Five years ago this month I wrote an article in The Spectator denouncing the National Army Museum after its £24 million Heritage Lottery Funded refurbishment. The concept of decolonisation was then in its infancy, and I criticised the museum’s relentless attempts to make visitors ashamed of the British Army’s supposed legacy of imperialism and slavery, when that constituted only a tiny part of its overall glorious story (and it was in the forefront of fighting against the latter).
I am thrilled to say that today the museum, which has been under new leadership since 2018, has returned to the aims of its Royal Charter, anchored itself to historical facts rather than contemporary politicised fashions, and thus been totally transformed.
The new director, Brigadier Justin Maciejewski, is the first leader of the museum to have experienced soldiering first-hand. As well as being a passionate historian and a former management consultant with McKinsey, he commanded the British and coalition forces in Basra City in 2007, where he was awarded a battlefield DSO. It is largely down to him and the trustees (of which I’m one) that the museum sticks rigidly to the mission set out in its Royal Charter of 1960 to tell the story of the ‘history and traditions’ of ‘Our Army’ across the world and down the centuries.
By adhering to first principles of evidence-based history, Maciejewski has saved an institution I love. There is now a varied and vibrant public programme of events that connects the story of our soldiers with wide audiences, from history-lovers to veterans and their families, to people with no military connections but who are keen to learn more about our shared past.
Every year in late September the Museum helps host the Chelsea History Festival, which has military history at its heart.
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