York Castle Museum

Dated: 18/01/2010

Tin comes in from the cold

A Rowntree’s cocoa tin taken to the Antarctic by explorer Ernest Shackleton in 1909 is one of the stars of a new BBC series looking at the history of the world through museum objects.

BBC North Yorkshire has chosen the tin from York Castle Museum as one of its top objects from across the region.

Its weekly series on BBC Radio York is part of a national partnership between the BBC and the British Museum called The History of the World.

The cocoa was one of the unused goods brought back by Shackleton after his failed attempt to reach the South Pole in 1908-9. As leader of the Nimrod expedition, he and three colleagues got to within 97 geographical miles of the South Pole before having to turn back.

Shackleton’s most famous expedition was in 1914 -16, when he led his team of men through a harrowing ordeal after their ship sank, keeping morale high with his optimism, and ensuring no lives were lost.

The cocoa tin was donated to the museum by a woman from Sydenham. Her family had known Shackleton’s family and were given the tin by one of his sisters. It bears a handwritten label which reads “This tin of cocoa is one of the unused stores brought back by Sir Ernest Shackleton’s expedition from the Antarctic.”

The tin will feature on BBC Radio York’s Sunday Brunch show on 14 March, but is on show every day at York Castle Museum in the kitchens gallery.

Objects from York Castle Museum’s sister museum, the Yorkshire Museum, will also feature in the selection of North Yorkshire objects.

And one of its greatest treasures, the Vale of York Viking Hoard, will feature in The History of the World in 100 Objects, a prestigious new BBC Radio 4 programme.

The series, which starts today at 7.45pm (18 January) is written and narrated by the British Museum’s director, Neil MacGregor.

The Hoard, currently on display at the British Museum, includes 600 coins, complete ornaments, ingots (bars), and chopped-up fragments known as hack silver, and was discovered in North Yorkshire in January 2007 by two metal detectorists, Dave and Andrew Whelan.

It will return to its home at the Yorkshire Museum in time for the museum’s re-opening on 1 August, 2010, following a nine-month refurbishment project.

Tonight’s Inside Out at 7.30pm on BBC1 will also include a feature about the Hoard as part of the A History of the World partnership and an interview with the Yorkshire Museum’s Curator of Archaeology, Andrew Morrison.

Find out much more about A History of the World at www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld This fascinating website, where you can search for objects from across the series, also has details of how you can add your own objects and of a CBBC children’s programme called Relic: Guardians of the Museum.

To discover more about the ten objects from North Yorkshire, visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/york/hi/

For more press information, please contact Hannah Boulton at the British Museum press office, on 020 7323 8522, or hboulton@britishmuseum.org