L ast month, Sotheby’s hosted a London conference with The National Archives (“TNA”), the official archive and publisher for the UK Government.
The overall purpose of the event was to de-mystify cultural property issues for the archive sector and to clarify the distinct advisory roles of Sotheby’s, representing our archive clients, and TNA at the head of the archives sector.
In front of an audience of forty people from across the sector, the programme focused on the operation of the market for manuscripts and its interaction with the relevant UK legislation and tax rules, as well as cultural property mechanisms such as the sales monitoring and notification service.
Interventions in the Market
The first part of the conference was entitled “interventions in the Market” and Philip Gale (Head of Collections and Cultural Property Team, TNA) began by setting out to explain “What do we mean by cultural property and why it matters”. He traced the evolution of market for archives which was already well established by the 19th century when the Historical Manuscripts Commission was created. That Commission began the work of tracking sales and monitoring the movement of pre-eminent archival collections which were in private hands and other institutions outside the public sector. The scope of the Commission’s work expanded first in 1959 and again in 2003 when the current TNA was created.
Sotheby’s Felix Hale and Cecily Rainey from Arts Council England, then gave an overview of the important tax mitigations which can be relevant to archives, focusing on Conditional Exemption, Private Treaty Sales, Acceptance in Lieu and the Cultural Gifts Scheme. Working with clients and their other advisers on these tax arrangements continues to form an important part of the work of Sotheby’s Tax, Heritage & Museums team in London.
No less important that the tax treatment of archival gifts, is the question of export licensing, when an overseas purchaser applies to take cultural property out of the UK. Sotheby’s Wendy Philips reminded the audience that an export licence would be required for an archive (regardless of value) which is more than 50 years old and which has been in the UK for more than 50 years. The Arts Council, working with an expert adviser, determines whether the archive meets one or more of the Waverley criteria such that “its departure from the UK would be a misfortune”. If this is the case, the matter is referred to the Reviewing Committee for the Export of Works of Art (“RCEWA”) which meets to determine whether to allow – or to defer – the export. If the decision is to defer, UK institutions are given the opportunity to come forward to indicate a serious intention to purchase the archive. A second deferral period then follows, to allow a UK institution the chance to raise the necessary funds to complete the purchase and keep the archive in the UK.
Next, Simon McKeon (Head of Public Records &Standards Team TNA) reminded the audience that certain classes of documents are subject to special controls. These either cannot be sold at all or can only be sold under certain circumstances. The main categories to be aware of are, first, public records (as defined in the Public Records Act 1958), where sale is prohibited. Secondly there is the category of tithe records (Tithe Act 1936) where official sealed copies are inalienable (but other copies are not restricted). Finally, there are manorial documents which may be sold, but subject to the requirements of the Manorial Documents Rules which, for example, require owners to share details of their documents with TNA.
Working with the market
The second part of the conference focused on working with the market. Sotheby’s Dr Gabriel Heaton illustrated some of the manuscripts and archives that have crossed his desk and his approach to the valuation exercise. These included correspondence from King Henry VIII and George Orwell; the archive of letters from Sylvia Plath to Ted Hughes and other fascinating literary and political examples. Notable was Sir Walter Scott’s manuscript of Rob Roy which was sold to a consortium of UK libraries (under the auspices of the Friends of the National Libraries) for £15m in 2022.
James Travers (Cultural Property Manager, TNA) gave an overview of his work which touched up on the various tax schemes (which had been discussed earlier in the day); advice to grant-making bodies and sales-monitoring. In the case of grant applications, James explained that he advised on everything from the reasonableness of the price in question (in the context of the current market) through to suitable storage and access provisions.
The focus then shifted to the area of insolvency and Dr Philippa Turner from TNA gave an interesting insight into how a crisis management team for business archives co-ordinates efforts to preserve records in cases of liquidations, corporate takeovers and other circumstances where such records might be at risk.
Leanne Manfredi spoke next about the work of the Purchase Grant Fund which is comes from Arts Council England lottery funding and is managed by the V&A. Working with a grants budget of £725,000 for 2024/5 the fund had made grants to 76 different organisations and Leanne gave examples of purchases which they had assisted, ranging from the archive of Holmes & Co (a nineteenth century Derbyshire firm of coach builders) acquired by Matlock, Derbyshire Record Office, to the manuscript of a biographical memoir of Jane Austen’s brother, Admiral Sir Francis William Austen.
The final speaker – Mark Stevens from the Royal Berkshire Archives - took the audience through “A Year in Acquisitions”. This was an interesting glimpse of the important work that goes on in local authority archives throughout the country and Mark explained that his work in a twelve-month period had included the archive of St Bartholomew’s hospital Newbury; Smewyns Manor, White Waltham; Edward Russell, former treasurer to the Royal Navy.
The conference proved to be a very useful coming-together of professionals from every part of the archive world and there was a very fruitful sharing of knowledge and networking. It also contributed to a building up of confidence for those who need to work with funders, regulators and auction houses and deal with the various cultural property mechanisms that support the preservation or acquisition of archive collections.
