Tony Butler
Tony is a social history curator at heart and has been Executive Director of Derby Museums Trust since January 2014. Derby Museums includes Derby Silk Mill, the site of the world’s first factory and a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Derby Museum and Art Gallery which contains the world’s finest collection of works by the 18th century artist Joseph Wright. From 2015 he will oversee the £17m redevelopment of the Silk Mill as Derby’s Museum of Making.
Prior to that, Tony was director of the Museum of East Anglian Life for nine years. He repositioned the organization as a social enterprise and led a major capital development program. In 2011 he founded the Happy Museum Project, to create an international community of practice to explore how museums could contribute to a society in which well-being and environmental sustainability were its principle values.
