Janet Suzman wrote to the Horniman Museum to congratulate Nick Merriman and his team for returning 72 Benin Bronzes. 

Yesterday, Monday 28 November saw the start of a new chapter in the history of the Benin bronzes in South East London too, and was celebrated by many.

These cultural artefacts were  looted from West Africa by British soldiers in 1897. London’s Horniman museum consulted its public, a wide range of people from museum members, and school children to the Nigerian community, and then announced this summer that it would be returning its Benin Bronzes. London’s Horniman museum signed over 72 of the bronzes yesterday and Janet Suzman wrote to the museum to say how elated the BCRPM was with this act of respect for the bronzes.

The news story was covered by many outlets including Channerl 4 News.  It was good to hear Nick Merriman, Director of the Horniman reflecting on the ease with which school children reacted immediately to the fairness of retuning the bronzes. And to also hear Ngaire Blankenberg, director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art, explain that there is more to embrace than returning these objects, that we need to look at power imbalances and everything that we do, as museums and institutions develop more collaborative relationships.

Liam Kelly the Arts Correspondent for the Sunday Times reported that the Horniman Museum's decision to return 72 artefacts to Nigeria was a watershed moment that had arrived 'amid the Elgin Marbles wrangle'. 

"The unanimous decision by the Horniman’s board of trustees is a watershed moment: it is the first museum funded by the government to say that it will return its haul from Benin, which is now in Edo state, Nigeria. Nick Merriman, the Horniman’s chief executive, said the museum’s collection, which includes 15 brass plaques, a brass cockerel altar piece, ivory and brass body ornaments, will be transferred to Nigerian ownership after a request from the African country’s government in January."

"The move by the Horniman, which recently won the prestigious Art Fund museum of the year prize partly for its “Reset Agenda” that examined its colonial origins in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, may cause the trickle of repatriations to become a flood and raises questions about the fate of other contested objects, such as the 'Elgin Marbles' held at the British Museum. The controversy over the British ownership of Benin bronzes is second only to that of the marbles."

To read the full article in the ST, follow the link here.

And do read the press release from the Horniman Museum also. 

Plus on Channel 4 Newson 08.08