Roman Bridge souvenirs

Arbeia South Shields' Roman Fort   Archaeology
Posted by administrator on March 25, 2014     Permalink     Leave a comment

 

letter-opener made from wood from 'Roman' bridge

Letter-opener made out of wood from the 'Roman' bridge over the River Tyne, with printed certificate

Not souvenirs of a Roman bridge, but souvenirs made from a Roman Bridge! This object, thought to be a letter-opener, comes with a signed certificate to identify it as a souvenir made from wood recovered from the Roman bridge over the River Tyne.

In 1872 the old Georgian Bridge across the Tyne between Newcastle and Gateshead was being demolished to make way for the Swing Bridge, and when they reached the third pier from the Gateshead side the engineers found wooden timbers underneath the stonework from the medieval and the Roman bridges, as shown on the certificate. As it turns out, it is probable the ‘Roman’ timbers are actually the medieval pier, and what was thought to be the medieval pier was a medieval starling (a protective timber framework round the pier).

 

souvenir certificate from Roman bridge

A copy of the certificate

 

High Level bridge starling

Wooden framework protecting a pier of the High Level Bridge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over the next couple of decades a surprising number of items were made out of the wood from the ‘Roman’ bridge. So far we have come up with over 15 pieces, ranging from a book-case to the handle of a trowel. Some of the objects stayed in the area and have become part of our collection (some of you might have seen two of them in our Crossing the Tyne exhibition), but other pieces travelled further afield. We know one piece went to Dorset, and another to America, while one was given to Queen Victoria for her Golden Jubilee.

souvenir certificate close up

Text from the certificate

 

Have a look at the attached document for the full list of what volunteers of the Community Archaeology project Wall Quest have found so far. Do you know of any other examples? Do you have any information on the whereabouts of those items currently listed as missing? Get in contact!roman bridge souvenirs

Persian New Year

Great North Museum: Hancock
Posted by administrator on March 19, 2014     Permalink     Leave a comment

Ethnographers do not exclusively study historic cultures, or ‘world cultures’ or cultures different from our own. Ethnography simply means ‘study of human cultures’. That is a pretty broad remit.

For me, one of the most exciting aspects of ethnography is engaging with local communities. I love getting people excited about our collections and teaching them about other cultures. Even better is when I get to learn new things from my local communities. One upcoming cultural event being celebrated in the local community really caught my interest- Nowruz.

Nowruz, also called Persian New Year, occurs on the vernal equinox- the exact astronomical beginning of spring. (This year this falls on March 21st.) Nowruz, pronounced “no-rooz,” literally means ‘new day’ in Persian. The festival began thousands of years ago as a celebration in Zoroastrianism (a monotheistic religion founded inPersia approximately 3500 years ago), but Nowruz has been widely celebrated without religious connotations for thousands of years.

Qajar family celebrating Nowruz. Public domain {{PD-before 1970}}

Although Nowruz originated in Persia, it is celebrated by people all over the world and is a national holiday in 13 countries. Iranians consider Nowruz to be their biggest celebration of the year. It is also significant to the Zoroastrian community as their spiritual New Year, although their traditions differ somewhat from the secular celebrations of Nowruz.

Preparations for Nowruz begin with spring cleaning the home. It is also customary to buy new clothes for the family, and new furniture for the home. Many other varied traditions associated with Nowruz are for predicting the outcome of the new year, or ensuring that it will be a good one. Others symbolize a fresh start.

"Newroz celebration in Istanbul." Photo by Bertil Videt 2006. License: Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 Unported

On the last Wednesday of the year, people traditionally jump over bonfires, shouting “Zardie man az to, sorkhie to as man,” which means “May my pallor be yours and your red glow be mine.” The flames symbolically take away the unpleasant things from the last year.

 

But jumping over a fire is dangerous, and so many people today light the fire and say the words without jumping.

"Haji Firuz" Photo by Sina S. License: Creative Commons Non-Commercial 2.0 Generic

Traditionally, the character Hajji Firuz, heralds the approach of Nowruz. He wears bright red clothes and his face is blackened.

On the eve of the New Year, families wait together for Tahvil, the exact moment that the new year begins. After Tahvil, the family celebrates. The eldest member distributes sweets, and young children are given coins. Families and neighbours may also exchange gifts.

The most important part of the festivities is the making of the haft-seen table. ‘Haft’ is Persian for ‘seven,’ and ‘seen’ is the letter ‘S’. It means table of the seven things that start with the letter S. Creating this table is a family activity.

"Haft-Sin table, Iran" {{PD-released by author}}

 

Usually, the family first lays down a special table cloth. Then the table is set with the seven S-items, and other symbolic items. These items depend on the family’s and local tradition.

Haft-seen items: 

Senjed (dried oleaster fruit): representing love

Serkeh (vinegar): representing patience and age

Seeb (apples): representing health and beauty

Sir (garlic): representing medicine and healing

Samanu (wheat pudding): representing fertility and a sweet life

Sabzeh (sprouted wheat grass): representing the renewal of nature

Some other traditional items include:

Mirror: representing reflection on the past year

Live goldfish in a bowl: representing life

Coloured eggs: representing fertility

Coins: representing prosperity

An orange in water: representing the Earth

Hyacinth flowers: representing the new spring

Candles: representing light and happiness

National colours: representing patriotism

Often, the table also contains a book. This could be the Avesta (Zoroastrian sacred texts), the Qur’an (Muslim holy book), the Divan-e Hafez (poetry by Hafez, commonly considered the Persian national poet), or another culturally or spiritually significant text.

"Sofre Haft Seen, Laleh Hotel, Tehran." 2007 Photo by Hessam M. Armandehi. License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Like almost all cultural celebrations, many special foods are prepared for Nowruz. Noodle soup mixed with beans and green vegetables, called Ash, is traditionally served on the first day of the new year, symbolising the possibilities of the new year. Untangling the noodles is said to bring good fortune. Another dish, fish with rice mixed with green herbs, represents the greenness of nature in spring. Other traditional items include special sweets, like naan berengi (rice flour cookies), baqlava (sweetened flaky pastry) and noghl (sugar coated almonds).

"Persians (Iranians) in Holland Celebrating Sizdeh-Bedar," April 2011, Photo by Pejman Akbarzadeh / Persian Dutch Network. License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

The haft-seen table remains up for thirteen days from the beginning of Nowruz. The thirteenth day is called ‘Sizdah beh dar,’ literally meaning ‘getting rid of the thirteenth’. Traditionally, families pack picnics and go to the park to eat, sing, and dance with other families. It is traditional to bring the sprouted wheatgrass, and to throw it into the grass or into water to symbolize the return of life to nature. This day marks the end of Nowruz.

If you want to wish someone a happy Nowruz, you can say “No-Rooz Mobarak” (translation: Happy New Year) or “Eid-eh Shoma Mobarak” (Happy New Year to you) or “No-Rooz Pirooz” (Wishing you a Prosperous New Year).

An event celebrating Persian New Year will be held on March 26 from 6-9pm, at Culture Lab in Newcastle University. This will include a talk, music, poetry, refreshments, and haft-seen decorations. For more information, visit http://on.fb.me/1j3hxnk.

If you’d like to get involved with Nowruz celebrations or learn more about Iranian heritage, check out the Iranian Heritage Project Facebook page. The Iranian Heritage Project is run by a local organisation, Northern Cultural Projects CIC, who work with the Iranian community documenting and celebrating Iranian heritage in the North East.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Collections & Objects   Fashion   Great North Museum: Hancock   Regional Resource Centre
Posted by administrator on March 10, 2014     Permalink     Comments (5)

People have done crazy things for beauty for millennia. In Ancient Greece and Rome, people bathed in mud and crocodile faeces to tone their muscles and keep their skin youthful. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Japanese married women dyed their teeth black with a lacquer made of acid-soaked iron filings and the gall nuts of Japanese sumac trees.  In the 19th century, English women infected themselves with tapeworms to become fashionably thin.

Most of these extreme beauty treatments fell out of favour relatively quickly, but what might be the most brutal beauty treatment ever employed, Chinese foot binding, went on for 1000 years. It affected a high percentage of women (close to 100% of upper class women) for centuries.

Image of a fashionable 19th century woman with bound feet {{PD-1923}}

Historical records date foot binding to the reign of Lin Yu (961-975 AD) during the Song dynasty (960-1279 AD). The Emperor was captivated by his concubine’s performance of a “lotus dance” with her feet tightly bound. The practice spread through court society, and then into the countryside. Women realized that bound feet allowed them social mobility and wealth through beneficial marriages. Fashion called for ever-smaller feet, until the ideal was a length of 7 cm – called “golden lotus” feet. This size was considered the epitome of beauty.

A ceramic model of a bound foot. Copyright: Great North Museum: Hancock, TWAM.

 

Girls’ feet would usually be broken sometime between 4 and 7 years old. The girl’s feet were soaked in a hot bath with herbs. Then their toenails were trimmed, and their toes were curled under the foot and forcibly broken. This  compressed their toes against the bottom of the foot.

X-ray showing effects of bound feet. The arches are bent at a severe angle and the toes curled under. {{PD-1923}}

 

 

 

Their arches were snapped to force the foot into a curved position and shorten it further. Their feet were then bound and the bandages sewn together so that the little girls could not rip them open. Bandages had to be removed and the bindings tightened often over a period of years to achieve the desired shape. Mothers or professional binders would often force girls to walk on their broken feet to crush their toes into the desired shape.

Even in adulthood, women had to constantly care for their bound feet. They could only bathe them rarely, and could not leave the bandages off for extended periods because their feet would begin to regain their natural shape. This could be just as excruciating as the original binding had been.

Women’s bound feet would have been bandaged like this almost every moment of their lives.

Image of a bound foot in everyday wrappings. {{PD-1923}}

Women risked severe health problems, including infection and falls, which could result in broken bones as they got older. They were unable to balance on their feet, and had to walk with a mincing “lotus gait”- putting their weight on their heels and taking small careful steps. Often only their heel bones were unbroken. This gait was considered very attractive during this period.

Image of woman with her bound feet unwrapped. {{PD-1923}

Women wore tiny beautifully decorated shoes as a mark of status and as personal decoration. The shoes were pointed, not for aesthetics, but because their feet were forced into a pointed “lotus petal” shape. The shoes were sewn with care and reflected a person’s region, or personality. Women were expected to own many pairs of these shoes for different seasons and specific events. Women also wore slippers at night, and these were similarly intricate.

These shoes are 9 cm long, yet would have been worn by an adult woman.

Photo of Chinese ladies' shoes for bound feet. Copyright: GNM: Hancock, TWAM.

The practice of foot binding was outlawed in 1912, but continued in secret until the mid-1950’s, when the rise of Communism changed social values and began enforcing the ban. Under Communism, women had to perform hard physical labour, like digging reservoirs or working farms. This work was punishing enough for ordinary women, but agonizing for those with broken tiny feet. Unable to fill their work quotas or forage in the mountains, these women and their families often suffered with food shortages. This made even illicit foot binding impossible, and effectively ended the practice.

For more information and personal accounts, check out:

http://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/cultural-traditions/foot-binding.htm

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8966942

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2429992/Han-Qiaoni-102-woman-bound-feet-toes-broken-just-2.html

 

 

 

Was your ancestor a Sunderland freemason?

Collections & Objects   Discovery Museum   Local History   Social History   The Archives
Posted by administrator on March 4, 2014     Permalink     Comments (5)

Last year the Archives was delighted to receive on deposit the historical records of the Phoenix Lodge, Sunderland. The origins of this freemasons lodge date back to 1755, when the King George’s Lodge was constituted. The Lodge met in public houses until its own premises were completed in Vine Street in 1778. Unfortunately the masonic hall was destroyed by fire in 1783. However, a new hall ‘rose from the ashes’ in Queen Street in 1785 under the new name of the Phoenix Lodge. The Phoenix Hall remains in use today and is the oldest surviving purpose built Masonic hall in the world. It’s cared for by the Queen Street Heritage Trust.

The freemasons had a significant charitable role in Sunderland through the mutual aid given to their members. They also played an important part in civic life, particularly in the years before the establishment of Sunderland Borough Council in 1835. Freemasons were leading figures in the establishment of a dispensary and subscription library in the 1790s and in the construction of the first Wearmouth Bridge. The opening of the Bridge in 1796 was vital to the economic development of Sunderland.

The Phoenix Lodge collection (TWAM ref. S.MAS9) contains a variety of documents including minutes of meetings, financial accounts and membership records. The collection includes details of members from the establishment of the Lodge in 1755 through to the late Twentieth Century. The oldest item is the Lodge’s constitution and byelaws dating from October 1755 (TWAM ref. S.MAS9/6/1) and this book includes a register of members covering the years 1756-1811.

Entries from register of members for Phoenix Lodge, 1756-1811 (TWAM ref. S.MAS9/6/1)

There are also two further registers of members covering the period 1809-1919. These registers include the names of each new member, their age, profession, residence and the name of person who proposed them for membership. Members came from all walks of life with popular occupations including mariners, engineers, ship owners, commercial travellers, merchants, publicans and agents. If you have family who lived in Sunderland then it might be worth taking a look to see whether they were members of the Phoenix Lodge. These documents are fascinating and have to potential to enrich our understanding of our ancestors. As well as telling you about them, the registers give you a real insight into their social life, by recording the names of the men they knew and mixed with.

Entries from Phoenix Lodge register of members, 1865 (TWAM ref. S.MAS9/7/1)

The collection also includes declaration books for the years from 1884 to 1992. These contain the same key information as the registers of members but also show the declaration that each new member made.

Declaration by John Oliver Sunley, drapery manager, 1909 (TWAM ref. S.MAS9/8/3)

Access is restricted to Phoenix Lodge records that are less than 50 years old but that still leaves a vast fascinating world for you to explore. The records from 1755 to 1963 can be searched in the Archives searchroom at the Discovery Museum, where you can be assured of a warm welcome. Details of our opening hours and how to find us can be found on our website.

My thanks go to the Lodge for depositing their records with us and also to Dr Gill Cookson for providing valuable background information about freemasonry in Sunderland.

 

James Taylor, ‘Comique’ Champion

Laing Art Gallery   Volunteering
Posted by administrator on February 26, 2014     Permalink     Comments (1)

One of the research tasks I have most enjoyed since volunteering at the Laing has been helping to catalogue the correspondence of Newcastle artist Ralph Hedley that was left as part of a series of bequests by the artist’s late great-grandson, Julian Brown. In the last few weeks I have been looking at these letters with a fresh eye, working alongside Hedley expert John Millard, and last week I reacquainted myself with two interesting letters written to Hedley in 1876. They concern a dispute over some lithographs that Hedley had been commissioned to produce for the correspondent of the first letter (see photo above) who writes from Scarborough outlining his requirements in some detail: the disagreement comes to light in the second letter, written by one P.S. Matthews, this time addressed from the Theatre Royal in Preston. The dispute appears to relate to the ownership of some lithographing stones presumably from the afore-mentioned commission. When I first read the letters last Summer I was intrigued by how Hedley’s commission related to the Theatre Royal Preston, a place I have some acquaintance with, and the nature of both the commission and the dispute.

And now, for those who have read my previous post, the funny bit: I had long forgotten that the writer of the first letter was one James Taylor. John Millard had already decided to investigate the second James Taylor portrait in my last blog entry and traced it back to its original provenance, namely The Newcastle Critic of 10th July 1875 (see photo opposite) which reveals this James Taylor to be an actor and variety performer of some note, specialising in impersonations, and who was appearing at the Tyne Theatre in Newcastle. Indeed, his success in this profession began, according to the profile, which is full of amusing anecdotes and stories about Mr Taylor, with him winning a bizarre theatrical challenge, the “Comique Championship of the World” during which he “produced twelve new and original characters superior to those that could be produced by any other man in the world, for £200 a-side.”  These impersonations apparently included “his wonderful impersonation of Sarah Walker, followed by The Schoolboy, The Farmer, The Doleful Lover, Happy Old Man, and other songs…”  

A further piece of research by Mr Millard uncovered the advertisement opposite from the 22nd October 1876 edition of The Era. Here, for those without bifocals, is the wording:

“JAMES TAYLOR, Comedian, Mimic, and Vocalist; and ADA ALEXANDRA the Great American Actress and Dutch Delineator, in their Great Impersonator Drama “SIMON,” supported by their own carefully selected Company, the most successful travelling in the United Kingdom. THEATRE ROYAL PRESTON, October 23d, for Six Nights. Sheffield, Glasgow, Edinburgh, &c., to follow……….The most extensive and elegant supply of Pictorial Posters possessed by any Dramatic Company travelling. Stage-Manager, Mr R.H. LINGHAM; Acting-Manager, Mr P. MATTHEWS  …………  “Mr James Taylor’s drama ‘Simon’ has been the greatest success, and drawn the largest audience to my Theatre this season, the receipts having increased nightly.  “Six thousand eight hundred and seventy-one people paid admission during the week ending October 14th, 1876.    (Signed)    “J.W. WHITE, Lessee.”

”One of the most enjoyable melodramas ever produced in Sheffield is now running at he Alexandra Opera House under the insignificant title of ‘Simon’. The excellent acting of Mr James Taylor and the amount of humour displayed in the development of the plot renders it thoroughly free from the objection that is in insipid or devoid of life. To our mind, the most pleasing character in that of Fraulein, a Dutch girl. The role is portrayed by Miss Ada Alexandra, and in point of naturalness and humour we never saw a finer piece of delineation. She keeps the house in constant laughter the whole time she is in the boards. The play is produced in the most complete style, the company being both talented and well selected.” –The Sheffield Post, April 23rd, 1876.

The dates of the performance at the Theatre Royal Preston in October 1876 fit nicely with the two aforementioned pieces of correspondence, Mr Taylor’s “most extensive and elegant supply of Pictorial Posters possessed by any Dramatic Company travelling” are presumably where Ralph Hedley’s portrait and lithographs come in, and here, too, is the Acting-Manager of the theatre, Mr. P. Matthews, author of the belligerent second letter to Ralph Hedley.  Miss Ada Alexandra, the so-called Dutch Delineator (a strange choice of career if ever there was one…) is every bit as intriguing as James Taylor, though her character of “Fraulein, a Dutch girl” reveals a dismal ignorance of European language and geography!!  But these real-life personalities of the Victorian theatre and music-hall world have, for me, more than a whiff of the fictional Lupin Pooter and his vaudevillian chums from the Holloway Comedians in George and Weedon Grossmith’s marvellous novel “Diary of a Nobody”.

I can only thank John Millard for bringing all this to light and solving so swiftly the mystery of the second James Taylor portrait. Thanks, too, to John for the photographs reproduced here.