In memory of Sir Nicholas Goodison, a champion of craft

With the death of Sir Nicholas Goodison last month, the world of modern craft has lost one of its most important patrons.

In recent years, he recalled the ways in which his role as chair of the Crafts Council (1997–2005) had strengthened and deepened his knowledge of and interest in modern craft through the opportunity to meet makers and see works in the central London exhibition space run by the council at that time. His own collecting in the area became informed by contact with the work and deep knowledge of potters such as Emmanuel Cooper and Janice Tchalenko and glassmakers such as Colin Reid.

This role followed a significant and influential public career in the financial sector, most visibly as chairman of the Stock Exchange (1976-1986) for which he was knighted in 1982 – having successfully steered the exchange through the deregulation ‘Big Bang’, with its objectives of broadening ownership, abolishing restrictive practices, and ensuring London remained at the centre of world financial markets. He subsequently chaired the TSB Group (1988-1995) followed by the role of deputy chair of Lloyds TSB (1995-2000).

Sir Nicholas studied Classics at King’s College Cambridge (1955-1958) and as an undergraduate regularly visited the Fitzwilliam Museum, where his interest in objects and their makers and patrons was stimulated by seeing the ‘superb’ Drayton House and astrolabe clocks by clockmaker Thomas Tompion, given by Ernest Prestige to the museum in 1947.

Although on graduation he followed the family tradition of a stockbroking career, this immersion in a museum collection catalysed a parallel career as a decorative arts scholar, resulting in the publication of seminal works such as English Barometers, 1680-1860 (1968; 2nd ed. 1977) and Matthew Boulton: Ormolu (1974; 2nd ed. 2003). He became honorary keeper of furniture at the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1967 and was president of the Furniture History Society for 30 years, retiring in 2020.

He also retained a lifelong interest in museum collections and their importance to cultural life in the UK, chairing the National Arts Collection Fund (now the Art Fund) (1986-2002) and the Courtauld Institute (1982-2002). In 2004 he led a review of museum funding, leading to the submission of a report to HM Treasury ‘Securing the Best for our Museums. Private Giving and Government Support’.

Sir Nicholas brought together his interest in modern craft and museums in a wholly new way in 1997 when, together with his wife Judith (herself a furniture scholar), he began to commission and purchase contemporary objects to gift to the Fitzwilliam Museum. All works were submitted to the museum ‘syndics’ (trustees) for approval, and each object was then gifted through the Art Fund.

In 2016 I was fortunate to be invited to catalogue the collection of what was then more than 100 works of modern craft in the fields of furniture, ceramics, glass, metalwork and jewellery, which was then published as Contemporary British Crafts: the Goodison Gift to the Fitzwilliam Museum (2016, Philip Wilson Publishers). Subsequently, the Goodisons continued to add to the collection and many of the now 140-plus works remain on display in the museum’s Glaisher and 20th century galleries. Further objects are currently on loan to the exhibition Of The Earth in the contemporary Heong Gallery at Downing College, Cambridge (until October 21 2021), ensuring craft continues to be visible to wide audiences in major educational settings.

Sir Nicholas supported the crafts in other ways too. As chair of the oral history charity National Life Stories at the British Library (2003-2015) he is remembered for his significant contribution to the organisation’s governance and finance and the development of major new oral history projects in the fields of science, utilities and literature, but above all for his commitment to the ‘Crafts Lives’ oral history project. Sir Nicholas was instrumental in raising significant funding for the project, which had been initiated by Tanya Harrod in 1999, resulting in more than 160 in-depth biographical recordings with British makers, many of which are accessible online.

Sir Nicholas’s polymathic career, scholarship and interests were brought together in his generous patronage of modern craft believing, as he did, that ‘objects sit at the centre of art history and human life’and thus the work of the contemporary maker remains of central importance to both culture and economy.

Nicholas Goodison, 16 May 1934 – 6 July 2021