Britain’s top museums have admitted that hundreds of important objects have been lost, stolen or destroyed in the past five years.

The Imperial War Museum, Natural History Museum and National Museums Scotland have all reported missing items in response to Freedom of Information requests. independent.

The revelation comes as the British Museum appoints a new director after the London-based institution was plunged into crisis over an alleged theft scandal.

Nicholas Cullinan, director of the National Portrait Gallery, was appointed director of the British Museum last week as the 265-year-old institution grapples with the apparent theft of hundreds of artefacts and faces international Increasing social scrutiny of its collections.

Former director Hartwig Fischer resigned in August after the museum disclosed that more than 1,800 items from its collection were missing in an alleged case of internal theft, with many items being sold online. . However, hundreds of pieces were later returned, including a bust of the Roman goddess Minerva/Athena in black glass with a white band, and a glass relief with a bust of Cupid/Eros in multiple layers Brown, white and white. Purple glass.

Now, it’s been revealed that hundreds of items are missing from other major museums.

The Imperial War Museum recorded 539 items lost and one item stolen between 2018 and 2023, while the Natural History Museum revealed 13 items had gone missing in the past five years. During the same period, National Museums Scotland reported that six items were missing from its collection, with one stolen and another destroyed in a fire.

Among the lost items at the Natural History Museum are Mesozoic mammal teeth that may be more than 65 million years old, and gastroliths believed to be stolen specimens from a dinosaur gallery. The National Museum of Scotland said the item stolen from the exhibit in 2022 was a telephone receiver from the de Havilland Comet 4C, the world’s first commercial airliner.

A former police officer from the Metropolitan Police’s Art and Antiques Unit tells us independent Over the years, the team has at times faced closure due to the impact of budget and staff cuts while investigating art crime in London.

One example was in 2017 when three of the force’s four officers were redeployed to deal with the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy, leaving just one officer on the team.

When told to the Mayor of London that the team had effectively closed temporarily, Sadiq Khan insisted at the time that “the team was doing a very productive job”, although he “recognized that in the interim, things will get worse” . Manage in a different way”.

One source, who asked not to be named, said: “Budget cuts have really had a huge impact on the investigative powers. It’s an incredibly small unit that punches well above its weight but has a global reputation. . When you start reducing the team to three or four people, it obviously has an impact. It’s sad.”

The Science Museum Group reported that four items were lost between 2018 and 2023, while Museums Wales said a total of 16 items had gone missing since 2017, bringing the total number of items lost since the museum began taking care of them to 1,921. .

However, the National Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum and Tate Gallery all reported no items lost or stolen during the same period.

Meanwhile, last year it was revealed that a famous sculpture by Auguste Rodin had been missing from the collection of a Glasgow museum for 75 years. Bourgeois of Calais was last seen on display in Kelvingrove Park in 1949, where it “suffered damage while on display”, according to Glasgow Life, which manages many of the city’s cultural venues. Jérôme le Blay, director of the Comité Rodin, which maintains a catalog of the artist’s work, estimates the 2-metre-high sculpture is worth around £3m today.

The British Museum has pledged to act immediately upon discovery that items from its collections have been lost, stolen or damaged and immediately implement all recommendations of the independent security review, which concluded at the end of last year.

The museum sacked its long-time director Paul Higgs and is suing him in the High Court over missing collections. Lawyers for the museum said Higgs “abused his position of trust” over a decade by stealing ancient gems, gold jewelry and other items from storage rooms.

Higgs, who worked in the museum’s Greek and Roman departments for more than two decades, denies the accusations and plans to contest the museum’s legal claims. Police are also investigating, but no one has been charged.

A former staff member at one of Britain’s top museums, who asked not to be named, said he was not at all surprised to hear about the problems facing the British Museum because he said they were industry-wide.

He attributes the cataloging failure to a loss of expert skills, which was at least partly due to funding cuts during the industry’s expansion. “Those who have to learn on the job without expertise should sort through what they are unsure about,” he said.

The Imperial War Museum said its figures only include items that remain missing and that it “regularly” recovers other lost items. It added that the figure should be determined based on the size of the museum’s overall collection, which stood at 33,680,654 items in its last annual report.

The Museum of Wales said it currently has a collection of more than 5.3 million items, which have been in care since the 1870s, with most of the lost items being small, household or of low economic value. A spokesman said: “While we have strict collection management and security procedures in place, due to the sheer size of our collections and the fact that at least 1.3 million people visit our seven museums each year, some losses are unfortunately unavoidable. “

A spokesperson for the Natural History Museum said: “We take the security of our collections very seriously and as a result, there have only been 14 instances of items being lost or lost in our collection of 80 million over the past decade, limited to small items such as teeth. , fish and frozen animal tissue, with only one confirmed theft.”

A spokesman for Glasgow Life said: “The processes for recording, cataloging and safekeeping of Glasgow Museums’ collections have improved significantly since its establishment in the 1860s… In cases where historical thefts have been finalised, we have developed Robust processes, including notifying the police and adding the items to the art loss register, make it difficult to secure sales at legitimate auctions.”