Stephen Feber
I’ve worked for over forty years as a curator, director, chief executive and consultant, designing and running places for informal learning – museums, galleries, heritage sites and science centres where people of all ages can explore, try things out and make sense of the world for themselves. The common thread has been creating environments that are structured enough to guide people, but open enough to wander, whether that’s in a traditional museum, an industrial landscape or a hands-on science centre.
Along the way, I’ve worked as a photographer, a building surveyor, and a motorcycle business owner; run two National Trust properties; created what’s now York Museums; and been the instigator and Development Director of Eureka! The Children’s Museum in Halifax led the design and development of the Stirling Prize–winning Magna Science Centre in South Yorkshire and worked on major regeneration projects such as Heartlands in Cornwall and The World of Glass in St Helens. I’ve been responsible for projects involving more than a dozen Grade I and II listed buildings and historic complexes, including Sudbury Hall, Quarry Bank Mill, York Castle Museum, the Yorkshire Museum, York Art Gallery, the Heartlands mining landscape in Cornwall, Stow Maries WWI Aerodrome, work with the Churches Conservation Trust, and the Princess Diana exhibition at Kensington Palace. As a consultant, I’ve advised organisations including the Imperial War Museums, the RAF Museum, the Science Museum Group and the Lake District National Park Authority. I’m a graduate of the Getty Leadership Institute, a Fellow of the RSA, a long-standing leadership mentor, and a Samaritans listening volunteer. I live on a boat in London.
Career Outline - Stephen Richard Feber B.A., M.A., F.R.S.A.
2025 onwards - Chair, The Poetry Society
2023 onwards - Secretary, 3 Mills Moorings Association
2013 - 2020 - Director, Museums and Resilient Leadership leadership development programme
1991 - 2023 - Core member, Directing Change leadership development action learning group for museum directors
2007 - 2012 - Interim Director, construction director, exhibition designer, Heartlands Cornwall
2002 - 2023 - Owner, Stephen Feber Ltd - see below for projects and my legacy site here
1998 - 2002 – Creative Director and Chief Executive of the Magna Trust -150 staff – 500 during construction - £46 million scheme. Millennium Commission, private sector and EU funded
1998 -1999 – Consultant to, and Director of, The World of Glass, St Helens - HLF funded
1995 -1998 – Director, York Museums (Castle Museum, City archive, St Mary’s heritage centre, Art Gallery, Yorkshire Museum – 150 staff - formation of the service across five sites, 700,000 annual visitors
1989 -1995 – Director, Quarry Bank Mill
1984 -1989 – Development Director, Eureka!
1982 -1983 – Consultant, TV-am, scriptwriting and programme development
1980 -1984 – Curator, the Museum of Childhood, Sudbury Hall, Derbyshire
1978 -1980 - Photographer and building surveyor, Lincolnshire and Humberside Arts - County-wide agricultural building recording project
1975 - 1977 SRF Motorcycles
Money - Business, Commercial, Fundraising, Development
1. Capital and Revenue fund raising
Leading, or playing a significant role, in securing the following finance:
£5 million start-up funding from the Clore Duffield Foundation for the UK’s first children’s museum, Eureka! Halifax
£13 million, The World of Glass, St Helens – with Pilkington PLC – HLF principal funder
£52 million Magna, South Yorkshire – with the Stadium Group – Lottery and the EU principal funders
£35 million Heartlands, Cornwall – with the HCA, Lottery and the EU principal funders
£500,000 for the Quarry Bank Mill power galleries – HLF main funder
£2.5 million investment programme for Jersey Heritage’s six main sites 2012-2016
£500,000 for the Museums and Resilient Leadership leadership development programme 2013-2020 with the Black Country Living Museum
Securing funding in multi-stakeholder environments has been a specialism.
2. Business Planning - Medium and Long Term
I have written plans for the inception, development or capital financing for a large number of organisations and projects, including Eureka!, Heartlands, Quarry Bank Mill, the Science Museum Group (York site), the RAF Museums, London Transport Museum, Imperial War Museums, York Museums, the Lake District National Park Authority, Brockhole, Windermere. See the consultancy project list below. In a number of cases, the plans were the key to raising capital and to founding successful cultural venues. In the case of Quarry Bank Mill, the planning was essential to its financial rescue.
To measure the resilience of the Heartlands project, which is within a World Heritage Site, I developed a hybrid long-term planning model for such sites with multiple uses. This model includes revenue, capital, and endowment performance over a 40-year time span. It was used for the Lake District National Park's site at Brockhole, Windermere.
3. Operations and events
I have experience running, planning, and installing seven cafes and restaurants, as well as organising numerous special events at multiple venues, and planning event infrastructure for Heartlands. Including the two NT properties, I have developed and run 11 museums, visitor attractions and sites in the U.K., covering a wide spectrum from children’s museums through art, archaeology and social history to industrial history and science.
4. Legal
The inception of six charities and three trading companies. Board selection and development for several of these.
5. Large Projects, Inception to Completion
Heartlands
Several projects have involved developing a sustainable mix of cultural and commercial use types. Between 2008 and 2012, I acted as Interim Director for the £35 million mixed-use development, Heartlands, for Cornwall Council, which opened in April 2012. The project is one of the Gateway sites for the Devon and West Cornwall World Heritage Site. I wrote the successful bid to the Big Lottery Fund and presented the scheme to the BLF at the final approval meeting. My company were the interpretation planners and exhibition designers for the visitor centre in the historic core. Services included:
Business planning - including the successful plan for the £23 million core funding from the Big Lottery Fund
Staff and organisational structures
Team building
Construction direction, contracts
Creative direction, briefs and frameworks - for the site, graphics, web, architecture and exhibitions
Contracts - for architecture and exhibitions
Development planning – land, buildings, financial reserves - including dealing with renewable energy systems, drainage and contaminated land issues
Event planning
Exhibition and spatial design, exhibition installation
Grants – writing, designing and presenting
Marketing and communications planning, including branding
Team selection for construction, design and creative services to the project
Trust formation and operation, reserves, assets, board – advice
Web design, branding
Heartlands is an urban regeneration project in northwest Cornwall, on a site once contaminated with mine waste, comprising housing, offices, studios, a restaurant, a visitor centre, a community hall, an adventure playground, and events spaces. It has district heating, PV power and water capture and storage.
I covered a similar range of activities for Magna, including contract, legal, site acquisition, and a capital leasing scheme. I was also the accounting officer for the Magna project.
Visitor Experience
Exhibitions and Interpretation
I have always thought about interpretation and site operation as inseparable in planning visitor experiences. I began developing exhibitions and interpretation structures 40 years ago at Sudbury Hall and was instrumental with my colleague in selecting the objects from the Betty Cadbury collection. As Development Director for Eureka! I designed the exhibition framework. My work has also included:
A complete redisplay of the Quarry Bank Mill exhibitions, including the motive power galleries
Scheme for the complete refit of the Castle Museum, York
Exhibition development at Sudbury Hall, including the design and installation of the ‘Just Playing’ interactive exhibition about the psychology of children’s play
Heartlands Cornwall - design of restaurant, entrance area and shop. Design and installation of an interpretation exhibition. Scripting and direction of the main interpretation film
Kensington Palace, Diana: a Princess Remembered - an exhibition to mark the tenth anniversary of her death, shown in all public spaces at K.P.
London Transport Museum, Strategy planning for a city futures exhibition. Creative brief and direction for the Sense and the City exhibition as Curator of the Future, with the Royal College of Art, London University and MIT, Boston
Jersey Heritage, two painting exhibitions (including the Battle of Jersey), an archaeology exhibition, and the Story of Jersey main interpretation film. Producing and directing four films about food in the island.
Public Engagement, Volunteers and Civil Society
Sudbury Hall in the 1980s was a small local museum, and we developed a range of workshops, events and exhibitions in close connection with local people. The exhibition ideas and education programmes for Eureka! were created through community engagement workshops. My direct experience with volunteers is developing the Friends group at Quarry Bank Mill in the days when it was an independent trust. In many ways, it is an exemplar with deep roots in the local community. We ran many local engagement events for Magna and Heartlands, testing ideas and refining designs. The Leamington Spa project (see Coin Street in the project list below) was a community social enterprise. I did a pioneering social capital mapping project in three Dearne Valley former pit villages for Yorkshire Forward in 2006. From this, I sprang the Connected Communities project at the RSA, where I am a fellow.
Other Points
Leadership training and development
Directing Change
DC is an annual event for senior figures in the museum and cultural sectors. I was a founder member and have been core to its thriving over a 30-year period. It is the longest-running action learning set (ALS) of its type in the country and includes many past and present national directors amongst its members. It is currently facilitated by Isabel Mortimer, who facilitates the Clore programmes. It meets at High Trenhouse, adjacent to Malham Tarn, North Yorkshire.
Museums and Resilient Leadership
MRL sprang from the desire to develop leadership capacity in the independent museum sector. It was a year-long training and development programme. The programme has been highly innovative, covering all aspects of leadership in the cultural sector and beyond. Around 40% of our graduates have gone on to senior positions or directorships, including in national museums
COVID stopped the seventh season
Patrons
I’ve had three Royal Patrons: the Prince and Princess of Wales for Eureka! and the Princess Royal at Quarry Bank Mill, for the independent trust.
Consultancy, Conferences and Learning Programmes
Arts Council England (principal funder) - Museums and Resilient Leadership programme, via the Black Country Living Museum - Programme Director
Airedale Partnership – the Aire Valley Economic Master plan with Arup, Leeds
Allerdale Council - tourism development plan
Barnsley Council - urban planning workshop (Yorkshire Forward)
BBC – Alexandra Palace - reimagining the building
Blackpool Council – visitor attraction project
Black Country Living Museum - masterplan brief, AV projects, leadership programme
Churches Conservation Trust – visitor attraction project
Cornwall Council and Kerrier District Council - Heartlands
Coin Street - consultancy for the redevelopment of Bath Place community resource centre Leamington Spa
Cumbria County Council - rethinking Cumbria’s tourism strategy
East Midlands Development Agency – Derwent Valley World Heritage Site Economic Masterplan – with Latham Architects and Arup
Essex County Council - planning for Stow Maries 1st World War airfield site
Historic Royal Palaces - story-making masterclasses. Design and installation of the ‘Diana: a Princess Remembered’ exhibition at Kensington Palace
The Heritage Alliance - strategic planning workshop and organisational analysis for the Trustee Board
Imperial War Museums – five sites - four-month strategic planning workshop process for the senior management team when Diane Lees started as DG, now succeeded by Caro Howell
Imperial War Museum North - exhibition and site re-planning
Isle of Man - Manx Heritage - interpretation development planning diagnosis and seminars
Jersey Heritage - five-year Island-wide interpretation Masterplan. Project design, development and implementation
Jersey Heritage - creative direction and design for two painting exhibitions, a film about the history of the Island and a video installation
Kingdom of Bahrain, National Museum Bahrain, replanning conference with the Institute for Museums, Cultural Enterprises and Audiences, Vienna
Lancashire County Council - replanning Queen Street Mill - business planning consultancy
Lake District National Park Authority - business planning, Brockhole, Windermere
London Transport Museum - Curator of the Future - Sense and the City exhibition, creative direction and strategic thinking about city futures
Luton Cultural Services Trust - commercialisation project, Board development
Maltese Government - site development and appraisal for two historic locations
Manx National Heritage - site redevelopment and exhibition planning workshops
Museum Next - Geneva, Beyond Memory and Experience; The Challenges for Museums in the Internet Century
National Museum of Science and Industry (Science Museum Group) – £300 million master plan for the York Central (NRM) site - themed on cities
National Photography Centre Wales – cultural and commercial business plan
National Trust - interpretation development seminar for the national interpretation team
National Coastal Tourism Agency - five innovation ‘labs’ and workshops to develop coastal tourism strategies for the England and Wales focusing on digital technology across a range of tourism sector businesses
Norfolk County Council - museum service business planning
Northern Way – public art strategy for the North
RAF Museums - strategic re-development and interpretation plan
Romania, Bucharest - Fund for Arts and Culture in Eastern Europe – faculty member for five day conference for Eastern European museum professionals
The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce - Connected Communities project
Royal Collection - Windsor Castle interpretation planning day
Slovenia - Republic of Slovenia with the Institute for Museums, Cultural Enterprises and Audiences, Vienna - Museums Management Conference Constructing ~Sustainable Visions for the future - keynote and workshops
UK Coal – development plan for a 1000 homes + 1000 jobs 500-acre site
Visit Scotland - tourism development keynote
Wakefield Arts - tourism development workshops Grimsby, Scarborough, Bridlington, Northallerton
Warwickshire County Council - museum service development programme
William Scott Abbott Trust: Creation of a Strategic Cultural and Commercial plan for the development of Sacrewell
Yorkshire Forward – regional tourism strategy, development and urban regeneration. Regeneration Panel member
Yorkshire Forward - social capital mapping project in the Dearne Valley
Specialisms
Industrial museums and industrial archaeology – textiles, steel, glass, mining, the canal network
Organisational development and reorganisation
Project inception, development and construction
Interpretation and master planning
Regional tourism strategies
Community engagement and consultation
Construction industry – leading, shaping and delivering complex projects
Contracts, asset transfer, planning
Local authority to trust transfers of ownership and operation
Memberships and Positions Held and Previously Held
Fellow - Royal Society of Arts
Member - Royal Institution
Chair - the Poetry Society
Samaritans - listening volunteer
Woodland Trust - lifetime member
National Trust - member
London Cycling Campaign - member
Long Now Foundation - member
Former Treasurer and Council member of the Museums Association
Former Board member of the Association of Independent Museums
Former Treasurer of the Museums Documentation Association
Education
B.A. English and History, University of York, 1975
M.A. Sociology of Literature, The Interpretation of Dreams, Essex University, 1979
Graduate – Getty, Museum Management Institute, 1995
Contact
15 The Moorings
3 Mill Lane
London E3 3DU
stephenfeber@me.com 07515 338535