House Museums and Domestic Life Displays in Scotland

Abstract

House museums, period room displays, and museums set within old houses account for about 150 of the 400 or so museums in Scotland at the turn of the twenty-first century, and objects of domestic life are shown in many more of the general museums. Their large number reflects in part the suitability of domestic buildings for museum purposes, but also the particular importance given to domestic life within British culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The home is a central element of human existence, along with work (within or outwith the home), creativity, and the study of the world around us, and it is therefore no surprise that aspects of evolving domestic life should be preserved in Scottish museums. These display both the extraordinary wealth and grinding poverty of Scotland’s past and they play a vital role in the country’s present tourism industry. They also contribute to the shaping of a sense of identity and thus have a continuing relevance for Scottish, British and international culture. There are now several good definitions of the term ‘museum’ 2 but there are still some minor difficulties in defining a ‘house museum’. The National Trust for Scotland (NTS), for instance, has submitted only a few of its properties for registration under the national scheme administered by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council to ensure standards of practice in museums. The policies and activities of the NTS, however, comply with all the recent definitions of museums produced by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and the Museums Association (MA), and as the major single player in the field of house preservation it cannot be omitted from this discussion. All over Scotland houses similar to those held by the NTS are opened to the public by private owners, some of whom continue a long family tradition of preservation and access. Where these are not protected by a charitable trust and are still entirely in private ownership, and therefore at some risk of future sale or dispersal, they cannot be regarded as museums and are not included here.