The British Museum waves goodbye to a national treasure as director Neil MacGregor resigns

As Neil MacGregor announces his resignation today, Michael Prodger hails the director who transformed the British Museum into a place loved by both scholars and the public
"Saint Neil": MacGregor leaves the British Museum as the second most visited museum in the world, after the Louvre (Picture: Alex Macnaughton/REX)
Michael Prodger8 April 2015

In 2010, as Neil MacGregor’s revelatory radio series A History of the World in 100 Objects drew to a close, the 100th and last object had yet to be named. Many well-informed judges speculated that the most fitting candidate was not an object at all but a person: MacGregor himself. In fact, a solar-powered lamp and charger was eventually chosen but the championing of the British Museum’s director, although light-hearted, was not entirely in jest. It was rather a recognition of both what he had achieved at the institution and the place he had won in the nation’s cultural life.

When MacGregor joined the British Museum in 2002 after 15 years at the National Gallery — where his success, popularity and faith had earned him the nickname “Saint Neil” — the museum was attracting 4.6 million visitors a year. As he leaves it that number has swollen by nearly half to 6.7 million and the BM stands as the second most visited museum in the world (behind the Louvre).

Roaring success: yearly visitors to the British Museum have risen to 6.7 million since the director joined in 2002 (Picture: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

This increase is remarkable but all the more so in that MacGregor has presided over it without compromising the museum’s reputation as a centre of scholarly excellence. Unlike Nicholas Penny at the National Gallery, MacGregor has never voiced disdain for the “blockbuster” exhibition, not least because he sees no conflict between popularity and scholarship and instinctively grasps that the public wants information as much as entertainment.

As the most eloquent defender of the role of “world museums” MacGregor’s exhibition programme has been proudly international: the Terracotta Army, Pompeii, Australia, the Ice Age, the Vikings, Islam, Babylon, the Aztecs and Germany — hardly a nook or cranny of the past has escaped his inquisitive eye. Not all have been without flaws but they have, almost without exception, been fascinating shows that have also stood as examples of his belief in the importance of understanding a shared cultural history. In this he is an unapologetically Enlightenment figure. To facilitate the message MacGregor has overseen an ongoing revamp of the museum itself: with its new exhibition space and refurbished galleries it has never been bigger or looked better.

Despite his profile as the director of the country’s senior cultural institution and his TV and radio appearances MacGregor has kept a low personal profile, twice rejecting a knighthood and keeping a carefully apolitical stance. By maintaining his personal independence he has helped the British Museum maintain its own.

It is worth remembering too that throughout his tenure he has been forced to fend off funding raids, stress again and again the case for free museum entry and explain politely but unequivocally why the Elgin Marbles will stay in London. It takes more than charm to do all this without putting noses (well, maybe some Greek ones) out of joint. Institutional success is never solely the work of one individual but nevertheless, MacGregor deserves his place as the honorary 101st object.

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