person under this system has no rights, and they remain enslaved for life. Any children born to an enslaved person are also then enslaved for life.

Racism

A belief that one group of people is inferior or superior to another because of their race.

Scotland

and

Empire

Between the mid-1600s and the mid-1900s, Britain aggressively developed an overseas empire. People from all over Scotland were participants in, and drivers of, the British Empire both at home and overseas. They were politicians, enslavers, traders, colonial administrators, soldiers, missionaries, voluntary and forced migrants.

Scotland’s wealth grew significantly as a result of its involvement in transatlantic chattel slavery. This wealth was built on exploitation of, and violence committed against, people round the world. Money from slavery, and subsequently Empire, has been invested in many areas of Scottish society, such as industry, agriculture, railways, buildings and our museums. Resources from former British colonies fuelled several of Glasgow’s industries. Many of the counties that were exploited through colonisation remain economically underdeveloped as a result. Racist ideas were used to justify that exploitation, the legacies of which we are still grappling with today.

Have your say!

The aim of the Kelvingrove Museum of Empire project is to spark discussions about the legacies of slavery and empire, and how they can be represented in future displays in Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

We’ve made temporary additions to existing displays throughout the galleries – have a look around and see if you can find them. Have they had an effect on how you look at things in the museum? We recognise that Kelvingrove’s current perspectives and the stories we tell will require change. How would you like to see us use the city’s collections and spaces to tell the history of slavery and empire?

Share your thoughts by scanning the QR code below or by emailing VisitorStudies@glasgowlife.org.uk

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum is a museum of empire. The original museum was housed in the former home of Lord Provost Patrick Colquhoun, a tobacco merchant, who was involved in the enslavement of African people. Wealthy individuals who made their money as a result of British colonialism donated works to the collection. For example: Still-life: Herrings, Cherries and Glassware, which you can see in the Dutch Art Gallery, was one of those given by Cecilia Douglas. Her family owned plantations in the Caribbean that were worked by enslaved people. Some other objects were looted by the armed forces of the British Empire. But there are few objects or artworks depicting Black, Asian and other minoritised people.

Glasgow Museums is exploring how Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum can better address the legacies of transatlantic slavery and the British Empire. We want to spark discussions around these legacies, to help shape future displays in Kelvingrove. Throughout the galleries, you’ll see that we’ve highlighted some of the untold stories behind the collections. However, there are many more stories to tell and we’re working towards better understanding how these stories can be told.

These words sit above ‘a painting by John Lavery of the 1888 International Exhibition … It was a celebration of Glasgow’s industries and the British Empire. The money raised from ticket sales went towards building the current Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.’

So far we have worked with

the Shared Cultural Heritage Changemakers – a group of young people exploring the shared cultures and histories of the United Kingdom and South Asia
Kelvingrove Museum of Empire Advisory Group:

Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights, a strategic anti-racist charity based in Glasgow

Curating Discomfort – a project based at the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow, looking at ways outside of traditional museum approaches to explore how we talk about collections, and which take us out of our traditional comfort zones, and

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion in Scottish Heritage, University of Strathclyde, funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council

Glasgow – City of Empire

Slavery and colonisation shaped the world we now live in. Wealth flowed into cities such as Glasgow from the exploitation of enslaved and colonised peoples and lands, funding civic development and even the creation of museums such as Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

These displays were co-curated with members of Our Shared Cultural Heritage Changemakers, a group of young people exploring the shared cultures and histories of the United Kingdom and South Asia.

Let us know how you think Glasgow Life Museums should address the histories and legacies of slavery and empire by scanning the QR code.

Scan this QR code to listen to a free audio tour and learn more about empire and Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

I include an example of a painting I saw on my quick visit in May 2026 as an example:

View of Glasgow and the Cathedral, about 1840

and placed next to the painting:

‘This painting shows Glasgow as seen from the Necropolis. The wealth of its donor, Alexander Dennistoun, came from cotton – an industry reliant on the exploitation of enslaved people until the 1860s.’

Chapter Three

The Museum in the Park

Local and Global History

‘Glocal History’

Some final brief thoughts

There is now an information board opposite the Black Boy clock in town with directions for a walk to the unique abolition arch at Paganhill. I suppose in an ideal world in the future there might be directions from there to the Museum in the Park with its linked exhibitions/exhibits.

The west country stretching from Bristol and Bath northwards through Gloucestershire was, of course, populated by a large number of enslavers who benefitted so much from abolition of chattel slavery. The Stroud area, too, of course. It might be salutary, I think, to see that information somewhere. But where?

Similarly, some Stroudwater mills did very well out of their contracts with the East India Company. Again, I think it would be educative for people to be able to discover this easily.

Then there are the connections between the cloth trade, uniforms, war, the British Empire, colonialism and the locality. I have written extensively on these topics at www.radicalstroud.co.uk and even started to develop educational resources at https://radicalstroud.co.uk/decolonising-stroud-and-the-five-valleys/

As regards migration and railways, I noticed the old sign post for the crossing at St Mary’s at Chalford – there is a fascinating history here that could, perhaps, feature quite soon. The following family history has been created into a collage with the family and that collage would be a brilliant addition: it’s a unique tale.

Roydel Duncan and Zettelyn Duncan

Life on the Railway

Roydel Clifton Duncan (Roy):

Dad came to England from St Catherine Jamaica in 1956. He started working for British Rail in the early 1960’s at Stroud station as a station porter. He also did ticket office and shunting work and lighting the signal lamps. Dad would walk from Stroud Station through to Sapperton short and long tunnels. Dad had to leave his railway job because the wage was not sufficient for the family of my mum, my older brother and my sister.

Zettelyn Duncan

Zettelyn Zoana Duncan (Zetty):

Mum came to England from Westmoreland Jamaica in 1962.

Dad was notified of job vacancy on the railway. British Rail wanted a resident crossing keeper at St Mary’s level crossing. Dad and Mum were living at Horns Road Stroud at the time with my brother Carlton and sister Sharon. Mum was expecting a third child: brother– Tony in 1965. Tony would join Network Rail in 2001, based at St Mary’s level crossing and then Alstone Level crossing.

But Mum decided to apply for the job. The interview was at Bristol. British Railways accepted Mum’s application for the job. Mum would work at St Mary’s level crossing for the next 43 years under the guises of British Rail, Railtrack, and Network Rail. Mum worked the Crossing 24/7 except Thursday, when the railway gave mum a few hours off duty- what they called shopping hours. They would get a colleague to cover the Level crossing. Mum worked day and night all seasons, sun, rain or snow, working with levers to control the semaphore to Annetts Keys. She saw the change of the railway from steam trains to diesel trains operating on the railway lines.

Mum went to Railway Management about her working conditions; they eventually changed her working hours. In 1991 Mum got a 25^th Anniversary award. Mum was presented with a clock by the British Railway regional manager. When Mum retired in March 2009, I took Mum’s position and presently work and live at St Mary’s level Crossing.

Isaac

Isaac Duncan

Back to overall context: obviously, the last thing I want to do is to create traction for any ‘culture-wars’, I’m just trying to see how a few gaps might be filled in the heritage jigsaw: I wonder if we could create a pop-up museum and seek funding from somewhere alongside Black Ark Media. Perhaps SVA could provide space … thoughts for the future.

I conclude with an article from Good on Paper that I wrote for our exhibition at SVA. I use much of this piece as an introduction to talks I give to local history societies and other groups.

Thank you for your time,

Stuart

Stroud Scarlet Exhibition SVA November Radical Stroud

I can’t truthfully say I’m a local. I wasn’t born here. My gran was in 1891, though, and Granny Bingham’s family stretch back to Steanbridge and Slad and the early 18^th century. They were handloom weavers and spinners – so I suppose you could say that my family have been connected to Stroud scarlet for centuries. It was family history that brought me to Stroud: I like to feel connected to a place through time.

Then when I read about weavers’ strikes and direct action and how Lieutenant Wolfe (the future General Wolfe who would be killed in the redcoats’ storming of Quebec in 1759) led redcoat soldiers against the people who made the cloth for their redcoats, my interest in the world-famous Stroud scarlet took me way beyond the familial and the parochial. To the global.

But before that, here are some observations from Colonel Wolfe about our locality: ‘The people are so oppressed, so poor and so wretched, that they will, perhaps, hazard a knock on the pate for bread and clothes.’ ‘The poor half-starved weavers…beg about the country for food…the masters have beat down their wages too low to live upon, and I believe it is a just complaint.’ ‘Those who are most oppressed have seized the tools and broke the looms of others who would work if they could.’

Now to the global – I began to wonder if Stroud scarlet might have been carried to Bristol and then on to Africa as part of the Atlantic slave trade. I knew the cloth had been traded with the Iroquois; and traded with other First Nations peoples, way beyond the Mississippi, and was fundamental to the dark arts of the East India Company on the other side of the world. But it was difficult to categorically prove that Stroud scarlet went directly to Africa even though it felt counter-intuitive that it would not have done. After all, coaches and carts travelled from here to Bristol, and vessels from Gloucester to Bristol: and Bristol was for a while in the 18^th century, the foremost port involved in the enslavement of African peoples.

But my focus shifted after reading more widely on enslavement, the enslaving plantocracy in the West Indies, and the military infrastructure that ultimately underpinned plantocratic power in the British colonies in the Caribbean via martial law. For not only would you have found regiments clad in red – but plantation owners and the like would often deliberately wear red clothing to intimidate the enslaved. Vincent Brown in his Tacky’s Revolt The Story of an Atlantic Trade War mentioned the observations of one James Knight: ‘’When [the slaves] see the White People Muster or Exercise, it strikes an awe or terrour into them.” ‘Brown wrote that ‘Slaves generally avoided anyone wearing a red coat, like those worn by grenadiers’ … and in consequence “some Gentlemen put on a coat of that Colour when they Travell” to deter trouble on the roads.’

Further, it is a salutary thing, perhaps, to reflect on the following when visiting the abolition arch in Paganhill: the enslaved were not free immediately after the 1834 Abolition Act; instead, a four year ‘apprenticeship’ followed. Direct action followed from freedom-seekers in Guiana, Montserrat, Nevis, and Jamaica, and as Padraic X. Scanlon reported in Slave Empire How Slavery Built Modern Britain ‘redcoats’ were used as last resort to quell these demands for freedom: for example, in Jamaica, the 39th Regiment was called into action: two companies under the command of Sir Henry Macleod: ‘The strikers, faced with ranks of armed redcoats, returned to work, and Macleod left behind one of his two companies to maintain order.’

The 18^th and 19^th centuries were a time of almost endemic war for this country. Warfare against France; warfare against other European powers, war at sea, war on land, and colonial warfare across the globe. Our exhibition will reflect this age of imperial expansion – not just by remembering Stroud scarlet cloth and redcoats, but also with poems from Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipliing and Sir Henry Newbolt. It might have been said that ‘The sun never sets on the British Empire’ but as the Chartist poet, Ernest Jones commented, ‘And the blood never dries.’

Our exhibition reflects this interweaving of the local, the national, and the global (can such a thing as ‘local history’ really exist?) and will also advert to the age of the Anthropocene, the Capitalocene, and Ecocide. The dye for the Stroud scarlet cloth came from the cochineal beetle: a sessile parasite that lives on the moisture and nutrients of cacti, that die when removed from the prickly pear, to be dried for the resultant carmine dye. And all that meant ‘slash and burn’ in the Americas, so as to cultivate the prickly pear, so as to extract the carminic acid from the female cochineal beetle (about one fifth of the body weight), by immersing the female cochineal in hot water, steam, ovens or sunlight in an exploitation of both fauna and flora: One lb. of carmine dye needed 70,000 insects.

Our exhibition will reveal this broad canvas of history, with contributions from Charlotte Rooney, Jon Seagrave (aka Jonny Fluffypunk), Paul Southcott, Deb Roberts, and myself. The exhibition is on at SVA from Friday November 11^th – Saturday November 19^th (10-3pm; closed Sunday, Monday and Tuesday) . There will be a spoken word event on Friday 11^th at 7.30 in the bar; a walk (meet at SVA) Sunday November 13^th 11-2, and a talk in the gallery Wednesday 16^th November 11 a.m. Full details at https://www.sva.org.uk/events/stroud-scarlet-war-and-empire

Stuart Butler

Addendum

Visited today:

“Global Plymouth – a new journey

This gallery is changing. The Box is having conversations with audiences, artists and communities to create change in how we interpret and display objects from the collection. Feedback given so far highlights the importance of talking about the continuing impacts of colonialism. What can objects tell us about Plymouth’s role in the British Empire? How have colonisation and Empire impacted global communities and environments? You can be part of the conversation too.
Thousands of artefacts from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania are stored here at The Box. Most of them arrived in Plymouth in the late 1800s and early 1900s, at the height of the British Empire. If objects could speak, every one of them would have stories to tell about who made them and why they were significant to their community, and also about colonial violence, racism or exploitation. But their story has often been told from just one perspective – that of the colonisers. We want The Box to be a place where we explore different stories. What can we learn from our shared global past to create a better future together?”

All the best,

Paul

Paul Wyeth

Swindon Railway, Canals and General Strike Walk

POSTPONED BECAUSE OF THE WEATHER Thursday June 25th, departing on the train that leaves around 10.30. We’ll probably do 5-6 miles by the end of the day (finishing at the Gluepot in the Railway Village). We’ll wander through the railway streets, skirt the STEAM Museum, follow the route of that unique mock funeral during the General Strike, wander the Wilts and Berks Canal and the old MSWJR line up to Old Town, dander around Old Town, descend via streets by the Beehive and so to the Gluepot.

If you fancy coming, you can obviously do as much or as little as you fancy. We’ll decide about whether people fancy spending an hour or two at STEAM on the day. Again, people can vote with their feet.

With thanks to the GWR for their support.

World Cup Boycott?

The 2026 World Cup

My mate says he’s going to boycott the World Cup:

He says he’s not going to watch any of the matches;

I said you have to set your alarm clock then,

Because sleeping through the night isn’t a boycott,

That’s just sleeping – if you’re going to boycott,

You have to get up in the middle of the night,

Trudge downstairs and sit, sanctimonious,

In front of the telly without turning it on.

Now I admit I have some sympathy

With his proposed abstemiousness:

The reasons for a boycott are legion,

So obvious, evident and embarrassing

That they don’t need mentioning or listing –

But let’s slip in good old Baudrillard:

‘Power is only too happy to give football

a diabolical responsibility for stupefying the masses’ …

But …

If we vacate that space then who takes it over?

If we flag, who takes over the flags?

Speaking as a quietly patriotic citizen

(Grandfather fought throughout the four years from 1914;

Father fought at Tobruk, and in the jungle behind Japanese lines;

I appeared as Cupid at the Coronation street party in 1953),

I think we should remember our history,

And try to reclaim the flags from the angry,

So as to rescue the poor and anonymous

From ‘the enormous condescension of posterity’:

Instead of war and empire and aggrandisement,

Instead of kings and queens and admirals and generals,

The Peasants’ Revolt, the Diggers, the Levellers,

John Ball! Robin Hood! Gerard Winstanley!

The Maroons! Olaudah Equiano!

The gypsy liberty of John Clare’s vision!

Democratic pirate ships and a freed Man Friday!

Thomas Spence! John Thelwall!

Robert Wedderburn! William Davidson! William Cuffay!

Mary Wollstonecraft! Sylvia Pankhurst!

The Tolpuddle Martyrs and all their trade union descendants

Right up to the lines in today’s gig economy …

It’s their flag too.

And mine.

Stroud General Strike Exhibition

Hello there,

This is for anyone who has read the General Strike 100 May newsletter and is thinking of visiting the Radical Stroud exhibition. The exhibition (some of it anyway) is now on at the famous and enchanting pub, The Prince Albert. If you fancy a visit, I guarantee you won’t regret it. Have a scroll around this website and you will also see a guise for walking around some of the key sites in Stroud associated with the General Strike with a few explanatory words for historical context.

Hope to see you.

SVA General Strike Exhibition Feedback

250 visitors to the exhibition. 50 at the performance.

‘I have lived in Stroud all my life and never knew anything about this. Thank you. And great to see Howard beard’s name here. Well done.’

‘Lest we forget! Our history. Our future.’

‘Nicely curated and presented exhibition.’

‘Excellent old photos. Loved it.’ SIMON OPHER MP

‘Thank you. Fascinating!’ ‘Thanks!’ ‘Thank you!” ‘Thanks. Very interesting.’ ‘History can be overwhelming at times. Thank you for the explanations.’ ‘Very interesting. Thank you.’ ‘Fascinating. Thank you.’ ‘Wonderful.’ ‘Thank you so much for taking the time to put this on.’ ‘A community education. Well done.’

‘Illuminating.’ ‘Excellent work. I played the Tolpuddle Festival with Billy Bragg working behind. Joe Trumpet – a member of Stroud Red Band.’

‘Good work!”

‘Great exhibition.’

‘Thank you for this very interesting bit of history. I am Canadian and had no idea about the strike and its local ramifications. Enjoyed the juxtaposition of old and new photos.’

‘Thanks Stuart! Amazing how many people these places employed! Must have been quite a contrast when they stopped walking/cycling to work.’

‘I am an artist from a Radstock mining community – would like to connect with Stuart and Katie.’ ‘Songs: Dunkerton Pit collapse; Song- “The Radstock Tune.”’

‘Well done. Thank you for contributing to the national picture and putting Stroud on the General Strike map.’

‘What do we learn from the General Strike, I wonder. Each of us will have an individual opinion; it would be good to collect them together.’

‘Fascinating. I’m so gutted to have missed the performance. Such great ways to bring History alive.’

‘Stirring stuff! Really well-curated. Very inspiring across a century – the class-war continues …’

‘Interesting, the photos particularly and especially thinking about Stroud mills and landmarks. Interesting that the FoD was such a key industrial area too. Thank you.’

‘Fascinating exhibition. Thanks so much for putting it on and all the work which has gone into it. Inspiring to learn about what happened locally, so many echoes of today.’

‘Fantastic exhibition. Wonderful insights into the events that took place 100 years ago!’

‘I grew up in Newtown, in Mid-Wales. Robert Owen’s birthplace. It’s fascinating for me to make links between past experiments like New Lanark and hopes for a more equal society in 1926.’

‘Such a great way to present information. Art and History, past and present. Beautiful.’

‘So nice to see this space used for something like this.’

‘That piece I’ve just looked at about the train-driver breaking the strike is so moving. Between a rock and a hard place.’

‘My dad left school at 14 and got a job straightaway at the docks. He worked at Wapping and Tilbury. He’s was out on strike a lot. This exhibition is bringing back a lot of memories.’

‘We can’t know where we’re headed without knowing where we’ve come from – so to see this poignant exhibition is a vivid reminder of past times and the current dire state of affirs.’

‘The General Strike was three years before my father was born (into a working-class family in Swindon). I suppose that to me it represents two things: (1.) the possibility of organisation to oppose the system and achieve rights and improved conditions for the disadvantaged and oppressed; (2.) the determination and ruthlessness of the Establishment when confronted by such organisation and opposition.

I remain an optimist, in defiance of history!’

‘It was about half-way between the start of the Great War and the Second World War: “For King and Country”. And the promise of “Homes fit for Heroes” to the dole and wage-cuts. Neville Chamberlain: arch appeaser of Hitler – anything but that towards the unions in the strike. Winston Churchill – “the man who won the war”, a class-warrior during the strike with the British Gazette and desire to take over the BBC.’

‘I grew up with an interest in history. I also grew up in a Labour household. My view of the General Strike is that it was a successful mass action at a time when the treatment of the working class was dire. It demonstrated that workers did have a voice and continue to do despite legislation by subsequent Conservative, Labour and Coalition Governments.’

‘The working-class were in the saddle? Heroic miners and solidarity. Threats to the ruling class. Neglect of our history brought to mind on May 4^th 2026.’

‘History is repeating itself. So we need to know about our history.’

‘A fascinating display and wonderful to so readily be able to access and learn about our local history here.’

‘Fascinating exhibition about a subject I don’t know very much about. Really interesting to see the local context. I will be back to absorb even more.’

‘It shows us the importance of uniting together. Together we are powerful.’

‘An excellent well laid out happening; somewhere between museum, exhibition and living pamphlet!

So interesting to see Lud-In-The-Mist included – nothing is ever divorced from the time in which it is written.’

‘Excellent exhibition as always. Lovely to see text in large print too. Thank you.’

‘The Heritage of the Miners, the Forest and beyond. What would happen now if a General Strike was called? Typical Trade Union bosses.’

‘Beautiful and poignant dialogue between image and text, and past and present.

!Solidarity!’

‘Stuart and the team have produced a very important centennial recollection of the General Strike and local participation in this historic endeavour for everyday justice.’

‘It’s been a History lesson for me. Connecting seemingly random events like Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse with coal and the General Strike. A great lesson!’

‘Brilliant research!! An enlightening and refreshing investigation of the extraordinary History of this locality.’

‘Ah! Newman & Hender – I used to work for them. A good wage. Now the General Strike. Let me think. That was caused by going back on the Gold Standard wasn’t? Made our coal exports too expensive.’

I come from a small town in North West Wales, called Blaenau Ffestiniog. It’s a very Welsh place. The 1926 General Strike didn’t include the slate mines of North Wales but would have paralysed transport. I am sure my family would have been supporting.

The miners in Blaenau went on strike for 16 weeks in 1893. It had strong trade union, socialist and chapel traditions.

No traitors in this house were common posters in the strikes across the slate industry in North Wales when a small number of strikers had returned to work.

The General Strike loomed large in my childhood: tales of posh student strike breakers driving buses and the like. Pa!

I’m from the Forest of Dean. Even in the 1960s the memory of the General Strike lived on. Some children were instructed by their parents not to play with others because of what was done in 1926 by grandparents.

When I first heard of the General Strike I remember vividly my mum having a long talk with me about this. It would have been the early 60s and I think it was the result of me asking about something on the radio, about either ‘Students’ or ‘Strikes’.

I was about seven or eight. I remember being told that in the bad old days before the war, students were posh people. Only the rich could afford to go to university. And the next part of the conversation was about the general strike. The workers were on strike because their wages were so low they couldn’t feed their families properly. Then the students came along, drove buses and trains and broke the strike. It was a terrible thing to do but the students probably thought it was ‘jolly good fun’. They were keeping the workers poor because they were part of that was the reason for the strike. Because of what the students and other strike breakers did, it meant that the strike wasn’t successful and working people were kept poor, treated unfairly by the bosses.

The students were scabs,I learnt the difference between a blackleg and a scab and why both were terrible things to be. Around this time, I remember saying that when I grew up I wanted to be a policeman. My mum replied that if I did she would disown me. She needed to explain what that meant. The police were the tools of the ruling classes, keeping the working people poor and in their place.

My mum lived in Camberwell during the 1930s where her dad was a greengrocer who took his barrow to Covent Garden early every morning. They weren’t well off but they had enough to eat. My mum lived surrounded by poverty and terrible housing. Another recurring story in my youth was of kids in the neighbourhood asking her if they could eat her orange peel.

Many of the interviewees in the Ken Loach film, The Spirit of ‘45 share recollections of similar levels of deprivation.