Our Chief Executive Edward Appleyard reflects on the crucial role our community of supporters play in both our present and future, including the announcement of two new major funders who are supporting Thackray to open our doors to more people than ever before.
In two years’ time, the Thackray Museum of Medicine will reach its 30th birthday, and the importance of our existence and our charitable purpose could not be clearer. In the last month, this has been wholly endorsed by two major funders – the Garfield Weston Foundation and the Peter Sowerby Foundation – who between them have generously awarded us £85,000 of grants over the next two years; we are incredibly grateful.
But what is the context of this generosity and why is it so important now?
Since the Museum’s re-development five years ago the world has changed. Covid altered our habits forever, riots stoked by racism and inequality have laid bare perpetuated divisions in our society, ill-informed attitudes have led to a reduction in people’s basic human rights stoked by scaremongering and falsely inflated “truths” from a minority of loud voices, and the majority of us are under economic pressure unlike anything we’ve experienced in our lives.
What does that mean for an independent museum like us?
In June we quietly held one of the most memorable events I’ve experienced in my time here, a poetry evening which was the culmination of a writing project called Our Voices, Our Words. Under the deep care and encouragement of writer Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan and community luminary Natalie Tharraleos, groups of Harehills residents have been taking part in a series of workshops with a belief that ‘words have power’ and that poetry offers a ‘freedom to express without rules’, exploring our local area, somewhere often labelled as a ‘bad neighbourhood’.
Parts of our council ward sit in the top 1% of the most deprived areas in the whole of the UK and 18 July marked a year since the unrest of 2024. But despite the issues that create headlines and stick in people’s minds outside of this culturally-rich and diverse area, Harehills is where 31,000 people call home; it is filled with the rich tapestry of their lives, their experiences and a commitment to their community.
Thackray provided space for these workshops and helped facilitate the project’s ambitions, which led to the most wonderful celebration that was at once joyful, contemplative, sad, truthful, funny and thought-provoking. We helped provide a platform for conversation, sharing, cohesion and wellbeing, and in our own way, a place to bridge divides and show the best of Harehills and its wonderful people, not the worst. After the event had finished, someone said to me “thank you for standing with us”.
That’s what it means to an independent museum like us.
This is just one small, yet impactful, way in which the Thackray is more relevant now than we have ever been. We use the lessons and history of our 80,000-strong collection and their stories to have conversations about medicine, healthcare and wellbeing in their widest sense and focus on how we can help shape a better tomorrow. In order to have those conversations we need to do what we can to remove barriers to be able to visit the museum, and have recently launched a new membership and ticketing scheme which has access at its heart – people from our local community can become a member and visit all-year round for just £5 (+£3 for each child over 7); we are now free to people on universal credit and children under 7-years old, and we continue to provide space for community groups in The Core free of charge.
Our latest exhibition, Poo!, is full of fun-filled facts on vital information about our health and wellbeing for all ages, and it’s accompanied throughout summer by activities – theatrical Boffins science shows, soap making, crafts and more – that are included in all tickets at no extra cost. Our permanent galleries and our developing programme of events allows us to put ourselves in others’ shoes, so that we can better understand, empathise and talk to one another about things that effect our lives. And these are just snapshots of the museum’s wider work and ambitions.
This too is what it means to an independent museum like us.
We could not do any of this without the wonderful support of trusts, foundations and public bodies that share our ambitions and can see the impactful ways in which we are determined to make a difference.
Our £203,806 National Lottery Heritage Fund grant
Our new ticketing scheme and the establishment of our new programme came about thanks to the foresight and commitment of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, with whom we have a long relationship dating back to our inception as the organisation’s very first supported project in the North of England. Their grant of £203,806 has funded a near two-year project enabling research, working with members of the community, new systems, training staff, and direct delivery of so many activities straight to visitors amongst much else – we could not be more grateful.
Our £60,000 Garfield Weston Foundation grant
I am now delighted to announce that we can continue to invest in developing our accessible entry schemes thanks to a new £60,000 two-year grant from the Garfield Weston Foundation, ensuring that local memberships and free entry for those who are eligible can be distributed throughout our community and help us provide platforms to engage with those who need this space most. We are especially thankful for the Foundation’s belief in what we want to achieve, and have achieved so far.
Our £25,000 Peter Sowerby Foundation grant
This has been additionally bolstered by a £25,000 grant from the Peter Sowerby Foundation, who, from this Autumn for a year, are supporting our family-friendly holiday activities to ensure that they remain available at no additional cost to our visitors with a particular focus on enabling community access. Again, we are indebted to their faith and this museum as they stand with us and with our conviction.
Our core funders, Arts Council England and Thackray Medical Research Trust
The above is on a bedrock of support from Arts Council England as a National Portfolio Organisation, enabling us to do such a huge breadth of work, and grant support from the Thackray Medical Research Trust who continue to catalyse our ambitions and ensure that our collection is cared for and remains relevant for decades to come.
And all of you …
And finally, we could not do this without our visitors who enjoy this wonderful place, our staff, our Trustees and volunteers. I am particularly grateful to those who have recently chosen to buy a £16 pay-it-forward ticket, to help enable access to those less economically able to than themselves, and to those who have become Thackray members. You are our future security – providing platforms, voice and access to so many people as we strive to help shape a better tomorrow – and I am ever thankful.
This means the world to an independent museum like us, but more over to everyone who visits.
We would like to thank and acknowledge the significant contribution made by partners who have worked alongside Thackray on all these project strands, including Baker Richards, Sarah Chambers Consulting, Fly A Kite; Leeds City Council, West Yorkshire Combined Authority and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund; and the many creatives, artists, writers, historians and others who join us on our journey.