The Story of the Trust
Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust is an independent charitable trust operating the two sites of Kelham Island Museum and Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet on behalf of Sheffield City Council. The Trust also provides a service for open days and group bookings at Shepherd Wheel with support from the Council.
The Trust has been successful in securing Heritage Lottery Fund grants for both Kelham and Abbeydale. In April 2003, a £0.5 million capital project at Kelham was completed, creating a new Collections Management Centre and new interpretation in the main gallery. In September 2002, Abbeydale appointed a new Education & Access Officer funded by the HLF under its Museum and Galleries Access Fund scheme, receiving a grant of £89,400 over three years.
More recently, a £1 million HLF grant has been secured for Kelham to ensure the long term conservation and preservation of the collection of large and medium sized industrial objects, which are at risk in their current conditions. This aim is to be achieved through the creation of new stores and well equipped conservation workshops. The project will also increase public access to the collections through a Transport Gallery and visible storage in an Open Store.
However, it did not always look so promising for the Trust. The story of SIMT in its short life from 1994 to the present day is one of revival and restoration after a prolonged period of cuts and eventual closures by the City Council. Kelham was the first to be threatened with closure due to Council budget cuts in the early 1990s. But a partnership between the City Council, Sheffield Hallam University and the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire was formed to create an independent trust, Kelham Island Museum Ltd., in November 1994.
The Trust had one third of the previous funding and less than half the staff to begin with and there continued to be a struggle with deficits and for an adequate grant for the first three years. Against this backdrop of conflict the Trust began to address the causes of Kelham's difficulties, which lay in a lack of change and activity over a number of years, leading to falling visitor numbers with the trend downwards increasing due to the perception of closure. From an opening high of 60,000, the Museum had stabilised around 40,000 in the 1980s and then fell away to 32,000. Clearly the Trust had to put a stop to this and it did so through the Board adopting clear aims and objectives and a set of policies based on 'immediate change, ongoing change and permanent change' in 1995. These were executed through an events led strategy and an emphasis on the family and education based activity diversifying what the Museum does into areas such science, environment, creativity and living history.
By the end of the first three years visitor numbers had been raised by 50%, nearly achieving 50,000 for the first time in 16 years and earned income increased by 80%. This had been achieved by a mixture of entrepreneurial activity, opportunism, numerous grant applications to a great variety of sources, but most important was a clear vision and the will to succeed from the Board down.
In 1997 the City Council closed Abbeydale due to more cuts and in 1998 it passed the site over to the Trust, which had re-constituted itself as SIMT to reflect its enhanced role. The same financial struggle ensued as the grant was only that which the Council used to keep the site closed. However, significant contributions from the private sector and many other grants began the same process of change. £160,000 has been spent on repairing the rotten waterwheels, which the Trust secured from English Heritage and PRISM. At the same time the Council more than matched this with major repairs to the dangerously leaking dam and structural works throughout the site, showing a renewed commitment to the Hamlet after many years of indifference. The total investment reaches £0.5 million when added to funds raised by the Trust for projects to improve interpretation throughout the site. Abbeydale is in the best condition it has been for twenty years and now the HLF scheme aims to rebuild the audience lost through closure and decay.
SIMT has changed these museums from being funded by the City Council to more than matching the Council grant each year, with 60% of total income raised by the Trust over its life. There is also a saving of £0.5 million a year for the Council compared to what was spent on these sites in the early 1990s.
The remaining problematic issue for the Trust is Shepherd Wheel, a water-powered grinding hull on the River Porter in a beautiful parkland setting. The Trust does not have a lease but looks after school visits and occasional summer open days on behalf of the Council. Considerable investment is needed to repair the wheel and the dam that has at least seven leaks. In the region of £0.75 million will be necessary to rebuild the dam and for all the other works. Again a partnership between the City Council, SIMT and this time the Friends of the Porter Valley will need to be formed to raise the funds.
The Trust has made a good start in rescuing key elements of Sheffield's industrial heritage, but it is now looking to the next phases of development for Kelham and Abbeydale and to begin the major task of restoring Shepherd Wheel.
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