Today, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has announced a funding package of £887,200 to five organisations in the North West. Through HLF’s Collecting Cultures programme, these organisations, will be able to add to their core collections through strategic purchases.

Sara Hilton, Head of the Heritage Lottery Fund North West, said: "Collecting Cultures is unique: HLF is the only funding body that currently offers this type of support for museums, libraries and archives. Building on past success, this second incarnation of the initiative is back by popular demand. This investment of over £880,000 will greatly enhance collections across the North West – in subjects ranging widely from contemporary slavery, high fashion to football in art– and encourage more public access and involvement."

• Manchester Art Gallery, From Catwalk to High Street (£307,300)
  Home to an already internationally important costume collection, this project will enable the gallery to acquire high fashion, couture items filling the currently under-represented areas in their collections. HLF funding will also help the gallery create new and improved displays and provide textile conservations tours, fashion workshops working across a range of audiences including adult learners, young people and mental health charities.
• The Fusilier Museum, Bury, Enriching the Collection (£60,000)
  Complementing previous HLF investment in the museum, this project will provide a significant boost to the museum’s important collection of First World War materials and deliver a programme of thought provoking exhibitions and activities for local people. Telling the human story of the War, the museum will acquire wartime clothing and equipment, especially that of low ranking soldiers, to better tell the ‘soldier’s story’. Training will be offered in collections management; handling and packing costume and costume display conservation and research.
• National Museums Liverpool, the International Slavery Museum’s Transatlantic and Contemporary Slavery Collecting Project (£225,000)
  HLF’s grant will help the museum enhance their already unparalleled transatlantic slave trade and contemporary slavery collections which tell a moving and powerful story. Acquisitions will be twofold: the Transatlantic Slavery Collection, targeting items such as ivory tokens, abolitionist correspondence and objects and the Contemporary Slavery Collection, targeting objects which will increase public awareness and debate around contemporary slavery
• People’s History Museum, Manchester, Voting for Change – 150 years of Radical Movements for Democracy, 1819 to 1969 (£95,000)
  The People's History Museum (PHM) and the Working Class Movement Library (WCML) will use HLF’s grant to undertake a five-year project to develop their collections relating to the campaign for suffrage over the period 1819 to 1969. Acquisitions will range from diaries, journals, speeches and banners relating to the Chartist and Women’s suffrage movements, to posters, pamphlets and song books reflecting the 1960s campaign that led to the lowering of voting age. Bespoke training in collections management, conservation care and project management will be on offer
• National Football Museum, Manchester, The Art of Football (£199,900)
  With a focus on collecting football related art from the post-war period, this unique project will fill gaps in the National Football Museum’s (NFM) collection and create exciting opportunities for people to explore themes such as social history and technology. NFM will collect works particularly from the 1950s to the ‘80s including: poster art; advertising media related to football; items exhibited in the Football Association’s 1953 competition and exhibition ‘Football and the Fine Arts’; preparatory sketches and models for public artworks and sculpture; early examples of video and new media art. A programme of activities will encourage visitors to get involved and will include printing activities and video workshops which will be shown at NFM and online

This news is part of a UK-wide announcement £5m funding package to a range of museums, libraries and archives across the UK. Under HLF’s Collecting Cultures programme, 23 organisations, from Glasgow down to Brighton, will be able to enhance the scope of their collections.

The first Collecting Cultures - 2008
Back in 2008, Collecting Cultures awards enabled over 2,000 objects to be bought by museums and galleries across the UK. Examples include:

• a prosthetic leg from the First World War, acquired by a partnership of museums in Fermanagh, Derry and Enniskillen, as part of a project to collect items reflecting the turbulent history of 1910-1930
• a Land Rover Series 1, acquired by the Museum of English Rural Life, to illustrate the theme of rural Englishness in the 20th century
• an iconic image of the miner’s strike by internationally-renowned photographer Don McCullin, acquired as part of the National Coal Mining Museum’s project to diversify its collections which reflect local community and industrial life

Key to the success of that programme, and continued for this one, was the opportunity for curators to actively seek new additions to their collections rather than wait for items to come to auction

Notes to editors

This is the second time HLF has run Collecting Cultures, an initiative to support museums, libraries and archives in developing their collections through strategic acquisition projects. Grantees plan and deliver programmes of targeted purchase whilst developing staff skills and engaging a wider range of people with their collections.

A list of other grants awarded across the UK is available on request.

To date, HLF has invested a third of its total commitment - £2bn - to transforming museums, libraries and archives.

Acquisitions must be at least 10 years old to be eligible for HLF support.

The Collecting Cultures programme is now closed for applications.

Further information

HLF press office: Katie Owen on 020 7591 6036, mobile: 07973 613 820 or Laura Bates on 020 7591 6027 email: lbates@hlf.org.uk.