“Britishness”

Collections & Objects
Posted by administrator on May 28, 2013     Permalink     Comments (4)

Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums has recently teamed up with researchers at Northumbria University to encourage new thinking and comment around important subjects, such as Britishness, migration, and culture in an industrial region. 

Each week, for four weeks, we’ll be blogging about a museum object and posing a question for you to respond to.  Please help us get the discussion going by adding your comments below, whatever comes to mind.  Later in the summer, your comments may be fed into a live debate where we hope you’ll have the opportunity to join academics and curators discussing the most popular topic.

So, the theme for this week is “Britishness”, which I’ve chosen to represent with this Union Flag from our collection:-

And the question I’d like to pose is…

What does the Union Flag mean to you?

Does it represent the political and administrative achievement of the Union of England, Scotland and Ireland…or enslavement, war and death as the British Empire grew to dominate the world?

Now that the Empire is no more, does the flag fill you with nostalgia and pride or does it merely represent racism and ill-considered nationalism?

How will you feel if Scotland leaves the Union and the flag loses its St Andrew’s Cross (the blue segments and broad white diagonal cross) leaving just the red crosses of England and (Northern) Ireland on a white background?

Are you proud to be British or does “flag waving” make you feel uncomfortable?

Do we have plans of your house, school or place or work?

Collections & Objects   Discovery Museum   Local History   Social History   South Shields Museum & Art Gallery   The Archives
Posted by administrator on May 23, 2013     Permalink     Comments (2)

Tyne & Wear Archives is jointly funded by the five metropolitan districts councils in Tyne & Wear. We hold a large quantity of local authority records including Council minute books, school records, public health records and coroners records. One of the most popular kinds of documents we keep are historic building control plans, which were accumulated by local authorities from the mid to late Nineteenth Century onwards.

The Councils were given these plans by architects and property developers when they applied for permission to build new properties or alter existing ones. Building control plans often survive well and we hold them for many properties built in Tyne & Wear before 1974. The plans are a fantastic resource for people researching the history of their house or business. The plans usually include sections, elevations and floor plans. The following examples relate to Brentwood Gardens, Jesmond.

Floor plans of houses at Brentwood Gardens, Jesmond, 1905 (TWAM ref. T186/21558)

 

Sections and elevations of houses at Brentwood Gardens, Jesmond, 1905 (TWAM ref. T186/21558)

The plans are often very attractive and many visitors have ordered copies so that they can hang them on their walls at home. The Archives scans and prints the plans on our premises and we can also arrange to have them framed by our conservators. We recently got a very nice thank you after we supplied copies to a customer in Gosforth http://instagram.com/p/YXvtMpzLa6/#

The plans don’t just relate to houses but cover other types of buildings such as offices, shops, pubs, hotels, theatres, hospitals and schools. We hold thousands of building control plans for Sunderland, including these plans of the Dun Cow public house in High Street West, which is a Grade II listed building.

Elevations of the Dun Cow Hotel, 1900 (TWAM ref. 269/3163)

 

Floor plans of the Dun Cow Hotel, 1900 (TWAM ref. 269/3163)

You can get a general idea of the areas and dates that the building control plans cover by taking a look at the user guide on our website. The best way to find out whether we have plans of a particular property, though, is by visiting our searchroom and looking through the indexes and registers that we hold.

Pages from Whickham Urban District Council building control register, 1925 (TWAM ref. T292/1/2)

The building control registers are arranged in date order but are usually indexed at the front by street. This makes them fairly quick and easy to search, even if you’re not exactly sure when your property was built. If you find the right entry the register will give you a plan number. Once we have this plan number we can quickly check to see whether we have the plans that you’re looking for.

Please do pay us a visit. Our location and opening times can be found on our website. Don’t worry if you haven’t visited the Archives before and aren’t sure how to use our searchroom. Members of staff are on hand and will be glad to help you. If you can’t visit us in person but would like us to search for plans of a property for you then this can be done via our paid research service.

If you’d like to learn more about tracing the history of your house, I’m giving a talk at South Shields Museum & Art Gallery on Monday 3 June. No booking is required. For further information see the Museum’s webpages.

Ralph Hedley’s hunting pictures on the North York Moors

Art   Collections & Objects   Shipley Art Gallery
Posted by administrator on May 21, 2013     Permalink     Comments (9)

I was in Helmsley recently and missed the chance to visit the site of two unusual paintings by Ralph Hedley.

Spout House/the old Sun Inn is on the B1257 as it runs from Helmsley to Stokesley, across the North York Moors National Park. There are not many houses up there, but Spout House has been there for hundreds of years. Built in the 1500s as a farm house, it became the Sun Inn in 1714, and closed in 1914 when it was replaced by the new Sun Inn built close by.

The interior of Spout House/ the old Sun Inn, is featured in Hedley’s Hunting morn (1895), and the exterior is in his Counting the game (1902). Both pictures show rural huntsmen, and both were arranged, possibly commissioned, by Allan Bowes Wilson of Hutton Rudby.

A letter of 12 September 1893, from Allan Bowes Wilson, arranged for Ralph Hedley to go to the old Sun Inn to paint members of the Bilsdale hunt. Wilson said Hedley would be staying 4 miles away at ‘Chop Yat Hostel’, and invited him to bring his bicycle.

‘Chop Yat’ (now called Chop Gate) means ‘pedlars’ way’. The word ‘chop’ is said to derive from an Old Norse word ‘ceap’ or ‘kaup’ for pedlar or chapman. ‘Yat’ is a local dialect word for gate or route.

Years after he arranged for Hedley to paint Hunting morn, Allan Bowes Wilson commissioned Counting the game for £50. It shows the results of a day’s shooting laid on the ground outside the old Sun Inn. The window that features in Hunting morn is seen from the outside in Counting the game, and is surrounded by sun-flowers.

Allan Bowes Wilson ran a sailcloth factory in Hutton Rudby, founded by his father George Wilson. Bales of his sailcloth appear in the bottom right hand corner of Ralph Hedley’s painting The sail loft (1908) which is on show in the Northern Spirit display at the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle. One of the bales in the picture is inscribed –

42

1

GEo WILSON

HUTTON RUDBY

CLEVELAND

YORKSHIRE

_____

 TORNADO

'Hunting morn' as an advert for Bovril.

In his letter Allan Bowes Wilson identified the men of the Bilsdale Hunt depicted in Hedley’s painting Hunting morn –

  • Whipper-in ,Bobby Dowson
  • Hunt master, Robert Kitching
  • Huntsman, Nicholas Spink
  • Nicholas Spinks’s brother, Richard, was the ‘plain-clothes man’, not wearing the ‘hunting pink’.

The woman with the tray was Phoebe Barr, of the family who ran the Sun Inn, and the girl at the window is her niece, Ruth Ainsley.

'Hunting morn' as an advert for whiskey.

Colour prints of Hunting morn were used, apparently without Hedley’s permission, to advertise Bovril and Norman Brown whiskey. An extra man appears in the advertising prints and the girl in the window disappears in one of them.

There are also more subtle differences. The round table in the painting has turned legs, whereas they are plain in the prints. The rectangular table disappears altogether in the Bovril print.

Two people who didn’t miss a chance to visit Spout House/old Sun Inn, took some great photos in 2005. You can find them at –

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paulrose.r/Walking%20Diary/NYM%20Walks/Bilsdale%20Views/bilsdale_views.htm

Fifties Fashion…

Discovery Museum   Fashion
Posted by administrator on April 30, 2013     Permalink     Leave a comment

After years of austerity during World War II, the following era could be characterised by the revival of Haute Couture.  The structured square shoulders and shorter skirts of the war years were replaced with the softer feminine silhouette, rounded shoulders and fitted waists of the ‘New Look’. This ‘New Look’ was synonymous with Christian Dior whose first collection; the Corolle line, in the Spring-Summer of 1947, would set the trend for the next decade and forever be remembered in fashion history.

Christian Dior, 1956

Although the style of the ‘New Look’ was a significant chapter in fashion history, the look was actually not that new. The style was an exaggerated take on the fashion trends of the late 1930’s and the occupation styles. Clothing was no longer as square or structured in appearance as the styles of the 1940’s; however, the softness of the ‘New Look’ silhouette was deceiving.  The curved shoulders and full skirt of Dior’s clothes relied on an inner construction of new interlining materials to shape the silhouette. A result of the Post-World War II economic expansion was a flood of synthetic fabrics and easy-care processes. Drip-dry nylon, orlon and dacron, which could retain heat-set pleats after washing, became immensely popular in the period.

Heiress, 1955-1959

 For some of the war weary population, the ‘New Look’ symbolised hope for a new and more prosperous future, however others saw it as a reckless waste, when fabric was still in such short supply. The long billowing skirts; in some cases reaching to the ankle, required as much as fifteen yards of fabric!

Wendy, 1950-1958

Not only did this extensive use of fabric worry much of society, but some women  feared the obvious femininity of this new style, heralded a return of women to  the home and a less active role in society after years of wearing more functional clothing appropriate for work. Despite this very mixed response to the ‘New Look’, it would dominate the design of women’s clothing until the mid-late 50’s.

Jenny Hockley, 1959-1960

 For many women, the 1950’s brought with it a desire to appear elegant, mature and sophisticated. High fashion was still very formal and required clothes and accessories such as gloves and pearls for every occasion.

Tailored suits and twinsets with fitted peplum jackets, usually worn with long, narrow pencil skirts were very trendy for day wear. Day dresses with fitted bodices, full skirts, and low-cut necklines or peter pan collars, were also very popular, as were halter-top sundresses.  Evening gowns were often the same length as day dresses which was referred to as the ballerina length. Cocktail dresses for evening parties’ were often paired with short shrugs and bolero jackets in matching fabric.

1956

The styles and shapes of this era have a classic and timeless feel to them which evokes femininity and sophistication. The cinched waists, rounded shoulders and full skirts of this significant look have been recycled in many ways throughout contemporary fashion and it is likely they will continually reappear in the future.

Ralph Hedley and Lord Dundreary

Art   Exhibitions
Posted by administrator on April 26, 2013     Permalink     Comments (5)

Here’s another thing you won’t see in the Ralph Hedley exhibition at the Shipley Art Gallery until 2 November 2013.

I saw this carving by Ralph Hedley nearly 25 years ago, and took two photos of it at the owner’s house. The photos are not fantastic but you can make out a man in Victorian dress holding a handkerchief in his right hand and gesturing with his left hand as if he is explaining something. We called the carving ‘man with a monocle’ because he has a monocle in his left eye (though it’s hard to see in the photo).

I recently read an 1899 ‘Ten Minute Interview’ with Ralph Hedley. He said that, when he was an apprentice woodcarver in Newcastle, he used to do sketches at the theatre and ‘he carved statuettes of Southern as Lord Dundreary and as David Garrick’.

 It wasn’t hard to find a picture of the actor Edward Askew Sothern playing Lord Dundreary. He appeared in Our American cousin, a farce by English playwright Tom Taylor which premiered in New York in 1858.

The ‘man with a monocle’ was plainly Sothern as Lord Dundreary.

 

Sothern’s Lord Dundreary became famous in the U.S.A. and then in England, for his ad-libs and comic antics as a brainless English nobleman. His huge side-whiskers became known as ‘Dundrearys’, and people copied his ‘Dundrearyisms’… messed-up sayings like ‘birds of a feather gather no moss’ or ‘many hands make two in the bush’.

Sothern was also a great success in the title role in Tom Robertson’s play David Garrick at the Haymarket Theatre, London, but it was Dundreary that was the ‘Greatest Dramatic Creation of the Age’ and which made Sothern a ‘Celebrated and World-renowned Comedian’.

For years Sothern toured in Our American Cousin, adding an extra scene and a song. He also worked up new productions for his most famous character – Lord Dundreary-Married and done for, Lord Dundreary’s Travels, and Dundreary’s Private Theatricals.

Sothern’s Lord Dundreary made five trips to Newcastle between 1862 and 1871. All appearances were at the Theatre Royal, except those of 1867 when they were at the Tyne Theatre – on Friday 18 and Saturday 19 October. Both of these performances featured Lord Dundreary and David Garrick, and it was probably one of them that the 18 year old Ralph Hedley attended, producing sketches for his carvings.

So the undated ‘man with  monocle’ is now Lord Dundreary (1867?)… or at least he would be if I knew where he is now.

Incidentally, Our American cousin was the play that President Abraham Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated. The performance as at the Ford Theatre, Washington, and Lord Dundreary was played by the Washington actor E.A. Emerson.