Hear the fascinating story of how the Fitzwilliam Museum saved its collection during the Second World War.
During the Blitz, the national collections of art and antiquities were spirited away from the major London museums to safe storage in various locations, from disused tube tunnels to remote Welsh slate mines. This story is well known. But how the collections of regional museums and collections survived the War has received little attention.
Author of The Fitzwilliam Museum: A History (London 2016), Lucilla Burn will tell the intriguing story of how the Director and staff of the Fitzwilliam Museum rose to the challenges of the period to ensure the safety of the University’s collections. Archival sources reveal a vivid – and at times surprising – narrative of the collections’ dispersal around the country that also highlights the characters and contributions of the individuals involved.
Lucilla Burn
Lucilla Burn (NC 1973) studied Classics and took the Diploma in Classical Archaeology at Newnham. For many years she was responsible for the College’s art collection. After research at Oxford and working at the British Museum, she returned to Cambridge in 2001 as Keeper of the Department of Antiquities and later Assistant Director for Collections at the Fitzwilliam Museum, until her retirement in 2016. Her research interests focus on the material culture of Greek and Roman antiquity, and the history of museums and collecting.