I’m pleased to report that the ‘Workshop of the World’ project to catalogue the records of Vickers Armstrong is progressing well. I’m continuing to work through the large quantity of unlisted material in the collection and will look forward to highlighting some of the most exciting finds in future blogs.
Since my last blog I’ve acquired an enthusiastic volunteer. The kind soul helping me is Colin Boyd, who worked with me on the ‘We Mak’em’ Sunderland Shipbuilding Archives project. Colin has a strong interest in ships, tanks and guns so is the perfect person to have onboard. He’s currently listing the crane plans in the collection and has come across a few interesting items including an early deck crane for a screw collier ordered by Richard Young of Wisbech in 1854. Young was a prominent ship owner who served five times as Mayor of Wisbech, 1858-1863, was MP for Cambridgeshire, 1865-1868 and served as Sheriff of London and Middlesex in 1871, the year he died.
Plan of a deck crane for a screw collier, 1854 (TWAM ref. DS.VA/5/PL/1/418)
The main focus of this month’s blog, however, is an exciting addition to the Vickers Armstrong collection. The document in question is a printed album entitled ‘Warships and War Materials’ produced by Sir W.G. Armstrong Whitworth & Co. Ltd around 1904 (TWAM ref. 5484). It’s full of superb images of the firm’s premises and products and has very generously been deposited by Sue Wilson CBE, a former director of Vickers Defence Systems.
The album doesn’t just include views of the firm’s premises in Newcastle upon Tyne but also covers the Openshaw Works in Manchester, the Thames Ammunition Works and the company’s interests in Italy. It’s a superb document and there’s enough material to fill a dozen blogs. For the moment, though, I thought I’d share a few interior views of the Elswick and Scotswood Works. These images have really captured my imagination because they give us a glimpse into the firm just a decade before the outbreak of the First World War.
There’s a great view of some of the hydraulic forging presses inside the Elswick Steel Works.
View of hydraulic forging presses in a bay at the Elswick Steel Works (TWAM ref. 5484)
The album explains that the presses “are capable of turning out solid and hollow gun forgings that may be required in connection with the heaviest artillery in use either ashore or afloat”. The Steel Works alone employed nearly 1,500 people.
The Ordnance Works at Elswick feature very prominently in the album. In 1904 it consisted of 93 buildings, including forty large workshops.
View of one of the Heavy Gun Machine Shops at the Elswick Works (TWAM ref. 5484)
This image shows 8”, 9.2” and 12” guns being machined. The album includes a note that all the guns are ribbon wound and that the total length of wire ribbon used in a 12” gun was 123.5 miles. The album also contains a view of the Gun Inspection Department.
View of the Gun Inspection Department, Elswick Works (TWAM ref. 5484)
After completion in the manufacturing shops each gun was sent there. Checks included examination of the bore, rifling, outside dimensions of the gun, ease of working of the breech mechanism and the fitting of spare parts. The firm built over 5,000 guns and 7,000 mountings during the period 1893-1903. These numbers would be dwarfed during the First World War when the Elswick Works went on to produce 13,000 guns and 12,000 mountings.
I always think photographs which capture people going about their daily work are particularly special so I also thought it would be nice to share this view of the sawmills at the Scotswood Works.
Workers in the sawmills at the Scotswood Works (TWAM ref. 5484)
The sawmill was spread over three floors and included “a complete plant for the manufacture of Artillery wheels, consisting of spoke copying machines, spoke lathes, wheel lathes, one machine for felloe bending and a hydraulic tyring press for tyring wheels cold. The second floor contains small machinery, joiners’ benches, saddlers’ shop and a painting and varnishing shop”.
Sue Wilson’s generosity in depositing this superb document with us is really appreciated. If any current or former employees have any documents that they would be interested in adding to the Archive collection then I would be delighted to hear from them. By depositing with a record office you’re not just sharing documents with a wider audience but you’re also helping to secure their long-term preservation.
I am a MA Art Museum and Gallery Studies student at Newcastle University, as part of my degree I am completing an eight week work placement at South Shields Museum.
It is coming up to the last week of my placement now which is a little bit sad as it’s been such great experience! With my role in the development of the two art exhibitions now nearing completion, I have a fair bit of free time on my hands. So recently I have been helping my supervisor Adam Bell who is the Assistant Keeper of Social History for TWAM, in preparation for the World War One exhibition called ‘Home for Heroes: South Tyneside in the First World War’ that he is curating. The exhibition is due to open 10th July at South Shields Museum. The exhibition explores the key role played by the people of South Tyneside during the war effort, placing particular emphasis on the stories of three recipients of the Victoria Cross – Henry Howey Robson of South Shields, Thomas Young of Boldon Colliery and Joseph Henry Collin of Jarrow.
I was asked to do research for the development of a timeline for the exhibition showing the key events which happened in South Tyneside in relation to the war.
With my background and primary interest in art, my knowledge of WW1 is somewhat ‘sketchy’, and as a self-confessed ‘southerner’ my knowledge of the history of the Northeast is even worse. I saw this as an opportunity to improve myself in both these areas, and it has been really interesting and exciting (I probably should get out more).
Adam had a list of information and dates that he wanted me to track down, which included the dates and names of ships which were built in the Northeast during the WW1 (tracking these down was fun as a process but would probably would not make for the most engaging read apart even for the biggest of shipping nuts).
He also wanted me to include in the timeline, when King George V visited South Tyneside. With a quick bit of ‘googling’ I stumbled across this great photograph taken of his visit.
This photo was featured as part of this Flickr set of photos of royal visits to the region’s shipyards which was uploaded by TWAM to celebrate Prince William’s visit to Sunderland and South Tyneside on the 22nd November 2013. It shows King George V passing the shipyard of John Readhead & Sons Ltd in South Shields during his visit to the North East Coast on 16 June 1917.
Through further intense, serious academic research (Google) I came across a number of articles about the Munitionettes’ Cup, or to give its official title Tyne Wear & Tees Alfred Wood Munition Girls Cup. With most of the men in the Northeast away involved in the war effort the football’s associations struggled to find enough players to form a league. This lead to the formation of women’s teams which consisted of munitions workers. Perhaps the most famous of these players was Bella Raey, a coal miner’s daughter who played for the Northumberland team Blyth Spartan Munitionettes. In one season Blyth won all thirty of its games, with help in no small part from the 130 goals scored by Raey.
The sport was a big success, attracting as many as 10,000 spectators which for the time was a significant number of people. However in 1921 the Football Association officially banned women’s football, this ban would remain in place until the 1970s when it would be eventually lifted. Because of the ban Raey had to return to working the fields which she did into her mid-late sixties.
Again, just to reiterate, ‘Home for Heroes: South Tyneside in the First World War’ is due to be on display at South Shields Museum on the 10th July.
‘The ear is indolent and dull’, used to say Theodor Adorno in his essays about music. You can’t prevent yourself from listening to sounds; listening is such a passive activity. Sometimes it’s so passive that you don’t even realise that you are listening to something. On the other hand, the eye is an organ of concentration. You decide to focus your vision somewhere, you close your eyes and open them again to direct your own version of reality. Maybe this is why society pays so little attention to listening. The question is: Is there anything worth listening to, anyway?
A world devoid of sound takes away a big part of our everyday experience. People associate sounds with their everyday routine, important events and memories. Sounds are embedded in our culture, in the advances of technology and the quintessence of nature. Moreover, sounds -or more accurately soundscapes- change though time, exactly as landscapes do. Every day we lose sounds and new sounds take their place. Like the sound of the rag and bone men in the streets, the ‘click, clack, ding’ of the typewriter or the sounds of the Tyne in the early 20th century when you could not avoid but listen to the hammering of the riveters in the shipyards. If we don’t record these sounds, a part of our sound heritage will be cast into oblivion.
Today more and more people around the world have started recording their everyday soundscapes. Everyone can do it, either by using their smartphones or more advanced equipment like zoom recorders. This ever-growing database of contemporary sounds is expected to be a valuable asset for the future generations. Museums, libraries, archives and other cultural institutions, have also started building their own databases with sounds. The British Library sound archive is the most salient example.
In this context, I decided to do a sound project with Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums, around the sounds of Benwell. Benwell, in the West End of Newcastle, has had quite a turbulent history. Passing from an area of rapid industrial development to a de-industrialised era of deprivation, followed by the settlement of diverse communities in the area, and a rather unsuccessful series of regeneration efforts, Benwell is an area of great interest. Visiting this region today, you come across a unique mosaic of cultures. Chains stores, local corner shops, deli’s from all around the globe and a few very old stores most of which date back to the early 20th century, welcome you to Adelaide Terrace, a traditionally commercial road of Benwell. In the end of the road, one can find St. James Church, Centre for Heritage and Culture and graveyard; all three coexist in this 19th century church designed by John Dobson. St. James is where the heart of Benwell beats.
Having St. James Graveyard as my starting point, I searched for the most distinct sound features of the area. The recordings below are but the start of this on-going project that will get bigger and more inclusive as time passes. In its first phase it includes human, nature and mechanic sounds, sounds of the social history of the area (the shoe repair warehouse sounds), contemporary sounds (ASDA), sounds of silence (library) and noise (PJ’s Tyres). In the end you can find a sound map. Feel free to use the sound map to orchestrate your own walks in Benwell or other cities of the world. Every route is different when you pay attention to the sounds.
St. James Graveyard
St. James graveyard is mostly known as the final resting place of Richard Grainger, builder and developer in Newcastle Upon Tyne. In the recording you can hear the sounds of the maintenance works and the wind blowing through the trees. It is possible that you can also listen to the maintenance works for the roof of the Centre for Heritage and Culture.
Shoe Repair – Cobbler
Lawrence Brien or as the locals call him Paddy the Cobbler, has a shoe repairs’ shop in Adelaide Terrace. His shop, which has been a repair shop business since the late 19th century, is simply fascinating. It has a collection of circus posters, sophisticated human-size machinery, countless tools, an almost-open ceiling and a pet spider. Paddy the cobbler, on the other hand, is a man with many stories. He learned the job from his father and still remembers when they used to tour the army camps in Catterick to collect the boots from every barrack and bring them back fixed the next day. Back in the 60s-70s the job of the cobbler was in great demand and only in Benwell there were six shoe repairers. Gradually, though, changes in society and the army lessened the demand for their services. The army got equipped with the American-style rubber boots, firemen stopped wearing chrome leather boots and people got used to affordable, disposable shoes that they would not care to get repaired. Nowadays, his profession is dying out, though, Lawence seems quite satisfied with the things he has achieved, he confesses to me while staring at the wall with the photographs of his five grandchildren.
The following recording features the sounds of him working on two pairs of shoes. He pulls off the bottom of the shoes, places a new one on top, cuts round the shape of it, and then he glues it. When the glue has dried, the cobbler pins the new bottom and sculpts it on the ‘finishing machine’. In the end, he varnishes the freshly trimmed bottom and the pair is ready.
Benwell accommodates a variety of ethnic minority communities. Wandering on the streets, it is very likely that you can hear people talking in many different languages, and music from around the world. In this recording you can listen to music from a house at Clare Street.
Supermarkets are awash in sounds. Beeps, crinkle noises, the freezers humming, squeaking trolley wheels, the clinks of the glass bottles, voices and of course the background music that normally, you barely even notice, compose the soundscape of most supermarkets.
PJ’s Tyres is a mechanic shop and a tyre yard on the left side of Condercum Road, right after it crosses Adelaide Terrace. The yard has been a mechanic shop for the past 14 years and previously it was a dairy. The sound samples record the air compressor machine, along with the sounds of the tyre inflator and the electric screwdriver and drill.
Almost hidden behind the piles of tyres in the P J’s yard, there was an old yellow Honda with a ‘PJ’s Tyres’ sticker on its smashed bonnet. The scrap car is reconstructed and prepared for the banger races by the owners of the yard, who willingly demonstrated the roaring sounds of the car’s engine. Behind the car, covered from hundreds of tyres was a white Porsche.
Silent spaces are very rare in urban settings. People associate silence and the sense of tranquillity it inspires mainly with parks. In some cases, with libraries as well. However, libraries rarely live up to their reputation, and the West End Library, in particular, is quite a noisy one. Steps, voices, page flipping sounds, the sounds of the photocopiers and the beeps from cashiers of the YHN housing services that share the same building, create an unexpected background noise that accompanies your readings.
Pigeon races are a long tradition in the UK. In Newcastle, short distance races date back to 1877. Although generally regarded as the hobby of the working class, pigeon racing in Newcastle was popular among the middle-class as well. Today, there are still places in Tyne and Wear where you can find pigeon fanciers. It is estimated that 43,000 people still practice pigeon racing in the UK.
Walking down the Adelaide Terrace in Benwell, you will probably notice flocks of pigeons making cycles around the allotments of the area. Inside the allotments you will find numerous pigeon crees and the club of the pigeon fanciers.
Finn really likes helping with his brother’s pigeons. In their quite spacious allotment they keep more than 200 pigeons, separated according to age, gender and breed. They never sell pigeons for money, instead they spend a lot in order to feed them properly and vaccinate them. In the recordings we did in their allotment, you can hear their pigeons cooing and eating their feed.
Pigeons are trained to return to their homes after each flight. Before every race, the trainers play a trick on them. Normally, males (cocks) and females (hens) are kept separately. Although, the day before the race they put them together ‘to excite the cocks’, as Finn explains to me. The next day they take the males to a long distance destination and free them in order to train them to return home. The males, believing that they will find the females back home, fly as fast as they can. Unfortunately, when they finally arrive, they find their cage empty, until the next race’s eve.
In the recording, Finn spots the pigeons that his brother freed in Shieldfield 20 minutes ago. He calls them back and frees a white female pigeon with one clipped wing (so it cannot fly), to attract them home. All pigeons return home.
Audrey is around 85, she generally prefers to sit quietly in her wheelchair, but there are occasions when she speaks up; every time she speaks up, words become precious. The residents who live at Linskill Park Extra Care Scheme range in age from 55 to 90+, and the majority have various long term health conditions. Some of the residents have been diagnosed with dementia. Audrey, had a stroke several years ago and I got to know her as well as some of the other residents during my six visits, as part of TWAM’s outreach reminiscence sessions, facilitated by Kath Boodhai. Yesterday was our goodbye party, and it was, in fact, unforgettable.
The reminiscence sessions with people with dementia follow a rather experimental approach. For the past two years Kath Boodhai and Sylvia Lowes, the occupational therapist from the NHS who works at Linskill Park, have tailored an interesting approach that combines art, craft, and museum objects. In their sessions they use museum collections that carry memories from the North East, as memory triggers; they try to stimulate different responses and arouse the five senses of the audience. Although, the sessions were planned for residents with dementia, older people who did not have dementia were encouraged to join in the group, as well. Sometimes, the people bring their own significant objects, and discuss them in a relaxed environment over a cup of tea or coffee, using a process that validates their personal experiences and memories. In other sessions, they create artworks inspired by museum objects or talk around a given topic, comparing how life has changed from the past.
When I met the group for the first time, I was amazed by the powerful relationship between Kath, Sylvia and the group members. Kath and Sylvia had developed a unique way of keeping a balance between helping the residents with their kinaesthetic and memory issues but at the same time encouraging them to build on their resilience and self-esteem. During these weeks I became part of their team. One day, I delivered a workshop around the idea of self-image and how it can be depicted in portraits, using images from Tyne and Wear Museums’ portrait collection. With the residents permission Kath took pictures of everyone, encouraging them to impersonate a famous person. When it was Audrey’s time to pose, she started waving her hand gently, keeping a thin smile. Everybody laughed: “Audrey, you look like the Queen!”
Six weeks after, all our work was exhibited on a blue screen in the main lounge of Linskill Park. Photographs from the sessions, the portraits from the photography workshops, bunting, glasswork, decorated tiles and photo-frames were placed on tables and display boards which adorned that empty room that slowly started to fill up with curious ladies. “Joyce looks lovely in this picture, doesn’t she?”, said one resident to another “She looks like 40!”. When I was putting together the photography exhibition on the blue screen with Joyce, another resident of Linskill Park, we had a little debate: she didn’t want her photos exhibited. Joyce has a brilliant mind; she curated with me a whole four panel screen with more than twenty photos, her eyes shined every time she proposed a change in the order of the photographs and her suggestions about putting labels under the photographs greatly improved the whole panel; yet, she wasn’t confident enough to put her own photographs into display. Secretly, I put on a close-up photo of her, right in the centre of the exhibition. It was the most commented on photo by everyone, it overshadowed even the artworks; and when Joyce found out my little mischief, she couldn’t be angry: everybody was complimenting her bright smile in the picture.
At two o’clock, Helen Moffitt choreographer from the Dance City, who is a new partner with the outreach program, started her first dance and movement session with the ladies and the few gentlemen that had gathered in the hall. Inspired from objects we had brought from the Discovery Museum for the day, Helen warmed up the group with some exercises for the hands, the head and the shoulders. “Come on senioritas, move your hands in the air and strike a dramatic pose, then the rest of the group will try to mimic your pose; dance is all about sharing”, she said inspired by the little Spanish doll that we had brought from Discovery Museum. One after the other every person in the room moved their hands: gently, energetically to the rhythm; there was no right or wrong pattern of movement or rhythm in our group.
Following this session, the room was livelier than ever; it was the right time for our reminiscence quiz. The attendants grouped in teams of four, they got pens and papers and Kath started asking the questions, all of which were inspired from the last weeks’ sessions. She asked about the Easter Parade in North Shields, where Audrey used to go with her mum every Good Friday; and the opening of the Tyne Bridge, that Flo –another resident- had witnessed back in 1928. Lastly, Kath asked about Wilkinson’s Lemonade Factory which was an air raid shelter in WW2 and was destroyed by the Germans, costing the life of hundreds. It was the same calamity where Alan’s father volunteered to rescue the people hemmed inside, and he was afterwards awarded a medal of honour.
After three hours of light chatter, gift exchange and laughter, it was about time to end our last session. We muted the music, put the museum objects back to their boxes and invited Alan to sing a goodbye song. Alain is 85, he is tall, handsome, energetic but ‘forgetful’ as he playfully admits. When he was young he was part of a barbershop chorus and sang for the queen herself! He stood up and he poised for the song. He sung ‘Bring Him Home’ and his voice was smooth, gracious and warm.
Leaving Linskill Park we said goodbye to all the amazing people that took part in our outreach sessions: Joyce, Alan, Isabelle, Peter, Suzanne, Dolores, Irene, Mabel, Evelyn, Suzan, Flo and Audrey, with the promise to see them again in the future. Kath plans to initiate the Dance and Dementia program during the summer. This program will involve movement inspired from the museum collections and the personal items of the residents. This will be a good opportunity for everybody to come together again. I am sure we will have many things to discuss and so many things to remember.
The sessions at Linskill Park are delivered as part of the partnership between TWAM’s Outreach ‘Working with people with dementia’ program in partnership with Northumbria Healthcare National Health Service Foundation Trust
I am a Newcastle University student working towards a MA in Art Museum and Gallery Studies: Curatorship.As part of my studies, I am on an eight-week work placement at South Shields Museum and Art Gallery, where I will be developing two art exhibitions using their art collection. These exhibitions are scheduled to be displayed sometime in 2015.
The first thing I needed to do was to familiarise myself with South Shields’ collection by spending some time trawling through the works in its store. The time spent doing this really helped me to begin to identify the collection’s strengths and allowed me to form some exhibition ideas.
Whilst I was digging around the store, I came across a box labelled ‘George Horton’. Upon opening the box I was impressed with the quality of his etchings. I was particularly drawn by the strong contrasts of black and white, and variety of mark in “Winter and Thaw”.
TWCMS: G5753 Winter and Thaw by George Horton from the South Shields Museum and Art Gallery collection.
Prior to this, like many people, I did not recognise Horton’s name or his work. He was a North Shields born artist, who spent a lot of his life living in South Shields. In the early 1900s, he was considered by many to be the most renowned artist of the Northeast, in spite of never receiving a single formal art lesson. However due to the fickle nature of the art world and watercolours of coastal scenes becoming considered ‘unfashionable’ here in England; as a result his work was largely ignored and then forgotten.
Horton was also an awesome watercolourist.
In Holland, where he made many sketching trips, he refined his technique of combining bursts of colour with large areas of grey which almost became his trademark. Horton could achieve a greater variety in his greys than many artists could across their whole palette.
TWCMS: G5767 North Shields Fish Quay by George Horton from the South Shields Museum and Art Gallery collection.
Horton had a fascinating life. By using information from research materials from South Shields, North Shields Central Library and Laing Art Gallery I have managed to form a detailed idea of Horton, both as a man and an artist. I hope to be able to communicate this through the exhibition’s interpretation and to put together something which will do him justice.
