Quis Custodiet? Top UK museums admit hundreds of items lost, stolen or destroyed

Tara Cobham 'Top UK museums admit hundreds of items lost, stolen or destroyed'. Independent 10/4/24

The British Museum is facing a huge alleged thefts scandal but it turns out that the symptoms of once-proud UK going to the dogs go much wider.

Top UK museums have admitted that hundreds of important items have been lost, stolen or destroyed over the past five years. The Imperial War Museum, the Natural History Museum and the National Museum of Scotland are among those who reported missing items in response to Freedom of Information requests by The Independent. [...]
The Imperial War Museum recorded 539 items as lost between 2018 and 2023 and one item as stolen, while the Natural History Museum disclosed 13 items had gone missing over the last five years. During the same time period, the National Museum of Scotland reported six items were lost from its collections, one item was stolen and another destroyed in a fire.[...] while the Museum Wales said a total of 16 items had gone missing since 2017, and 1,921 is the overall number of items that have been lost since the museum started caring for objects. However, the National Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Tate all reported no missing or stolen items over the same time period.