Prize Lectureship

Prize Lecturer 1999 - Sir Roy Strong

Goodbye Britain?

The advent of devolution to Wales and Scotland in May 1999 is a significant turning point in the island's history. Until now attention has been focussed on the political and constitutional implications of devolution - the cultural implications have been ignored.

In his lecture, he examined the effects on the arts of devolution in the light of historical precedent. The accession of James VI to the throne of England in 1603 and the Act of Union in 1707 had momentous consequences for the arts on both sides of the Border, leading him to suggest that 1999 would prove no different.

In 1603 Scotland lost its royal court, the 'mecca' of patronage and all forms of cultural activity within renaissance society. The result in Scotland was fragmentation and regionalism. Meanwhile, having moved south, the Stuart dynasty set about harnessing the arts to create a culture which was neither Scottish nor English, but British. This expressed itself in a new classicism reflecting the revival of what was believed to have been the ancient Empire of Great Britain.

The Act of Union of 1707 likewise had repercussions on the arts on both sides of the Border. On the Scottish side, there were those who embraced wholeheartedly the new Britishness either by going south or by importing it north. But there were equally others who mourned the demise of an indigenous culture, setting out to record it before it vanished. In England there was a sustained attempt to create a unitary British culture to match the new unitary State. That gradually came to rest on an acknowledged pantheon of classics within the arts which all could share and on the principle of unity in diversity. Both have pertained until the present day.1999 would seem to firmly challenge these time-honoured cultural principles. It signals the end of any attempt to construct a specifically British culture and could move on to question unity in diversity. History would suggest that the result on both sides of the Border will be internalisation and anew emphasis on what is different about the arts in both countries, rather than what is the same.

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Prize Lecture 2005 : Prize Lecture 2004 : Prize Lecture 2003 : Prize Lecture 2002 : There was no Prize Lecture in 2001 : Prize Lecture 2000