I have had a Friends membership for several years now and have enjoyed many of your exhibitions. I have a keen interest in ancient history and am passionate about discovering and preserving knowledge about the past.

However, I am also involved in the publishing industry and have put considerable effort into promoting the work done by translators. There is much good work out there in modern fiction that is inaccessible to English-speaking readers without their help. The same is of course true of the ancient world, because no one wrote in English until comparatively recently in the history of language.

I was therefore deeply distressed at your shabby treatment of Yilin Wang in putting together the “China’s Hidden Century” exhibition. Translators should be acknowledged, and they should be paid fairly for their work.

I have given you some time to make things right, but all I have seen from you is a press release that is one of the worst examples of a corporate non-excuse I have ever seen. As someone who has been involved in diversity training, I’m astonished that a high profile organisation such as yours could be so bad at this.

Consequently I am resigning my membership of the British Museum Friends. I have cancelled my direct debit, and the money I would have paid for my next renewal has been donated to Ms. Wang’s crowdfunder.

Yours, deeply disappointed,

Cheryl Morgan