The Fitzwilliam Museum - University of Cambridge

8
Director’s Review
Photo by Charles Green
Frances Sword with
her OBE for services
to museum education
HE Mr Gehad Madi, Egyptian Ambassador, and Mrs Madi view the new galleries with Helen Strudwick,
Outreach Officer (Ancient Egypt)
St James, who joined us to celebrate the re-opening of
the Egyptian galleries after extensive renovation. This
was made possible by generous grants from the
Heritage Lottery Fund and other sources, which
enabled the museum to carry out extensive
conservation on the collection and to develop a whole
range of new educational programmes. Designed by
Iain Langlands, working closely with the Department of
Antiquities, the new displays are both more dramatic
and informative about the earliest of the civilisations
represented extensively in the museum.
In June 2006 we said farewell to Frances Sword, our
inspirational Head of Education who can be described
as a defining figure in museum education not only
here in Cambridge but throughout the region. Her
innovative programmes earned the Museum of the
Year award in 1996 and, ten years later, the OBE,
which recognises her achievements more generally.
Finally, at the end of the year I announced my own
retirement, to take effect from August 2007. There
will, of course, be further opportunities for valediction,
but I cannot end this report without thanking all of
my colleagues throughout the museum for the help,
advice and hard work they have contributed to make
my job such an enjoyable and, indeed, enviable one.
Duncan Robinson
Director