Story Category: Legacy

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

Sussex has no shortage of talented women who have had trailblazing careers in entertainment.  Two sisters who were household names in the middle of the twentieth century and found a home in Steyning were Elsie and Doris Waters, aka ‘Gert and Daisy’.

‘Gert and Daisy’

The Waters sisters were born in Peckham (Elsie 1893-1990 and Doris 1904-1978) and went on stage early as part of the family minstrel band, the ‘E. J. Waters Bijou Orchestra’. In 1923 they broke out on their own, performing music and comedy sketches as a double act, making their first radio broadcast in 1929. This so impressed the head of Parlophone, they were asked to make three double sided records.   Stuck for material to fill up the last side, the sisters came up with the comic cockney characters, ‘Gert and Daisy’ who chatted about their lives for a few moments. They probably didn’t realise as they bantered back and forth to fill up the last minutes of the record that this last minute hasty invention was going to seal their legacy for years to come as legends of comedy.

The characters of ‘Gert and Daisy’ with their working class backgrounds, repartee about the landlord putting up the rent, knitting, the nosy neighbour, and the hapless men in their lives struck a chord with the British public, and offers of work as ‘Gert and Daisy’ soon started to flow in.  The two women became stalwarts of seaside variety shows, music halls, Royal Variety performances, and the occasional film, although radio was where they found a natural home and made their best work.

One of the keys for their runaway success was probably the width of their appeal.  ‘Gert and Daisy’s’ authenticity, their comical observations about everyday life and wry, sometimes understated humour appealed across genders, generation and class.  Just before the Second World War, they moved to Steyning, eventually living in the village’s Goring Road.  When war broke out, the Ministry of Food enlisted their help to inform the public about rationing and food matters, in a daily radio programme, ‘The Kitchen Front’.  Tackling issues such as reducing food waste and using more vegetables, the two sisters’ ‘salt of the earth’ comedy creation was the perfect medium to get this serious message across.  The show was incredibly popular, its breakfast slot regularly attracting audiences of up to seven million.  It even led to a compilation of recipes, ‘Gert and Daisy’s Cookery Book’.   At the same time the two became stalwarts of the BBC lunch time show ‘Workers’ Playtime’ which, originally conceived to keep war time morale up, broadcast live from a different works canteen every day.  The war saw the pair appearing in three films and touring India and Burma to visit troops.

‘Gert and Daisy’ songbook, 1937

With the war over the Waters sisters’ comedy cockney creation continued to thrive.  Although they never made a successful transition to television, they continued to be huge radio stars with shows such as ‘Gert and Daisy’s Working Party’ (1948) and ‘Floggit’s’ which, working from the premise of the sisters running a fictional, accident-prone shop, saw them working with guest stars such as Ronnie Barker, Joan Sims and Anthony Newley.

In 1946 they were awarded the OBE.

As tastes altered in the 1960s, however, Gert and Daisy’s popularity started to wane, although there was still enough affection for them to keep the Waters sisters working into the 1970s, with one of their last performances taking place at the Brighton Palace Pier Theatre.  By then, they had been overtaken in the fame stakes by their brother, Jack Warner, who played that icon of 1970s TV, ‘Dixon of Dock Green’.

In contrast to their altar egos who spent a long time discussing the shortfalls of their fictional men, neither Elsie nor Doris married, continuing to live together in Steyning.

Sadly, Gert and Daisy are not the household names they once were but Steyning Museum is still flying the flag for their talented creators with their large collection of costumes, records and photos related to them, including, on display, an evening gown by Norman Hartnell and photos of the two presenting a silver goblet to the Steyning Stoolball team.  The Museum holds a large archive on the sisters, which can be seen by appointment.

At a time when female comedians were thin on the ground and women were generally not considered funny, Elsie and Doris Waters pulled off the remarkable feat of creating a jewel of the canon of British comedy. Gert and Daisy’s influence has ricocheted through the years to inspire female double acts today.  Just as impressive was the sisters’ hard work behind the scenes.  The largest part of their sketches and even music was written by them, and they boasted that they never used the same material twice.  They also ran their own production company, remaining in full control of their own careers, making them pioneers not only of comedy but of the entertainment industry in general.

Gert and Daisy songs and sketches can still be listened to via youtube, and unlike less unsubtle acts of that time, the sisters’ polished performance, perfect comic timing and banter – as well as their warmth – can still raise a smile today.

Jenny Eclair, part of the 100 First Women Portraits exhibition, by Anita Corbin

Women are still continuing to break the traditions of comedy today. As part of the 100 First Women Portraits exhibition by Anita Corbin, the photograph of Jenny Eclair represents her achievement at becoming the First Woman to receive the coveted Edinburgh Comedy Award (previously the Perrier Comedy Awards) in 1995. Jenny claimed the prize after 15 consecutive male wins since the award’s inception in 1980.

Written by social historian Louise Peskett.

I’m indebted to Claire Mortimer and the website funnywomen.com for the information about Gert and Daisy,

Also, thanks to Muriel at Steyning Museum.

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

This picture was taken at Preston Manor on 31 October 2007 and shows the arrival of a ghost tour guide ready to escort her group around the famously haunted house and scare the wits out of them in the process. But what skills do you need to be a ghost tour guide?

Ghost Tour Guide 31 October 2007

I like this image because it captures a moment of mystery and anticipation of horror ahead. It also shows a small corner of the house down in the basement level where all glitz and grandeur have been left behind and you are dropped into a bleak place of worn flagstone floors and ancient wooden doors concealing soot-pitted recesses in which phantoms might lurk.

Between September 2006 and October 2016, I organised and ran 95 ghost events at Preston Manor assisted by a magnificent team of people who know how to tell a great ghost story. The woman in this picture is more usually seen in her post of Museum Learning Assistant. Her role is Mrs Storey, Preston Manor’s Victorian housekeeper in our educational session when children come to Preston Manor dressed as Victorian servants to find out about life working as a servant in the year 1897.

With a slight adaption of costume and with the addition of some ghoulish make-up Mrs Storey has become the housekeeper you would not want to meet on a dark night. Unless you are seeking the answer to the perennial question –  is Preston Manor really haunted?

Preston Manor ghosts and the Victorians

I have spent many years researching the subject of the Preston Manor ghosts going back to when the house was a private family home. After their husband and father, Captain Macdonald died in1881, the Macdonald family women were landed with the problem of what to do with the ghosts that troubled them. Mother, Eleanor Macdonald and twin daughters Diana and Lily were disturbed by sightings of a mysterious White Lady who appeared and disappeared by walking through walls and by other unexplained paranormal phenomena. In search of answers séances were held to try to commune with the spirits. It was a popular activity with Victorian ladies in dark winter months when the nights were drawing in. Speaking with the undead felt like a good way to pass the time.

The families living at Preston Manor in the days before it became a museum in 1933 have left us with fabulously creepy stories telling their experience of living in a haunted house. What’s more, the hauntings never stopped, even to the present day, although the séances of the 1880s and 1890s were intended to lay the ghosts to rest.

These ghosts are now part of the Preston Manor collection. They were inherited from the last private owners, the Thomas-Stanfords who donated the house, contents and gardens and ghosts to the town of Brighton at their deaths in 1932.

Not everyone approves of the illogical subject of ghosts told as ‘real’ history.  For me ghosts are welded to British history and are part of our national story and so have a place in museums and historic houses. Ghosts live in our imaginations in Shakespeare, in Dickens, at Halloween and at Christmas. What historic building does not have a ghost story and what visitor does not want to hear that story told?

The skills of the stand-up comedian

I often tell people that being a ghost tour guide can be likened to being a stand-up comedian. This is not because a ghost tour guide tells jokes but because you are a lone person standing in front of an audience who require something special from you. In the case of the comedian it is laughs. In the case of the ghost tour guide the requirement is fear or chills at the very least. Some of your audience will be receptive and ready to laugh or be chilled but some in your group will present ‘come on then, make me scared’ expressions on their faces. For a ghost tour guide this expression can be as scary as the stories they are about to reveal. Put in that position you really are alone, spot-lit on the stage. Make me Scared and Make me Laugh sit in the same zone. You are tapping into human and probably primeval emotions.

Taking a ghost tour in a historic house is completely different from guiding a group through the house on a traditional history tour with its set formula and script. After all, mysterious things can happen on a ghost tour when you have bravely opened that portal to The Other Side.

The stand-up comedian and the ghost tour guide are both story-tellers and both need the same set of story-telling skills. These will be natural skills that you are born with and have to hone that skill over the years. Some people can tell a great story, funny or scary and some people can’t. This is why a ghost tour guide is not a job anyone can do. I can provide a potential ghost tour guide with plenty of ghost stories to tell, but how that story is told is crucial to success. A comedy writer could provide a trainee stand-up comedian with plenty of jokes but delivery is all.

Taking a ghost tour hands you the tricky job of producing a fear response in your audience. I have seen people walk out of a ghost tour because they are too scared to continue. That’s surely a success. If a comedian has an audience member walk out it isn’t usually because he or she is too funny. People will stick around for great laughs. A walk-out in that instance is an indication of failure. Interestingly, a ghost tour guide can and even should occasionally use a little humour. An hour with an unrelentingly sombre ghost tour guide would not be a pleasant night out. If the ghost tour guide is too funny or too theatrical much can be lost regarding the stories told. Worse, everything the guide tells you will come across as a scripted dramatised theatre-act. There is a certain pitch to a successful ghost tour. Get it wrong either way and you’ve lost your audience and told an unconvincing tale.

Telling the truth

The crucial element is truth. I am ever-conscious of the ethics of declaring Preston Manor an authentic haunted house because of the requirement of museums to be places of the genuine article. You would not expect to visit a museum and see a fake artefact on display unless it was clearly labelled as a copy or a prop made for a specific and identified reason. The same must be so of ghosts. Over the years, I have been in search of the truth at Preston Manor and many years of on-going research has uncovered one absolute fact. Whichever way you interpret Preston Manor, whoever’s family story you tell, the house has ghosts running through it indelibly like the proverbial stick of Brighton rock and I write this as a sceptic. Bite a slice anywhere in Preston Manor’s long history and you will read the word HAUNTED.

I would like to thank the many ghost tour guides who have given their considerable skills to Preston Manor, and who continue to do so, bringing alive the histories of those who aren’t.

Paula Wrightson, Venue Officer Preston Manor

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

Beth has chosen a new selection of objects this week, along with a Pavilion Garden regular. She’s also drawn them herself to inspire you to join in. Take a look.

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.

The estate fox, from regular Ann. She has a bandaged thumb so doesn’t rate it it that highly, but I think you can see its a fox!

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.

Here’s this week’s additional drawing ideas:

• Draw a close up of the eye. Try your teeth. Do a study of different people’s ears.
• Draw the view out of a window.
• Invent your own insects.

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.

A highpoint of my time working as the Adult Learning Officer for Royal Pavilion & Museums Adult Event Programme came in 2014 when the centenary of the start of the First World War bought an opportunity to open the archives and uncover the story of how the people of Brighton faced a time of unprecedented international crisis.

This picture shows a page from a letter written by Private R. Yates and illustrated by cartoons sent to Ellen Thomas-Stanford of Preston Manor on 10 November 1914.

The letter caught my attention because the cartoon made me smile and had me wondering. What’s a Jack Johnson?

Private Yates was a superb cartoonist. Here he sketches himself at the moment of explosion, his cap blown clear off his head. I love his expression of surprise and the way he has captured the sheer force, noise and mayhem of war with a few strokes of his pen.

A thank you letter from hospital

Private Yates wrote the letter from his bed at the Royal Navy Hospital Plymouth where he was being treated for wounds. He thanked Ellen Thomas-Stanford for the gifts she sent to him and the other wounded men. He did not know her personally. Mrs Thomas-Stanford was an unknown but much-appreciated lady benefactor doing her bit for the war effort by making charitable donations of cigarettes and chocolates.

Ellen Thomas-Stanford was 66 years old when war broke out and like many wealthy women, she sought ways she could put her resources to use and help those caught up in war. Britain in 1914 had no National Health Service. In effect, health-care was private. You paid for medical treatment and if you couldn’t pay, you sought help through charities. The nation’s health-care provision was therefore stretched both medically and financially by the constant flow of tens of thousands of men returning wounded from the battlefield.

During the 1914-18 war Ellen and her friends stepped-up their work raising funds for medical charities. Huge sums were raised for The Red Cross and the many military hospitals that sprung up all along Britain’s south coast, some in private homes given over to the wounded. Grand ladies preferred their seaside homes to be used as convalescent hospitals for officers. Lower ranked men like Private Yates would find themselves in more basic surroundings.

A battle story

The Royal Naval Hospital, Plymouth was 150 years old by the time Private Yates was admitted. Treatment would have been the best possible in this old naval hospital but comforts like cigarettes and chocolate were rare luxuries. We can’t know if Private Yates wrote of his own accord or if the wounded men were instructed by their superiors to send letters of thanks. I picture this battle-worn soldier sitting in bed scratching his head wondering what on earth he can write to a well-heeled dignitary in Brighton after he’d expressed his thanks for her gifts.

He describes his path from war to hospital, a vivid account in few words

‘we were at Ypres trying to capture a machine gun which some snipers had in a farmhouse, which they were very fond of hiding in. We were beating back as the enemy were too strong for us’

Then a Jack Johnson exploded

A boxing champ

I guessed a Jack Johnson was military slang and looked for its origin, which I soon discovered. Jack Johnson was a famous American boxer who became the first African-American world heavyweight boxing champion (1908-1915). Johnson was front page news all over the world for his skills in the boxing ring and for the incidents in his private life that came with fame, money and tensions around race in the US at that time. The sporting pages of newspapers, read avidly by soldiers on the Front, were filled with tales of Jack Johnson whose name was on everyone’s lips. British troops in the trenches borrowed his famous name to describe the powerful black-coloured German 150mm heavy artillery shells that exploded with devastating force.

Private Yates ends his short letter by writing ‘I think this is it at present, from Yours Truly, Pte, R. Yates’

And so, that letter from 1914 with its cartoons and message of thanks lay hidden for a century. Reading its message afresh in 2014 I knew I was looking at something extraordinarily special. Here was one man’s brush with death encapsulated in brief words and swiftly-penned drawings folded into a tiny blue envelope stamped ‘Passed by Censor’ and delivered into history.

At the peak of war 12 million letters and parcels a week were sent from Britain to men fighting overseas. Millions of letters also circulated on the home-front, as disposable as today’s electronic digital communications.

Ellen must have cherished this particular letter because she selected it from the thousands of letters from friends, family and person’s unknown to her, that she received in the 1914-1918 period and had preserved in five large leather-bound volumes now kept at Preston Manor.

Paula Wrightson, Venue Officer Preston Manor

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

There’s no shortage of talented cooks and cookery writers to have come from Sussex.  Perhaps the one who has had the most influence on how we eat today is Polegate born Elizabeth David, CBE, (1913 – 1992)

Perhaps fitting for someone who was going to change a nation’s eating habits, David was a rebel.  Although a grand-daughter of a viscount with a wealthy upbringing at Wootton Manor in Folkington (her father was Conservative MP for Eastbourne, Rupert Sackville Wynne) she pushed back against convention, traveled, and dabbled in several careers.  Studying art in Paris, experimenting with acting in London, and even spending a brief time as a shop assistant at Worth fashion house, adventure seemed to follow her.  Running away on a boat with a married actor, she was detained in Italy as a suspected spy, trapped in Greece at the start of the Second World War, and eventually found herself in Cairo in the Second World War where she worked in a library for the British government.

Biography cover of Elizabeth David, by Lisa Chaney, pub. Pan Macmillan, 2010

In 1946 she returned to an England that was very different to the one she had left. Scarred by the war and a series of hard winters, the country was still under the heavy yoke of austerity and food rationing.  With butter, cheese, margarine, cooking fats and meat still to be rationed until 1954 and such delights as tinned apricots cooked in bacon fat, fake marzipan made from beans mashed with almond essence passing as the delicacies of the day, David was appalled by the contrast to the simple, healthy vegetable based diet she had encountered during her years in the Mediterranean.  Friends suggested she take out her frustration by writing about it.

Various magazine articles duly followed and in 1948 she was invited to write a cookery column for Harper’s Bazaar, in which she extolled the virtues of such then exotic foodstuffs as basil, aubergines, and garlic.  This led, in 1950, to David’s first book, simply called A Book of Mediterranean Food.  With a striking cover by artist John Minton that evoked the bright colours of a sunny sky and the sea with a table set out in the sun, the book presented dishes such as moules mariniere, bouillabaisse, and moussaka, all healthy, colourful and promoting sociable eating, to blast away the pale spectre of suet pudding and cabbage from the British table.  At her publisher’s recommendation, David interspersed her well researched recipes with snippets of travel writing, advice on street markets in Italian towns, snapshots of French picnics en famille, descriptions of the smells of fresh herbs growing in sunny gardens.  For today’s reader, bombarded with restaurants, take-aways and TV programmes showcasing food from every corner of the world, it’s hard to understand just how novel and exciting David’s Mediterranean recipes must have seemed to a 1950s readership in need of escapism.  If most people couldn’t travel to the French Riviera or have dinner in a Greek taverna, thanks to A Book of Mediterranean Food they could at least now create a little of that atmosphere – and joie de vivre – in their own homes.

David produced seven more books, notably French Country Cooking (1951), Italian Food (1954), and French Provincial Cooking (1960).  These, plus the several cookery columns and articles for magazines and newspapers she wrote, were to introduce the ordinary British amateur cook (and diner) to delights such as risotto, lasagne, ragu, and dauphinois potatoes and usher in an era where garlic, courgettes, dates, and apricots would become a staple of our supermarket shelves.  Now classics, David’s books didn’t only make Mediterranean food mainstream, they also introduced the British to the idea that food could be a pleasure rather than a chore.  Although detractors claimed David’s recipes were too intimidating for the novice cook, her popularity has been enduring and many cooks today, such as Rick Stein, Jamie Oliver, Nigel Slater, and Prue Leith have acknowledged her as an influence, many appreciating her no nonsense tones and refusal to patronise the reader.

In 1965 David opened a shop in Pimlico, London, where people could buy authentic French pans and other pieces of equipment which were then hard to obtain.

Elizabeth David received many awards in her life, including two honorary doctorates and Fellowship of the Royal Society of Literature for her skills as a writer.  In 1986 she was made a CBE.

She died on 22^nd May 1992 and is buried at St Peter ad Vincula church, Folkington, East Sussex.

In 2012, to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, David was chosen by BBC Radio 4 as one of the 60 Britons who have been most influential during the 60 years of the Queen’s reign.

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.

Before the days of social media Facebook mutual aid groups and neighbourhood Whatsapp teams, a young woman called Violet ‘Betty’ Baxter, became known as the ‘Silver Lady’, for her support and work with those facing homelessness and destitution.

The Silver Lady Fund, administered from Bexhill, is a charity that aims to bring about positive change in the lives of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable both in the UK and internationally.  Some of the projects it supports alongside other donors and partners, are providing homeless shelters, outreach workers and counsellors, and building and repairing schools and wells in rural communities where the impacts of climate change are devastating local livelihoods.

Violet serving tea, by kind permission of The Silver Lady Fund

It began as a modest enterprise to provide food and clothing to impoverished people and accommodation to stranded women in 1880 and was the idea of Reverend Michael Paget Baxter, proprietor of the Christian Herald Newspaper, and his wife Lizzie Baxter, an evangelist who, unusually for a woman of her time, had preached in Germany.  The pair’s granddaughter, Violet ‘Betty’ Baxter (1901 – 1972), who lived between London and Western Esplanade on the Hove Seafront, dramatically developed the scope of the organisation

As a young girl, Betty Baxter was keenly aware of the plights of those born in less favourable circumstances than herself.  Growing up, she supported and was involved with her grandparents’ charitable works and, by age eighteen, was already working at the Hostel for Stranded Girls in London’s East End.

Violet Baxter, the Silver Lady Travelling cafe, by kind permission of the Silver Lady Fund

In the early 1920s, Baxter found herself increasingly shocked at the ever growing number of people living rough on the London streets.  As poverty bit harder after the expense of the First World War, more and more people faced destitution and homelessness.  Whenever she could, Baxter would stop and offer people the price of a cup of tea and a sixpence out of her own purse.  Soon dubbed ‘The Silver Lady’ (silver being the colour of sixpences then), it didn’t take her long to have the idea of setting up a mobile cafe that could travel the streets of London, dispensing hot drinks and food.  She procured a blue and white van and, from 1929, the ‘Silver Lady All Night Travelling Cafe’ started to make its nightly rounds.  Operating every night, including Sundays, around midnight, the cafe would give out hundreds of pots of tea and coffee and snacks including bread and dripping sandwiches and sausages.  Appeals went out, including a twice weekly advert in The Times for donations, money, clothing and shoes.  As the Great Depression squeezed more and more Londoners dry, Baxter’s blue and white van would have been a welcome sight and the difference between staying alive and starvation to London’s teeming population of unemployed.   One grateful ‘customer’ of the Silver Lady All Night Travelling Cafe wrote to a local newspaper to say,  ‘I have been at times on the verge of ending it all, but the kind words and smiles from those at the Coffee Stall have helped to put new life and hope in me to carry on.’  In one year alone, over 60,000 free meals were handed out.

Violet Baxter serving at the silver lady travelling cafe, by kind permission of the Silver Lady Fund

Thanks to Baxter and a team of hard working volunteers, the All Night Silver Lady Travelling Cafe became well-known and donations were generous.  Baxter was also able to put on Christmas dinners and entertainment for Londoners living rough at the coldest time of year.

In 1930 Baxter went on to to found a hostel for homeless women, the Elizabeth Baxter Hostel for Distressed Women and Girls on Lambeth Road.  Learning how easy it was for homeless women to turn to the sex trade, she commissioned a film, ‘The Night Patrol’.  When it was disallowed a license by the board of censors on the grounds that it might discourage young people from coming to London to work as domestic servants, she asked the playright George Bernard Shaw to step in and help.  Even his support couldn’t change their minds, however, and the film, sadly, remained largely unseen. Read his letter to The Times here.

During the Second World War, Baxter moved her operations closer to home, running Silver Lady canteens on the South Coast.  The Hove Home Guard canteen was open every day for the serving of hot meals to the Home Guard and troops billeted in the district.

Article about the Silver Lady travelling cafe, by kind permission of the Silver Lady Fund

Her life dedicated to charitable works, Baxter took over the Christian Herald group of charities after her father died and she became chairman and managing director of the group.

violet Baxter the Silver Lady Travelling Cafe.jpg

At the time of her death, Baxter was living in Hove.  On March 16^th the Times newspaper proclaimed ‘The Silver Lady is dead’.  The ‘champion of down and outs’ as they called her had provided cheer and sustenance for thousands.  In setting up her hostel, she had also shown an understanding of the issues facing vulnerable homeless women and had worked hard to provide a safe haven for many.

The Elizabeth Baxter Hostel for Distressed Women and Girls later moved to Peckham, with the Lambeth Road premises then housing the Elizabeth Baxter Centre, a walk-in medical centre for the homeless.  The Silver Lady Fund is still going strong and keeps alive the ceaseless energy and compassion of Violet ‘Betty’ Baxter, saying on their website: ‘Miss Baxter’s indomitable spirit is something the charity aims to preserve to this day.’

With grateful thanks to Keith McPherson, Trustee, the Silver Lady Fund.

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.

Any fan of early cinema will be familiar with Hove’s pioneering history of early film-making and film makers.  They may have even heard of George Albert Smith, the showman and early film maker who bought the town’s St Ann’s Well Gardens and turned its pump house into a film studio where he made films that introduced such innovative techniques as close-ups and wipes to signify scene changes. Not so many people have heard of his wife, however, or know of the significant contribution she made to early film and Smith’s success. 

Pantomine programme featuring Laura Bayley

Ramsgate born Laura Bayley (1862 – 1938) was already a successful actress before she met Smith.  Alongside her three sisters, with whom she often performed in Brighton, she specialised in light entertainment, particularly revues, burlesques and pantomimes.  Programmes for the Aquarium Theatre near Brighton’s Palace Pier  show her filling leading roles in many shows. The programme for ‘Little Bo Peep’, the ‘grand Christmas pantomime’ of 1893, for example, has her at the top of the bill as ‘Boy Blue’. In 1894 her Robin Hood in ‘Babes in the Wood’ was described by the Brighton Herald as ‘distinctly comely and cheery’.

It’s not clear how Laura met Smith, although, as he often trod the boards as a stage hypnotist and illusionist, they must have moved in the same circles.  The couple married in 1888 and lived in Hove just before Smith took over the lease for St Ann’s Well Gardens, which he ran as a pleasure garden as well as using for his experiments in early film.  Laura took on the lead role in a great many of Smith’s first short productions, such as ‘Hanging Out the Clothes’ (1897), ‘Santa Claus’ (1898), ‘Cinderella’ (1898) and ‘Let Me Dream Again’ (1900).  Although today, Smith carries the acclaim for these pioneering films, as today’s viewers would agree, it’s doubtful that they would have made such an impact without Laura’s formidable talent and her knack, honed from her long stage career, of knowing exactly what an audience wants.

The Kiss in the Tunnel, G.A. Smith, 1899. Courtesy of Screen Archive South East and the BFI National Archive.

In ‘The Kiss in the Tunnel’ (1899), a one minute, three seconds long short of a couple on a train grabbing a kiss as it goes through a tunnel, it’s Laura’s slightly exaggerated body language and sense of mischief that has the viewer hooked.

The Kiss in the Tunnel, G.A. Smith, 1899. Courtesy of Screen Archive South East and the BFI National Archive.

The Kiss in the Tunnel, G.A. Smith, 1899. Courtesy of Screen Archive South East and the BFI National Archive.

In ‘Mary Jane’s Mishap’ (1903), a gripping and darkly comic four minute tale of a maid who (spoiler alert) lights the stove with paraffin to disastrous consequences, Laura’s unselfconscious performance, boot polish smeared on her face and hair messed up, delves into slapstick and manages single-handedly to rein the story in before it becomes out and out tragedy. Her charisma, energy, and comic timing are the stuff of the best stand-up comedy routine.

Would it be far fetched to say that Hove’s Laura Bayley could be described as Britain’s first female screen comedian?

Not only did Laura help to cement her husband’s name in the history of early cinema by making them cackle into life as his films’ leading actress but it’s acknowledged today that she’s more than likely a major player herself.  Who better to advise Smith on visual comedy and audience expectation?  Today, she’s also thought to have helped Smith on technical issues too, taking an uncredited directing role on many of his works and supervising some of his comic shorts.  She’s also known to have taken a leading role in making short films on the ‘Biokam’, an early home camera and projector, which she sold.   Today many people still debate whether women can truly be funny.  As early as the turn of the twentieth century Laura Bayley was giving early proof that they certainly can, while flying the flag for women’s activity in film both in front of and behind the camera.

Written by Louise Peskett

More information

• Close Look at Darling ‘Special Effects’ cine-camera used by George Albert Smith

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

Let’s not forget about the insect life inside your homes. While you may be enjoying spending time outdoors and spotting creepy-crawlies, you may not be able to go out at all, or you may feel limited by your one trip out a day.

Aside from the unwanted insects, like case-bearing moths – a pest in both homes and museums – you may encounter many other invertebrates that wander in. Rare visitors may include larger moths, beetles and hoverflies, as well as many more flying and crawling invertebrates. If you’re really keen you can leave your window open at night and see what is attracted in by the light.

A moth photographed inside a house (taken with Olympus TG5 point and shoot camera on macro setting) © Lee Ismail.

During the winter, you may have found certain butterflies inside your house. Species such as the peacock and small tortoiseshell can sometimes be found hibernating indoors. Sheds are much more suitable for this, as there’s less chance of them being disturbed and it’s the right temperature.

Peacock butterfly feeding on blossom during spring (taken with a DSLR camera) © Lee Ismail.

As spring is progressing, more butterfly species are emerging. Due to their larger size, most butterflies are can be seen out of the window. Using a careful aim of the binoculars, I was able to identify a red admiral when it settled on a sunny external windowsill.

Get Involved

Identifying butterflies is one of the easiest places to start as they are relatively large and have striking colours and patterns. There are many useful books and plenty of online guides (see below). Of course, if you can get outside, now is an excellent time to see them in woodlands, parks and gardens. The speckled wood is very reliably seen in patches of sunlight in a shady woodland.

Whether it’s inside or outside, if you manage to take a picture but can’t identify an insect (or any other organism) upload it to iSpot so that someone can identify it for you. There’s also a chance this year to get involved in the City Nature Challenge to spot and upload your nature sightings.

Insects are perfect for macro photography, there are some impressive cameras and lenses out there. But even your smartphone can take surprisingly high-quality pictures. Why not share yours on social media?

Lime hawkmoth caterpillar (Mimas tiliae) (taken with a smartphone) © Lee Ismail.

Jumping spider (taken with Olympus TG5 point and shoot camera on macro setting) © Lee Ismail.

Of course, paying attention to anything closely means you’ll not only see the animal you’re looking at but, the vegetation too. Keep an eye out for the next series of posts about plants.

The Field Studies Council (FSC) has excellent guides for insects, which are often very easy to use

The Woodland Trust produce handy swatches too:

Minibeasts swatch

Invertebrates 

Other insects

Butterfly Conservation has Identify a Butterfly

The Natural History Museum has Spiders in your Home

Discover More

Read other posts in the Nature at Home series

Kerrie Curzon, Collections Assistant

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

This Sunday was to be the penultimate match of the season for Brighton & Hove Albion Women’s Team. Postponed due to current events, it seemed like a good opportunity to celebrate the current manager of the team, Hope Powell, as part of our 100 Pioneering Women of Sussex blog series.

On a scorching July evening the atmosphere was palpable inside Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium. Inside the 25,000 crowd started proceedings singing the National Anthem with Great Britain Women’s Olympic Football Team. The first event of the 2012 London Olympics resulted in a 1–0 GB victory over New Zealand. The team went on to win their group without conceding a goal. At Wembley 70,584 spectators witnessed a memorable 1–0 win over Brazil. The team were knocked out in the quarterfinals by 2–0 by Canada but they had furthered the ascendency of women’s football in this country.

Hope Powell, part of the series 100 First Women Portraits by Anita Corbin

The team was led by coach Hope Powell, who is recognised for her achievements in Anita Corbin’s 100 First Women Portraits exhibition.

Born in 1966 in Lewisham, London, Hope was brought up on a council estate with her mother, brother, stepfather, two stepbrothers and a stepsister. She started playing football at age six and by seven was the only girl hanging around a bunch of football-mad boys. At school Hope and another girl were the only females playing football with a team of boys.

Speaking recently to Sussex Life about school, football and home life, Hope said; “The West Indian Culture didn’t consider football a female sport …when I had a match or training, I had to sneak out of the house, I was like the Bend it Like Beckham girl.”

At this time, the FA banned girls over 11 from playing in mixed teams. Ever resilient, Hope discovered women’s club Millwall Lionesses under coach Alan May. Aged 16 she was discovered by scouts, resulting in her first cap for England in 1983. As an attacking midfielder, Hope received 66 international caps and played in the 1995 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Hope Powell, manager of Brighton & Hove Albion Women’s team, BHAFC/Paul Hazlewood

Despite the appalling lack of funding for women’s football in the 1980s and 1990s, undeterred like many of her peers, Hope had part-time jobs and held fundraisers for fees and equipment. By 31, Hope was the youngest-ever coach of a national first team, but also the first women and first non-white manager. During her record 15 years tenure as England Lionesses’ coach, many consider her greatest achievement with the team as reaching the final of the Euros 2009 (losing to Germany).

By 2013, such glory led to reproach when Hope was sacked as England’s coach after a disappointing Euro 2013 where the team ended bottom of their group.

Hope Powell, manager of Brighton & Hove Albion Women’s team, BHAFC/Paul Hazlewood

The Guardian did praise Hope for modernising women’s football in this country, as heroic, awe-inspiring and revolutionary. She raised the bar, inspired the FA to demand better standards, but pointed out ‘in a cruel twist of fate that is exactly what the FA has done in sacking her.’

In 100 First Women Portraits, Hope is celebrated for being the first woman to achieve the UEFA Pro License in 2003. This is the highest coaching certificate required to permanently manage a football club in a European nation’s top-tier league system. After her dismissal from the national team, Hope traveled around the world working for UEFA and FIFA but missed working with a team.

In an interview in 2019, Hope discussed how she wasn’t sure if she could face management again, but the opportunity with Brighton & Hove Albion Women felt right.  She said; “I knew Brighton was a progressive, ambitious club. They understand where they are and where they want to be but within reason. That really appealed to me.” Brighton are making steady progress in the FA’s newly revamped Women’s Super League playing against such illustrious teams such as Chelsea, Man City and Arsenal.

Hope Powell, manager of Brighton & Hove Albion Women’s team

Speaking to The Telegraph on 30 March 2020 during the lockdown, Hope said;”It’s about people first and football second.” She conducts daily staff meetings and team video calls online from her kitchen. It evokes a softer image of the coach rarely revealed in the past. Anita Corbin’s photograph captures a relaxed Hope, her glasses slightly lowered from her face, head tilted, bearing an open mouth smile. Hope herself has said that she has learnt to be more patient with players at club level. With a hint at self-deprecation, she likened herself to a Sergeant Major, but said; “I don’t mind having a good time but remember; this is your job. There are rules. Stick to them. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Written by Lisa Hinkins, MA Student, Museum Gallery Explainer. Lifelong Brighton & Hove Albion supporter and of the Women’s game.

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

We often talk about the life of George IV who built the Royal Pavilion but seldom mention his father. Clare Hartfield looks at the life of George III and why his nickname of ‘Farmer George’ marks such a contrast with his son.

When George III died in 1820 he had been king for almost sixty years. Only Queen Victoria and our current Queen Elizabeth II have reigned in the UK for longer.

George III by Joshua Reynolds, c1765

George III was the third reigning monarch of the house of Hanover, but even though this was a German royal family, George was born in Britain, spoke English as his first language and never visited Hanover. Unlike his predecessors, he was very much viewed as a British king through and through.

How did the public feel about George III, his subsequent illness and his passing?

Early years and marriage

George III was only 12 years old when his father Fredrick died in 1751 leaving him as heir to the throne. As his parents had a terribly bitter relationship with the king, his mother Augusta of Saxe-Gotha and his mentor Lord Bute encouraged him to deny the offer of his own residence at St James’ Palace and stay with them. They instilled a sense of strict morality and helped to prepare him for the responsibility of the crown.

George III ascended to the throne following the death of his grandfather in 1760. He married Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz on 8 September 1761and on September 22 of the same year, they were both crowned at Westminster Abbey. In comparison to his predecessors and his sons, George III never took a mistress and seemed to have a good marriage. They had 15 children – nine sons and six daughters.

George and Charlotte’s happy marriage and many children became an ideal in the eyes of the public. Their predecessors had not shown such a happy example. George III’s great grandfather, George I, locked his wife up for the rest of her life for adultery while his mistress bore him three children.

It was George III who established the royal marriages act of 1772. It followed the marriage of his brother Henry Duke of Cumberland to Anne Horton, a lady of a lower social class than George would have chosen for him. It was this same 1772 Act that would invalidate George IV’s marriage to Maria Fitzherbert.

George was viewed by the public as a moral and respectable king. He gained the nickname ‘Farmer George’ thanks to his agricultural interests. Satirists mocked his interest in mundane topics such as agriculture, industry and science rather than art. Later this name would be used to portray his relative frugality in comparison to the wreckless spending of his son, the Prince of Wales.

A cure for the king?

George III had his first serious bout of illness in the summer of 1788 and there has been much research over the years to discover what the illness really was.

He began to suffer from severe stomach pains and became increasingly confused. Symptoms included speaking for many hours without pause, which led to foaming at the mouth. He would repeat himself and write sentences with up to 400 words at a time. Doctors were at a loss to explain this condition and by December he was unable to rule effectively.

In 1788, Doctor Francis Willis was recommended to Queen Charlotte by the wife of an equerry. There was the usual blood letting and blistering of the skin, but also the use of a straitjacket and restraints. These upsetting events happened in the White House at Kew Palace and his wife Queen Charlotte was kept separated from him at this time.

In February 1789, the Regency Bill, authorised the Prince of Wales to act as regent, a role which appoints a person to administer the state because the monarch is a minor or is absent or incapacitated. The bill was introduced and passed in the House of Commons but George III recovered before the House of Lords could pass it.

Dr Willis was celebrated for his achievements in ‘curing’ the king, but it would only prove temporary. Twelve years later in 1801 he suffered a relapse and all his symptoms retured. He was treated again by the two sons of Dr Willis but suffered a third and final relapse in 1810.

So what caused his illness? The long standing theory of porphyria, a disease that can affect the nervous system, has recently been challenged. In 2013 a study was made by Dr Peter Garrard and Dr Vassiliki Rentoumi by analysing his use of language.

According to this new research, there is strong evidence to suggest that the original diagnosis of a mania of some kind was actually correct. The features of repetition, more colourful and creative language, and talking non-stop until foam ran from the mouth, are the same features recognised in the speech and writing of patients who are in the manic phase of psychiatric illnesses like bipolar disorder.

Even his tell-tale blue urine may have been down to the medicinal use of gentian, a blue flowering plant.

Garrard suggests that the explanations we come up with for patients in the past reflect our own current attitudes and opinions on illness. A hereditary blood disease caused by a ‘pure’ bloodline was seemingly more palatable than a mental heath issue.

Their work is interesting as it goes back to the doctors’ original diagnosis at the time, attributing it to mania or another form of mental illness. There was even talk at the time that it was the behaviour of the Prince of Wales particularly his acute debt and perceived lack of morality which pushed his father over the edge.

A grand and imposing spectacle

When King George III died on 29 January 1820, the country was already mourning the loss of his son Edward, Duke of Kent, only six days earlier.

To announce his death, the great bell of St Paul’s Cathedral rang at midnight. The proclamation of George IV’s accession was delayed for a day to avoid January 30th –  the anniversary of the execution of King Charles I.

The ceremony of Lying in State took place in the Royal apartments at Windsor Castle on the morning of 15 February, with his funeral and interment taking place at St George’s Chapel the following evening.

According to The Globe newspaper, the casket was ‘covered with a fine Holland Sheet and a Purple Velvet Pall, adorned with Ten Escocheons of the Imperial Arms, carried by Ten Yeomen of the Guard, under a Canopy of Purple Velvet’. The procession was lined by Grenadiers of the Foot Guards, ‘every fourth man bearing a flambeau‘ to light their way.

‘As the long array consisting of the mourners in their sable costumes, of heralds in their gaudy tabards, and Princes of the Blood in their sad-coloured mantles – moved, by torchlight, from the principal porch of Windsor Castle to St. George’s Chapel, it presented a grand and imposing spectacle. The flourish of trumpets, and the sound of the muffled drums, mingling with the peal of the minute-guns and the tolling of the death-bell, added to the solemnity of the scene.’

The newly ascended George IV was notably absent. His brother Fredrick, always his father’s favourite, was the lead mourner at the funeral. But it was the new king’s own ill health which kept him away and there were fears that another king’s funeral might soon follow.

Even fashion was affected by George III’s death. The following is from the April 1820 edition of the fashion magazine La Belle Assemblee,  published around three months after his death:

‘As we have before observed, Taste and Genius know how to draw aside the sable veil of woe, and to divest it of its cloudy monotony. The change of mourning which took place on Sunday, the 19th of March, aided, also, in a great degree, to lighten the heavy appearance of solemn black, and to give a diversity to the garb of sorrow…

Yet the needy manufacturer, who has been toiling at the loom in vain to impart brilliancy and freshness to the various hues of spring, and has racked invention for the newest patterns, call loudly for our commiseration, and makes us wish for the outward appearance of sorrow to be laid aside, as soon as is consistent with a proper and decorous respect paid to the memory of one of the best of England’s Kings.’

Image credit: Los Angeles County Museum of Art

This fashion plate shows how long official mourning periods were – even by the spring there was still only a tiny amount of white decoration on a fashionable dress of that month.

George IV’s coronation soon cost the country £240,000, equivalent to almost £14 million today. When the public looked back at the much smaller sum of £70,000 spent by his father on his joint coronation with Queen Charlotte, some may have felt even more sorrow that their good king ‘Farmer George’ had met such a sad end.

I feel that George III was probably even more loved and respected after his passing. Perhaps his strong relationship with Queen Charlotte would prove to be a role model for the young Queen Victoria and Prince Albert?

Clare Hartfield, Visitor Services Officer