Media background information sheet:
25 years of the National Heritage Memorial Fund
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Background information
The National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) is the fund of last resort for the nation’s heritage. It uses an annual income of £5million to provide urgent funding for the UK’s heritage at risk.
The fund, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2005, was set up to save the UK’s heritage in memory of those who gave their lives for this country.
The recently saved Macclesfield Psalter joined a diverse list of over 1,200 items which have been safeguarded by the National Heritage Memorial Fund including :
- The Mappa Mundi
- The Mary Rose
- Flying Scotsman
- The last surviving World War II destroyer, HMS Cavalier,
- Brecon Beacons National Park
- Orford Ness nature reserve in Suffolk.
- Beamish Exhibition Colliery
- Sir Walter Scott manuscripts
- Antonio Canova’s ‘The Three Graces’
- Picasso’s ‘Weeping Woman’
- The Nativity, a miniature by Jean Bourdichon
- A 3,430 year old statuette of Queen Nerfititi’s daughter
- Thrust-2-World land speed record Car
History of the National Heritage Memorial Fund
The National Land Fund – the precursor of the National Heritage Memorial Fund (see below) - was established in 1946 by Hugh Dalton, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer (and wartime head of the Special Operations Executive). It was set up to safeguard the national heritage and was given £50million raised through the sale of surplus military stores. Hugh Dalton’s vision for the National Land Fund was that it would be "a war memorial which many would think finer than any works of art in stone or bronze."
The National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) was set up by Parliament in 1980 with the proceeds of the National Land Fund, in the aftermath of an enormous public outcry over the failure to save the Victorian country house, Mentmore and its contents. The Fund was established as a memorial to those who gave their lives for this country and it continues to operate as a fund of ‘last resort’, focussing on saving heritage which is under threat, whether from sale overseas, the break-up of collections, or, in the case of land, from unsympathetic development.
In 1994, the NHMF was given the task of distributing the heritage share of Lottery money for the good causes, which it operates through its Heritage Lottery Fund arm. |