Paterson, Liberty Ann (2025) Portraying Great Britain : Facing legacies of enslavement in the early history of the National Portrait Gallery, London (1856-1906). PhD thesis, Birkbeck, University of London.
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Paterson L, final thesis for library.pdf - Full Version Restricted to Repository staff only until 9 May 2027. Download (29MB) |
Abstract
This thesis examines the institutional history of London’s National Portrait Gallery from 1856 to 1906 in terms of its legacies of enslavement. As an art museum dedicated to national culture that emerged in the mid-Victorian era, the Gallery appeared distanced from Britain’s history of Atlantic slavery but was profoundly shaped by it. The NPG’s founding principles, including its focus on individual achievement, were informed by ideas of racial difference and imperial mastery espoused by Victorian intellectuals such as Thomas Carlyle. This thesis argues that the NPG was among Britain’s imperial museums, interrogating its foundational myths and situating it within the South Kensington cultural complex where it spent fifteen of its formative years. It addresses processes of distantiation in Britain in the post-Emancipation period and the specific role of cultural heritage in silencing the past. By reconnecting the NPG to the individuals that shaped it, including its founders, trustees, donors, and sitters, their myriad links to the slavery economy are highlighted. Networks of power at the Gallery are shown to reflect parallel slave-ownership circles in the Caribbean, especially Jamaica. The descendants of slave-owners are at the heart of this enquiry. It places their cultural legacies in dialogue with their family histories of enslavement to unsettle the distancing at work, considering the interplay of class and gender. The thesis also shows the importance of reconstructing processes of forgetting. It looks at how specific portraits of slave-owners and abolitionists were displayed at the Gallery to reflect on the role of museums in shaping the public memory of slavery. By both remembering the legacies of slavery at the NPG and tracing how they were forgotten, the thesis offers a new perspective on the enduring influence of slavery on British cultural heritage in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and its lasting impact today.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Thesis |
|---|---|
| Copyright Holders: | The copyright of this thesis rests with the author, who asserts his/her right to be known as such according to the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. No dealing with the thesis contrary to the copyright or moral rights of the author is permitted. |
| Depositing User: | Acquisitions And Metadata |
| Date Deposited: | 03 Jul 2025 16:33 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Sep 2025 21:03 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/55876 |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.18743/PUB.00055876 |
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