Jacqueline Laurence Museum Director
Female / 62 / Aquarius
Jacqueline was the first person I met at the museum. She has been giving me so much help and supporting my wildest ideas. Every week, I look forward to hearing her warmest greeting. She has a cheerful laugh, a determined but gentle voice, agile hands and feet, and always wears a beige pilled jumper.
She just finished her jury service before the interview.
Jacqueline came to Wimbledon when she got married. She’s been living here for 20 years. She grew up not very far in Sutton from when she was 8.
She did history at university, the conversion course, and became a lawyer. She was a barrister for about 15 years. She stopped that when her children were born.
She was with her children for about 15 years, and then she did the MA and started her museum career.
How did you become a volunteer?
I became a volunteer, because well, first of all, I knew about the Museum. My next door neighbour had been involved with the museum for a long time. He was quite an elderly gentleman, and all the time my children were growing up, he kept saying to me, you should bring your children to the museum. I never did.
I wanted to do a MA in museum studies, and in order for them to even look at my application which obviously was a bit of a strange application already because I was in my fifties when I was applying. They wanted you to have done lots of volunteering in the museum sector. I was a volunteer at the British Museum and John Soane’s Museum, and
First of all, I was the office manager, because that was the job that they had, which basically meant, I ordered the printer Ink. And then I became the photography curator. I did that for quite a long time, working with Pamela. And all the time I was doing that I was looking at the museum, and by this time my children were teenagers. I was thinking to myself, I would like to run this museum.
So, one day in 2016, I walked into the Wimbledon Museum which was then ‘the Museum of Wimbledon’ and said,
‘I’d like to volunteer.’
And they said great.
But what happened was that the person who was running the museum stopped much earlier than I thought she would. The Wimbledon Society said to me, ‘Would you like to run the Museum?’ And that was it.
That was at the end of 2018, my children were still at home and at school.
might lose the chance.
So I said yes.
I thought I should have something small and local.
Maybe I could run this museum when my children have left home.
But I thought if I don’t take it now I
What did you feel when you had to stop the career?
I was very relieved.
I was 40 when my first child was born.
I had been at the bar since I was about 25, and the bar is a interesting and exciting, but very stressful occupation. I was glad not to have to try and combine that with having children.
Are you always interested in museum studies?
Yes. I didn’t know there was such a thing as museum studies. You know I was like 55, and I was thinking,
‘Well, what should I do now? I need to do something now.’ My children are growing up,
and I was thinking, maybe about teaching. Somebody said that when I’ve got a history degree I could be trained as a teacher, then maybe I could do education work in museums. And I thought, oh yes, because I’ve always loved museums, and that’s when I found out there was this thing called museum studies.
What was the most unforgettable memory when volunteering?
It was a summer weekend, the weekend after they had finished installing the new museum. The objects hadn’t gone in yet, but all the cabinets were there. And it just looked absolutely amazing. I met Sarah there on the Saturday morning, and we just sort of stood in this museum, and looked at it and it was amazing. It’s such an incredibly beautiful room. So, after they’ve done the floor and everything like that (showing the photo). I couldn’t actually believe that we’d actually done it.
How long did it take?
The refurbishment took us about 2 years.
First, we had to raise the money, clear the room, find a designer, do the design and find the project manager and everything.
In January 2022, they started the base build work, got the room ready, did the floor, did the ceiling, and they decorated it. And then, after that, they put the cabinets in.
How long do you think you will keep volunteering?
I don’t know.
Having finally refurbished it, I would like to just run it for a couple of years and then I don’t know what will happen.
What do you think you have learned?
I think a general thing that I’ve learned is in an organisation where everybody is a volunteer there’s only so much you could do. You can’t make people do things. I can’t really tell anyone what to do. I just have to persuade them. And therefore,
if you can’t do something that you just have to accept,
if the people aren’t doing it, if it can’t happen, you have to accept it. So that’s the first thing.
And I think more generally about what the museum actually is, and this is something that I’ve learned since we opened is
Is there any example that you could share?
Well, for instance, we actually opened with an empty place because Pamela is very anxious about those cases. She thinks that they’re bad for the objects. The case beside Afua, the case that’s got the miniature china in it. We actually opened the museum when that was empty. I can’t believe that after all these we were opening with an empty case, but actually nobody said about it! They just sort of drifted past.
Are there things you have learnt are benefits for yourself?
Yes. I think I’ve learned not to take responsibility for things that I can’t. Because actually, my working life before, if you’re a barrister, basically you’re going into court. It’s you, the judge is going to be shouting at. In the end you do have to be responsible for everything because it’s you who is going to be held responsible for it. But that’s different if you’re trying to run an organisation, and especially an organisation which is kind of volunteer run. And the second thing is that I’ve learnt to keep very
there’ll be all kinds of things that I cared about terribly and that most visitors just don’t notice at all.
Were you a bit less calm before?
I t r y quitehard , andalmostalways succeed in not letingpeopleupset m e n ow.
Y e s, Iwould let things upsetme , but
Do you think the journey has changed your life?
Oh, yes, I think so. Apart from any thing else, I mean that the timing of it ended up being very good, because I thought about the bigger scheme of my life, because what I had originally thought was, ‘Well, I’ll start doing this when my children have left home.’
So I think, it would have been much harder for me dealing with my children leaving home if I haven’t had the museum, because I had been with them since they were babies.
Sounds like the museum is your new baby.
Yeah. The museum is my new baby, exactly.
Are there messages that you want to pass on to the next generation as the role of a museum director?
There are 3 things. The object is a very important one. If you’ve got something which is telling a history or something, but it hasn’t got any objects, then I think that isn’t a museum.
And actually the space is very important. The other thing that’s really important is the people, the people in it and that means visitors and the volunteers who are in it.
I think I would just say to people come.
That’s lovely!
The last question is that the idea about home is a really big element for a community museum, especially for Wimbledon Museum.
So, how do you describe home?
Home is as much a feeling as a place. My son is studying French and English at university. There is no word for home in French.
How do they say home?
If they say, come and have dinner at my house, or come and have dinner at home, they say ‘chez moi’ or they say ‘la maison’. There’s no exact translation of the idea.
So, home is a feeling, and I think what we say about the museum, or what I’ve always wanted to feel about the Museum is that
museum is a place that people should feel at home.
I think that’s partly to do with this kind of domestic feel to it because it’s small and hopefully sort of comfortable. Your home is a place where you belong, and where you have the right to be. And hopefully it’s full of love. And
obviously, a museum isn’t full of the same kind of love as a place where a family or a couple live or even a person who lives happily on their own.
You know there’s a kind of love It’s a museum love.
That’s another thing I feel about the Museum, actually it sounds a bit odd, but I actually do feel it quite strongly, which is that
it is magical.
For museum to work, so many things that could easily not work like if we didn’t have Graham, that museum would not be able to work at all, and that the museum is in that building. You should interview Sarah as well. Sarah will talk to you about the magic.
Whenever we need somebody, like Jean, the person we need has always come to us. A man who I’ve known for a very long time said he’s got a friend who is interested in the museum and just left her job. And I said, ‘Oh my god! Get her! Get her!’ So, I think home is important about how I feel about the museum, m a
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Documented by Louise Hung