When asked about returning the Parthenon Marbles, the British Museum likes to fall back on the arument that they couldn’t do so without a change in the law – making it a matter for the government. Yet at the same time, the government indicates that the issue is one for the trustees of the British Museum.

The government would like you to believe that the British Museum is entirely independent of government – the reality though is that the two are closely tied together – seeing the British Museum as a completely separate entity that is in complete control of all decisions is an inaccurate understanding of things. This is evidenced here, by the fact that (for whatever peculiar reasons) the British Museum can’t access large amounts of its own money because it is being with held by the government.

From:
The Art Newspaper

Treasury withholds museum donations
British Museum is denied access to £42.5m of its own cash
By Martin Bailey | From issue 218, November 2010
Published online 5 Nov 10 (News)

LONDON. UK national museums, including the British Museum and the National Gallery, have found it difficult to access over £50m donated by philanthropists, because of Treasury regulations. These are funds from donations and bequests which went into museums’ financial reserves and later fell under government control.

The scale of the potential problem is enormous, since the reserves for all national museums total £285m. The museums have not publicised the difficulty, fearing that this might rock the boat during delicate discussions with government.
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The British Museum has responded unfavourably to MP Angus MacNeil’s proposal that the British Museum could open an outpost in the Western Isles to house the Lewis Chessmen.

From:
Scotsman

Thursday, 11th March 2010
Lewis chessmen must stay in British Museum, minister says
Published Date: 11 March 2010
By David Maddox

A PROPOSAL to create a wing of the British Museum on the Isle of Lewis to house the famous chess pieces found there was yesterday rejected by the UK government.

Western Isles Nationalist MP Angus MacNeil put forward the idea as a compromise solution to allow the 78 12th century Lewis chessmen to go home.
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A number of the arguments for the reunification of the surviving Elgin Marbles are based on the fact that it makes more sense to locate the sculptures close to their original context. The reasons include that of seeing the sculptures & their original location (which they were designed for) only a short distance away from one another, that the sculptures hold more significance to the local community than to people elsewhere & that the sculptures form part of a local sense of identity. The institutions that hold the Parthenon Marbles (& many other similarly disputed artefacts) dismiss such claims as nationalistic, rubbishing the idea that artefacts make any sort of local connection.

Often when new artefacts are discovered, attempts are made to keep them on display locally to where they were found, rather than being moved to a bigger museum further away. The reasons given are generally similar to those given for the Parthenon Marbles. Such cases generally receive positive publicity & support by many who agree that the reasons for keeping the artefacts in the area near where they were found make sense. Many of these campaigns are eventually successful & funds are found to raise money for local museums to keep hold of the treasures. The only difference between cases such as these & those such as the Parthenon Marbles, is that the campaigns are started before the artefacts are ever acquired by the big institutions and that the parties involved are typically all contained within he same country. Apart from this though, there is little difference in the reasoning (if anything the Parthenon Sculptures have a far stronger case in this regard, as they were designed to be seen in a specific context.

From:
Birmingham Mail

Museums launch joint appeal to keep The Staffordshire Hoard in the Midlands
Oct 6 2009

MUSEUM bosses and city leaders have launched an appeal to keep the prized Staffordshire Hoard in the Midlands.

More than 36,000 people have queued to see the Anglo-Saxon gold since it went on display at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, which extended its opening hours in the gold rush.
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