The People's History Museum has turned to online auction website eBay for its latest acquisition. Courtesy People's History Museum.
Star Wars figures? Rare DVDs? Cars? Sporting memorabilia? You name, you can buy it on eBay.
Over the past few years the online auction site has become hugely popular, but it recently recruited a slightly different sort of customer in the shape of the People’s History Museum in Manchester.
Acting on a tip off from a member of staff - and dedicated eBay-er - at the Museum of Science and Industry down the road, Keeper Jim Garretts, snapped up a poster for a 19th century trade union rally.
Speaking to the 24 Hour Museum, Jim explained how the opportunity to purchase the artefact, albeit in unorthodox circumstances, was too good to miss.
"We probably won’t get offered another one of these," he said, "it’s the real thing, we’re going to be showing a real document that was put up in places for people to read."
A rare piece of political, social and trade union history, the poster was produced by the Manchester Cotton Spinners in 1829 to get support from other cotton workers.
Bearing the name of leading 19th century trade unionist John Doherty, the poster is a rare and highly significant document. Courtesy People's History Museum.
With their secretary John Doherty leading the way, the group were campaigning to prevent a 30% reduction in wages and encouraging workers to attend a rally in Manchester on August 26 1829.
Their action was ultimately unsuccessful and the starving textile workers were eventually forced to accept the lower wages and return to work.
"It represents physical evidence of those early struggles for workers’ rights in a period when it wasn’t easy to be in a trade union," said Jim.
"We have other documents in the museum which relate not only to the textile industry as a whole, but that deal with disputes in the cotton industry, so it fits quite well with what we’ve got already."
Understandably, the poster has suffered substantial deterioration over the years and conservation staff at the museum will need to undertake preservation work on it. However, it is hoped that it will go on show within the next couple of years.
An online auction site such as eBay may seem an unlikely place for a museum to be looking to add to its collection but, as Jim explained, if the material is there, it is important for institutions like his to make sure it gets a proper home.
The online auction site has come under fire from archaeologists and historians because of the possibility of antiquities being sold on it.
"There’s quite a lot of serious material being offered," he said. "There’s a slight cause for concern that if the museum world doesn’t act on it, stuff will get lost from the public domain."
Yet, Jim does have reservations about the unrestricted and unofficial nature of buying and selling in the virtual arena.
A particular problem, he said, was establishing a provenance for artefacts and being certain they’re the real thing.
"The problem, of course, is that you can’t see and handle it," he said. "It might be difficult for museums to be able to guarantee if something is what they think it is. If there is a plate and it doesn’t show the maker’s mark on the back, for example, you might want to see that."
Despite having no control over what its users choose to sell, eBay has been heavily criticised in the past by archaeologists and historians over the number of antiquities apparently available on it.
However, as far as Jim Garretts is concerned, as they continue to grow in popularity and size online auction sites may well get used by more and more museums to make acquisitions.
"It’s going to become increasingly the norm," he explained. "I don’t think it’s going to go away, I think we have to work with it."
