Reviewing the Paris International Exhibition of 1878 for the Pioneer newspaper (Allahabad), John Lockwood Kipling (1837-1911), Chief Curator of the Lahore Museum, remarks: ‘If museums are desirable for reviving an interest in the indigenous arts, they are absolutely necessary for instruction in those we wish to introduce’. He continues: ‘Our English art, to put it kindly, is too eclectic, it has but little distinctive character, and has borrowed right and left, while French taste, corrected and instructed by constant reference to the past and its traditions has preserved the great distinction that style only can bestow.’

This paper will investigate new ways of understanding the relationship between history and heritage through a close reading of John Lockwood Kipling’s articles for the British and Indian press on the role of the museum and the use of tradition as an agent for change and innovation; and on the development of global museology and curatorship at the turn of the century.