Acquisition and Disposal Policy
The December 2001 issue of Omnibus saw the distribution of the Trust’s Restoration policy and a small note mentioning that this was one of a number of documents being prepared by the Trustees in conjunction with our application to be registered as a museum with the West Midlands Regional Museums Council. For the same reason, the Trustees have recently reviewed the Trust’s Acquisition & Disposal Policy, which was previously published (as the ‘Collection Policy’) in a special March 1990 edition of Omnibus. Whilst the 1990 document was found to be largely still relevant it has been tidied up in a number of areas and certain aspects clarified. The resulting updated document has now been formally approved by the Trustees and the Management Committee and is included in this edition of Omnibus for members’ information.
The Trust has now submitted the application for formal recognition as a museum to Re:source (the National Council For Museums, Archives And Libraries) which is expected to consider it in mid-June. Whilst this will be a significant step in the Trust’s development and an important factor for any application we may make for Heritage Lottery Fund money to assist with additional museum accommodation, it does put many responsibilities on us to maintain and document our collection in certain ways.
Phil Ireland
Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Trust - Acquisition and Disposal Policy
The Trust’s aim is to collect and preserve:-
i) Buses, coaches and battery electric road vehicles of Midlands operators and builders except where it has been necessary to look nationally to obtain a representative of a manufacturer’s products.
ii) Archives pertaining to Midlands public transport and battery electric road vehicle builders and operators, in particular photographs, ciné and video, book library, manufacturers’ technical literature including catalogues and manuals, publicity and point of sale material, ticket machines, timetables, destination blinds, uniforms, bus stops, other roadside furniture, engineering drawings of Midland Red manufactured vehicles, toys and models, and similar ephemera.
In pursuance of this, the Trust’s Acquisition and Disposal policy is (taking due consideration of the limitations in the museum’s ability to care for items imposed by staffing, storage and conservation resources):-
(1) To achieve and maintain a collection of vehicles representing the contribution which the former Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Company Limited made to the passenger vehicle industry, from the viewpoints of both the Company as the largest provincial operator of buses and coaches and their technical contribution to the design and manufacture of buses and coaches.
The Company was most innovative and was the designer and builder of vehicles from 1925 until 1969, when it ceased to build its own vehicles. The Company’s vehicles were to be seen throughout the whole of the Region and well beyond, and consequently it made a substantial contribution to the requirements of the travelling public. Its technical achievements are many and varied, and frequently the Company led the general manufacturing industry.
(2) To achieve and maintain a collection of vehicles representing the several former municipal bus operators and their successors, the West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority and Executive, in what is now the County of West Midlands. The following municipalities operated bus services in the County:-
Birmingham City Council, Coventry City Council, Walsall County Borough Council,
West Bromwich County Borough Council, Wolverhampton County Borough Council.
(3) To achieve and maintain a collection of vehicles representing the products of bus and coach chassis and body manufacturers which were based within the County of West Midlands.
(4) To achieve and maintain a collection of vehicles representing municipal and company operators in the Shire Counties within the bus route network of the Birmingham & Midland Motor Omnibus Company Limited.
(5) To achieve and maintain a collection of landmark British bus and coach designs, including representatives of chassis and body builders not covered in (1) - (4).
(6) To achieve and maintain a representative national collection of battery electric road vehicles.
(7) To achieve and maintain a collection of emergency vehicles including fire appliances etc. operated or built within the Region.
(8) To achieve and maintain a collection of photographs and drawings of public service, haulage or emergency vehicles operated or manufactured in the Region, and similarly of electric vehicles operated nationally.
(9) To achieve and maintain a collection of memorabilia and artefacts associated with the design, building or operation of public service, haulage, electric or emergency vehicles in the Region and, if relevant, nationally.
Any acquisitions outside the above Policy will only be made in exceptional circumstances; and then only after proper consideration by the Trustees of the Museum itself, having regard to the interests of other museums.
Provided however:-
Due account will be taken of the collecting policies of other museums, in particular the Museum of British Road Transport, Coventry; the Heritage Motor Centre, Gaydon; Crich Tramway Village; Jaguar Daimler Heritage Trust; Leicester Museums, including Abbey Park and Snibston, Birmingham Railway Museum, in order to avoid unnecessary duplication and waste of resources.
The Museum will conform to Re:source’s Registration Guidelines concerning acquisitions and disposals (paragraph 4.2.5) so far as they are relevant to the Trust’s activities, viz.:-
(a) The Museum will not acquire, whether by purchase, gift, bequest or exchange, any object unless the governing body or responsible officer is satisfied that the Museum can acquire a valid title to the item in question, and that in particular it has not been acquired in, or exported from, its country of origin (or any intermediate country in which it may have been legally owned) in violation of that country’s laws. (For the purpose of this paragraph “country of origin’ includes the United Kingdom.)
[(b) and (c) not relevant.]
(d) By definition a museum has a long-term purpose and must possess (or intend to acquire) permanent collections in relation to its stated objectives. The Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Trust accepts the principle that there is a strong presumption against the disposal of any items in the Museum’s collection except as set out below.
(e) In those cases where the Museum is legally free to dispose of an item (if this in doubt advice will be sought) it is agreed that any decision to sell or otherwise dispose of material from the collections will be taken only after due consideration. Decisions to dispose of items will not be made with the principal aim of generating funds. Once a decision to dispose of an item has been taken, priority will be given to retaining the item within the public domain and with this in view it will be offered first, by exchange, gift or sale to registered museums before disposal to other interested individuals or organisations is considered.
(f) In cases in which an arrangement for the exchange, gift or sale of material is not being made with an individual registered museum, the museum community at large will be advised of the intention to dispose of material. This will normally be through an announcement in the Museums Association’s Museums Journal and other professional journals if appropriate. The announcement will indicate the number and nature of specimens or objects involved, and the basis on which the material would be transferred to another institution. A period of at least two months will be allowed for an interest in acquiring the material to be expressed.
(g) A decision to dispose of a specimen or object, whether by exchange, sale, gift or destruction (in the case of an item too badly damaged or deteriorated to be of any use for the purposes of the collections) will be the responsibility of the governing body of the Museum acting on the advice of professional curatorial staff (if available) and not of the curator of the collection acting alone. Full records will be kept of all such decisions and the items involved and proper arrangements made for the preservation and/or transfer, as appropriate, of the documentation relating to the object concerned, including photographic records where practicable.
(h) Any monies received by the museum’s governing body from the disposal of items will be applied for the benefit of the collections. This normally means the purchase of further acquisitions, but in exceptional cases improvements relating to the care of collections may be justifiable. Advice on these cases may be sought from Re:source or West Midlands Regional Museums Council.
(i) With regard to the archives, which include photographs and printed ephemera, the Trustees will be guided by the Code Of Practice On Archives For Museums In The United Kingdom. The Museum will also aim to meet the standards outlined in the Royal Commission On Historical Manuscripts’ Standards For Record Repositories (1990).
(j) Where a museum object has been acquired with the aid of an external funding organisation, permission from that organisation will need to be sought before the object is deaccessioned or transferred to another museum. If the object is sold repayment of the original grant may be required.
ACQUISTION & DISPOSAL POLICY REVIEW
This policy is to be reviewed at intervals of no more than five years (next due 2006) and any changes in policy notified to the West Midlands Regional Museums Council.
March 2002
Chapel Lane, Wythall, Worcs B47 6JX
Tel : 01564 826471 e-mail us
A registered educational charity no 507191
