Story Category: Legacy

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Rainbows have become a familiar sight in people’s windows up and down the country carrying messages of hope and support for the NHS, keyworkers and our communities during the Covid-19 lockdown. Today’s 100 Pioneering Women of Sussex blog focusses on Elizabeth Matilda Taylor, a remarkable woman who made ‘rainbows in the darkened lives of her deaf-blind fellows’ and the world a less isolated place for people living with duel sight and hearing loss.

Elizabeth M Taylor, taken from Music and Light in the Dark Silence (1936)

Elizabeth Matilda Dunk was born in Hastings on 25 April 1864, the fourth child of a large family to a bricklayer father and tailoress mother. Ailing from infancy, her attendance at school was so irregular that her name was not retained on the register. Absences from school were often for weeks at a time and resulted in her leaving permanently at age about 12. Soon after Elizabeth began to suffer the early symptoms of the disease that would eventually rob her of her sight and hearing.

 The loss of the sight in her right eye was believed to be the result of either sunstroke or a cold. After initially trying home-made or ‘off the shelf’ remedies, Elizabeth was then sent to see doctors and endured long periods of misapplied medical treatments. At one stage she was sent to the Kent County Ophthalmic Hospital (KCOH) in Maidstone and was due to undergo an operation to remove a cataract. The operation was not performed. It was not a cataract that had caused the sight loss but a worn out lens.

Engraving of the Asylum for the Blind at Brighton which opened on 22 October 1861

Although the sight in her right eye was gone Elizabeth could still see with her left and still had very acute hearing. Unfortunately, just before her fourteenth birthday she was struck down with a fever and the disease had started to affect the other eye and her hearing. She was readmitted to KCOH for 19 weeks, enduring a great deal of pain with the inflammation and almost constant application of leeches and other remedies of the time. In May 1879, aged 15, Elizabeth was admitted to the Brighton & Sussex Blind Asylum (Brighton Blind School) in Eastern Road, Brighton.

Although her hearing had been badly affected, she could still hear and talk to others with the use of a long conversation tube. This meant she could be admitted to the school for education in the various ‘arts for the blind’. In her book Music and Light in the Dark Silence (1936), she remarks on how different the Brighton school was in comparison to others she had read about. The school was ‘spacious, clean, well-appointed and well disciplined’.

Photographic print of Dr William Moon (1818-1894), inventor of the Moon reading system for the blind

Although the braille system was not in general use then, they were taught how to write in it. Many of the books they had to read had been produced in Moon Type, invented by Dr William Moon of Brighton. Sadly, they were few in number, cumbersome and expensive to produce but were invaluable to those who had nothing better.

Elizabeth’s first term at the Brighton Blind School ended abruptly and very painfully, when enjoying a session with her friends on the plank swing in the garden. She lost her footing and in trying to get back on to the plank, her ankle and foot got caught under the swing and was badly broken. Her first holiday from school was spent in hospital.

Fortunately, she was readmitted to the school and she would continue to learn an occupation – hers was intricate knitting and crochet, which she already loved and spent much of her spare time doing. Sundays were her unhappiest days when to knit or crochet would have been to ‘wilfully break the Sabbath’.

In her book, there are descriptions of the seasonal celebrations at the school with mentions of good food, a large Christmas tree, presents, trips and picnics on the beach, plus the annual outings to the Chinese Gardens in the wagonettes.

Unfortunately, an accident with Elizabeth’s hearing tube had rendered her painfully and totally deaf. Luckily a new admission to the Blind School brought her into contact with a new friend, Sarah, who vowed to become Elizabeth’s ‘ears’, helping her around the school and interpreting lessons for her. Sarah also taught Elizabeth the manual alphabet and took communion with her. Sadly, Elizabeth lost her wonderful friend to illness a short time later.

In 1892, a blind acquaintance of Elizabeth’s sent her 36 copies of ‘Santa Lucia’, the first magazine to be published in Braille. This lovely donation eventually led to her getting to know sympathetic editors and philanthropists. When Elizabeth’s father died, she knew she had to contribute more to her own maintenance. What had once been a hobby, her knitting and crochet, now had to generate an income. Unfortunately, that meant the luxury of reading had to be set aside.

Elizabeth married Benjamin Taylor in 1912. He was a basket maker and also from Hastings who she had originally met at the Brighton Blind School.

In time it became a concern to many friends and sufferers that those with the dual afflictions of deafness and blindness (and for some an inability to speak), were being left too much alone and ‘shut in’ on themselves, not being understood and receiving no help from society. They decided that they needed a separate society specifically for deaf and blind people.

In 1928 and aged 64, Elizabeth was amongst a group of friends and supporters who founded the National Deafblind Helpers League. Among its aims was to lessen severe isolation and promote happiness to the bearers of dual sensory loss.

Today, the magazine is called Open Hand. Courtesy of Deafblind UK

As the group expanded they decided some method was needed to link scattered individuals together. Elizabeth proposed a ‘pass it on’ quarterly magazine. It was agreed and Elizabeth was appointed to set it up and act as the first editor. One of the first tasks was to come up with a suitable title. Various names were suggested, but one morning Elizabeth had a mental picture of a magnificent rainbow, from memories of those she had seen as a child. The Braille Rainbow, later renamed Rainbow, became the title of the magazine and the emblem of the League.

The Rainbow started with about 50 readers. In 1931, through the generosity of the National Institute for the Blind (RNIB), it evolved into a journal of 100 copies per issue, containing 40 full size pages. By 1936 they were producing 300 copies containing 52 pages.

Circulation was not just within the UK but also overseas. Some were printed in Moon Type for those who through age or other disabilities had been unable to learn Braille. Through the early ‘pass it on’ method of circulating the magazine, many readers piggy backed pen pal letters along with the magazine each quarter, giving them access to many more friends who understood their afflictions and personal trials.

Moon Type embossing plate featuring a Key to Moon Alphabet

The National Deafblind Helpers League also worked with other groups to amend the Post Office Act to enable articles for the blind to eventually be posted free of postal charges in the UK.

Elizabeth was widowed in the early 1920s and moved to Rednal near Birmingham. This was probably to be closer to the headquarters and respite home set up by the National Deafblind Helpers League. She was a much-loved editor, friend, family member and colleague to those in the League. She died on 3 May 1947 aged 83.

The 50^th anniversary copy of The Rainbow carried many wonderful letters containing personal memories of those early days of the League, the magazine and of Elizabeth’s warmth, humour and love.

Written by Jeanette Eason, great great great niece of Elizabeth Matilda Taylor

Further information about living with sight and hearing loss and deaf-blind history can be found on the websites of Deafblind UK, the RNIB and the Helen Keller Archive.

Elizabeth’s eulogy, transcribed below, was reproduced in the New Beacon, magazine of the RNIB, in June 1947.

A Noble Woman

The death of Mrs E M Taylor, announced elsewhere in this issue, deprives the deaf-blind community of a friend whose influence can be likened to the golden light of a summer’s dawn and the music of a trumpet of silver seen and heard throughout a dark and silent land.

Faced early in life with darkness, silence and straightened circumstances, she fought a valiant fight and emerged triumphant armed with experience and winged with resolve to devote all her capabilities to brighten and enrich the lives of her deaf-blind fellows.

To those who enjoyed the privilege of her friendship she was veritably an angel of light. Her charming personality, her quiet strength of character, her cheerful humour, her faith, her wisdom, her dignity and poise, were the characteristics of a remarkable woman whose accomplishments and achievements are worthy of a shining record in the chronicles of the indomitable spirit of human kind. That frail body and gentle appearance concealed a heroine, one who was always unafraid in the face of fearful odds.

Yet perhaps it was her womanliness, her intensely feminine lovableness, which was cherished most by her friends and it is her womanliness which will serve them now to embalm memory with fragrance.

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Museum Mentors is a community project, creating a space for adults with support needs to meet up, make art and connect with their peers in the wonderful surroundings of Brighton Museum and the Royal Pavilion.  

Museum Mentors usually meet twice weekly in the art room at Brighton Museum where we all enjoy art, chat, tea and plenty of biscuits. 

Although we are missing our art sessions during lockdown, both staff and group members remain in touch and are working to keep creative activities going: members are receiving postal projects, email messages and collections inspired information. Museum Mentors social media is helping to bridge the contact gap.

It is here we will showcase our Museum Mentors work and post updates on what we are doing. Do take a look and see what we’re up to. We hope you enjoy our posts.

You can find us online via

• Facebook 
• Instagram 

Creative Together Online Free Event

Join Creative Together from the 2nd June – 7th July as they host a weekly Zoom workshop, supporting members to draw and create together. For more details see their Facebook Events page 

May 2020

Museum Mentors

We sent out the second batch of colouring postcards earlier this month. These were created from line drawings based on members’ artwork.

This postcard was coloured in by Mike. The original artwork for the line drawing was done by Sharon.

Mike

Museum Mentors also received some drawing inspiration put together by Collections Assistant Lucy. These included pictures of interesting teapots from the Willett Collection of popular pottery and ‘Bud and Barkage’ – a contemporary ceramic sculpture by Carole Windham of a small dog, sitting nicely awaiting our return! 

Bud and Barkage, Carole Windham

That’s all for this week. Look out for more Museum Mentors group updates soon.

 Sally Welchman, Museum Mentors

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Welcome back to our Cultural Icons series exploring the fascinating stories behind the people commemorated in flatback ornaments in the Willett Collection of Popular Pottery in the Brighton Museum.

Many of these Victorian souvenirs, which are only decorated on the front so they can sit on a mantelpiece were on display at Hove Museum this year.

They were usually of famous and sometimes infamous people in the Victoria era who we would now call stars or celebrities. The hearth, the centre of the home, provided an ideal space for the flatback as a conversation piece inspiring discussion and fascination among family and visitors alike.

The tragic death of Nelson

Staffordshire flatbacks were also created and enjoyed as souvenirs of historic national events. The death of Nelson provided a subject for a dramatic figure group created in c1850, reflecting his heroism and ultimate sacrifice. The piece recreates the moment, albeit with some artistic licence, that Nelson falls to the deck of HMS Victory, struck with a bullet fired from the French ship ‘Redoubtable’ during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1815.

Dr William Beatty who attended Nelson as he lay dying recounted the event as followed:

‘About fifteen minutes past one o’clock, which was in the heat of the engagement, he (Nelson) was walking the middle of the quarter-deck with Captain Hardy, and was in the act of turning near the hatchway….when the fatal ball was fired from the enemy’s mizzen-top…The ball struck the epaulette on his left shoulder and penetrated his chest. He fell…Captain Hardy, on turning round, saw the Sergeant Major of Marines with two seamen raising him from the deck; where he’d fallen…Captain Hardy expressed a hope that he was not severely wounded; to which the gallant Chief replied: ‘They have done for me at last, Hardy.’ – ‘ I hope not’ answered Captain Hardy. ‘Yes,’ replied his lordship; ‘my backbone is shot through.’’

Discover More

Follow our Cultural Icons series as we explore some of these fascinating flatbacks and discover of these early celebrities.

Cecilia Kendall, Curator, Collections Projects

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Each year Hove Museum & Art Gallery invites the talented makers from the University of Brighton’s Craft MA course to exhibit their final pieces, offering fresh insight into contemporary craft making.

As the university has had to close its doors due to Covid 19, we decided to do a Q & A with the students to showcase their work and see how they were keeping their creative flow going.

Our first interview is with Susan Ramsay-Smith. Susan is a member of Kent Potters and Sussex Arts Collective. She was Chairperson of Sussex Potters for many years and has exhibited with London Potters & Weald Crafts.

How would you describe yourself as a maker?

Susan Ramsay-Smith

I’m an ecological potter processing the Weald Clay from our farm in order to produce a unique, ferrous rich, textured, contemporary material which is a challenge to work with, but has produced some great surprises like firing to stoneware. I love to combine thrown and hand-built components to create large vessels or sculptural work.

What inspires you to create your work?

Recently I’ve been researching my rich, local iron heritage and creating pig iron cannons on wooden, wheeled carriages and ceramic gunstone sculptures based on a 32 pounder weight of shot found at Wimbles, near Heathfield. British wildlife like the Common toad Bufo bufo, captivate me each year when they emerge from their earth homes to migrate back to the lake. They often feature as a textured surface or mottled glaze.

Pig iron cannon on wooden, wheeled carriages by Susan Ramsay-Smith

Are there any particular artists/makers you are interested in or feel connected with?

Susan Ramsay-Smith working on her ‘map of walks’

Anne Mette from Bornholm stimulated my interest in experimenting with using my own clay when I visited her studio in 2018 with Making Lewes. I feel connected with Charlotte Pack who is a wonderful animal sculpturist but also uses her skills to highlight the plight of elephants, killed for their tusks and other species that are on the endangered list. David Nash’s 200 series exhibition at the Towner Art Gallery inspired me to create a map of walks taken from our farm to the nearby clay and ironwork sites. The maps are painted using only found, ground minerals and earth slips.

Map of walks taken from Susan’s farm to the nearby clay and ironwork sites

Are there any pieces in our craft collection at Hove Museum that you are drawn to?

I remember being amazed at a wonderfully intricate, colourful, enamel vessel by Jane Short. I was practicing with enamelling on copper and steel in the University of Brighton metal workshops before they were abruptly closed. I wanted to incorporate mixed media in order to learn a new process.

Jane Short, Silver vessel formed by Anton Pruden with enamel & engraving

What materials do you prefer to work with and what are the properties in those materials that you like?

I’ve been using clay as a medium for over 25 years and am still excited by its metamorphosis. It can be turned from a lump of earth into a variety of differently shaped objects which can be both delicate and strong, functional, architectural or sculptural. Their finish can be matt, shiny, smoked or salt glazed, smooth or textured. The finished product all depends on three key ingredients: the decisions and skills of the craft person handling the clay, some water and fire or heat – this is the magic of alchemy.

How are you working creatively during ‘lockdown’?

Luckily I have a pottery studio, so I’ve been able to finish glaze firing the cannon ball sculptures I’d started as part of my Craft MA course before we were told to stop making due to the Corona Virus pandemic. Another piece I’d started was painting a large canvas map of the farm with the surrounding clay test sites and ironwork locations marked. I wanted to use the natural colour of the slips I created from local sourced ground rock and clays as pigments, with no idea if this would adhere and last on this kind of surface. Luckily it has so far and I thoroughly enjoyed the freedom of using large brushes with no expectation of the results.

Cannon ball structure by Susan Ramsay-Smith

Cannon ball structure by Susan Ramsay-Smith

Do you have any tips/advice to give to other creatives out there who might be struggling to find their creative flow?

I find walking and observing the natural world always sparks another idea I’d like to try, initially maybe with a sketch or paints which helps to start the creative process and gives me time to think it through.

Discover more

You can find out more about Susan’s work and her tutoring by visiting the Experience Sussex website 

Follow her on Instagram: Susan Ramsay-Smith

Hove Museum & Art Gallery houses one of the best contemporary craft collections in the South East. The collection includes The South East Arts Collection and a collection of contemporary craft made by national makers. Learn more about the contemporary craft collection at Hove Museum & Art Gallery on the Museum’s contemporary craft webpage

Grace Brindle, Collections Assistant

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Many men have described Brighton in the Georgian age, but what about the female voices? A small volume of poetry by the elusive Mary Lloyd evokes Brighton in the time of Jane Austen.

While in lock-down during the Corona crisis I started looking at my small collection of early books about Brighton and came up with the idea to create a list of the earliest descriptions of the Royal Pavilion and the surrounding area. As in most areas of life and culture, there is a huge imbalance between male and female voices, so there are precious few women in early Brighton literature. As luck would have it, I remembered one of the first books I bought in a little antiquarian bookshop at the Seven Dials after I came to England more than 20 years ago. It is a small, slim volume, comprising just over 80 pages, published in 1809, with the simple title Brighton. A Poem.

Title page and frontispiece of Mary Lloyd’s book Brighton. A Poem, 1809

This unassuming little book is a rare glimpse into Brighton in the early 1800s, when it was arguably the most fashionable seaside resort, or ‘watering place’, in the country. While it may not be the most accomplished poetry that was published in that period, it paints a delightful picture of Brighton from the perspective of a young woman, who enjoyed both the liveliness of the town, and the surrounding countryside.

Who was Mary Lloyd?

A fashion plate from Ackermann’s Repository, 1811

As is so often the case with women in the Georgian period and before reliable census records, we know next to nothing about Mary Lloyd. Her name doesn’t make genealogical research easy, as it is quite a common name. I identified a grave of a Mary Lloyd in Brighton’s Extra-Mural Cemetery and got quite excited about it, but it soon became clear that it could not be her. There are a couple of Mary Lloyds in literary history, but it is unlikely that our Brighton Mary is one of them. There are no known pictures of her, so a contemporary image of a young woman from the popular magazine Ackermann’s Repository of Arts… will have to do for now. It is something she would most certainly have perused and read in one of the public libraries in Brighton. We gain a little information about her in the brief preface to her book, in which she mentions ‘august and noble patronage’, which suggests that she had supporters who helped her write and publish. She also points out that she has ‘no literary friends’ who could cast an eye on her work, so she does not seem to have been part of any intellectual circles. With regard to writing poetry, she informs the reader that this is her first attempt, and that she is ‘young in poesy’. It is likely that she was also youngish in age in 1809, and a handful of poems in Scottish dialect added to the volume could mean that she had Scottish connections. She was still alive in 1816, as she is listed the Biographical Dictionary of the Living Authors of Great Britain and Ireland. Regrettably, this is all we know about her. In the absence of much biographical information, let’s just look at her intriguing little book and see what it tells us about her, Brighton, and the Royal Pavilion.

What is the book about?

In Mary Lloyd’s long poem, we follow a wandering, ambling visitor and narrator, who introduces Brighton and its attractions to us. The poem is written largely in rhyming couplets. In her own words, Lloyd aims to ‘delineate[s] the different scenes [of Brighton], at the seasons and hours in which they appear most pleasing and striking’. She does so by describing places, people, sights and surroundings from morning through to evening, as if painting a series of picturesque views. At noon, for example, we find ourselves at the beauty spot Devil’s Dyke north of Brighton, looking at the vale below where ‘nature in all her richest colours glow[s]’. In true Romantic tradition, almost everything is seen in relation to the elements and the greater cosmological picture. Brighton is introduced as the ‘loveliest neighbour of the wave, whose stately cliffs the rolling surges lave..’, and you could be forgiven for thinking instinctively of Turner’s or Constable’s sketches of the town. Towards the end of the poem are perhaps some of her finest poetic lines, in which the narrator watches the moon rise over the sea in the evening, illuminating the scene: ‘Now to the wild rocks let us rove again, / and view the beauties of the moonlight main; / ten thousand diamonds sparkle and expire; / or dart from wave to wave their lambent fire.’

Brighton in ca. 1809

The poem was published in 1809, so it is likely that Lloyd composed it in 1808 or 1807. This was an exciting time in Brighton, as the new Royal Stables (now the Dome and Corn Exchange) had just been erected – but were not quite finished – and many new large townhouses were being built, including the first crescent-shaped row of Georgian houses, the Royal Crescent. In the same year, Attree’s Topography of Brighton was published, an important early guidebook to Brighton, which included a detailed map by J Marchant. This shows how Brighton was growing and expanding rapidly, and almost all places Lloyd mentions in her poem can be seen on it.

Marchant’s map of Brighthelmstone in 1809

Lloyd describes some of these new developments, but her focus is always on the most agreeable views and prospects. The two illustrations she includes in her books do not show us any grand structures in detail, but the Signal House – a humble building in the east from where you can see the bay in which Brighton lies – and a view from the beach from an area known as The Rocks (just below where Lower Rock Gardens is now) towards the Steine and Pool Valley, with Dr Russell’s house visible. We do not know who the artist of these rare engravings was, but the one The Rocks, later appeared in John George Bishop’s book A Peep into the Past – Brighton in the Olden Time (1880), as an example of how the Marine Parade area looked before it was developed. Lloyd artfully manages to include some historical background into her lyrical descriptions, and weave in dramatic recent events, such as a the tragic death of four fishermen whose boat capsized. Crucial historical information is added in the form of lengthy footnotes.

The frontispiece of Mary Lloyd’s book, a view of Brighton looking from east to west

Mary Lloyd’s frontispiece reprinted in Bishop’s Brighton in the Olden Time, 1880

Detail of Marchant’s map of Brighthelmstone, showing the area between the “Rocks” and the Steine.

The Signal House, the other plate in Mary Lloyd’s book

What does Lloyd think about the Pavilion Estate?

Lloyd devotes an entire section to the Steine, as the place for entertainment, fashionable society, ‘fresh delights’, ‘gaiety’, beauty and music. The gayest of the new buildings is, naturally, the Royal Pavilion, but there is no mention of any exotic features, as Lloyd would have seen William Porden’s neo-classical Marine Pavilion, with conservatory-like extensions to the north-east and south-east, as seen in Cracklow’s famous print from 1806, where we see the Prince of Wales parading along the Steine on horseback. She therefore likens it to Italian architecture: ‘Around the beauteous lawn, gay buildings rise, / there the Pavilion wooes admiring eyes; / In Italy’s fair clime such structures grow; / where through the orange-groves soft zephyrs blow.’ Unlike Attree, who gives us a fascinating account of the early Chinoiserie schemes of the Pavilion, she doesn’t describe the interior at all, which would suggest that she did not gain access to the building. The new Royal Stables, she notes in a footnote, are not yet finished, but she calls them a ‘majestic edifice’, ‘towering above each structure by its side’ with ‘graceful pride’. The overpowering presence of the Dome is noticeable in many images of Brighton of the early 19^th century.

Detail from The View of the Pavilion and Steyne at Brighton C T Cracklow, 1806. The Prince of Wales is on horseback, in the company of Benjamin Bloomfield, then in charge of a troop of the Royal Horse Artillery.

A front view of the new Royal Stables (Church Street), c.1809

Was the book a success?

It isn’t easy to make a commercial success of a volume of poetry at the best of times, and one wonders how a young woman managed to publish a slim lyrical description of Brighton in 1809. The book is now extremely rare, which suggests the print run was small. Lloyd does not appear to have published anything else, but this doesn’t mean the book was not a success. As hinted at in her preface, Lloyd has supporters, who may have helped finance the printing. It was published privately, without backing from a publisher, and sold by J Harding in St James’s Street, and ‘by all the booksellers in Brighton’. It was sold on a subscription basis, which was basically a way of ensuring sales before a book was actually printed. Lists of early subscribers were often included in Georgian publications, which gives us invaluable insight into print numbers and readerships. Lloyd’s poem does have a list of subscribers, and it is impressive. Many well-known Brighton names are on this list, some of whom pre-ordered multiple copies, for example the Third Earl of Egremont, who was great patron of Turner, and owned a villa just north of The Rocks. He ordered three copies, as did the Duchess of Marlborough. The Duke of Clarence is first on the list; the Officers from the Royal Horse Artillery ordered five copies. Mrs Fitzherbert is there, as is Colonel Bloomfield (who can also be seen in the Cracklow print). In total, Lloyd secured the sale of 146 copies via subscription only, so we can estimate a print run of around 250, perhaps 300, not bad for a privately published volume by a young female poet.

The book was reviewed in at least two London magazines, The Critical Review of Annals of Literature in 1810 and The Monthly Review, or Literary Journal in 1809.  The reviews are not entirely positive and a little condescending in tone, but the critics see some potential in her work: ‘Though we cannot praise her poetical powers very highly, yet her poem of Brighton at least excels in accuracy of delineation. Miss Mary Lloyd has caught the prominent features of the place and its inhabitants.’ (Critical Review, 1810, 3, XVIII, p.106). This sounds a bit like damning with faint praise, and perhaps these reviews discouraged Mary Lloyd from writing anything else, but for me, this poem is a hugely interesting description of Brighton in the early 19^th century from an intelligent, perceptive and creative woman. She may not have gained access to the Pavilion and she may not be as great as Wordsworth, but she has given us a joyful and sensitive early account of Brighton from a woman’s perspective. I imagine her going for long walks in and around Brighton, admiring the views, revelling in the beauty of Brighton’s setting.

Mrs Fitzherbert’s House on the Steine, 1806

Post scriptum: Did George IV read Mary Lloyd?

I secretly hope that he did, and it is quite likely, since Mrs Fitzherbert, his long-term companion, had a copy in her newly built house on the Steine (which is also mentioned by Lloyd). George had a great interest in women’s literature. As is well known, he was a great admirer of Jane Austen’s work. But there is more: while Mary Lloyd was probably the first woman to publish an entire book about Brighton, there was an earlier female poet who lived in Brighton and wrote about Sussex. Charlotte Turner Smith (1749-1806), who published Elegiac Sonnets in 1789, is a much better known and documented poet, and it is more than likely that Lloyd knew of her work. Crucially, George owned a copy of Elegiac Sonnets, proof of his interest in contemporary women’s literature. I would like to think that, when dropping in on Maria Fitzherbert in her elegant house on the Steine, he picked up Mary Lloyd’s Brighton poem, curious about what she had to say about him and his Pavilion by the sea.

Alexandra Loske, Curator, Royal Pavilion

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Paper Conservator, Amy Junker Heslip, continues to reflect on some of the objects that have passed through her hands for conservation treatments and exhibition preparation.

This week I have been missing doing some practical conservation work and nothing beats the feeling of an exciting discovery!

In 2018 I was carrying out some routine conservation treatments on our collection of Albrecht Dürer prints.

A small print had been historically mounted on a larger supporting paper. However, it was poorly mounted causing buckling and creasing to the print and so it was thought beneficial for the print to be separated. After documentation and treatment planning and then testing the ink for water sensitivity (and gently surface cleaning the print and support paper), I humidified and immersed the print in a bath of warm water.

The Last Supper by Albrecht Durer

After just a few minutes the paste layer softened in the water bath and the two sheets began to separate to reveal the most wonderful surprise in the supporting sheet below.

Durer discovery water wash

The supporting sheet revealed a stunning pencil sketch of a stallion being attacked by two dogs, one dog at the stallion’s head and the other dog behind the stallion’s back legs.

Horse and two Dogs, artist unknown

We still need further research to find out if this is an undiscovered masterpiece, but for now this is safely housed in our fine art, prints and drawing store.

Find out more about Albrecht Dürer

Amy Junker Heslip, Paper Conservator

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In a perfect world, former Eastbourne resident Eileen ‘Tirzah’ Garwood (1908 – 1951) would be a household name and acknowledged as one of the most original and distinctive figures of twentieth century British art. Instead, as a mother of three children and the wife of the much more famous Eric Ravilious, she is often confined to the shadows of art’s story. 

Two Women in a Garden, 1933, Eric Ravilious, depicting his wife Tirzah Garwood to the right, shelling peas, with Charlotte Bawden to the left.

Garwood was born to a wealthy family in Gillingham, Kent and enjoyed a solidly respectable Edwardian childhood which took her to Littlehampton, then Eastbourne, as the family relocated to different postings held by Garwood’s father who was an officer in the Royal Engineers. 

It was in Eastbourne where Garwood, nicknamed ‘Tirzah’ by her siblings went to school. In 1925 she went to the  Eastbourne School of Art where she met Ravilious who was teaching wood engraving in his first teaching post. Garwood started to make her own wood engravings in 1926.  By the following year she was already exhibiting and attracting attention for her accomplished work. Unusually for wood engraving it portrayed people, places and animals often in a domestic setting and caught in a fleeting moment.  Notably, she exhibited at the Society of Wood Engravers’ annual exhibition of 1927 and drew acclaim from The Times.  Garwood went on to take commissions from the BBC and produced pattern designs for book covers and end papers for the Kynoch, Curwen and Golden Cockerel Presses. She illustrated composer Granville Bantock’s oratorio ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ written for the BBC.  In the late 1920s, at the height of the popularity of wood engravings, Garwood was considered one of the most promising, skilful and original practitioners of the day, with her work feted for its sense of humour and touch of eccentricity.   

In 1930, despite her parents’ disapproval, Garwood married Ravilious who as the son of a shopkeeper was considered – in Garwood’s words – ‘not quite a gentleman’.  Sadly this was the end to her wood engraving and she produced no more work after her marriage.  Reasons put forward for this include the domestic and maternal realities of being a wife in the 1930s. It’s tempting to view Garwood’s engraving ‘The Wife’ completed three months before her marriage, in which a lone woman sits on a bed with a pensive expression on her face as expressing possible foreboding about what the demands of marriage might do to her career.  But also, as the Great Depression dawned, a drop in demand for this expensive work may have played a role.   

In 1931 the couple moved to rural Essex, initially living with the married artists, Eric and Charlotte Bawden, the centre of the artistic community later to be known as the Great Bardfield Artists.  The early 1930s saw the couple often returning to East Sussex as guests of artist Peggy Angus at her cottage ‘Furlongs’ near Glynde.  With the initial help and collaboration of Charlotte Bawden, Garwood began to experiment with marbled papers during her time at Great Bardfield.   These delicate repeating designs on thin paper were used for lampshades and books.  Garwood’s stood out for their delicacy and the ethereal design which brought to mind leaves, grasses, flowers and other dream-like natural forms. 

In 1942 Garwood became seriously ill and it was while she was recovering from an emergency mastectomy that she received the shocking news of the disappearance of Ravilious. Working as a war artist, an aircraft in which he was a passenger had disappeared over Iceland.  His body would never be recovered.  Widowed and with three young children to care for, Garwood, now living in the village of Wethersfield near Braintree, turned again to art, this time painting. 

Her subsequent oil paintings of natural scenes show figures, insects, birds and flowers in an almost-but-not-quite realistic settings painted in jewel like colours. The enchanted and slightly otherworldy atmosphere of fairy stories have been described by curator, author and lecturer, James Russell as ‘demonstrating … a similar clarity to that seen in Eric’s watercolours, and a similar gaze – at once innocent and a little mysterious, even disturbing.’  At this time Garwood also made intriguing three dimensional models of houses, schools, cottages and chapels from card, paper and leaf prints which were placed in shallow box frames.    

In 1946 Garwood married radio producer, Henry Swanzy, but unfortunately she died just five years later aged only forty-two.  In 1952 a memorial exhibition was held at the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne, the town where she had started her artistic journey.   

Although, a little like her friend, Sussex artist Peggy Angus, who also had to balance working as an artist with bringing up children on her own, Garwood’s name seems to have dropped out of the canon of twentieth century British artists. In the last few years she seems rightfully to be enjoying a renaissance. 

In 2012 Garwood’s autobiography ‘Long Live Great Bardfield & Love to You All’, was edited by her daughter, Anne Ullmann, and published to considerable interest. Intended  as a private memoir for her family, it was written in spare moments while recovering from illness in 1942.

In 2017 the landmark exhibition ‘Ravilious & Co: the Pattern of Friendship’ at the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne shone a light on her life and showed some of her work.  Last year, the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden told the story of Garwood and Ravilious’ life and the parallels in their work in the exhibition ‘Mr and Mrs Ravilious’. This was the first time the work of both artists has been presented from an intertwined personal perspective.   

By all accounts, despite the sadnesses of her later life, Tirzah Garwood was a cheerful woman who wasn’t afraid to look beyond accepted taste and produce original and unconventional work.  Her wood engravings can still raise a smile and her marbled papers and paintings remain unusual and appealing.  With today’s growing interest in hitherto neglected women artists, let’s hope her popularity continues to grow. 

With grateful thanks to James Russell www.jamesrussellontheweb.blogspot.com 

 Written by social historian Louise Peskett

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Beth has a bird theme for you this week. She has drawn an image of the stilts using a single line (“I love that fast kind of drawing!”) Will you give it a try? 

Beth

Draw Artists

We are very pleased to see that some of you have taken part in our online Mid-Week Draw, here are some of the fantastic works that have been sent in.

Ossie

Join In

If you are tempted to have a go, please share your drawings with us. We would love to see them. Email them to Beth at beth.burr@brighton-hove.gov.uk 

Tweet @BrightonMuseums or if you are uploading them to Facebook with pride, share the url in the comments section below.

Come back next Wednesday to see what new objects Beth has chosen.

Alternative drawing ideas:

• Draw the clouds, or wait until sunset and try to capture the colours
• Draw a pile of unfolded laundry
• See if you can draw or paint your favourite painting / portrait. 

Discover More

The Mid-Week Draw

Beth Burr, Museum Support Officer

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

‘Peggy Angus was a warrior.  Women weren’t supposed to be like that.’  

Just a few miles east of Brighton on the A27 stands a small flint faced cottage near Firle called ‘Furlongs’.  This was once the home of an extraordinary twentieth century artist, who despite a unique legacy of paintings of people and landscape – many depicting the Downs – beautiful wallpapers and tile murals, is far from being the house-hold name she deserves to be.   

Peggy Angus: Designer, Teacher, Painter by James Russell, published 2014 by ACC Arts

Margaret MacGregor ‘Peggy’ Angus was Scottish but born in Chile where her father was a railway engineer.  Aged 17 and resettled with her family in London, Peggy won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art where her contemporaries included Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Edward Bawden, and where she was taught by Paul Nash (who later claimed that she was the most obstinate student he’d ever taught).  With her brothers and father lost in the First World War it became apparent that, for Peggy, art would have to be a means to earn money, and fast.  She trained to be an art teacher and in the early 1930s, with one of her teaching jobs bringing her to Eastbourne, she discovered ‘Furlongs’ during a walk on the Downs. 

The story goes that Peggy fell instantly in love with the ramshackle and primitive stone cottage without running water and decided she must have it.  When the local farmer who happened to be living in it refused, Peggy simply set up a tent and camped outside, biding her time until he changed his mind a few months later.  Furlongs was initially a weekend retreat where she could immerse herself in painting.  One of her closest friends and frequent visitors to Furlongs was the now well-known Eastbourne artist, Eric Ravilious.  The two would pack up their equipment, take a picnic and go off onto the Downs painting together, often choosing to depict the same landscape. 

Unlike Ravilious whose depictions are famously empty of people and isolated, making the landscapes of the South Downs haunting and magical, Peggy’s show a version that is full-blooded and immersed in everyday life, warts and all. ‘I like doing life, things happening,’ she said about her robust depictions of cattle, rat-catchers, threshing, and milking cows.  Furlongs became something of an alternative Charleston.  Not only Ravilious and his wife, the artist and engraver Tirzah Garwood, but also Herbert Read, Serge Chermayeff (co-architect of Bexhill-on-Sea’s De La Warr Pavilion), Brighton artist Percy Horton, John and Myfanwy Piper, painter and Bauhaus professor Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, among others, were frequent guests, despite the lack of electricity and running water. 

A landmark exhibition of Peggy’s work at Eastbourne’s Towner Art Gallery in 2014 recreated one of Furlong’s rooms and its burst of colour, gorgeous wallpaper, murals and unmatching crockery gave a hint of the cosy welcome they received.   

Peggy took her teaching seriously. She had visited the Soviet Union in 1932 for the Art Teachers Conference and been impressed by the country’s equality for women and view of the artist as a potential for good in the world.  Nicknamed ‘Red Peggy’ by many of her friends for her politics, she always considered teaching and inspiring others as part of the artist’s responsibility towards society.  Students remember her classes at schools in Sussex and London, and then, as Head of Art at North London Collegiate School, as innovative and fun.  Peggy believed in building up her students’ confidence, if not to become artists themselves, to become people who would always appreciate art.  Even in old age, Peggy could be seen with a rucksack slung over her shoulder, travelling from Furlongs to London by public transport to teach evening classes to senior citizens.   

Post Second World War, when art materials were in short supply, ever practical Peggy turned to potatoes in her teaching, encouraging her students to experiment with potato printing.  One evening FRS ‘Kay’ York, one of the architects involved in the nationwide post-war reconstruction of schools and public buildings, came to dinner, saw the tiles and thought they’d make good murals. Peggy went on to become a prolific and beautiful tile designer, her simple but starkly colourful geometric patterns the perfect way to soften the hard materials and angular lines of the new buildings of the 1940s and ‘50s. Her tile work embellished, among other places, schools, universities, public squares, Heathrow Airport and Heathrow Underground Station.  In 1958 she created a tile mural for the British Industry Pavilion at the Brussels World Fair.  Her marble design on glass cladding decorated the original Gatwick Airport but is sadly, like most of her mural work, now long demolished.  A mural in Glyndwr University, Wrexham remains, its bright yellow and red dragon pattern on the walls of a staircase casting a cheerful atmosphere to this day.  Peggy Angus also created wallpaper.  Like her tiles, these were often wonderful geometric patterns often in two shades of the same colour.  Ever practical again, she would design them in emulsion paint so clients would be able to mix and match them to their houses with ease. 

Peggy Angus’s tile mural at the entrance to the British Pavilion at Brussels World Fair, 1958

There are many opinions as to why this original, innovative and talented artist and designer isn’t better known.  Perhaps, some think, it was the circumstances of her life – a single, divorced mother with two children meant that, unlike many of her male contemporaries who had the luxury of slipping off to places like Paris to experiment for a few years, she had to work constantly to put food on the table.  There was also her social conscience which led her to spend a lot of energy sharing her talent, nurturing, encouraging, lighting sparks in other people.  Writing in The Observer in 2014 Rachel Cooke writes that it may also have been that ultimate stumbling block to female success, her refusal to conform to stereotypes: ‘For women of Angus’s generation, professional life was rarely anything less than a struggle: they were required to be tough and, as a result, often seemed difficult…Peggy Angus was a warrior.  Women weren’t supposed to be like that.’  

Peggy’s portraits of fellow artist, John Piper, and the family of Ramsay MacDonald can be seen today in the National Portrait Gallery.  A wonderful book, ‘Peggy Angus: Designer, Teacher, Painter‘ by James Russell is an excellent read for anyone wanting to discover a fuller picture of this interesting and generous artist.   

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jul/06/peggy-angus-warrior-painter-designer-tiles-wallpaper 

Written by social historian, Louise Peskett 

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

The infamous playwright and poet, Oscar Wilde visited the Royal Pavilion and presented two of his popular art & life lectures on 17 and 18 November 1884. To mark the anniversary of the occasion we recreated Wilde’s visit on Saturday 19 November 2011 staging a living history presentation in which Oscar Wilde and his Aesthetic companions promenade the palace. Here is the story of how the event came about.

The event planning process

In 2011 I was working as Royal Pavilion & Museums Learning Officer with responsibility for the adult event programme and this was one of the 53 public events of that year. Each event was staged as the result of a methodical planning process.

My first stage of the process was to submit the idea to the departmental Creative Programming panel about eight months before the intended date of the event. This was always done to ensure any proposed event met with a series of key service objectives.

This particular event was offered to the panel for consideration with a range of objectives including its appeal to audiences with a specific interest in Oscar Wilde as well as people interested in Brighton’s history, interior design and the Victorian era. The event was aimed at a broad audience from families to the LGBT community and specialists since the event included an illustrated lecture.

Achieving objectives

As proof of success in achieving the objective of increasing visitor numbers to the Royal Pavilion I quoted two previous Oscar Wilde themed events; a lunchtime lecture at the Old Courtroom in 2007 which bought the largest ever audience to the lecture programme and a recent visit by over 100 members of the Brighton & Hove National Trust Association who attended a lecture about Oscar Wilde at Hove Museum.

As a character from history Oscar Wilde had proven pulling power.

I proposed the event title as Oscar Wilde and the Royal Pavilion with the following description:

Oscar Wilde in person promenades the Pavilion dressed in his Aesthetic costume accompanied by Aesthetic Movement followers and poets. The characters discuss the Pavilion interiors in enacted vignettes. The event also contains an additional lecture in the Red Drawing Room on the subject of Oscar Wilde with specific reference to his visits to the Royal Pavilion, Brighton and the South Coast and his views on interior design

Inspiring audiences

I proposed three major aims regarding enjoyment, learning and the inspiration audiences would derive from the event emphasising the way it would promote and highlight the Royal Pavilion & Museums collections.

The event will increase visitor knowledge about:

1) The Victorian history of the Royal Pavilion.

2) Famous visitors to the Royal Pavilion once it became a public building.

3) How Brighton used the Royal Pavilion once it was no longer a royal palace.

Peopling the event

Public events also had a staff learning and development objective and this included offering opportunities for museum volunteers. This event was staffed by members of the Royal Pavilion & Museums Learning team, more often seen working as museum teachers in the school programme and a drama-student volunteer from Lewes Sixth Form College who worked with me in the planning process and on the day. I’d visited the college on 5 July and presented a talk to a year group of students aiming to inspire them regarding opportunities to be found working in museums and historic houses as living history actors. The majority of the young people I spoke to had no idea such interesting careers existed.

Bringing history alive with people & costume

From the beginning I knew I wanted Oscar Wilde to appear to bring his character alive and give Royal Pavilion visitors the sense they’d travelled back to 1884. Fortunately, we had experienced staff on the team who could step into roles I’d chosen. These were Oscar Wilde himself and a small party of women to play the role of his devoted admirers. Most of the costume was already held in the store of facsimile period dress held at Preston Manor including a real-hair wig for Oscar whose tousled poetic locks were his especial trademark.

I wanted the women to appear in what was known at the time as Aesthetic Dress, that is clothing approved by Oscar Wilde as being the opposite of the tightly corseted modes of the day. Wilde believed women should dress is looser styles freeing the body to move unrestrained and thereby achieve true beauty. The crinoline, the hoop, fussy frilly trimmings and unnatural silhouettes were ugly and out and soft-colours, art-embroidery and classical drapes were in.

The Aesthetic (or Artistic) Dress Movement was the first anti-fashion or alternative fashion movement and was often derided at the time. The humorous Punch Magazine ran a series of satirical cartoons depicting Aesthetic persons adopting exaggerated poetic poses at art galleries and soulfully gazing at lilies in restaurants to gain sustenance in lieu of food. It was to these cartoons I turned because of the way the artist exaggerated the gowns worn by Aesthetic ladies. Volunteers with dressmaking skills adapted two garments. One, an Aesthetically-approved Renaissance-style costume with rich-green velvet tunic, simple wide white lace collar and loose flowing skirt. The other was an amalgamation of two dresses, the finished gown displaying the favoured medieval-inspired wide sleeves, long flowing train hung loosely from the shoulders and tapered to a tabard-effect at the front.

Colour and specific motifs were of the greatest importance. The Aesthetics favoured olive-green, terracotta, peacock blue and amber-gold with peacock feathers, sunflowers and lilies as popular motifs used in wallpaper, stained-glass, textiles, book illustrations, tiles and decorative artistically crafted home items.

Studying Oscar for homework

To ensure everyone involved in the event could answer visitor questions and to fully prepare them for the challenge of portraying historical characters I created a file of fact-sheets and background-history documents for participants to study ahead of the event. I especially needed them to know why Oscar Wilde came to Brighton and what he spoke about at the Royal Pavilion. To this end I looked at contemporary newspaper reports.

The Brighton Herald sent a reporter to Wilde’s lectures, which were themed to The Value of Art in Modern Life and Dress so there was plenty of first-hand reference material available.

I required my 2011 Oscar to study the description of Oscar at the Royal Pavilion as reported in the Brighton Herald on 22 November 1884

“a rather tall, well-proportioned young man, with a full, clean-shaven, somewhat effeminate face, pleasant in expression, and of unvarying placidity. His hair is long and waving, falling low on his neck and over each side of his forehead and temples…his bearing, as he lounges and poses at the back of a chair, is easy and graceful; his voice is soft and pleasant; his language florid and polished, and strongly tinged at times with quiet sarcasm and humour”

A cello coat

Scholars of Wilde continue to debate whether or not Oscar’s wardrobe contained a coat designed to look like a cello, which some reports have him wearing at a private view at the Grosvenor Gallery in London. The art gallery was known in Wilde’s time for displaying works outside mainstream art such as those by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and James McNeill Whistler. The sighting of such a coat has been tracked down to an entry in a private diary dated 1880 and published in 1921 at which the diarist writes of Oscar’s inspiration come from a dream of “a coat of a peculiar make and colour which somehow reminded him of a violincello” which he had made up by a tailor in an unusual cloth that looked bronze in some light and red in another with a peculiar seam at the back resembling the construction of a cello, which may or may not have been coincidental.

This possibly apocryphal but fabulous-sounding garment was the inspiration behind a red and black cello-dress put on display in the William IV Room at the Royal Pavilion on 19 November 2011 made and owned by a member of Royal Pavilion & Museums staff shown here wearing an Aesthetic Movement inspired dress in Wilde-approved muted purples. She stands next to a mannequin dressed in a black and white gown embroidered with designs by the works of Brighton-born illustrator, Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) who was a leading figure in the Aesthetic Movement.

VLUU L200 / Samsung L200

A successful event

I wrote in my 2011 diary of the day’s success and how, because of the unseasonable fine weather, the costumed characters promenaded outside the Royal Pavilion delighting passers-by and encouraging them to come into the Pavilion and find out more. I add that the lecture was attended by the Chairman of the Oscar Wilde Society who kindly bought with him a letter written by Wilde himself (penned to a publisher) and which was put on display for the duration of the one-day event in a locked display-case specially sourced for the occasion.

Paula Wrightson, Venue Officer, Preston Manor