Tag Archives: National Maritime Museum

Whose heritage?

Many countries have laws to protect any heritage objects in private hands from being sold out of the country.  Recently the issue arose in Britain regarding a ring once owned by Jane Austen.  Last year it was bought at a London auction by the American pop singer Kelly Clarkson, who naturally planned to take it home with her to America.  The private owners have a right to sell their own property, but the British government stepped in to put a temporary export ban on the ring so that the British public would have time to raise the same amount of money (£152,450) to buy it for the Jane Austen Museum.

Now Austen is British to her bootstraps.  So British, in fact, that she has just become the new female face on the £10 note.

But what about a kangaroo?

George_Stubbs,_A_portrait_of_the_Kongouro_(Kangaroo)_from_New_Holland,_1772

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