About the MGHG

The Museums and Galleries History Group (MGHG) was founded in 2002 and inaugurated in 2003 with the symposium Museums and their Histories, held at the National Gallery in London. The MGHG provides a platform for debate and contact among all those who seek to understand museums and galleries from historical and theoretical perspectives. The interests represented are wide-ranging, interdisciplinary and international and the Group also acts as a forum for considerations of the place of museum history within academic discourse and its importance for current museum practice.

The Board consists of a mixture of academics and professionals who work in the museum and galleries sector.

Top Row Left to Right:

Kate Hill, Member without Portfolio

I'm Associate Professor of History at the University of Lincoln and an historian of museums, collections and heritage. I'm interested in local and regional museums, gender and museums, and the growth of social history in museums.

Sarah Longair, Member without Portfolio

I’m a historian of the British Empire, and my research explores East Africa and the Indian Ocean through visual and material culture. I’m interested in the history of colonial museums, collecting and museum architecture.

Caroline Cornish, Membership Secretary

I’m an historical geographer and research associate at Royal Holloway, University of London and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. I’m interested particularly in museums as spaces for the production of knowledge and in the mobility of museum objects.

Rebecca Wade, Web Officer

I am a curator and art historian with research interests in nineteenth-century museum and exhibitionary cultures, art and design education and the production, circulation and display of sculpture and its reproductions.

Mark Westgarth, Chair

I’m Associate Professor in Art History and Museum Studies at the University of Leeds. My particular interest in museum histories is on the intersection between museums and the art market.

Bottom Row Left to Right:

Caroline Morris, Marketing Officer

I’m the Collections & Education Manager at the Corinium Museum. My PhD researched the history and interpretation of biographical objects and displays. I continue to be interested in how notions of trace and narrative work in museum and heritage interpretation, especially as a means of encouraging engagement with object and museum histories.

Phil Deans, Member without Portfolio

I research museums and crisis. My recently completed PhD project considered the history of the Imperial War Museum during the Second World War. I use historical case studies to explore issues, ideas and concepts, particularly those which resonate in the present.

Kajal Meghani, Member without Portfolio

I'm currently conducting research as part of a Collaborative Doctoral Award between the University of Brighton and the British Museum, looking into the material and intellectual contributions made by individuals of South Asian heritage to the British Museum from 1753 to the present day. My research interests include museum networks, private and public collection histories, and gift exchange.

Zoë Varley, Treasurer

I'm a research associate at the Natural History Museum and a collaborative PhD student with the University of Leeds and the Wellcome Collection. I have broad interests in the history of interdisciplinary collections as well as their value, uses and legacy within museums today.

Anna Reeve, Secretary

I’m a material culture historian at the University of Leeds, working on collections of Cypriot antiquities in the UK. I’m interested in microhistorical approaches to objects and museums, and following object itineraries into, through and beyond the museum.