Museum in Docklands on the left. Courtesy Museum in Docklands

Museum in Docklands opened in 2003 to tell a largely untold story of London, once the busiest port in the world. Almost as soon as we opened we realised that we had signally failed to give sufficient emphasis to one vitally important element of the story – the importance of the slave trade to the economic development of London as a commercial centre and as a major port.

Museum staff considered ways of redressing this balance, but it rapidly became apparent that a more radical approach was needed. The approaching Bicentenary of the Act to Abolish the Slave Trade in British Territory helped to focus both curatorial and management interest, and so we began a high level academic consultative process.

Caroline B. Courtesy Museum in Docklands

Work on a new gallery began in earnest in 2006. Contacts from African-Caribbean community organisations, with whom we had been working for several years, agreed to assist with the new gallery by forming a consultative body to guide the curatorial input and other areas like design, press and marketing. We also approached a number of highly respected academics to strengthen the historical authority of the curatorial team.

By March 2007 the curatorial team, now enhanced by the recruitment of Dr Caroline Bressey as consultant curator, had developed an outline structure for the gallery. Three elements were linked in this story – London, the commercial centre; sugar, the commodity which helped drive the City’s commercial growth; and slavery, the human cost of the City’s growing wealth and power.

The high degree of community involvement in our proposal appealed to the London Museums HUB and Heritage Lottery Fund; in May 2007 the funding was agreed.

Curator Tom Wareham at work. Courtesy Museum in Docklands

By this time we had drawn up a provisional object list, which wasn’t easy as the museum did not have a strong slavery-related collection, and other museums were either already using their collections for 2007 or had loaned it to other institutions.

The issue was partly resolved by some quick-footed acquisitions, including the extremely important purchase of the extant letter books and plantation journals of the London Planter Thomas Mills. We were also helped by loans from collections held by Baptists and Quaker organisations, for which we are deeply grateful.

While funding was secured, text writing and design had progressed with outline content and then detailed text being submitted to the consultative group for comment and guidance.

West India Dock. Courtesy Museum in Docklands

Curators always have big ambitions for galleries and then have to go through a heart-rending process of reduction, as design and budgets impose ever more cuts on the content.

This is also difficult for consultative group members who are keen that nothing should be missed out and who may not realise that the average reading age of the museum visitor is just 14, and that many people will whiz past your agonisingly produced displays in a matter of minutes.

Compromise is critical to both sides in this process. Curators have to learn to leave their egos at home and to hear to what is being said to them. It isn’t always easy. Just weeks before all of the text was due to be dispatched to the graphic designers, we presented the full and final version to the consultative group.

Abolition sugar bowl. Courtesy Museum in Docklands

To our complete dismay, it was almost completely rejected. It was not so much the structure or content that was wrong, it was the tone. As one of the group commented towards the end of a very long meeting. ‘I read this and I don’t recognise my voice in it’. So for the next six days, one of the lead curators and a member of the consultative group locked themselves in a room and almost completely rewrote the more than 14,000 words of gallery text.

There was another element to the story – the consequences for the people of London today. This story could really only be told with the contribution of the African-Caribbean community – and so ongoing work with local community groups is an integral part of the gallery. This includes production of material for display in the gallery itself, such as reinterpretations of Wedgwood’s rather questionable abolition campaign logo (the pleading African).

The gallery also contains a temporary exhibition area where additional or alternative points of view can be explored, with display panels, case and video screen. Groups and artists can submit proposals to use this – but be warned, there is already a waiting list!