International Journal of Heritage Studies Vol. 17, No. 3, May 2011, 245–260 ss Great Britain and the containment of British collective memory Deborah M. Withers* Independent Scholar, UK (TaylorRJHS_A_557835.sgmReceived and Francis 13 December 2010; final version received 22 January 2011) 10.1080/13527258.2011.557835International1352-7258Original2011Taylor173000000MayDrmail@debi-rah.net DeborahWithers & Article Francis (print)/1470-3610 2011 Journal of Heritage (online) Studies This article explores the Bristol-based ss Great Britain and the heritage industry dedicated to it. It critically examines how the museum, which is based within the ship itself, allows visitors to ‘feel good’ about the history of British colonialism by acting as a container for British collective memory. It examines how the key narrative in the exhibition is structured as an affective journey of hope for a better future based primarily around the journey of British people to Australia in the mid- nineteenth century. It is argued that it is no longer acceptable that public heritage institutions, such as the ss Great Britain, continue to represent British colonial history as a voyage of economic and personal discovery for white settlers. Keywords: collective memory; British colonialism; affect; museum frames; maritime history Introduction The British Empire was a historical reality, but it was also an ideal; indeed the ideal of empire participates in its justification as a moral project. The ideal of empire is retained by being rerouted through the moral understanding of empire as the gift of happiness. (Ahmed, 2010, p. 132–133) In The Promise of Happiness Sara Ahmed (2010) explores the ways the history of the British Empire has been recounted as a ‘happy narrative’. Deploying the idea of happi- ness as a social technology, Ahmed argues, has enabled British identity to be fashioned in ways that allow British citizens to feel well adjusted to, and indeed happy about, the legacies of British colonialism. This article will take Ahmed’s idea as a starting point to examine one part of British colonial legacy – the Bristol-based ss Great Britain and the heritage industry dedicated to it. I want to critically examine how the museum, which is based within the ship itself, allows visitors to ‘feel good’ about the history of British colonialism by acting as a container for British collective memory. The paper begins by introducing the history of the ss Great Britain, then goes on to examine the ways that history is represented in the museum. Then follows content analysis of the museum itself. My aim in this is to demonstrate how the organisation of the museum – its story boards, written artefacts and material objects – attempt to take the visitor on an affective journey that plays upon the hope for a better life for the people who step on to the ss Great Britain – both in the past and the present. The ‘voyage of discovery into the past’ that the museum takes its visitors on is, however, *Email: [email protected] ISSN 1352-7258 print/ISSN 1470-3610 online © 2011 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2011.557835 http://www.informaworld.com 246 D.M. Withers made at the expense of mythologising the history of the ship and the wider context of British colonial history where it is situated. Consequently, the role the ss Great Britain played in the histories of British colonialism – histories that were far from happy for many people in the world – is removed from the frames of understanding presented in the museum. These are the frames of contained representation that ultimately want the museum to create feel-good experiences for the people who attend. This paper explores the role the ss Great Britain plays in perpetuating dominant trends within British collective memory that are common within museums, public rituals and wider popular culture. These trends refuse to confront the negative and violent truths of British colonial history. Ultimately I want to suggest that large heri- tage initiatives such as the ss Great Britain have a political responsibility to complicate rather than mythologise key moments in British history that demonstrate the ‘interre- lations between empire and British society’ (Wilson 2004, p. 13). Background to the ss Great Britain and museum The ss Great Britain museum is a hugely popular visitor attraction. The website states that it is the ‘winner of more than 20 national and international awards including UK Museum of the Year and Enjoy England Large Visitor Attraction of the Year’, while The Mail on Sunday described it as ‘one of the UK’s finest visitor attractions’ (ss Great Britain 2010). The allure of the ss Great Britain may be because it evokes a particular kind of nostalgia common to maritime heritage. As Ann Day and Ken Lunn argue, ‘as the use of the sea declines, for naval and merchant shipping and for the fishing industry, so its representational forms become more poetic and thus more disassociated from the lives of people’ (Day and Lunn 2003, p. 296). Furthermore, Day and Lunn argue that this has an impact on the types of activities presented by maritime museums. Audiences at these heritage ‘attractions’ are often presented with ‘a set of leisure experiences … caught up in or peripherally linked to a series of nautical and maritime associations, and these associations lay with some vision of the past’ (Day and Lunn 2003, p. 302, emphasis added). That the ss Great Britain is first and foremost a leisure activity can help us understand the ways the museum sustains the communal memory of empire by focussing on the pleasure or happiness of its visitors. The ss Great Britain has been open to visitors since its return to Bristol in July 1970. The museum was re-launched after a £11.3 million restoration and conservation project (during which time it remained open to visitors) in July 2005. Since this time, visitors have enjoyed the Great Western Dockyard, the Dry Dock below the glass ‘sea’, the Dockyard Museum and the ss Great Britain itself. In June 2010, a new Visitor Centre was opened with an improved ticket office, shop and toilets and the David MacGregor Library. The Brunel Archive was also opened to the public on 24 November 2010. The museum attracts approximately 150,000 visitors (including 16,000 school children) and 15,000 venue hire guests per annum. The museum honours the ss Great Britain, a ship that ‘transformed ship building and international travel’ (ss Great Britain museum board). The ship was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and built between 1839 and 1843 in the dry dock where it now lives in Bristol harbour. Part of the historical significance of the ship lies in its technological innovation: the ss Great Britain’s screw propeller was at the time the newest invention in maritime history. With its 1000 horsepower (hp) steam engine, it was also the largest ship of its time. International Journal of Heritage Studies 247 In its lifetime, the ship sailed 32 times around the world, travelling more than 1,000,000 ocean miles (1,852,000km). From 1843 to 1852 the ship made several jour- neys to New York, carrying passengers and cargo. Between 1852 and 1882, the ship was transformed into a passenger sailing ship, taking British people to Australia. In 1882, the ss Great Britain was converted into a sailing ship, as it became used exclusively for stowing cargo, transporting coal and wheat on what had become a busy trade route from South and North America. After a fire in 1886, the ship then came to be docked at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands where it was used to store coal. The ship played an important role in the First World War, acting as a coal bunker, and helped defeat Admiral von Spee’s German fleet in the battle of the Falklands. In 1937, the ship was abandoned and towed to Sparrow Cove. Later its steel plates were used to repair HMS Exeter in the Second World War after it had been damaged in the Battle of River Plate. The ship stayed in the Falklands until the late 1960s when interest developed in a salvage mission. At that time it was resting underneath the water, had a severe crack down one of its sides that had to be filled with mattresses before sailing, an old technique itself salvaged from the days of Nelson. On 24 April 1970, the ss Great Britain made the journey back to Bristol, a journey that has become a central part of the ship’s history. In the ss Great Britain museum the voyage home is presented as miraculous, like the building of the ship itself. It is seen to occupy a central place within Bristol’s social history. The recent animation film and exhibition shown in the Baker Gallery of the museum, ‘The Incredible Journey’ (2010), made to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the ship’s homecoming, demonstrates this. The film includes oral testimonies from people involved in the salvage mission and ‘ordinary’ Bristol citizens who comment on the importance of the homecoming in terms of their own personal autobiographies. The history of building and salvaging the ss Great Britain is, in many ways, a remarkable feat of human achievement. The museum itself, which is based on an immersive experience for the visitor that works on many different levels (including a re-creation of the smells that were onboard the ship, as well as the sights and sounds), communicates the grandeur of Brunel’s ambition through its collection of large mate- rial objects salvaged from the original ship. These include huge, rusted metal plates and beams that run along the walls of the Dockyard Museum (Figure 1).