Story Category: Legacy

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Christmas postcard showing The Dome, c1910

A tradition of the British festive season is to remark on whether the occasion feels ‘Christmassy’ or not. This slightly torturous colloquialism may seem like a recent invention, but according to the Oxford English Dictionary it dates back to at least 1882. Significantly, the words ‘Eastery’ or ‘Halloweeny’ have never entered the popular lexicon.

So what makes something Christmassy? Red breasted robins, red nosed reindeers, and a red cheeked Noddy Holder bellowing ‘Merry Xmas’ will do it for most. But this postcard probably won’t. It may proclaim ‘Best Christmas Wishes’ in gold, but the sentiments are not followed by a sense of the season. With its heavy use of green and the blooming flowers, it presents a rather verdant and summery landscape. The Dome, with its ‘oriental’ architecture, looks more suited to Xanadu than Lapland. There’s neither snow nor Santa here.

Yet postcards like this were common during the festive seasons of the early twentieth century. We hold several postcards in our collection which carry a Christmas greeting; in most of these, the image side has little to do with the season. Folded and decorated Christmas cards had been in existence since the 1840s, but they were expensive. After 1902, picture postcards provided a cheap and popular alternative. Canny postcard manufacturers could also revive old stock by adding a seasonal message.

So if you still think this postcard is not very Christmassy, think again. It is evidence of a now long lost Christmas tradition.

Kevin Bacon, Curator of Photographs

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‘Laid out on the table were bits of flint whereof they were told wondrous stories by Mr Toms, who knows so much about the Stone Age that one suspects he is a reincarnation of one of its medicine men.’

Brighton Herald, 5 November 1910

Yesterday, 6 December, marked the 70^th anniversary of the death of one of Brighton Museum’s most influential curators, Herbert Samuel Toms.

Herbert Toms, 1912

Toms was a lively spirit.  He began his career at Brighton Museum in 1897 and was fascinated by archaeology and folklore.  As a young man he had assisted the famous archaeologist, General Pitt-Rivers, on many archaeological excavations and learnt the rigorous lines of enquiry and pioneering techniques Pitt-Rivers used in the field.  Toms began to notice that Brighton’s local ancient landscape was rapidly deteriorating and so he led several amateur archaeologists to found Brighton and Hove Archaeological Club (Society after 1935) on 27 October 1906.

Initial excavations under his direction included trips to Hollingbury and Devil’s Dyke.  Using Pitt-Rivers’s methods, the Club carried out meticulous investigations.  The General had also made Toms aware of the importance of publication.  In 1914, the Club produced the Brighton and Hove Archaeologist, the first of three publications detailing the Club’s latest work and archaeological theories.

Toms was fascinated by Sussex folklore which he saw as a direct link to the ancient past.  He lectured freely in the subject and accrued an important archive of photographs, reports and artefacts for Brighton Museum.  His wife Christina, a lecturer in folklore and antiquities, also shared his passion for archaeology and often joined him on site.

Christina died in 1927 and Toms retreated from archaeological fieldwork. After over 40 years of service, Toms retired from Brighton Museum in 1939. On 6 December 1940, he died in the garden of the Greyhound pub in Cocking, West Sussex.

A small group, including our Keeper of Local History and Archaeology, Richard Le Saux, and Matt Pope, Senior Research Fellow at University College London, visited the pub yesterday to pay their respects to Toms. If you also find yourself in the Greyhound pub on a wintry night, do raise a glass to the marvellous Mr Toms.

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With the opening of the ice rink at the Royal Pavilion in November, it may come as a surprise to many to learn that the first ice rink in Brighton opened in 1897.

Advertisement for the SS Brighton ice rink, 1936

The rink was in Middle Street but its popularity was short-lived. It was converted into the Hippodrome variety theatre in 1901.

Brightonians had to wait until October 1935 to don their ice skates again, when the S.S. Brighton swimming pool in West Street was converted into an ice rink.  Not only could the public skate here, but it also became the home of the ‘Tigers’, a predominately Canadian ice hockey team who played their first match on 4 October 1935.  4,000 spectators filled the arena and the ‘Tigers’, in their distinctive black and yellow kit, won the match.  More about the S. S. Brighton and the ‘Tigers’ can be found on the My Brighton and Hove website, www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk

S.S. Brighton also hosted lavish ice skating revues notably in the 1930s and 1950s when the glamorous Californian skating star Gloria Nord appeared.  Local skaters also featured, including Jeanette Raphael and Sheila Hamilton.

In 1965, Top Rank opened their new ice rink on the corner of West Street and King’s Road and the ‘Tigers’ played their last match in May 1965. The S.S. Brighton closed shortly after and demolition began at the end of the year.  By 1972, the new rink had also closed, replaced by a smaller rink in Queen Square run by former S.S. Brighton skater, Valerie Moon.

Various plans have been mooted over the years for the creation of a new permanent ice rink in Brighton, but none have yet materialised.  The rink at the Royal Pavilion is open from 13 November until 16 January 2011.

Further details about the Royal Pavilion ice-rink can be found at www.royalpavilionicerink.co.uk

Paul Jordan, Senior History Centre Officer

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Brighton V Swindon, Hove, 1914, ha920779

Before there were all-seater stadiums there were stands; before there were stands, football supporters simply stood at the edge of the pitch. As Brighton & Hove Albion fans look forward to the new stadium in Falmer, this postcard is a reminder that their predecessors once put up with far cruder facilities.

This photograph was taken during a Southern League match between Brighton and Swindon in March 1914. It was sold as a postcard and is one of numerous scenes produced by the Hove-based photographer, Wiles. Although Wiles regularly photographed the crowds at matches, the action on the pitch escaped the camera. This was not due to any fascination Wiles may have held with the supporters; it was a result of the limitations of photographic technology in this period.

In the early twentieth century many photographers still relied on glass plate negatives. Although these generally provided a better quality image than photographic film, they were cumbersome to use. Each negative had to be placed into a holder, and individually loaded into the camera. This was hardly practical for capturing the fast flowing action of a football match.

Wiles’ solution was to photograph the crowd, and sell the postcards as a souvenir of the match. But even here, the limitations of photography can be seen. The crowd has clearly been posed for the shot, and has mostly remained still. But in the front row, to the left of the figure holding the sign, an exuberant boy has chosen to wave at the camera. The exposure time is long enough for the boy’s image to become distorted, leaving a ghostly image at the front of the crowd.

Looking at this image almost 100 years later, the ghostly boy seems strangely appropriate. World War One began less than five months after this photograph was taken. Within the next four years, it is likely that several of the men shown here would have been wounded or killed.

But at the time of the photograph, few of these football fans would have been troubled by events in Europe. By the end of the afternoon, most would have been pleased that Brighton had won 2 – 0: a good result given that Swindon topped the league.

Kevin Bacon, Curator of Photographs

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Anti-suffragette postcard, 1909, HA928781

This is my last full week as Curator of Photographs for the Royal Pavilion and Museums. As such, it’s great that I can see it out by giving a paper at today’s Picture This conference on the most exciting acquisition I have worked with over the last few years. It’s not a photograph at all, but a postcard. Traditionally we’ve often collected postcards for the images they bear. But this postcard provides an insight into the struggle for women’s suffrage in the early twentieth century, and the men who were prepared to use violence to stop them.

The picture side shows four young suffragettes standing before the Houses of Parliament. Bearing flyers marked ‘Votes for Women’, their cause is described by seven lines of rather twee verse:

This is “THE HOUSE” that man built,
And these are the Suffragettes of note
Determined to fight for their right to vote;
For they mean to be, each one an M.P.
And they’ll keep their vow some fine day you’ll see
For the Suffragette is determined to get
Into, “THE HOUSE” that man built.’

By contrast, the handwritten message on the other side bears a more violent intent. Written by an anonymous local resident, it was intended for a group of men attached to HMS Hindustan, a battleship that was docked at Portsmouth for a refit. Posted on the evening of 27 April 1909, the message reads:

‘Gentlemen. A meeting will be held in the Dome, at Bton on Wednesday next by Mrs Crissy Pankhurst. We hope to see a big audience of men to make things a bit livly [sic]. Please bring a weapon to defend yourselves with as the ladies use Dog whips. I am yours truly the secretary to the suffragetts [sic]. Doors open at 7.30’.

Anti-suffragette postcard, 1909, HA928781

Fortunately, the violence planned by this man did not come to pass. Christabel Pankhurst, the leading suffragette and target of this plot, did not appear at Brighton Dome on the night in question. Indeed, there is no evidence that any such event was planned. The writer appears to have been confused by the performance of a pro-suffrage play in the Banqueting Room of the Royal Pavilion on 5 May. Entitled, ‘Man and Woman’ the performance was arranged by the Brighton and Hove Women’s Franchise Society. Described by the Brighton Herald as ‘suffragists rather than suffragettes’ this was a more moderate organisation than Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union.

In its review of the play, the Sussex Daily News commented that,’the most adverse opponent of extending the franchise to women, and even the misogynist, cannot help but admire the placid and ladylike manner in which the views of the suffragette are advocated’.

It is hard to imagine that the sender of this postcard would have been persuaded by such arguments.

Kevin Bacon, Curator of Photographs

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Black Rock Dagger

The rapier blade and handle are part of a Bronze Age hoard discovered a short distance inland from Black Rock, East Brighton, in late 1913 or early 1914. The hoard was found in chalk rubble, probably during the excavation of building foundations. Much of the hoard dates to the Middle Bronze Age, around 3,500 years ago.

The hoard also contained:-

1. Eight bronze palstave axe heads
2. Three bronze ‘Sussex’ loops
3. Two bronze armlets
4. One bronze coiled finger ring

The blade is undecorated but has a slight raised mid-rib along its length. It has a straight-edged butt and three rivet holes. The handle has a straight-edged socket to receive such a butt but only has two rivets holes, suggesting the blade and handle were not designed to go together. The blade is not particularly characteristic of British rapiers and although parallels have been suggested with blade forms from Northern Germany, its source remains uncertain.

More unusual is the handle. It is made from a hollow bronze casting, features incised line and punctured dot decoration and originally had a pommel fixed in its base. The delicate nature of the handle’s grip suggests it was designed for a smaller hand and may possibly have had a ceremonial rather than practical use. In design, the handle is more comparable to examples found in Northern Germany, implying the handle may have been imported from the Continent.

Bronze Age hoards in the South of England are distributed mostly along the coast rather than inland. The ritual deposition of objects in areas on the boundary between land and water is a common theme in the Bronze Age and the Black Rock Hoard, located near the sea shore, could be another example of such behaviour. What is more puzzling is that the handle, as well as the coiled finger-ring, may have been manufactured as much as 200 years before the axes or loops. Does this mean the hoard is a ‘founder’s hoard’ – a collection of unused objects buried for possible later recovery – or was this a more personal hoard collected over a number of generations and buried with ritual intent?

Andy, Volunteer Local History & Archaeology

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As part of my project research into audiences for archaeological information, I am over the moon to be working with Brighton & Hove Museums and their archaeological collections over the next 2 years. Together, we will be exploring what works and what doesn’t in terms of creating, sustaining and entertaining online audiences with archaeological information from the Brighton area.

I moved to Sussex in 2014, so I am still new to the many wonders of the archaeological collections held by Brighton and Hove Museums. The collection holds some nationally and internationally important artefacts, but to me, the exciting freedom of this project is the ability to work together to create digital stories and narratives from the most mundane of finds deposited in the archaeological archive.

Early Bronze Age Beaker

After a long discussion with the wonderful Gail Boyle from the Society for Museum Archaeology a few months ago, I started to wake up to the idea that public engagement with archaeology is almost always staccato, especially when archaeology is into post-excavation process or in an archive. We do not, as a rule, offer interested parties the opportunity to engage with the holistic archaeological process from the trowel’s edge to the final deposition in a museum, and we, as a profession, often envisage the moment of the arrival of an archaeological find at a museum as the object’s (or piece of paper, or dataset etc) move from ‘archaeology’ to ‘museum studies’. I should point you to the London Archaeological Archives and Research Centre for a fantastic example of how to engage with archaeology in an archive, and there are a handful of others, but this is in the minority.

‘Brighton Loop’

Yet at every point along the journey from ground to display, or storage, there are opportunities for public engagement with the archaeological process. As far as archaeological collections are concerned, there are many opportunities available to enhance and expand on museum exhibitions and displays with digital resources and narratives, which reflect on the specifically archaeological process that got them there. The method through which these finds were discovered in the ground, removed from the earth, cleaned, conserved and deposited… these are their object histories, as much as their date, their original use and their function in the past.

But who is actually interested in these archaeological collections, for what purpose, and are we missing opportunities to provide information and opportunities for engagement with audiences we just don’t know about? My work with Brighton Museum will begin to examine who uses the collections and why, and I will be updating this blog with some of the activities that we undertake, from social media use to digital story-telling. I will regularly write more on how I am using this data to undertake my research project with a digital sociology flavour, and let you know, dear reader, what we find out.

In 2013 I undertook a 6 month secondment at the University of Cambridge Museums, and fell deeply in love with being around museum collections. I am very grateful to Kevin Bacon, Andy Maxted, and Krystyna Pickering, for letting me have another opportunity to be behind the scenes at a museum, literally and figuratively.

Dr Lorna-Jane Richardson, Department of Sociology at Umeå University

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The Booth Museum is a wonderful showcase of Victorian taxidermy, but one of the main features of Edward Thomas Booth’s displays are the dioramas his birds are displayed in.

The typical manner of displaying taxidermied birds during the Victorian period was to have either individual specimens perched on a featureless wooden stand, or to have a mixture of birds mounted together in a scene which bore no resemblance to the animal’s natural habitat, and often alongside birds found in very different environments, countries or even continents!

Traditional method of displaying taxidermy

Booth’s idea for his museum necessitated a different way of displaying his collection. His plan was to exhibit an example of every bird found in Britain (native or migratory), in every stage of plumage and placed within the habitat it was observed in.

He started this process by sketching and painting the birds in the field while on shooting trips. These field drawings included both landscapes of the birds in their natural surroundings, as well as studies of the vegetation and details of the birds themselves. The museum still houses several examples of these pictures, and though they are by no means masterpieces, they are an invaluable artefact of the creation of museum.

Puffin painting from E.T. Booth’s field observations

On Booth’s return home, his team of taxidermists and model makers set about recreating the birds and their environment to match as closely as possible the conditions he had observed his specimens in. This necessitated some unique techniques in order to recreate the natural environments. Grass was baked in sand ovens to fix the chlorophyll into the fronds, preventing them from quickly fading to brown. Leaves were contracted out to the milliners neighbouring the taxidermists (which just happened to be the business run by the taxidermists wife and daughters). These leaves were made from fabric and wire, and painted to look natural. Finally, the landscape was recreated by building papier mache landscapes, and using materials such as wax to create snow effects.

The resulting cases were fantastically lifelike, and were valuable in showing an audience without television, photography and easy travel, how these birds looked in life and the diverse environments they inhabit on our relatively small island.

These cases were accurate enough that when it came to illustrating Booth’s books about his expeditions, the artist Edward Neale was able to use the cases as models for his paintings.

This way of displaying animals in their natural environments would come to be known as dioramas, and were further improved upon by others, most notably places such as the New York Natural History Museum, where the scenes were further enhanced with background paintings.

Image: “Amnh fg04” by Fritz Geller-Grimm – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via commons.wikimedia.org/

Lee Ismail, Curator of Natural Sciences

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As a farewell to 2015, a final blog from the Booth Museum looks at some of the festive birds in the collections.

In a nod to the twelve days of Christmas, we start with the partridge. Despite the grey being our native bird, it’s likely the carol refers to the red legged partridge, which frequently perches in trees, unlike our more ground based bird. This is supported by the fact that the carol originates from France, where the red legged pertiridge is native to.

Sticking with the twelve days, we have a swan, but in this case a more exotic black swan. These swans are native to Australia and a subspecies was once found in New Zealand, until the arrival of humans. They were soon hunted to extinction, but in 1864, Australian birds were introduced as ornamental birds, and they have established breeding populations across the islands.

Moving on to a bird often featured on Christmas cards, the dove has long been a symbol of peace in Christianity. The dove is often depicted carrying an olive branch which comes from the story of Noah, and the dove returning with a fresh olive leaf proving the existence of land. However, in a similar story from the Epic of Gilgamesh, a dove is released to find land after the flood, but just circles and lands back on the boat. A raven is then released, and finds land.

Another bird commonly found on Christmas cards is the robin. This little bird is a year round native in Britain, and is a member of the flycatcher family. They are diurnal, and can been seen hunting for insects on moonlit nights. They are also generally unafraid of humans, and often forage around gardeners. Males are also aggressively territorial, and will attack any other male robins that stray into their territory. These attacks end in fatalities in 10% of encounters.

Finally, we move onto the birds most closely related to Christmas – those on the dinner table! Most commonly served up nowadays is the turkey. This large bird was introduced to Europe soon after the re-discovery of America by Columbus. They were probably named after the Turkish traders who first brought them to England, and in Turkey are known as Hindi, as they were brought to turkey by Indian traders.

Traditionally, it was roast goose which made up the centrepiece of the British Christmas dinner table, and domesticated geese are bred with fat rumps that provide more meat but make the birds unable to fly (and also give them their characteristic waddle). The domestic goose is descended from greylag geese, but the bird pictured is the bean goose, which is a rare migrant to Britain. Goose was gradually replaced as the favoured bird for Christmas with the increased availability of cheaper turkeys, which grew larger and provided more meat.

Merry Christmas, and see you in the New Year!

Lee Ismail, Curator of Natural Sciences

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One of the most beautiful and intriguing illustrated books published in the early nineteenth century shows us the Royal Pavilion Estate as it might have been, if George IV had not changed his mind.

Repton’s proposed ground plan for the Royal Pavilion garden, printed 1808.

The book is a printed version of designs by Humphry Repton (1752 – 1818), commissioned by the then Prince of Wales for the complete orientalisation of the existing neo-classical Marine Pavilion (built in 1787 to designs by Henry Holland) and the surrounding gardens. Repton was an important figure in the larger context of the Royal Pavilion’s history and development. He published widely on architecture, design and landscape gardening, at times challenging aesthetic ideas of the Picturesque, at other times embracing them.

Repton embarked on a career in landscape gardening in 1788, shortly after the death of the famous landscape designer Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown in 1783. In an attempt to fill the vacuum created by the death of Brown, he quickly established himself as the leading landscape designer in Britain, working for a wide range of clients, while at the same time writing a number of critically acclaimed books on his profession. Repton soon became known for lavishly produced portfolios in quarto or folio format, known as Red Books because many of them were bound in red morocco. These comprised watercolour paintings of ‘before and after’ views of gardens, landscape settings and buildings. For maximum visual effect the ‘after’ views (Repton’s own designs) were typically revealed by lifting an overlay glued onto the watercolour sheet. A total number of around 123 Red Books have been identified, one of which is that of the Royal Pavilion estate and dates from 1806.  It survives in the Royal Collection and was recently on display at the exhibition Painting Paradise: The Art of the Garden at the Queen’s Gallery in London.

West front of Marine Pavilion, ‘before’ Repton’s proposed transformation.

West front of Marine Pavilion, ‘after’ Repton’s proposed transformation.

Repton’s involvement with the Royal Pavilion predates his Red Book from 1806. In c.1796 he went into partnership with the then relatively unknown John Nash, and in 1805 he designed the gardens surrounding Samuel Pepys Cockerell’s Mughal-style house Sezincote in Gloucestershire, thus forming a stylistic link to both William Porden’s contemporary Moorish stables building at the Royal Pavilion (begun in c.1803), and the later Indian designs for the Royal Pavilion by himself and Nash. Repton was briefly involved with the Royal Pavilion in the summer of 1795, possibly for the design of a conservatory and in collaboration with Nash, and between 1797 and 1802 to advise on groundwork concerning extensions to Holland’s building by P.F. Robinson.

Repton’s proposed viewing platform for the Royal Pavilion, printed 1808

In November 1805, after the completion of Porden’s Stables and additions to Holland’s Pavilion, the Prince of Wales once again invited Repton to produce designs for the transformation of the Royal Pavilion gardens and the palace itself, having rejected earlier Chinese-style designs by both Holland (1801) and William Porden (c.1805). Repton worked feverishly on this prestigious royal commission, assisted by his sons John Adey and George Stanley Repton, and presented the Royal Pavilion Red Book, comprising more than 20 illustrations, to George less than a month later. It consisted of fantastical and elaborate Indian-style designs for the estate, complete with the overlays creating the ‘before and after’ views. Two interior views were included: a conservatory-style glass corridor with heavy plantation, and a dining room with large windows and a highly ornamented plaster ceiling reminiscent of John Nash’s style, but most views were of the gardens and surrounding areas. His ideas for the estate included aviaries and orangeries, geometrical ponds reflecting the Moorish features of Porden’s stables, a glass corridor surrounding the entire western side of the estate, a protruding viewing platform with telescopes at the North front, some Chinese-inspired hipped roofs, and dainty flower beds on the Eastern lawns.  According to Repton, George responded enthusiastically to the designs, but despite giving him hope of ‘immediate execution’, the project was never realised, allegedly because Maria Fitzherbert (George’s long-standing illegal wife) commented on the financial implications of the ambitious plans. Repton saw George again in 1807 at an event in London and was summoned to Carlton House the following week to discuss plans for a great conservatory, but this project, too, after having been initially accepted, was superseded by another architect’s designs.

Repton’s proposed Orangerie in the Royal Pavilion garden, printed 1808

Title page of Humphry Repton’s printed version of the Pavilion’s ‘Red Book’, 1808.

Short of commissions in the difficult years of the Napoleonic wars, Repton had the Royal Pavilion designs engraved by J.C. Stadler in 1808 and, in a joint effort with Stadler to generate money, decided to publish the plans for the Royal Pavilion, together with a treatise on architectural styles, under the title Designs for the Pavillon at Brighton. He dedicated to George, perhaps in the vain hope of re-kindling his interest in the designs. The Royal Pavilion portfolio is the only one of Repton’s Red Books that was ever published in its entirety, with only minor omissions of the original text. Despite this being an expensive book of a project that was never realised it was published again in the 1820s, after Repton’s death, with the text re-set and the plates newly printed. Bibliophiles and collectors of the time must have considered this a book worth buying, regardless of whether it depicted an existing building and gardens or not. The novelty factor and interactive nature of the ‘before and after’ views surely played a role in this. Delayed gratification and the element of surprise were important concepts of ‘the picturesque’ , and perhaps this book was a manifestation of these ideals in printed form. The Royal Pavilion has several copies of the 1808 edition. One of them has a particularly interesting provenance: it belonged to none other than Brighton’s famous architect Amon Henry Wilds (c1784–1857), who designed some of the best grand Georgian structures in Brighton, such as Oriental Place, Montpelier Crescent, Park Crescent and his own home, the Western Pavilion, which looks like a miniature version of the Royal Pavilion.

In 1815 John Nash was the lucky one who was eventually commissioned to transform the Royal Pavilion and its gardens. By then, George had become the Prince Regent and Napoleon had been defeated. While Repton never really recovered from having missed out on this important royal commission, John Nash would turn Holland’s Marine Pavilion into the oriental fantasy palace George had envisaged, and would later publish his own book on the project. One cannot help think that Nash’s designs were a cheaper, watered-down version of Repton’s spectacular ideas. But time and circumstances were simply in favour of Nash.

Alexandra Loske, Curator (Royal Pavilion Archives)

We have digitised an entire copy of the 1808 edition of Repton’s Designs for the Pavillion of Brighton. Flick through the book here: http://brightonmuseums.org.uk/royalpavilion/history/tales-pavilion-archive/pavilion-might-have-been/

Alexandra will give a talk on early printed books on the Royal Pavilion at The Keep on 11 May 2016. Both Repton’s and Nash’s book will be on display during the talk. Details here: http://www.thekeep.info/events/early-illustrated-books-of-the-royal-pavilion-and-other-royal-palaces-a-talk-by-dr-alexandra-loske-3-00-admission

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