2 days ago
Windsor Ramadan dinner and LGBT art event part of King's diversity drive
A Ramadan meal and an LGBT+ history month lecture at Windsor Castle this year have been hailed as exemplifying the King's 'momentous' commitment to diversity.
The Royal Collection Trust – which oversees the upkeep of the royal palaces – said in its annual report, released on Tuesday, that 'inclusion and diversity was a key priority this year' as it hosted a series of religious and LGBT+ celebrations.
For the first time in its 1,000-year history, Windsor Castle hosted an Open Iftar meal in its state apartments to mark the breaking of fast for Muslims during Ramadan. Last autumn, it hosted an inaugural Diwali Family Day including prayers from the head priest of the Slough Hindu Temple.
The King's Gallery in Buckingham Palace also hosted its first event to mark LGBTQ+ History month in October, 'exploring some of the Queer figures represented within the Royal Collection'.
Writing in the Royal Collection Trust report, Tim Knox, the director, said the Iftar meal had been held 'with the King's permission'.
He said: 'Such momentous events, alongside initiatives including the £1 ticket offer at The King's Galleries, and its trial scheme at Windsor Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse, go some way to achieving our aim of finding welcoming and inclusive ways for everyone to enjoy the collection.
'Our ambitions continue to grow with ongoing audience development and learning and community projects helping us to understand more about the audiences who don't currently visit our sites and how we can encourage them to do so.'
The Iftar meal, in March, was organised in collaboration with the Ramadan Tent Project and saw 350 guests eat in St George's Hall, with two reciters from Maidenhead Mosque leading the call to prayer from the balcony of the hall.
Simon Maples, the visitor operations director at Windsor Castle, said at the time that the King had been ' championing religious diversity and encouraging inter-faith conversation' for many years.
Omar Salha, founder and chief executive of Ramadan Tent Project, added: 'The King is an excellent ambassador for this cause and is committed to community cohesion. We are incredibly grateful for his support towards the British Muslim community.'
For LGBT+ history month, in February, the trust hosted an online lecture on 'Queer Art and Artists in the Royal Collection'.
Alice de Quidt, assistant curator of Prints and Drawings, told the audience: 'Diverse forms of love and identity have always existed but they have all too often been left out of history or rewritten entirely. February gives us an opportunity to resurrect this history, bring it to the fore and celebrate it.'
Among the artists picked out was Leonardo Da Vinci, who was accused of sexual acts with a male goldsmith's apprentice in 1476, though charges were later dropped. While same-sex relationships were common in 15th century Florence, they were not tolerated and sodomy was punishable by fine for the first four occasions and by death on the fifth.
Accompanying literature also picked out Sappho, Michelangelo, Chevalier D'Eon, Rosa Bonheur, Oscar Wilde, and David Hockney for the trust's LGBTQ+ stories.
The trust – an independently funded department of the Royal Household, which receives no public funds – is reliant on the income generated by visitor admissions and donations.
Its income is spent on visitor access, retail, exhibitions, ongoing conservation of artworks and outreach programmes, including travel subsidies for schools. The trust recorded a total income of £89.9 million last year – an annual increase of more than £5m on the back of record visitors to Buckingham Palace.
The trust's report said it had participated in a Royal Household-wide campaign to encourage the sharing of 'personal experiences of inclusion and diversity in the workplace', including 'training on inclusive leadership and recruitment'.
Of the cohort offered a new seasonal role at Buckingham Palace last year, 45 per cent were from minority ethnic backgrounds.
