About
With over twenty five years experience as a senior museum curator and heritage consultant I have:
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Developed, written and curated award-winning exhibitions and public programmes
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Established and directed an accredited London museum from scratch
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Project managed major exhibition builds
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Directed, managed and researched internationally significant collections and Grade I listed buildings
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Recruited and led multidisciplinary teams
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Produced and commissioned artists, designers, writers and filmmakers
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Chaired a London museums subject specialist network​
Recent clients
The Tower of London, Historic Royal Palaces
Kensington Palace, Historic Royal Palaces
Natural History Museum, London
Science Museum, London
Research Centre for Museums and Galleries, University of Leicester
Queer Britain Museum, London
Barts Health NHS Trust Museums
Dr Johnson's House Trust
Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum
Bromley Historic Collections
Florence Nightingale Museum
Worshipful Company of Grocers, London
Museums Journal
Museum of the Order of St John, London
British Society for Haematology
Jaywick Martello Tower, Essex
Burnham-on-Crouch District Museum, Essex
Essex County Cricket Club Museum
My skills
I combine leadership, coaching and project management skills, creativity and wide-ranging expertise in museum sector best practice, writing, research, interpretation and the histories of art, portraiture, architecture, and medicine.
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I am equally skilled at working on a shoe-string budget or high profile exhibitions in palaces and national museums.
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I love writing concise, engaging, entertaining text, for all types of communication and audiences, from single object labels or whole gallery narratives to articles, strategic reviews and board papers.
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My Clore short course in 2016 and Relational Dynamics accredited coaching course in 2022 focused my leadership practice on mentoring, finding authenticity and making connections.
My values
I am passionate about the role of museums in society and the necessity of embedding access and inclusion at the heart of our work.
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I champion diverse and challenging histories. My job is to make engaging spaces and stories, for fun, for learning, for reflection and as sites of social justice.
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Read more: 'What freelancing means to me' Museums Association, 2023
My background
Originally from Penrith, Cumbria, I studied History of Art and later Museum Studies at university, whilst volunteering for Tullie House in Carlisle, Manchester Art Gallery, and Bexhill and Whitstable's seaside museums.
I got my first paid museum job aged 23 in the 19th century collectors' paradise that is Haslemere Educational Museum in Surrey. I lived next door in Museum Cottage and learnt about historic collections in the most hands-on way possible: by documenting and displaying the extraordinarily diverse set of objects they hold. I wrote about folk art, cleaned rhinos and giant spider crabs, called the fire brigade to blow up long-accessioned incendiary devices and never touched the lethal Peruvian arrowheads., even once.
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I've worked for many organisations in the years since I left Haslemere - as a paintings, prints and drawings curator at London Museum, history of medicine specialist, museum director, Historic Royal Palaces exhibition curator, and finally freelance consultant. But the experience of being plunged in at the deep end, holding your nerve and working through chaos and unknowns to reach solutions (whilst also delivering the Egyptian mummy Saturday kids workshop and lighting the BBQ for the volunteers summer party) was foundational to everything I've done since.