The Costume Project – Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Archery costumes, 1880s, made by The Costume Project team at Ironbridge for Education Workshops at the Fashion Museum, Bath.

I love recreating period costumes, particularly corsets and 1950s dresses, but know my limitations. It is always a privilege and a pleasure to meet others who dedicate themselves to this highly skilled area of sewing.  Tucked away behind the scenes at Enginuity, one of the ten Ironbridge Gorge Museums, is The Costume Project. The project is overseen by Curatorial Officer for Coalbrookdale, Ironbridge and Jackfield Museums, Gillian Crumpton and Senior Costume Interpreter, Alison Phillips.

I recently spent a delightful afternoon being shown around the sewing workroom, soon realising that my needlework skills fell somewhat short of the high standards set by Alison and her team. Gillian tells me: ‘Alison ran the wardrobe department at Blists Hill [Victorian Town, Shropshire] for over ten years after having studied theatre costume and interpretation at Wimbledon School of Art. We have a historic costume collection as part of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum. It all began when our Mantua Gown of 1740s, now too fragile to go on display, was missing a corset and fancy petticoat and Alison was asked to make copies of these.’

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Reproduction 2 of the Mantua Gown 1740s, made by The Costume Project at Ironbridge.

The Costume Project at Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust has been producing bespoke costume for museums since 2004 and specialises in recreating eighteenth and nineteenth century garments. Gillian explains: ‘There has been informal costume interpretation at Blists Hill Victorian Town since 1973, this developed in the few years following this when twelve sets of costumes were made for staff. At Blists Hill we use both first and third person interpretation and have demonstrators and actors who all have various roles.’

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Costume (1900) made to be worn by members of the public at the Photographer’s Studio at Blists Hill Victorian Town. Made by The Costume Project at Ironbridge.

Accuracy is very important, so too is the wearability and usability of costumes worn by the staff at Blists Hill. Before beginning the process of recreating a new costume, extensive research is undertaken which includes referencing historic costume collections, photographs and paintings – many of these sources are to be found within Ironbridge’s own Research Library and also their wider collection. With a commission from an external museum or heritage organisation, the process is much the same but the client is asked to provide the team with any images from their own collection and, if available, an original costume. Other sources referred to in the research stages include: sketches; cartoons; drawings; inventories; receipts; diaries; adverts and any available museum objects that might provide a point of reference.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Costume (1900) made to be worn by members of the public at the Photographer’s Studio at Blists Hill Victorian Town. Made by The Costume Project at Ironbridge.

Ironbridge is an independent museum and as such has to be income generating, to ensure its future survival. The Costume Project provides an income stream for the museum as well as supporting their wider educational aims. A gap in the costume interpretation market was soon identified by the team and other museums gradually began approaching Ironbridge to employ their knowledge and skills. Gillian explains: ‘We were given funding from DCF (Designated Challenge Fund) in 2004 to set-up The Costume Project working initially with two partner museums – Fashion Museum, Bath and The Potteries Museum in Stoke-on-Trent. Our aims and mission, since 2004, have been to produce bespoke costumes for museums and to make costumes accessible and engaging to the public. All our work is based on original patterns.’

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Made by The Costume Project team, an 1840s Quaker Lady try-on costume for the Darby Houses, Ironbridge.

There are three levels of interpretation offered by The Costume Project team:

1. Reproduction – costume for display, not behind glass, a faithful copy of an original historic textile or a copy from a painting:
2. Reconstruction – costume for part of a handling collection and can be worn. It is a copy which retains the look and function of the original costume but is graded to modern sizes and often uses more robust materials and fabrics. Gillian points-out: ‘They [costumes] often have ties down the back to allow easy access; we always advocate ties rather than Velcro which doesn’t last.’;
3. Re-invention – costume for handling and wearing but using historic costume as the inspiration to create a modern interpretation that explores key functions of the original designs.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. A Reproduction (1) Corset from the 1890s made by The Costume Project team. Notice the beautiful stitch detail on the corset.

It isn’t just the outer garments that need to be recreated, under garments are just as important too. Gillian is keen to point-out: ‘Getting the basics right are essential in costume interpretation. You can make a beautiful dress from striped silk based on a 1740 painting but unless you have the right underpinnings, a corset, petticoats and a bumroll or panniers it will look limp, flat, lifeless and will be wrong. Underpinnings are the foundations of fashion and help create the fashionable shape. The silhouette of fashion changed using different structures underneath to create the shape. Our specialism focuses on Georgian and Victorian fashion. The structures involve: panniers, pocket panniers, bumrolls, stays, petticoats, crinolines, bustles and corsets.’

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Example of The Costume Project’s signature ‘rucksack corset’. This one was made for the National Museums of Scotland.

One invention that the team are quite rightly proud of is the rucksack corset. This type of corset was first produced for the Fashion Museum, Bath as part of their handling collection but based upon originals in their own collection. The brief behind the invention was to create a corset that could be easily put on and taken off without any help in a designated area of the museum where unsupervised costume wearing activities took place. This corset uses rucksack fabric and rucksack clips, making it durable and lightweight. The fabric and clips are virtually indestructible but were familiar and easy to use meaning that people won’t panic or get stuck in a corset. The Fashion Museum corset was modelled on one from the Victorian era.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. A 1720s Frock Coat try-on costume made by The Costume Project for Wolverhampton Art Gallery and Museum.

The Costume Project has many high-profile clients including: The Fashion Museum in Bath, Powys Castle, Ulster Museums, National Museums of Scotland, Clun Museum, Bishops Castle, Wolverhampton Art Gallery and Museum and Historic Royal Palaces (Kew Palace).

• To find out more about The Costume Project, CLICK HERE;
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  ©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Example of one of the staff costumes made by The Costume Project for Kew Palace (Historic Royal Palaces).

Hidden Killers of The Victorian Home

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. The Pharmacy at Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

BBC4′s hour-long documentary Hidden Killers of The Victorian Home  has been one of my recent television highlights. Dr Suzannah Lipscomb reveals some of the hidden horrors lurking in a typical, middle-class, Victorian home.  Joining Dr Lipscomb in her quest to uncover these invisible dangers were a whole host of experts including:  Judith Flanders; Dr Suzy Lishman; Prof. Andrew Meharg; Colin King; Matt Furber; Sarah Nicol; Dr Matthew Avison; Nathan Goss and Max Wagner.

The Victorian era was a time of rapid change. The Industrial Revolution enabled many to prosper, leading to greater social mobility for some and the emergence of the new middle-classes. Dr Lipscomb states that as a result of Industrialisation, by the end of the Victorian era, 25% of the population were categorised as middle-class. The middle-classes, with their disposable income, were looking to splash their cash. Gadgets for domestic use as well as decorative items for the home were a particular favourite and the Victorian consumer was spoilt for choice. However, in this unregulated, pre-trading standards era, the margin for human catastrophe was huge.

Arsenic and lead were two particular toxins that caused many, often unexplained, deaths. In a time before health and safety dominated our everyday lives, danger, sometimes death, was never far away and could be found in the most unlikely of domestic items. Vivid green pigments in wallpaper contained traces of arsenic, children’s toys were coated with lead paint and feeding bottles for babies were breeding grounds for all sorts of diseases making them one of the leading contributors towards infant mortality in Victorian Britain.

©Come Step Back in Time. Tiny waists, a fashionable Victorian look. Exhibit from the Fashion Museum, Bath.

The fashionable silhouettes of the hour-glass shape or ‘wasp’ waist meant that corsets were very tightly laced and vital organs became misshapen. In the BBC4 documentary there featured a liver specimen from a lady whose tight-lacing habits had put so much pressure on her rib-cage that indentations appeared on the organ itself.

©Come Step Back in Time. Exhibit from the Fashion Museum, Bath.

Whilst researching this article, I found the following which appeared in a newspaper from 1895. The piece discusses both trends and dangers of tight-lacing as well as the gradual move towards dress reform – The Rational Dress Society was established in London in 1881. Although, I do get the impression from reading this article that dress reform is viewed by the author with some degree of suspicion: ‘..The dress reformers who are determined to abolish all waists, no matter how sylph-like or how divine..’ The aesthetic for a tiny waist seems to appeal to the author :

Fads in Corsets – Longer in the waist, but not to be laced so tightly. The dress reformers who are determined to abolish all waists, no matter how sylph-like or how divine, will wax indignant when they learn that the latest news of the corset market is the appearance of the longest waisted corset yet offered to women. Heretofore “five clasps and a half” has been considered “extra long”. This gave what the corset experts call a three-inch waist. Women whose anatomy demanded something even longer-waisted than that have had corsets made to order. But now in a few days there will appear a six-clasp corset, and the waist measure thereof will be about four inches – not four inches around, but four inches on the length of the corset bones. This measure of the waist is a term with which most women are not familiar. It means that in bending the corset top and bottom together there is a springy motion which commences a certain distance above the lower edge of the corset. That is the lowest edge of the waist. The point near the top of the corset where the springy action practically ends is the top of the waist. Short-waisted persons may only measure two inches. Four inches indicates that the wearer must either be as slim as a rail or else intend to crowd and crush her vitals into a space that would be almost fatal to a constant wearer after a few years. There is a tendency, however, which all manufacturers and dealers in corsets notice; to wear corsets looser than ever… They [dressmakers] say the ambition of a young woman is to show an hour-glass figure. When she wears tight sleeves and narrow shoulders she laces to secure the hour-glass effect. With the immense sleeves giving such breadth of shoulders it would be perfectly ridiculous to lace into a wasp waist. So the dressmakers claim that the big sleeves are saving many women from death by corsets badly worn. The fact that corsets are worn less tightly laced is partly responsibly for this new six-clasp, four-inch waist style.

(The Western Mail, Saturday 11th May, 1895)

Following marriage, increasing numbers of middle-class women found themselves in charge of running a household for the very first time. A great many of these women had little or no prior knowledge of what this new responsibility entailed. It was to this demographic that domestic goddess, Mrs Isabella Beeton (1836-1865), targeted her famous tome, Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861). Apart from multiple chapters containing recipe suggestions, the book also includes advice on hiring and firing staff, first aid, household legal matters as well as a chapter on the ‘Management of Childhood’.

Particularly relevant to this article is Mrs Beeton’s advice on what to do should a poisoning occur in your home.  (please do not follow this advice in modern-day cases. For suspected incidents of poisoning, you should seek professional medical help IMMEDIATELY. Extract featured is purely for historical interest.):

When an alkali is the poison, give drinks of weak vinegar or lemonade. When an acid, chalk and water, whiting plaster from the walls, or white of egg; if a narcotic, give strong coffee, and do everything to keep the patient awake, walking him about, opening the windows wide, applying cold water to his face, and so on. (p.1874)

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. The Pharmacy at Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

Until The Pharmacy Act of 1868, the sale, dispensing and compounding of poisons was, to a large extent, unrestricted. Arsenic was used as rat poison, sheep dip and on fly papers and thought to be an effective treatment for malaria, asthma, skin problems, rheumatism and even morning sickness. (Victorian Pharmacy: Rediscovering Forgotten Remedies and Recipes by Eastoe, J. and Goodman, R., 2010, p.121, Pavilion Books). In the early decades of the Victorian era, people were largely ignorant of the harmful effects of ingesting, touching or being close to products containing arsenic. The symptoms of arsenic poisoning (fever, chills and sweating) resembled those associated with cholera, which was one of the nineteenth century’s biggest killers, hence mis-diagnosis and incorrect treatment for arsenic poisoning being commonplace.

Mrs Beeton also gives advice on bottle-feeding, which she refers to in her publication as ‘rearing by hand’. Using feeding bottles during the Victorian era was a very popular alternative to breast-feeding. Some of the bottles were earthenware, made in Staffordshire, others were glass.  They were very difficult to clean and although bottles were supplied with long-handled brushes to help with the task, these receptacles became silent killers due to the fact that fatal germ deposits gradually built-up over time. This led to bottles earning the nickname, ‘killer bottles’. (please do not follow this advice at home for cleaning your baby bottles, follow the manufacturer’s instructions. Extract is featured purely for historical interest). Mrs Beeton recommends:

There are two methods that may be employed in this artificial system of feeding – the one is to give the child its meals from a spoon, the other is to allow it to suck from a bottle. Of these the latter is preferable. It is most essential to the success of this method of feeding that the bottle or bottles be kept scrupulously clean, as dirty bottles frequently give rise to “thrush”. The best form of bottle to use is the boat-shaped one, with a rubber nipple fixed to the end or neck. No bottles with rubber tubes should be used, since milk sticks to the inside of the tube, and cannot be removed. This milk when decomposed will set-up diarrhoea. The bottle and teat must be scalded after each meal in hot water and soda, the teat turned inside out, and both rinsed in cold water. They then should be allowed to stand in cold water in which a little boracic acid has been dissolved. (p.1914)

I came across in the course of research so many interesting newspaper articles reporting incidents of domestic tragedy from this period. Sometimes death was averted and other times not. Quite a few of the articles specifically relate to the consumption of food that unwittingly contains toxic substances.  Since I am currently writing a publication on the history of blancmange, I have chosen here two extracts that relate to the potential hazards of consuming this seemingly innocuous desert:

A Providential Escape – A few days ago one young family of the Hon. A. Ellis, residing at Bognor, were, together with the governess and two maids, nearly poisoned, owing to their having eaten some blancmange, a part of which was coloured a bright light green; very fortunately this green part had an unpleasant taste, which prevented their eating more of it. The medical man who analyzed the remaining quantity found it to contain a verdigris powder. Whilst he had it in a liquid state he dipped into it a knife, which became instantly covered with this green copperas, and he asserts that there was a sufficient portion of this poisonous powder in the quantity analyzed to kill six persons. As it is, the two maids and governess and one of the children are still suffering from its dangerous effects. It appears this powder for colouring the green part had been purchased from a pastrycook in london but it is to be observed that such an article ought never to be sold for such purposes, and this has been inserted as a caution to the public.

(The Blackburn Standard, 18th February, 1846)

Poisoning at a public dinner – great excitement has existed at Northampton, in consequence of the sudden illness of 20 out of about 60 persons who attended a public dinner at the New Hall, which followed the ordination of the Rev. G. Nicholson, B.A., as the minister of the Ring-street dissenting chapel, in the room of the Rev. T. Milner. The viands were of the usual substantial kind, and before the cloth was removed some of the gentlemen were seized with sickness and vomiting, while others were taken ill at a later period of the entertainment. One of them, Mr Cornfield, an accountant in the town, expired at five o’clock on Thursday morning. The dinner was provided by a Mr Franklin, at whose house the whole of the cooking utensils were seized by order of the magistrates. At the inquest held on the body of the deceased, the medical witnesses stated that they had detected copper in the green colouring stuff which coated the blancmange used at the dinner. A verdict of “Manslaughter” was accordingly returned against Mr Franklin, by whom the dinner was provided, and against Randall, the cook.

(The Examiner, 17th June, 1848)

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

©Come Step Back in Time. Doctor’s House and Surgery. Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

©Come Step Back in Time. Interior of the Doctor’s House and Surgery, no. 2 Furnace Bank. Rebuilt brick-by-brick, a majority of one Duke of Sutherland’s cottage built on Wellington Road (no.15), Donnington, Telford. 1862. Opened on site 22nd October, 1986.

On my recent trip to the excellent Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire, I wandered in and out of the many shops and cosy cottages with their glowing ranges and welcoming costumed inhabitants. I tried to imagine what life must have really been like for those living in an industrial town during Victorian times. It is all too easy to foster a rose-tinted view of Victorian life.

©Come Step Back in Time. Inside the Doctor’s House and Surgery, Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

©Come Step Back in Time. Inside the Doctor’s House and Surgery, Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

Documentaries such as Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home are a stark reminder, to anyone interested in the social history of the period, to look for the truth behind the social myth.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

Blists Hill is not actually a real town, it has been developed over a number of years by The Ironbridge Gorge Trust and covers an area of fifty-two acres. Its purpose is to immerse visitors in the atmosphere of a small industrial town at a pivotal time in British history – the period between 1890 and 1910, late Victorian early Edwardian.

©Come Step Back in Time. Inside McClures General Draper and Outfitters, no. 3 Canal Street, Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire. An original building from Stafford Place, Oakengates, Telford (exterior and shop front only). c.1880. Opened on site on 4th April, 2009.

©Come Step Back in Time. Grocery and Provisions Shop (A.F. Blakemore & Son), no. 7 High Street. An exact replica of Owen’s Grocer’s shop and warehouse, Market Street, Oakengates, Telford, Shropshire. c.1890. Many of the items on display in the shop are from Chester’s Salopian Stores, Westbury, Shropshire. The shop opened on site on 14th July 2000.

In 2013, Blists Hill celebrates its 40th anniversary. Many of the buildings on the site are original and are from other parts of the region but have been saved and reconstructed to create the Victorian Town you see today. What is remarkable about the site is the fact that in the 1960s when historic buildings were being swept away to make room for modern constructions, the forward thinking Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust stepped in and managed to rescue some of them, ensuring that our heritage is now preserved for future generations to enjoy and study. After this initial period of rescue and reconstruction, the focus of Blists Hill shifted toward turning the site into a Victorian Town:

…the focus of Blists Hill shifted as people and not processes became the new priority. Efforts turned to recreating a coherent environment in which visitors could experience what it was like to live and work when Britain was the Workshop of the World at the very end of the 19th century. Blists Hill Open Air Museum became Blists Hill Victorian Town.

But Blists Hill has never been just a museum of buildings and old things. When the decision was made in the 1980s to put museum staff into Victorian costume, carefully replicated from original patterns, a new standard of interpretation was born. The site came to life. Since then, professional actors have added another dimension to street life, and special themed events have helped emphasise the significance of customs and traditions in the lives of ordinary working class Victorians.

(Blists Hill Victorian Town Souvenir Guidebook, 2011, p.51 & 53, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust)

If you were a fan of the BBC’s Victorian Pharmacy (2010) then you may will recognise Blists Hill’s Bates & Hunt’s Pharmacy and Chemist’s shop as being the location used for the series. I could have spent hours in Bates & Hunt’s Pharmacy examining all the pills, potions and lotions that have been superbly re-displayed.

©Come Step Back in Time. Interior of the Pharmacy at Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

The Pharmacy is based on an original building which was located at the corner shop, Constitution Hill, Wellington, Telford in Shropshire. The date of the store is c.1890 and the contents come from West Cliffe Pharmacy (latterly Pars & Co.), Poole Hill, Bournemouth. The Pharmacy has been at Blists Hill since 9th July, 1984.

• For more information about and to plan a visit to Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire, CLICK HERE;
• For more information about events at Blists Hill and the other Ironbridge museums, CLICK HERE.
  

  ©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire.

Ironbridge – The Birthplace of Industry

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Iron Works at Coalbrookdale by Philip James De Loutherbourg (1740-1812) from an engraving by William Pickett. De Loutherbourg was a theatrical designer who worked for playwrights such as R.B. Sheridan (1751-1816) and David Garrick (1717-1779). His painting, Coalbrookdale by Night (1801), depicting the raging Bedlam Furnaces in Madeley Dale, Shropshire, a little further downstream from Ironbridge, recreates the iconic scene of fire and brimstone that we now  associate with the birth of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain. De Loutherbourg’s paintings of industrial Shropshire influenced the creative team behind the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics.

Ironbridge and The London 2012 Olympics

One of the most memorable moments from the Opening Ceremony of London 2012 Olympics was the Industrial Revolution sequence directed by Danny Boyle. Boyle drew inspiration from Pandaemonium 1660-1886: The Coming of the Machine as Seen by Contemporary Observers  by documentary film-maker and a founder of the Mass Observation Archive Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950). Boyle declared that: ‘Pandaemonium was biggest inspiration for the Olympics Opening Ceremony…the book is the equivalent of Pepys giving you a guided tour of the birth of electricity and mechanical age – it’s brilliant, exciting and essential.’

A new edition of Pandaemonium was published in 2012 to satisfy a renewed public interest in the Industrial Revolution. The following extracts are from the Foreword to this edition which is written by Frank Cottrell Boyce. Coincidentally, Boyce also wrote the Opening Ceremony for London 2012, naming the first section ”Pandemonium” in honour of Jennings’s influential publication:

As Danny Boyle put it, we are children of the machine age, locked inside this terrifying beast, increasingly innocent of how it makes things for us. (p. viii)

The leaves soak-up the energy. The trees fall and turn to coal. Coal is solid sunlight, the stored memory of millions of uninhabited summers. Then one day, in Coalbrookdale, someone opens a hole in the ground and all that stored energy comes pouring out and is consumed in furnaces, engines, motors. Somehow all these thoughts are communicated to Thomas Heatherwick who creates his beautiful Olympic Cauldron, in which 204 tongues of fire rise out of the ground and join together to make one flame. It’s an image that moved billions of people across the world. (p. ix-x)

I was moved by Boyce and Boyle’s brilliant recreation of man-v-industry. The creative duo brought the Coalbrookdale landscape back to life once more, populating it with furnaces, engines and motors, transporting audiences back to the birth of the Industrial Revolution.

Ironbridge Gorge – UNESCO World Heritage Site

Coalbrookdale is a village in the Ironbridge Gorge, Shropshire, a region designated in 1986 as one of the first World Heritage Sites in the United Kingdom in recognition of Ironbridge’s role as the Birthplace of Industry. In 2012, Ironbridge Gorge was voted the most highly recommended UNESCO World Heritage Site in the UK according to the TripAdvisor® traveller community, taking second place in the world behind the Historic Ensemble of the Potala Palace, Lhasa, China and ahead of the Egyptian Pyramids and India’s Taj Mahal. Earlier this year I spent a number of fascinating days in this beautiful part of Shropshire exploring the buildings, monuments and collections across the Ironbridge site. It is not difficult to see why Ironbridge is truly worthy of its status as a national heritage treasure.

The Ironbridge site includes thirty-six scheduled monuments and listed buildings cared for by The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust and spread over a six square kilometre site. The Trust also operates ten museums which collectively tell the story of the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. These museums are: Blists Hill Victorian Town; Enginuity; Coalport China Museum; Jackfield Tile Museum; Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron; Museum of The Gorge; Darby Houses; Tar Tunnel; The Ironbridge and Tollhouse and Broseley Pipeworks.

Ironbridge became an independent charity in 1967 (Ref No. 503717 – R) and is 100% independently funded, it receives no government financial support. Ironbridge is regarded as one of the world’s foremost independent museums. There are currently two hundred paid staff and four hundred volunteers who work on-site. Ironbridge leads the way for volunteer development in the museum sector. Over half a million visitors come to Ironbridge every year including seventy thousand school children. It is not difficult to see why Ironbridge is truly worthy of its status as a national heritage treasure.

The Mission of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust is: ‘To excel in researching, preserving and interpreting, for the widest audience, the Monuments, Collections and Social History of the early industry in the Ironbridge Gorge: to enrich the visitors’ experience with live demonstrations, hands-on activities and innovative educational programmes.’ (Strategic Plan 2010-14, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust Limited, p.3)

Their Vision is: ‘To make the Industrial Age and Ironbridge’s role in it, as well understood in terms of world significance as the Egyptian and Roman epochs. To constantly expand the number of people who are able to share in the timeless significance of Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale. To ensure that every visitor to Ironbridge takes away something of value – material, intellectual or spiritual.’ (Strategic Plan 2010-14, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust Limited, p.3)

Ironbridge has also had a thirty-one year partnership with the University of Birmingham and the Ironbridge Institute is one of the leading providers of postgraduate heritage qualifications in the UK.

©The Valley Hotel. The Valley Hotel, Ironbridge, Shropshire.

The countryside surrounding the Gorge at Ironbridge is stunning, Shropshire is a beautiful county. When I visited in late Winter the weather was terrible but the views were still stunning. We stayed at The Valley Hotel ,which is very close to Ironbridge, an excellent place to stay. The staff are extremely friendly, as well as well as being knowledgeable about the area. They take great pride in the region’s history as I was to discover upon my arrival. I had asked whether there was a booklet available about the history of the Hotel to aid me in my research? Imagine my surprise when I checked-in and was given a seventy-two page, fully illustrated mini-thesis about the building’s history that had been painstakingly prepared by the current owners. I will reveal no more at this stage about the Hotel’s history, suffice to say that it warrants its own feature article, which will follow shortly.

Early History of The Gorge

The Severn Gorge in Shropshire was created after the last ice age, 15,000 years ago, when a huge lake overflowed east of the Welsh mountains and carved a deep chasm through layers of coal, iron-ore, clay and limestone. This spectacular gorge, rich in raw materials, with its river leading to the Bristol Channel, had all the resources necessary to become an important industrial area.

Coal and limestone were exploited from the Middle Ages and iron was made here from the time of Henry VIII. In 1709, a Quaker ironmaster, Abraham Darby I, led the way to cheap and plentiful iron production using coke as fuel, instead of charcoal. Coalbrookdale – the name by which the whole area was then known – became one of the most important industrialised areas in the world during the eighteenth century. Indeed, it was said that the Severn was the second busiest river in Europe.

(The Iron Bridge and Town, 2010, p. 2, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust)

Dr Matt Thompson, Senior Curator at Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, told me: ‘Ironbridge’s landscape is complex and dynamic. The Gorge is a great ‘rock sandwich’ made-up of layers of limestone, coal and iron-ore and has been mined extensively since 1604. Former mining activity has created a ‘Swiss cheese’ effect in the geology.  There are many underground tunnels. In Shropshire you can find ten of the twelve or thirteen major geological periods represented. The Shropshire Clee Hills are one of only a few hills that appear on the Hereford Mappa Mundi (c.1285).’

Ironbridge and The Industrial Revolution

Until the latter part of the eighteenth century, the most important industry in the Gorge was coal-mining – the first step on the road to the birth of the Industrial Revolution in the region. Other coal-using industries utlising the area’s rich natural resources were: lead smelting; tar boiling; pottery making and brass manufacturing. The Tar Tunnel at Ironbridge is open to the public and well-worth a visit. In 1787, miners digging in the area struck a spring of natural bitumen (treacle-like black liquid) which has seeped out of the walls and formed into puddles for over two hundred years. It was money from coal that funded the first ironworks in the area. Although now a haven of tranquillity, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the area resembled Dante’s Inferno, a scene which artist Philip James De Loutherbourg (1740-1812) captured so brilliantly in his iconic painting Coalbrookdale by Night (1801).

©Come Step Back in Time. The Upper Works, site of the Old Furnace, Coalbrookdale (Ironbridge site). In 1753, the Upper Works consisted of an office, blacksmith’s shop, bridge house, three boring mills, a furnace, a loam house, air furnace, moulding house and tenement. The railway viaduct was constructed 1862-64.

©Come Step Back in Time. The Upper Works, site of the Old Furnace, Coalbrookdale. Marks from the water wheel can still be seen in the stonework. The water wheel was last used in the 1920s to drive grinding wheels. These were used to clean-up or fettle castings and ensure a precision fit for the increasingly complex machinery that was being made here. By 1778, Coalbrookdale had cast more than one hundred steam cylinders.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Diagram of the old Furnace, Coalbrookdale. The Furnace went out of use in 1818 but the foundry buildings around it remained in use and even expanded to enclose the remains of the furnace.

©Come Step Back in Time. The Tapping Arch, Upper Works, Coalbrookdale. The dates on the cast iron beam refer to Abraham Darby III’s enlargement of the furnace in 1777, probably to increase capacity for the construction of the world’s first Iron Bridge in the Gorge.

Between 1755 and 1780 the iron industry was booming in the region and five new groups of furnaces were set up:

The three surviving groups of iron furnaces mark these different phases in the local iron industry – the earliest, the Darby Furnace at Coalbrookdale represents the change from charcoal to coke as a smelting fuel and was also where the iron for the Iron Bridge was produced seventy years later. Bedlam Furnaces (begun 1756-7) were the first of the great new Industrial Revolution furnaces, experimenting with new forms of power, while the Blists Hill Furnaces, begun in c.1832 and closed in 1912, signal the move away from water as a source of power, and eventually the end of smelting in the Gorge.

(Ironbridge Gorge by Catherine Clark, 1993, p.36, published by B. T. Batsford Ltd)

©Come Step Back in Time. Remains of Madeley Wood Company Blast Furnaces, Blists Hill, Ironbridge. Base of the first furnace, 1832; base of second and south engine house, 1840; base of third, 1844; north engine house c. 1873. The furnaces were blown out in 1912.

©Come Step Back in Time. Madeley Wood Company Blast Furnaces, Blists Hill.

The Darby Family and The Coalbrookdale Company

The Coalbrookdale Company was formed in 1709 by Abraham Darby I (1678-1717), an iron-master who had moved to the region from Bristol in the previous year. His original intention was to lease an ironworks with a view to setting-up a brass foundry – he had been experimenting with making brass pots since 1707 which led to his patent for casting iron bellied pots in dry sand. He leased the Furnace at Coalbrookdale in 1709 from landowner Basil Brooke of Madeley and his wife Elizabeth, beginning blasting in January of the same year. Initially, Darby melted iron using coke as fuel rather than charcoal. The locally mined coal included varieties that were low in sulphur which were more suited to this new process. In his first few years at Coalbrookdale, Darby also experimented with a mixture of coke, charcoal and peat as alternative fuels for his Furnace. Finally, in 1715, he settled on one type of local coal which was the most successful in producing coke to smelt into iron-ore.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. An extract from Abraham Darby I’s original 1707 patent for casting iron bellied pots in dry sand.

The Darby family were Quakers but did not force their religious beliefs on the workers at Coalbrookdale. The Darbys were known to be good employers as well as savvy business people and their workers rarely went on strike. Education, for both boys and girls, was also important to Quakers - a forward thinking approach for the time:

..adhering strictly to the ideals of self-discipline, frugality and simple faith, attitudes which extended into the conduct of their business. As members of the Society of Friends, Quakers formed a close-knit group, distinct in their way of dress and habits, and tending to socialize as a group. Many of the visitors who came to Coalbrookdale were Quaker associates, and the large houses at Coalbrookdale became a focus for this society.

The houses were built close to the works, but looked out over a more pleasant view of trees, pleasure gardens and a pool with a small decorative iron bridge.  For most of their history the houses were occupied for relatively short periods by family members or by works managers; often, as in the case of Abraham Darby III, while they built or altered finer houses elsewhere in rural settings.

Carpenters Row is an example of company housing: built c.1783, it is a terrace of eight cottages, each with a downstairs parlour with a range, a tiny pantry and a bedroom above….Carpenters Row would have provided a relatively good class of accommodation.

(Ironbridge Gorge by Catherine Clark, 1993, pp.40-41, published by B. T. Batsford Ltd)

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Coalbrookdale Company employees at the Upper Works c. 1901.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Dale House, the Darby family country seat which overlooked the ironworks. Construction of the house was begun by Darby I in 1715. Dale House is part of the Ironbridge site and open to the public.

Darby I’s son, Abraham Darby II (1711-1763), took over the running of The Coalbrookdale Company from his father in 1728. His contribution to the Company’s history is significant. He invented a method of making pig iron using coke which could then be converted into wrought iron: ‘The molten iron from a blast furnace could be poured direct into sand moulds to produce cast iron goods or cast ingots called “pig iron”. The pig iron was then either melted and cast in a foundry or purified to produce wrought iron that could be shaped by hammering and rolling in a forge.’ (Extract from text panel at the site of the Old Furnaces, Upper Works, Coalbrookdale, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust).

Darby II built houses for the workers, three schools and a Friends Meeting House in the Dale. Abraham Darby III (1750-1789) began working at the Company in 1768 alongside his brother Samuel. The two brothers were now running Britain’s largest ironworks and it was Darby III who project-managed the construction of the world-famous Iron Bridge (1779). Darby III won a Gold Medal from the Society of Arts for his casting work on the Bridge.

Abraham Darby IV (1804-1878). He began work at Coalbrookdale in the late 1820s with his brother Alfred Darby I. Darby IV began to move away from Quakerism. The last Darby,  Alfred Darby II, retired as Chairman of the Company in 1925, marking the end of the Darby connection to Coalbrookdale after more than seven generations.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Coalbrookdale Company  statues exhibit at the Kensington Olympia Exhibition, 1889. The Victorians couldn’t get enough of cast iron products. They were everywhere.

©Come Step Back in Time. The Boy and Swan Fountain cast by the Coalbrookdale Company in 1851 for the Great Exhibition. The remains of the Old Furnaces at Upper Works can just be seen in the background.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. The Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron. The Museum contains a vast display of domestic and decorative ironworks.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. A close-up of the Deerhound Table on display at the Museum of Iron, one of the Ironbridge Gorge museums in Coalbrookdale.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust.

The Iron Bridge

One of the most enduring images of the Gorge is The Iron Bridge designed by Thomas Farnolls Pritchard (c.1723-1777), an industrialist who owned iron furnaces in Shropshire, Denbighshire and Staffordshire. He was, by all accounts, a bit of scamp who was often the subject of scandal, particularly in relation to his private life. Unfortunately, Pritchard died two years before the Bridge was completed.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Thomas Farnolls Pritchard.

©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. The Iron Bridge by William Williams (1780). The painting was commissioned by Darby for ten guineas (£10.50). The painting was thought to be lost for over one hundred and fifty years until it appeared in 1992 when the Museum purchased it. It now hangs in the Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron.

©Come Step Back in Time.

Why was the Bridge built?:

No doubt the building of the Bridge was partly a public relations exercise, advertising the versatility of cast-iron and the skills of Abraham Darby III and his Coalbrookdale company. The site chosen is also the most dramatic point of the Gorge…The Bridge was promoted by the eighteenth-century equivalent of a media campaign.  The paintings Darby commissioned to advertise it show nothing of the pollution of the Gorge, famous for having more furnaces and forges within 2 miles of riverbank than anywhere else in the world!

Thomas Jefferson, later third President of the USA, is known to have brought Iron Bridge engravings through a friend in London, whilst Minister to France in 1786.

(The Iron Bridge and Town, 2010, p. 4, IGMT)

The Bridge was a serious drain on Darby’s finances and he remained in debt for the rest of his life, with many of his company’s assets mortgaged to other Quaker friends.

The Completed Bridge opened for business, charging its first tolls on New Year’s Day 1781. The rates of toll are those which were first set out in the Act of Parliament authorising the Bridge…One guinea (£1.05) brought an annual pass for pedestrians.

(The Iron Bridge and Town, 2010, p. 13, IGMT)

The Bridge is made from three hundred and eighty-four tonnes of iron which took one furnace over three months to produce. Ironwork began to go up over the Gorge in May 1779, the first iron rib being raised on 1/2nd July. The Bridge spans 30.63 metres and cost approximately £6,000. The Bridge was closed to vehicles in 1934 but still remains open to foot passengers. The Iron Bridge is one of the great symbols of the Industrial Revolution.

• For more information about planning a visit to Ironbridge, CLICK HERE;
• For more information about forthcoming events and exhibitions at Ironbridge, CLICK HERE.
  

  ©Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. View of the Iron Bridge over the River Severn.

Captain Lawrence Oates – Soldier, Explorer, Hero

Earlier this year I visited Gilbert White’s House and Garden  in the pretty village of Selborne, rural Hampshire, which is also home to The Oates Collection.  I am delighted to bring you this article, my third and final, in a series showcasing different aspects of the museum’s collection.

Captain Lawrence ‘Titus’ Edward Grace Oates (1880-1912) began his career as a solider but spent his final years as an explorer, after having joined Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s (1868-1912) ill-fated second expedition to the Antarctic and epic journey of discovery to the South Pole (1911-1912). Lawrence’s uncle was African explorer, Frank Oates (1840-1875).

Last year marked the centenary of Scott’s Second Expedition and thanks to a National Lottery ‘Your Heritage’ grant, match funding by the United Kingdom Antarctic Heritage Trust, generous donations and fundraising, the redesigned Lawrence Oates Gallery is now re-open to the public. The Gallery is a beautifully designed exhibition space which creates the perfect backdrop to tell the poignant life story of this courageous English gentleman. The Gallery also includes new interactive features that enhance the visitor experience including original expedition footage and photographs. The short film featured above, ‘The Oates Collection’, was produced following the recent refurbishment and provides a virtual tour of the first floor galleries. It gives an excellent overview of Lawrence’s extraordinary life.  The Oates Collection is the only museum in the world dedicated to the life of Captain Lawrence Oates.

Lawrence’s beloved mother. He declared that she was the only woman that he had ever loved. Lawrence never married.

Lawrence was born on 17th March, 1880 at Putney, London to William Edward Oates (1841-1896) and Caroline Anne Oates (née Buckton). He was the eldest of four children and enjoyed a privileged childhood at the family country seat, Gestingthorpe Hall, Essex. He attended Eton College for two years but had to leave due to ill-health (he had weak lungs and caught pneumonia) forcing him to continue his education at home with the assistance of a private tutor.

Uniform similar to that worn by Lawrence during the Second Anglo-Boer War in South Africa (1899-1902). On loan to The Lawrence Oates Gallery from the The Inniskilling Dragoons Museum.

He began his military career in 1898 with the 3rd West Yorkshire regiment, followed by a regular army commission in April, 1900 and finally a posting to the 6th Inniskilling dragoons. He served in the South African War (Second Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902) where he sustained a thigh injury in 1901 which would later came back to trouble him whilst in the Antarctic. It was whilst serving in South Africa that he earned the nickname, ‘No Surrender Oates’ for refusing to surrender to a much superior Boer force. 

Captain Oates’s despatch case used during his military career. On loan to the museum from The Inniskilling Dragoons Museum.

After a short period of convalescence for his thigh injury, he returned to his regiment having been promoted to rank of lieutenant on 2nd February, 1902.  He continued his military career, serving in Ireland, Egypt and India, becoming a captain in 1906.

Lawrence found his posting in India to be too quiet and inactive. An expert horseman, he spent much of his time playing polo, steeplechasing and hunting, even bringing his own pack of hounds to India with him. By the end of 1909, the restless young Lawrence was looking for adventure and applied to join Captain Scott’s Terra Nova Antarctic Expedition, offering his services in any capacity as well as £1,000 (approximately £95,000 in today’s money) towards the expedition funds. Scott received eight thousand applications for this expedition. In March, 1910, Scott accepted Lawrence due to his knowledge of horses (he looked after the expedition’s nineteen ponies) and his military experience. Lawrence was the only army officer to join the Terra Nova Expedition.

On 27th January, 1910, he wrote to his beloved mother whilst in a Delhi hospital:

I have now a great confession to make. I offered my services to the Antarctic Expedition which starts this summer from home under Scott. They wrote and told me to produce my references which I did and they appear to have been so flattering that I have been practically accepted. Now I don’t know whether you approve or not but I feel that I ought to have consulted you before I sent in my name. I did not so as I thought there was very little chance of my being taken.

Scott, however, appears to be a man who can make up his mind and having decided, he told me so at once which was the first intimation I had I was likely to go. Points in favour of going: It will help me professionally as in the Army if they want a man to wash labels off bottles, they would sooner employ a man who had been to the North Pole than one who had only got as far as the Mile End Road.

Now points against. I shall be out of touch for some considerable time. It will require a goodish outlay of about £1,500 as I have offered to subscribe to the funds. I shall have to give up the hounds. I shall annoy the Colonel very much.

This was Scott’s second expedition to the Antarctic, his first had been in 1901 until 1904 when he sailed there on the RRS Discovery, together with a team of fifty men.

Exhibit showing Ponting’s photograph of Scott’s winter quarters in the Antarctic. The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

In the spring of 1910, Lawrence arrived in London to board the Terra Nova. The Terra Nova Expedition was made-up of sixty-five men who operated on ship and shore.  Some of the key members of the team were:

• Captain Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912) – Expedition leader who died on the return journey from the South Pole;
• Dr Edward Adrian Wilson (1872-1912) – Chief Scientist who died on the return journey from the South Pole;
• Henry Robertson (Birdie) Bowers (1883-1912) – died on the return journey from the South Pole;
• Captain Lawrence ‘Titus’ Oates (1880-1912) – died on the return journey from the South Pole;
• Edgar Evans (1876-1912) – died on the return journey from the South Pole;
• Admiral Edward Ratcliffe Garth Russell Evans (Teddy Evans) (1881-1957);
• William Lashly (1867-1940);
• Tom Crean (1877-1938);
• Thomas C. Clissold (1886-1963). The cook who took part in two depot-laying journeys and trained sledge dogs. He was also a clever inventor of mechanical devices. To view photographs of Clissold, taken by Ponting, CLICK HERE.
• Herbert Ponting (1870-1935). The expedition’s official photographer. His high-quality images produced on glass-plate negatives have left us with an incredible visual legacy of Scott’s expedition. Ponting also shot extensive film footage;
• A full list of crew members who took part in the Terra Nova Expedition is available on the Antarctic Heritage Trust’s (NZ) website. CLICK HERE.
  

  Exhibit in The Lawrence Oates Gallery showing replicas of Herbert Ponting’s glass-plate negatives.

Replica of the Terra Nova (scale 1/8 inch to 1 foot) made by Commander Rupert Head RN, 2011-2012. The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

Terra Nova (a converted Dundee whaler) eventually sailed from Cardiff, Wales bound for New Zealand on 15th June, 1910. Additional supplies were loaded onto the ship in New Zealand, including thirty-four dogs, nineteen Siberian ponies (brought by Scott much to Lawrence’s frustration, Scott was not a horseman and had brought the wrong breed of pony, ‘a wretched load of crocks’ wrote Oates) and three motorised sledges. The Terra Nova departed Port Chalmers, New Zealand on 29th November, 1910 eventually arriving at Ross Island, near the continent of Antarctica, on 4th January, 1911.

‘Scott’s science’ display panel in The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

Both of Scott’s expeditions were based upon extensive programmes of scientific discovery. The Chief Scientist on the Terra Nova Expedition was Dr Edward Wilson who declared: ‘We want the bagging of the Pole to be merely an item in the results’. Substantial scientific data and specimens were collected by Scott and his team. The scientific party included geologists, biologists, physicists and one meteorologist (George C. Simpson, 1878-1965) who created a weather station in the Antarctic.

Apsley GB Cherry-Garrard (1886-1959), a zoologist on the team, wrote and published The Worst Journey in the World (1922). The publication tells how Cherry-Garrard, Bowers and Wilson journeyed to Cape Crozier in darkness and dreadful winter weather to collect eggs from the emperor penguin colony.  The work done by Scott and his team of scientists created the foundations for Antarctic science today.

Scott led the march south from Cape Evans Base Camp on 1st November, 1911. On 3rd January, 1912 Scott selected a five-man team who would accompany him on the final part of the journey to the South Pole. He chose Dr Wilson, Henry Bowers, Edgar Evans and Lawrence Oates. The team reached the South Pole on 18th January, 1912, only to discover that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) and his team, had arrived there five weeks prior.

On 25th January, 1912, Scott’s five-man team began the eight hundred mile return journey. Fearing the worst and with his men in a bad way physically and emotionally, Scott asked Dr Wilson to issue each of his team with thirty opium tablets. Should the need arise the men could elect to end their own lives. The tablets were never used. Evans died on the 17th February, 1912. Lawrence died on 17th March, 1912. The remaining team members, Scott, Wilson and Bowers, succumbed to starvation and exhaustion and died c. 29th March, 1912 after having spent ten days trapped by a blizzard only eighteen miles from life-saving supplies that had been deposited at One Ton Depot. The team’s tent and bodies (except for Lawrence’s which was never recovered) were found eight months later, on 12th November, 1912, by a relief expedition led by Edward Atkinson. A cairn was built over the location of the tent.

The men needed 5,500 calories each day and were only consuming 4,430 and no vitamin C which made them prone to bouts of scurvy. The above display is on loan to The Lawrence Oates Gallery from The Sutton Collection. Chief Petty Officer Tom Williamson was a member of the search party that found Captain Scott’s last camp and the bodies of Scott, Wilson and Bowers. From there and from the hut he brought back a number of items which now comprises the ‘Sutton Collection.’ Oates wrote: ‘..my Pemmican must have disagreed with me at breakfast, for coming along I felt very depressed and homesick.’ (15th January, 1912)

The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

Sledge on display in The Lawrence Oates Gallery. Fully loaded a sledge needed 4 men to pull it. Some sledges were 10ft long (3m) others were 12ft long (3.65m) and could weigh as much as 1,121lbs (51kg) when fully loaded with equipment and rations. Birdie Bowers wrote:’…I have never pulled so hard or so nearly crushed my inside into my backbone by the everlasting jerking on the canvas band round my unfortunate tummy.’

The Last Few Months of The Terra Nova Expedition – In Their Own Words

• Scott told me today he was very pleased with the way the ponies were going.. (Oates, 8th November, 1911);
• I am anxious about these beasts (ponies) and if they pull through well, all the thanks will be due to Oates. (Scott, 12th November, 1911);
• Scott realises now what awful cripples our ponies are and carries a face like a tired sea boot in consequence. (Oates, 18th November, 1911);
• …Whenever one peeped out of the tent there was Oates, wet to the skin, trying to keep life in his charges. Poor Oates had suffered as much as the ponies. (Evans, 4-8th December, 1911);
• Thank God the horses are now all done with and we begin the heavier work ourselves. (Oates, Shambles Camp, 9th December, 1911. Oates has to shoot the remaining ponies);
• The back tendon of my right leg feels as if it has been stretched about four inches. I hope to goodness it is not going to give me trouble. (Oates, 26th December, 1911);
• I have been selected to go on to the Pole with Scott…What a lot we shall have to talk about when we get back – God bless you and keep you well until I come home…The excitement was intense. It was obvious that with five fit men – the achievement was merely a matter of ten or eleven days’ good sledging (Oates, writing to his mother, 3rd January, 1912);
• ..my Pemmican must have disagreed with me at breakfast, for coming along I felt very depressed and homesick. (Oates, 15th January, 1912);
• We are not a very happy party tonight. We have picked up the Norskies tracks… Scott is taking his defeat much better than I expected. (Oates, 16th January, 1912)
• Great God! This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured here without the reward of priority. Now for the run home and a desperate struggle. I wonder we can do it. (Scott, 18th January, 1912);
• One of my big toes has turned black. I hope it is not going to lame me for marching. (Oates, 25th January, 1912);
• Titus‘ [Oates] toes are blackening and his nose and cheeks are dead yellow. At the same time Evans’s fingers were suppurating and his nails came off. His nose was rotten. (Wilson, 31st January, 1912);
• Dug up Christopher’s [pony] head for food but it was rotten. (Oates, his last diary entry, 24th February, 1912);
• Titus Oates is very near the end, one feels. What we will do, God only knows. (Scott, 11th March, 1912);
• He [Oates] was a brave soul. This was the end. He slept through the night before last hoping not to wake, but he woke in the morning – yesterday. He said “I am just going outside and may be some time.” He went into the blizzard and we have not seen him since. (Scott, 16-17 March, 1912)
  

  The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

  

  The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

Dear Mrs Oates,

This is a sad ending to our undertaking. Your son died a very noble death, God knows. I have never seen or heard of such courage as he showed from first to last with his feet both badly frostbitten – never a word or a sign of complaint or of the pain, he was a great example. Dear Mrs Oates, he asked me at the end to see you and to give you this diary of his. You, he told me, are the only woman he has ever loved. Now I am in the same can and I can no longer hope to see either you or my beloved wife or my mother or father – the end is close upon us, but these diaries will be found and this note will reach you some day.

Please be so good as to send pages 54 and 55 of this book to my beloved wife addressed Mrs Ted Wilson, Westal, Cheltenham. Please do this for me dear Mrs Oates – my wife has a real faith in God and so your son tells me have you – and so have I – and if ever a man died like a noble soul and in a Christ like spirit your son did. Our whole journey’s record is clean and though disastrous – has no shadow over it. He died like a man and a soldier without a word of regret or complaint except that he hadn’t written to you at the last, but the cold has been intense and I fear we have all of us left writing alone until it is almost too late to attempt anything but the most scrappy notes.

God comfort you in your loss.

Yours sincerely

E.A. Wilson.

Replica of the home-made tree made by Scott’s team to celebrate Midwinter Day (22nd June, 1911). The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

Ponting’s photograph of Scott’s team making the Midwinter Day tree. Oates sits at the table on the left. The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

Exhibit showing contemporary polar-exploration clothing. The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

Rations used in modern-day polar-exploration. The Lawrence Oates Gallery.

2013 Events at Gilbert White’s House and Garden

• Wild at White’s Easter Bunny Hunt. Good Friday, 29th March until Sunday 14th April. Come and explore the stunning gardens and find those spritely bunnies hiding in the grounds. Included in the normal admission fee;
• Gilbert White Study Day for the WEA. Monday 15th April (10-3pm). £45. Pre-booking essential;
• Wild at White’s African Safari. Saturday 25th May until Sunday 2nd June. Follow in the footsteps of Victorian Explorer Frank Oates and hunt for the wild animals of the African Continent hidden in the gardens. Included in the normal admission fee;
• 21st Unusual Plants Fair. Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th June. Over Father’s Day weekend there will be over thirty specialist growers of rare and unusual plants, trees, shrubs and seeds trading in the lovely grounds at the Museum. Admission for Plant Fair and Gardens only: £6 Adults, £2.50 Children, Under 5s Free. Please note Season Passes and ‘2 for 1’ vouchers are not valid on Bank Holidays and Special Event Days;
• Regency-style costume making workshop. Sunday 30th June (11am-4.30pm). Part of Alton’s Jane Austen Regency Week (Saturday 22nd – Sunday 30th June).  Part of the Museum’s Volunteering Project you will be helping to add to their collection of period-style clothes and accessories. Some basic sewing experience is preferred. Both hand and machine techniques will be used to create and accessorize one or two Regency outfits using a commercial pattern. Tickets include a morning coffee, light buffet lunch and afternoon tea. Limited places – pre-booking essential. £10 per ticket. Book now in the museum, or by calling: 01420 511 275. CLICK HERE, for more information on this super workshop;
• Teddy Bear Trail and Picnic. Throughout July. This event is part of the Hampshire Food Festival organised by Hampshire Fare (1st-31st July). There will be a teddy bear trail in the grounds of Gilbert White’s House where you will identify local produce that makes up the best picnic! Free entry for all children accompanied by a teddy bear and adult;
• Gilbert’s Games and Country Fair. Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th August. This is a very popular annual event. Fun and games for all the family suitable for all ages and abilities. Take part or compete in some traditional eighteenth century games and pastimes including stool ball, Aunt Sally, croquet, cricket and melon rolling! There will also be local crafts people demonstrating their skills which all take place in Gilbert’s beautiful House and Garden. Some activities may not be suitable for younger children; all children should be accompanied by an adult. Admission to the House, Garden and Games: £7 Adults, £2 Children, Under 5s Free. Please note Season Passes and ‘2 for 1’ vouchers are not valid on Bank Holidays and Special Event Days;
• Jane Austen’s ‘Sense and Sensibility’, outdoor production by the Chapterhouse Theatre Company. Sunday 25th August, from 6pm. Bring a picnic. Adults £13.50, Students & Children £9; Families £40 (2 Adults + 2 Child), 10% discount for parties of ten or more. Telephone: 01420 511 275 to put your name down for tickets before they are released on sale;
• Wild at White’s Apples and Tortoises. Saturday 26th October until Sunday 3rd November. Normal admission charges apply;
• Mulled Wine Day. Sunday 1st December.
• Regency Dance. Saturday 7th December (7.30pm-11pm);

Opening times for 2013

• Until 31st March, Tuesday-Sunday (10.30am-4.30pm);
• 1st April-31st October, Tuesday-Sunday (10.30am-5.15pm)
• 1st November-22nd December, Tuesday-Sunday (10.30am-4.30pm).
• Also open on Bank Holiday Mondays, and Mondays in July & August;

Standard Admission Charges For 2013

Adult	£8.50
Concession	£7.50
Under 16	£3.00
Under 5	Free
Family Ticket (2A + 3C)	£20.00
Pre-booked group of 10 or more	£6.50
Garden Only	£6.50

Mr Watt, Grumpy Man of Metal Exhibition by Jon Mills at Enginuity, Ironbridge, Shropshire

 

©Jon Mills. Mr Watt, Grumpy Man of Metal, Exhibition by artist Jon Mills at Enginuity, Ironbridge, Shropshire.

Mr Watt, Grumpy Man of Metal, is an exhibition by blacksmith artist Jon Mills, currently running until 31st August 2013 at Enginuity Design & Technology Centre, one of the ten Ironbridge Gorge Museums in Shropshire. The exhibition features fun and whimsical sculptures showing the many adventures of Mr Watt, Grumpy Man of Metal, the central character in a series of illustrated books that appeal to both young and old alike. Jon has written a short article on his blog about the exhibition which includes some nice images of the metalworks in situ.

©Jon Mills

 

©Jon Mills

Mr Watt lives in a curious metal world and makes many unusual metal objects, such as a crab’s bicycle, a flying machine and a new kind of trumpet. Other sculptures on display include the runaway train from the book On the Wrong Track; the parson and his church from Under Wear and Tear; the witch from A Brush with Evil and the astro-barrow from Space… the Final Front Door. The artist has created a short video (2011) showing Mr Watt being made at his Brighton-based workshop. Filming and soundtrack by Arthur Mills.

©Jon Mills

Gillian Crumpton, Curatorial Officer at the Museum commented: “Jon’s work is technically outstanding and visually fascinating. We are sure that visitors will love looking at the many sculptures and following Mr Watt’s adventures.” To view sample pages form the book of Mr Watt’s adventures, CLICK HERE. I found this exhibition to be a complete delight when I visited it last month. The quality of craftmanship in Jon’s work is exquisite and a closer inspection is highly recommended. The metal vignettes do have an air of quirkiness about them and reminded me of some of the creations by film-maker Tim Burton.

©Jon Mills

©Jon Mills

Mr Watt, Grumpy Man of Metal’s creator, Jon Mills, was born in Birmingham in 1959 into a family of metalworkers and studied 3-Dimensional Design BA (Hons) at Wolverhampton before helping to found Brighton’s Red Herring Studios in 1983. In the mid 1980s he honed his skills at brazing, forging, laser-cutting and welding and exhibited work at One Off, Ron Arad’s London workshop and gallery.

In 1988, Jon created a music machine for a Terry Jones/Monty Python film, Erik the Viking (1989). You can view the original music machine sketch on the artist’s blog, CLICK HERE as well as the finished item, CLICK HERE.

In recent years, Jon has been involved in major architectural commissions, inventing exciting structures that engage with their surroundings whether in cities or in the countryside. His output is extraordinarily diverse and charmingly subversive. He makes dangerous toys and automata, dysfunctional furniture and an amazing range of sculpture with themes that are witty, whimsical, and sometimes darkly Gothic. Jon’s vast body of work has been shown extensively in Great Britain as well as in the USA, Europe and Japan.

Mills is very much a hands-on maker, preferring to produce one-off designs. Occasionally clients have ordered repeats on a similar theme, but Mills has tended to resist mass or batch production, opting instead for a more spontaneous approach – the evolving of ideas through the making process, be it cupboard or bridge. He has undertaken numerous residencies in schools, normally in conjunction with a specific commission, often incorporating elements of the children’s work into the finished piece.

(Quote taken from Artist’s own website, CLICK HERE)

Enginuity  is the perfect setting for Jon’s work to be exhibited. It is a fabulous and fun environment that brings together history and technology. Different zones – Energy, Green and Design – encourage visitors to interact with exhibits which enhances their understanding of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics behind objects, past and present. This ‘hands-on’ approach works extremely well and creates a vibrant, educational space that has a cross-generational appeal.

Create ‘Sticky Critters’ at Enginuity – Easter Holidays, 29th March-14th April 2013

In my view, the educational facilities at Enginuity are quite some of the best I have seen offered by any Museum. They include a vast warehouse style area with plenty of space for you and your family to get creative. When I visited last month, the workshop area was full of objects, old and new, to help inspire your artistic endeavours.

During the Easter school holidays this year, Enginuity are hosting a great fun family event. Use your imagination to design and create fun ‘sticky critters’ from craft materials inspired by the suction capabilities of an octopus, then discover how long they can cling to an upright glass surface. Paper, card, plastic and other materials will be used to make the designs based on frogs, geckos and octopus or any other creature of your own invention. The drop-in Nature’s Engineers family workshops will be held from Friday 29th March until Sunday 14th April, between 10.30am and 3.45pm.  Activities will vary from day-to-day and some additional costs will apply.

Museums at Night (Thursday 16 – Saturday 18 May 2013) – Julian Wild’s sculptures

Recently, The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, Shropshire beat-off stiff competition in the national Connect10 Competition, to secure international artist Julian Wild to work with the Ironbridge Gorge Museums during the Museums at Night event in May. The Connect10 Competition is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Museums at Night (Thursday 16 – Saturday 18 May 2013) is a national initiative by Culture 24 that encourages museums to remain open after hours for one night a year, allowing as many people as possible to visit their local museums. Across the country the public have been voting to send ten different artists to ten varied museums to work on a variety of inspirational projects.

Anna Brennand, Deputy Chief Executive Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust commented; “We are really grateful to everyone that voted for us in this competition, it is wonderful to know that in their busy lives our supporters found the time to vote for us. We are thrilled to be welcoming an artist of Julian Wild’s calibre to Enginuity in May and hope that everyone will come along to help him make an amazing sculpture from glow-in-the-dark pipes during the Museum at Night event”. The Museum will publish full details of the event in the coming weeks on www.ironbridge.org.uk.

Julian Wild’s sculptures are often based on the history of a site and resemble three-dimensional doodles. His vision for the sculpture at Enginuity is that members of the local community will help him create a giant work of art, inspired by structures in the Gorge, from pipes.

Ironbridge – 2012 Most Highly Recommended UNESCO World Heritage Site in the UK According to  TripAdvisor®

On Come Step Back in Time, over the coming weeks, I am delighted to be able to share with you a series of fascinating feature articles that I have written about The Ironbridge World Heritage Site, its museums and world-class collections. Ironbridge Gorge has been voted the 2012 most highly recommended UNESCO World Heritage Site in the UK according to the TripAdvisor® traveller community. It also takes second place in the world behind the Historic Ensemble of the Potala Palace, Lhasa, China and ahead of the Egyptian Pyramids and India’s Taj Mahal. It was not hard to see why Ironbridge had received this accolade. When I visited last month I found it to be truly worthy of its status as a national heritage treasure.

• Enginuity is open 10am to 5pm and is one of the ten Ironbridge Gorge Museums;
• A great value Annual Passport Ticket  allowing entry into all ten museums, valid for twelve months and unlimited return visits, costs £23.25 per adult, £18.75 for the 60 plus, £15.25 for students and children and £64 for a family of two adults and all their children aged up to 18 years in full-time education (terms and conditions apply); under 5s free;
• Individual museum entry tickets are also available;
• Activities and workshops vary day-to-day and some carry an extra charge in addition to the museum admission fee.
  

  ©Jon Mills

 

Heath Robinson Exhibition – St. Barbe Museum & Art Gallery

‘The Fairy’s Birthday’. Pen, ink and watercolour by Heath Robinson published in Holly Leaves, December, 1925, p.21. Heath Robinson’s goblins appeared in the Christmas Numbers of a variety of magazines between 1919-1929. They are distinguished by their homely and somewhat bumbling appearance. They may be short-sighted, overweight and suffer from pains in their joints or shortness of breath. They may have a rustic quality and may well have been based on the characters that Heath met in and around Cranleigh. © William Heath Robinson Trust. St. Barbe Museum & Art Gallery.

I was delighted to be asked to review an exhibition showcasing a collection of precise ink drawings and delicate watercolours by William Heath Robinson (1872 – 1944) which is currently on at St Barbe Museum & Art Gallery, Lymington, Hampshire until Saturday 20^th April, 2013. The Heath Robinson exhibition is supported by Rathbones investment management services. This exhibition, from the William Heath Robinson Trust, showcases illustrations he produced for works by William Shakespeare, Hans Christian Anderson and Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) as well as for his own books. There will also, of course, be a number of his much-loved designs for eccentric contraptions and humorous drawings.

Heath Robinson has become a byword for the eccentric and rickety inventions which he created. In the 1930s, he was known as the ‘Gadget King’, a remarkable title given that in real life Heath was not very practically minded. He had only ever been abroad once, towards the end of the First World War, when he illustrated scenes from the western front. At the beginning of his career he was ranked with Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) and Edmund Dulac (1882-1953) as one of Britain’s foremost illustrators.

Heath counted among his friends, authors H.G. Wells (1866-1946) and Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), Heath illustrated Kipling’s A Song of The English (1909, published by Hodder & Stoughton), which celebrated Edwardian pride in the Empire. Heath visited Kipling in Sussex to discuss the book. Illustrations from the publication feature in the exhibition.

Heath was born on 31st May 1872 at 25 Ennis Road, Stroud Green, London. His father Thomas Robinson (1838-1902) chief illustrator of Penny Illustrated Paper and his mother, Eliza Heath (1849-1921), an innkeeper’s daughter. The Robinsons had seven children, Heath was their third child. Heath’s elder brothers Thomas (1869-1953) and Charles (1870-1937) also became well-known book illustrators.

Heath attended Miss Mole’s dame-school, Holloway College from 1880 to 1884 and Islington proprietary school from 1884 to 1887. He did not thrive in education, a fact which his father recognised removing him, aged fifteen, from the proprietary school and sending him instead to Islington Art School, where he remained for five years. He won a studentship to the Royal Academy Schools, graduating in January 1897, aged twenty-five. Whilst at the RA, Heath had become an accomplished landscape painter but subsequently struggled to make a living selling his artworks. Heath’s passion for painting remained with him for the rest of his life, in his spare time he continued to produce landscapes, experimenting with effects of light and colour, as well as figure studies in watercolour.

In order to further his artistic career he decided to join his brothers who were already working as illustrators. Although being an illustrator was a respectable profession, it could be notoriously difficult to make a living from. However, Heath had real talent for humorous art which made him much in demand, especially in the world of advertising. He also took the occasional commission for book and magazine illustrations (The Sketch, The Bystander and The Tatler).

Some of Heath’s earliest book illustrations were published in 1897 and by 1900 he had illustrated editions of The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, Fairy Tales From Hans Christian Anderson (1899, published by J. M. Dent) and The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (1900, these illustrations were influenced by the drawings of Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898)). Copies of the Poe publication are extremely rare, a limited edition of only seventy-five copies were produced, printed on Japanese vellum. He illustrated Anderson’s Fairy Tales with his brothers, Thomas and Charles.

‘The Aeronaut’ by Heath Robinson © William Heath Robinson Trust. St. Barbe Museum & Art Gallery.

Heath’s fortunes improved when he illustrated his own fantasy for children The Adventures of Uncle Lubin (1902, published by Grant Richards). He wrote about this publication in his biography, My Line of Life (1938, published by Blackie & Son): ‘The story is episodic in form, telling the tale of Uncle Lubin, a little old man in a tall hat and long coat, as he attempts to retrieve his nephew, Baby Peter, from the clutches of the wicked bag-bird.’

This book was particularly important, although not a best seller, it did earn Heath enough money to enable him to marry Josephine Constance Latey (1878-1974), the daughter of newspaper editor John Latey, on 30th April, 1903, they set-up home in Holloway Road. As luck would have it, a Canadian by name of Chase Ed. Potter had read Lubin and commissioned Heath to illustrate some advertisements he was writing for Lamson Paragon Supply Company. Heath was paid, in cash, for each drawing.

In 1903, Heath embarked upon his most ambitious project to-date, The Works of Mr Francis Rabelais, commissioned by Grant Richards. The book contained two hundred and fifty-four illustrations, a hundred of which were full-page illustrations, the rest smaller ones. The book was published in 1904 in two large quarto volumes to critical acclaim. Unfortunately, Grant Richards went bankrupt in November 1904 leaving Heath short of the monies that he had hoped to earn.

Heath moved to Pinner, Middlesex, in 1908 and lived there with his family until 1918, residing at Moy Lodge from 1910. Following his move to Pinner and until 1914, Heath continued to produce book illustrations as well as cartoons for The Sketch and The Strand Magazine, amongst other periodicals. He moved to Cranleigh in Surrey in 1918 remaining there until 1929, when he relocated to Highgate, London. In Highgate, he first lived in Shepherd’s Hill and later 25 Southwood Avenue, close to where he had spent a majority of his childhood.

‘Rough sketch for doubling Gloucester cheese’ by Heath Robinson.
© William Heath Robinson Trust. St. Barbe Museum & Art Gallery.

One of Heath’s finest achievements as an illustrator were forty-one pen and ink drawings for A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1914, published by Constable & Co). A contemporary review, in The Times Literary Supplement, described the publication as: ‘The most complete and beautiful specimen before us of an illustrated book as a single work of art…’. A copy of the publication is on display in the exhibition. There is an inscription in the front of this book, which is on display in the exhibition, from Heath to his mother: ‘To my good mother with very best wishes from her affectionate son, will.’

In 1915, Heath produced illustrations for The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) (published by Constable & Co). The edition was originally planned as a lavish gift book but due to the economic climate at the end of World War One, it was published as a modest octavo volume. The illustrations are some of Heath’s finest and show a clear influence of Japanese prints. The Japanese style influenced an entire generation of illustrators.

At the end of World War One, despite the market for lavishly illustrated gift books having all but disappeared, Heath’s talents were still in demand. He obtained a number of commissions for illustrations to appear in advertisements and magazines. Between 1903 and 1942, he produced about a hundred advertising drawings for a wide range of products including Mackintosh Toffees, biscuits, asbestos cement roofs, whiskey and paper. He had a particular talent for parodying the processes by which the various products were made as well as contrasting some of the more desirable qualities of these products. The drawings often took the form of ‘before and after’, i.e. unhappy scenes where the product was absent and happy scenes where the product’s inclusion made everything appear better. A campaign of particular note was for Hovis bread.

‘German breaches of the Hague Convention – Huns using siphons of laughing gas to overcome our troops before an attack in close formation.’ Pen, ink, watercolour and bodycolour. Published in The Sketch, August 1915. © William Heath Robinson Trust. St. Barbe Museum & Art Gallery.

Between 1920 and 1936, Heath produced over two hundred drawings for Connolly Bros. (Curriers) Ltd, a majority of which are still in the company’s possession. These collection of drawings were published by the firm as Heath Robinson on Leather, to commemorate the company’s 50th anniversary, in 1928, and were reissued to mark the company’s centenary in 1978. The exhibition includes examples of Heath’s illustrations for both Hovis and the Connolly Bros. (Curriers) Ltd. A particularly delightful illustration for the latter is ‘William the Conqueror appreciates the comfort of leather when crossing the Channel’, pen and ink, 1933.

In January 1921, Heath was commissioned by Jonathan Cape to produce colour illustrations for a complete works of Shakespeare. He completed the drawings in June 1922.  Unfortunately, only a handful of these colour illustrations still exist, several rare examples of which are in the exhibition. Jonathan Cape could not find an American partner to share the cost of publication and because of the continuing decline in the market for illustrated books, the edition was never published.

In 1927, Heath produced sixteen designs in full colour, based on popular nursery rhymes, which featured on a range of nursery china for Soane & Smith, Knightsbridge. The china was produced by W. R. Midwinter of Burslem, Staffordshire. Examples from this range can been seen in the exhibition. The attention to detail in the frieze of children’s faces is exquisite. This frieze appeared on the inside rim of cups, bowls and around the outside edge of plates and porringers.

Other characters featured included: goblins; Jack Spratt and his wife; Tom, Tom the Piper’s son and the old woman who lived in a shoe. The range was extensive and ran to cereal bowls, saucers, jam pots, sugar bowls, mugs, egg cups and even a tureen.  The service was so popular that it was later sold through a variety of outlets, although the later designs were simplified with the frieze of children’s faces replaced by a simple band of dark blue or pale green.

One of my favourite drawings in the exhibition is a pen, ink and watercolour sketch produced by Heath in 1930 for the luxury trans-Atlantic liner, RMS Empress of Britain (1931) operated by Canadian Pacific Steamship Company which was built in Scotland. The sketch is divided into two parts, the top features a suggested design for ‘The ‘Knickerbocker’ Cocktail Bar’ and the bottom half of the sketch is a design for ‘The Children’s Room’. A closer look at the drawing for the Cocktail Bar reveals some of Heath’s humorous touches. This illustration draws its inspiration from experiences of drinking a cocktail, which according to Heath make you affectionate, give you courage, nerve and produce human kindness. There is also a Cocktail Bird, A Pleasant Surprise and Cocktail shaking in the East.

The Empress of Britain operated from 1931 until 1939 as a steam passenger liner designed to carry 1,195 passengers (465 first class, 260 second class and 470 third class). During the summer months it sailed along the England-Canada route. In 1939, it was requisitioned for war work and became a troop carrier. It was torpedoed on 28th October, 1940 by a German U-boat (U-32) on the northwest of Bloody Foreland, County Donegal, Ireland. Mystery still surrounds the cargo it was supposed to be carrying at the time. It was thought to have been a shipment of gold, bound for North America, a fact that has never been proved.

Another intriguing pen and ink drawing, which I last saw whilst an art history undergraduate, is from How To Live In A Flat (1936), by W. H. Robinson and K.R.G. Browne, published by Hutchison & Co. ’The One-Piece Chromium Steel Dining Suite’ makes a striking social statement about the popularity of flat-dwelling in the interwar years and contains humorous touches by Heath. In the following extract from the publication, explanation is given for another of Heath’s illustrations: ‘A vote of thanks, therefore, is due to Mr Heath Robinson for demonstrating that a certain amount of quiet fun can be extracted even from the last word in geometrical carpetry. Carpet draughts, they tell me, is just the thing for the long winter evenings, and as it can be played sitting-down – will keep the old folks happy and amused while the young people are out at the movies.’ (Robinson & Browne, 1936, p.42).

In 1944, Heath underwent exploratory surgery, following which he returned home to Southwood Avenue, Highgate, where he died of a stroke on 13th September, later on in the same year. He is buried at St. Marylebone cemetery, East Finchley. This quality exhibition is a delight for both children and adults, it is guaranteed to make you smile and raise a chuckle.

Tickets to the Heath Robinson exhibition and St. Barbe Museum, which is open between 10am and 4pm, Monday to Saturday, cost £4 for adults, £3 for senior citizens and students, £2 for children aged five to 15, and £10 for a family of two adults and up to four children; under fives are admitted free of charge. For more details visit www.stbarbe-museum.org.uk or telephone 01590 676969.

• Thursday 11th April, 2013, 10.30am-3.30pm there is a Heath Robinson themed Family Explorer Day at St. Barbe Museum. The Museum’s Explorer Days are engaging and fun hands-on creative activities for children and their family, including the opportunity to handle museum objects. Price is included in admission. Day ticket: Adult £4, Concession £3, Child £2, Family £10. For further information, CLICK HERE.
  

  Arts & Crafts selling Exhibition featuring work by regional artists, currently on at The Old School Gallery, St. Barbe Museum, Lymington until 13th April, 2013.

Arts & Crafts Exhibition – 9th March until 13th April, 2013

The Old School Gallery – St. Barbe Museum

An added bonus when you visit the Heath Robinson exhibition, is the Arts and Crafts Exhibition currently on at The Old School Gallery, located in the same building as the Museum. This is the Museum’s first selling exhibition, showcasing arts and crafts by regional artists:  Carol-Anne Savage (contemporary jewellery); Victoria Garland Prints (Prints); Mrs Ollie Chappell (Raku Ceramics); Sue Baker (papier mâché fish); Paul Reeves (beautifully turned wooden objects made from wood found in and around the New Forest or from dead or fallen trees) and Michael Turner (stainless steel sculpture). The range of items for sale is excellent and of an exceptionally high standard.

Sue Baker’s papier mâché fish looked striking hung on the white-washed walls of The Old School Gallery. Her inspiration for the fish comes from when she lived in Cornwall: ‘I’ve always enjoyed messing about with paints and drawing, and enjoy the point where craft and art overlap. I fell into the papier mâché interest over twenty years ago. Having tried a few experiments following ideas in a book. I decided I preferred to do my own thing. The fish theme developed from there. Living in Cornwall, where I was born (I moved to Dorset ten years ago), the fish were an obvious choice I suppose. I started making imaginative fish; but the demand for realistic fish grew, so I seem to make them exclusively now.’

Sculptor Michael Turner’s steel lion looking majestic in the entrance of St. Barbe Museum, Lymington. The lion is for sale. Price on application.

A stainless steel lion by Lymington based sculptor Michael Turner, which is positioned in the Museum’s entrance, proved to be a big hit with both adults and children on the Saturday I visited. If you have travelled through Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5 in recent years, you may well have seen Michael’s lion on display there. The lion is for sale, price on application.

Michael describes his work thus: ‘I have been a sculptor for over fifteen years now. I enjoy using recycled stainless steel. In our throw away society, it’s great for me to be able to take discarded material and turn it into something beautiful, and every project takes on a new challenge. My inspiration mainly comes from nature in all its forms. I am especially fascinated by insects which I never tire of reproducing, experimenting constantly with different types of finishes on the basic stainless steel. I use polishing, paint and heat effects to produce a unique piece every time. My work is exhibited in selected galleries and recently featured in Harvey Nichols’ London and Edinburgh stores, as well as the Royal West of England Academy.’

• The Arts & Crafts Exhibition continues at St. Barbe Museum, until 13th April, 2013.

Charmed Life: The Solace of Objects – Exhibition at Winchester Discovery Centre

Unstrung – wax on mirror back series, 2011.© Felicity Powell

It seems that the soul… loses itself in itself when shaken and disturbed unless given something to grasp on to; and so we must always provide it with an object to butt up against and to act upon.

(Michel de Montaigne, Essais, 1580)

I recently visited the exhibition, Charmed Life: The Solace of Objects, currently on at The Gallery, Winchester Discovery Centre until 14th April, 2013. Free admission. Charmed Life is a touring exhibition of three hundred and eighty amulets from the Wellcome Collection, London in partnership with Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford and curated by artist Felicity Powell. The exhibition was originally part of the Miracles & Charms programme, exploring the ordinary in the everyday, organised by the Wellcome Collection and which opened on 6th October 2011 and ran until 26th February 2012.

Conjuring coral – wax on mirror back series, 2011. © Felicity Powell

Charmed Life is beautiful and challenging. If you are interested in social history and visual art, this exhibition is the perfect combination of both and suitable for children too. Whilst viewing Charmed Life, a number of families arrived, the children were fascinated by the bizarre array of objects on display, the mole feet amulet proved particularly popular.

Amulets have appeared throughout history and across cultures in a variety of forms. They are tiny embodiments of the anxieties we feel and their assumed powers often draw on the dark arts of superstition and magic. Those on display range from simple coins to meticulously carved shells, dead animals to elaborately fashioned notes. The objects in the exhibition were collected by the banker and obsessive folklorist Edward Lovett (1852-1933) who scoured London by night, buying curious objects mostly from the East End.

Edward Lovett lived in Croydon and his huge collection grew from his fascination with folklore, charms, amulets and superstitions. He worked as a banker at the Bank of Scotland in the City of London and ‘..in his leisure time he took great pleasure in his collecting trips to the working-class areas of London. He acquired a wealth of material from sites such as herbalist shops, the barrows of costermongers and the city’s dockyards, collecting from people neglected by most historians.’  (Felicity Powell, Charmed Life, booklet, 2011).

In 1916, at the Wellcome Collection (formerly known as the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum) he curated the exhibition The Folklore of London and in 1925 he published a book, Magic in Modern London. In this publication he describes the strange little mole feet that amused the exhibition’s young visitors: ‘The front feet of a mole are permanently curved for digging, and this curved appearance is so suggestive of cramp that these feet are carried as a cure for cramp. (I have also found this superstition quite common on the continent).’

Blue glass beads, displayed in a perspex, wall-mounted cabinet, also caught my eye. Lovett writes about these in Magic in Modern London: ‘In the year 1914, I heard of a remarkable case of prejudice, or superstition, as to the wearing of blue glass beads by children as a cure for, or rather, a prophylactic against bronchitis. They are put on the necks of very young children and never taken off, not even when the wearers are washed or bathed. They are not taken off even at death.’

Lovett had a particular fascination with these blue glass beads and set-out to create a map of London showing exact locations where the beads were being sold. ‘I made a rough outline sketch of a map of London taking in…. 26 districts. I took it quite easily by devoting one day to each of these places…the shops where I made my enquiries were of two classes; viz: A poor class shop..[and] a better class of shop…every shop of the low-class recognised the blue beads as a cure for bronchitis, but not a single shop of the better class knew anything about it, or if they did would not admit it.’ I know several people who wear a St. Christopher around their neck and never remove it for anything or anybody, in case its protective properties should disappear.

Runaway tree – wax on mirror back series, 2009. © Felicity Powell

A majority of amulets, selected by Felicity from Lovett’s Collection, appear as a river of objects in the exhibit, ‘The Table’ which is a perspex, horseshoe-shaped display case located at the heart of the gallery. Felicity explains: ‘Lovett collected stories as well as objects. He was passionate about collecting. Horseshoes were thought to protect the person against night nerves.’

I was transfixed by Felicity’s taxonomy of amulets which had been so carefully and precisely arranged. Although curated with precision, these objects lost none of their beauty by being repositioned in a different context. A context which no longer consigns the object to a concealed existence as a harbinger of sympathetic magic. These amulets, now protected by their perspex shell, have been freed to create new narratives, drawing the viewer into the powerful world of belief. ‘The ebb and flow of objects across the table introduces us to a visually led taxonomy that links the amulets materially, thematically and by association, allows for insights that emerge across the groupings…Each object speaks of a physical relationship to the world and most particularly to our bodies.’ (Felicity Powell, Charmed Life, booklet, 2011).

The categories of objects displayed in ‘The Table’ include: against nightmares; on concealment, flesh and bone; against lightning; thunderbolts; plants;  nail, tooth and claw; foodstuffs and journey; game charms; a parade of shoes; on glass and artifice; of the sea and sailors; against the evil eye; pressed metal; votives and shrines; varied hearts; on roundness; stones with holes; fossils, crosses and phalluses and key attachments. The amulets range from obvious symbols of protection (such as a crystal and silk thread to be hung from your umbrella, protecting you against a lightning strike) to the more grotesque and macabre (the tip of a rabbit’s tongue against poverty). I was particularly drawn to a tiny little pot, which had the inscription ‘rice thrown for luck at a wedding, Caterham, September, 05′ [1905], the owner of this miniscule keepsake obviously hoping that the good ‘luck’ would rub-off onto them wherever they carried it.

Felicity tells me: ‘Amulets would have been concealed upon a person and have meant something to the individual who carried them. Each amulet has their own fascinating story to tell, particularly about the human need to connect to objects which transcends time periods, cultures and classes. During the course of my research I became fascinated by ‘touch-pieces’. In the original 2011 exhibition, we had Dr Johnson’s touch-piece from The British Museum. This type of coin was believed to be imbued by the divine touch of a monarch and would be worn around the owner’s neck as a cure for individuals suffering from scrofula, a disease of the lymphatic system, from which Dr Johnson himself suffered. The coin was given to him by Queen Anne in 1711. Occasions where these coins were given-out were huge theatrical events. Dr Johnson wore the touch-piece around his neck for the rest of his life.’

Heart-shaped late medieval bronze heart found in the grounds of Hyde Abbey.©Winchester City Museums.

A clever curatorial twist in the exhibition was the inclusion of two archaeological artifacts local to Hampshire. Felicity tells me: ‘I was presented with a choice of six artifacts from Winchester City Museum. I chose two objects whose provenance I felt to be in-keeping with the other amulets in the exhibition. A Roman lead curse and a late medieval heart-shaped amulet of bronze that had been found in grounds of Hyde Abbey, near Winchester.’

The lead tablet is from the Roman town of Silchester (4th Century AD) and was originally folded but is now opened-up to reveal a curse which interestingly contains named individuals. The curse reads: ‘Him who was stolen, let the god give a nasty blow.’ The folded section of the tablet is where the names were concealed. This amulet is not designed to offer protection.

Roman lead curse (4th century AD).©Winchester City Museums.

Charmed Life also contains new pieces and videos by Felicity Powell including an etched coin (‘Against insomnia, for sleep, against amnesia, for memory’ 2011) and eighteen small-scale wax artworks, part of a larger ongoing series, that relate directly to amulets in the Lovett collection. The hauntingly beautiful music featured in both videos is by composer William Basinski. The video, Sleight of Hand, shows part of the process of making the wax artworks. ’Powell filmed the making of her own small-scale works in wax with an overhead camera, revealing how they take shape, and playing with the sense that making and engaging with objects is in itself rather like being under a spell. The scale of the projection offers a counterbalance to the intricacy of the waxes themselves and allows the possibility of revealing things that are otherwise hard to see with the naked eye.’ (Felicity Powell, Charmed Life booklet, 2011). The translucent, white and red wax pieces have been modelled in low relief on the backs of mirrors with the imagery worked out directly on the mirror surface. The basic shape is laid down in wax applied with the fingers and then details are refined with dental tools. The wax on mirror back series is full of delicate imagery that appears to be in a constant state of flux, which Felicity describes as ‘morphing between states of being.’

Bees – wax on mirror back series, 2009. © Felicity Powell

The second video, Scanning, is based on MRI and CT/PET scans of the artist’s body, overlaid with images drawn directly from the Lovett collection. In one sequence an image of a transparent rotating torso with the heart at the centre is gradually encircled with the inward-spiralling text of the Lord’s Prayer as written by George Yeofound on his amulet of 1872.

‘On 9th September, 1872 in Southampton, Hampshire the eighty-eight year old George Yeofound wrote the Prayer in ink on both sides of a small disc of paper, the size of a small coin, that is really only legible when magnified. The edges of the paper are cut into points in order for it to wrap around the edge of a coin. This amulet is one of Felicity’s favourite in the exhibition. It is known that this object was part of Lovett’s collection of mascots and amulets carried by soldiers in World War I. This particular prayer was carried by a soldier of the Middlesex Regiment in 1917, but who he was and what happened to him are unknown.’ (Felicity Powell, Charmed Life, booklet, 2011).

Felicity explained to me why this amulet became so special to her: ‘I didn’t realise how important this object was to become to me as I worked with it over time. I traced Yeofound’s handwriting and found it to be urgent in style but formed into a perfect spiral, the text just kept going. In retracing his writing, it felt as if his hand reached across a century and a half. I found working on piece to be meditative, I felt I had a real connection with George and the object’s history. The object’s point of focus is its time and place in the mapping of life and events. This tiny piece of paper had travelled through time before it came to light.’

Tentacled – wax on mirror back series, 2006. © Felicity Powell

I asked Felicity about the type of wax that had been used to create the wax on mirror back series and were any special measures required to conserve them? ‘The wax is standard white modelling wax, light in colour so that pigments can be added, it also contains a lot of powder filler. I lay down the basic shape in wax using my fingers. The wax is lovely to work with and retains its translucency. Wax is easy to conserve as it is a very stable medium which holds its own over time. In The British Museum’s medal collection there are a number of eighteenth century wax and slate models made by the Hamerani family. All of which are still in good condition.’ I was also intrigued to find-out the reasons behind Felicity’s choice of modelling tools, why dental? ‘I know of a lot of artists who use dental tools for modelling, shaping and making marks. They are very good to hold in the hand too. The instruments also come with a wide range of different ends.’

Charmed Life continues at The Gallery, Winchester Discovery Centre until 14th April, 2013. Free admission. It is excellent and well-worth a trip to Winchester to view.

Deep water – wax on mirror back series, 2009. © Felicity Powell