Former MP and author joins TWAM team as chair

Popular former Labour politician and author Chris Mullin has joined the Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums’ Strategic Board as chair.

The ex-Sunderland South MP and journalist, who penned several books during his 20-plus years in the House of Commons, replaces Baroness Joyce Quin, who stepped down as chair of Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums last month. 

Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (TWAM) welcomes over more one million visitors a year to its nine venues across the North East, the Great North Museum: Hancock, Discovery Museum, the Laing Art Gallery, Hatton Gallery, Shipley Art Gallery, Segedunum Roman Fort, Stephenson Steam Railway, Arbeia, South Shields Roman Fort and South Shields Museum & Art Gallery. 

It also manages the Archives Service for Tyne and Wear, and cares for more than one million artefacts safeguarding North East heritage and art and delivers educational programmes to over 90000 children and young people across the region every year. 

Chris Mullin, said: “I am honoured to have been appointed to chair the board of Tyne &Wear Archives & Museums, which plays such an important role in the cultural life of the region, and I look forward to working with the director Keith Merrin and representatives of the responsible local authorities.” 

And Baroness Quin added: “I am personally very much looking forward to working with Chris - he is a respected figure who will bring Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums excellent networks both in the region and nationally and provide great leadership to support the executive team.

“The recruitment of such a senior figure as chair is also an indication of the very high regard in which Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums is held.”

Chris Mullin was MP for Sunderland South from 1987 to 2010, serving as a Minister in three government departments and he was chair of the Heritage Lottery Fund for the North East of England from 2012 to 2017.

As a journalist in the 1980s, he led the campaign for the release of the Birmingham Six, who were victims of a miscarriage of justice, and his most famous work as a writer was the novel A Very British Coup, which was later adapted for television. He was also a well-known diarist while working in the Commons.

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