Story Category: Legacy

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

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the death of Jane Austen. To commemorate the event we have created a new temporary display, Jane Austen by the Sea, which can be seen in the Prince Regent Gallery in the Royal Pavilion. It explores the great novelist’s relationship with the seaside, sea-bathing and the Prince Regent.

Among the exhibits is a print I particularly like. It is an image of a man of Indian origin, dressed in what appears to be Indian clothing, standing against an imagined landscape that combines a seascape, a garden and a building with minarets and a dome. The building is reminiscent of both the Royal Pavilion and images created by Thomas and William Daniell. The Daniells were two artists who travelled through India in the 1780s and 90s, and subsequently painted images of India for a Western audience who were keen to see pictures of the unfamiliar East.

Lithograph showing Sake Dean Mahomed, c1820-25

The man in the print is entrepreneur Sake Dean Mahomed, one of the best known early Asian immigrants to Britain. He was born in 1759 in Patna, North-eastern India, and later joined the Native Infantry of the East India Company. After a successful military career, he moved to Ireland in 1784 where he studied English and fell in love with an Irish woman whom he later married. He published a book in English about his travels in 1794 and moved to London with his family in 1807. There he opened a Hindoostane Coffee House, and introduced Indian cuisine to the English palate. He later became a professional ‘shampooer’ in Brighton, where he opened Mahomed’s Baths near the seafront in 1812. His business was described in advertisements as:

‘The Indian Medicated Vapour Bath, a cure to many diseases and giving full relief when everything fails; particularly Rheumatic and paralytic, gout, stiff joints, old sprains, lame legs, aches and pains in the joints’.

He eventually became ‘shampooing surgeon’ to George IV and William IV.

The print, a lithograph by Thomas Mann Baynes and printed by Charles Joseph Hullmandel, is one of many images of the illustrious Sake Dean Mahomed. It is a testament to both Georgian society’s continued fascination with the East, and a personal respect for Mahomed. The dress he is wearing in this picture was a cultural hybrid, probably invented by Mahomed himself and worn at court, with the intention of looking both exotic and modern, combining Eastern and Western features. Under the thigh-length, long-sleeved silk coat in the style of Indian court dress, for example, he wears a pair of tailored long breeches that are in fact a very early pair of trousers. Astonishingly, Mahomed’s extraordinary outfit survives in our collection, and we have displayed it alongside the print in the Jane Austen exhibition. Even his red leather shoes survive, but because the outfit is on open display we have not been able to include these. A large portrait of Mahomed, in Western dress, can be seen in the history galleries of Brighton Museum.

Sake Dean Mahomed’s court dress in the Jane Austen by the Sea display

Sake Dean Mahomed’s shoes

Sake Dean Mahomed’s Vapour Baths, Brighton, c1820

And what about Jane Austen ‘taking the waters’ or ‘being dipped’? We know that she loved the sea and frequently visited seaside resorts, among them Sidmouth, Dawlish, Colyton, Teignmouth, Charmouth and Lyme Regis. We cannot be sure that she ever visited Brighton, but it is likely that she knew about the town through the reports of her brother Henry, who was stationed here and nearby in the 1790s, while serving in the Oxfordshire militia. Both the seaside in general and Brighton in particular were a great inspiration for Austen’s work and fashionable ‘watering places’ feature in novels like Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Mansfield Park and her last, unfinished, novel Sanditon. A manuscript of Sanditon, in her sister Cassandra’s hand, is on display in our exhibition, on loan from Jane Austen’s House Museum in Chawton.

Bathing Machines (Brighton), after
Thomas Rowlandson, 1790

Despite enjoying the seaside, Austen never learnt to swim. Like many seaside visitors she relied on the help of a ‘dipper’, a strong person who would lower you into the shallow water, usually from the steps of a bathing machine that had been pulled into the sea by a donkey. In 1804 Austen caught a fever while staying in Lyme and decided to take to the bathing machines. She wrote to Cassandra, who was in Weymouth at the time: ‘I continue quite well, in proof of which I have bathed again this morning.’ At times she even seems to have overindulged in dipping and sea-bathing. She reports in another letter:

‘The bathing was so delightful this morning and Molly [probably her dipper] so pressing me to enjoy myself that I staid in rather too long, as since the middle of the day I have felt unreasonably tired. I shall be more careful tomorrow, as I had before intended.’

Alexandra Loske, Curator of Jane Austen by the Sea.

Jane Austen by the Sea forms part of our Regency Season in 2017, which will also include the exhibition Constable and Brighton, and the display Visions of the Royal Pavilion Estate (both at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery).

A version of this article was previously published in the June 2017 issue of Viva Brighton Magazine.

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

As a communications officer for Royal Pavilion & Museums, I’m always thinking about our audiences and how we address their needs and interests. So when the UK punk movement, which I have a personal interest in, started to gear up for its 40^th anniversary, I felt that it was something many other people in Brighton & Hove might also be interested in celebrating.

Buzzcocks, copyright Kevin Cummins

I regularly work with our Programming team to promote exhibitions and displays across our five venues, but in this case I got to be involved in developing the idea and agreeing a focus. Having initially envisaged a diverse ‘Punk in Print’ display in Brighton Museum’s Print and Drawings Gallery we realised that much of that ground was being trodden elsewhere, but that we had a great opportunity to home in on the work of two key photographers we were planning to include.

I’d worked with leading music photographer Kevin Cummins, a fellow Mancunian, in a couple of small ways previously, and he’d kindly agreed to lend iconic images of the north west punk scene to our display.  And through the director of a recent film about one of my favourite bands, The Damned, I’d made contact with legendary rock photographer Ian Dickson, whose pictures of the band had long been my favourites and who turned out to live in Brighton.  When Ian mused about mounting a wider display of his punk photography my Programming colleagues loved the idea, and we decided to invite both artists to share their individual takes on the birth of UK punk.

The Damned, 1977, copyright Ian Dickson

Captain Sensible and Jo Nightingale

As well as publicising the display, cleverly named ‘Photo-punk’ by our Marketing Manager Jemma Treweek, my interest in UK punk led me to become involved in its curation; from collaborating with our Creative Programming Curator Jody East and the photographers on image selection and layout, to writing background information and editing captions. I also managed to secure the loan of a guitar and trademark outfit from The Damned’s Captain Sensible, and my meeting with him in the Royal Pavilion’s tearoom has definitely been a highlight of the process!

It’s been wonderful to meet and work with these esteemed photographers and help showcase their pioneering work on punk; it’s been great to see that Brighton Museum’s visitors, both regular and new, have enjoyed the exhibition since it went live.

Jo Nightingale, Press and PR Officer

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

Possibly the most dramatic thing a wall can do is fall down – all the more so if the wall abuts a churchyard and its fall exposes ancient graves. Drama may also be found if the wall contains gruesome information relating to a brutal murder or entombs the body of a bricked up nun.

Falling walls

At approximately 4.30am on 15 December 1981 there was a spectacular collapse of the wall between Preston Manor south lawns and the graveyard at St. Peter’s Church.

Collapsed wall at Preston Manor showing St Peter’s Church, 1981. Courtesy John Barrow

The wall had no known date but Preston Court Roll documents from the Sussex Records Society show a wal has existed in that spot since 1547 when Richard Elrington of ‘the farmhouse at Preston,’ acquired some church land for use as an orchard. This requisition explains why the tower of St Peter’s Church protrudes into the Manor gardens.

Responsibility for rebuilding the wall fell to Brighton Council because since Richard Elrington’s day the wall has belonged to the Manor rather than the Church since Richard Elrington’s day. As the 1547 document states, ‘the said Richard shall make up all the walls of the church-yard now being in decay.’

Collapsed wall at Preston Manor, 1981. Courtesy John Barrow

Listing status meant an application had to be made to the Secretary of State to demolish the remainder of the wall, as it had become unsafe. Mr Morley, Director of Royal Pavilion & Museums at that time, favoured replacement in the form of an historically accurate Sussex flint wall for the entire length. A less ambitious option of planting a yew hedge on the southern end was considered but rejected.

Rebuilding work eventually began on 3 May 1983 and lasted 25 weeks.

At a site meeting held on 20 June 1983 the Borough Engineer’s department were given the concrete test certificates. These documents were required to prove the foundations were capable of taking the weighty load – for the wall is immense, more like a castle wall than a churchyard wall, and includes five sturdy brick buttresses at the north end.

Recognition of the Preston Manor garden walls gathered pace from the early 1980s.

In a 1983 report the curator, David Beevers, wrote:

‘…the garden walls of Preston Manor are a unique feature, and provide considerable pleasure to our visitors. The house and gardens should be regarded as a totality. Apart from the walls surrounding Kipling’s house at Rottingdean, the walled gardens at Preston are the only examples to be seen within the Borough of Brighton. Even in the wider context of Sussex, they are rare and valuable.’

Today visitors to Preston Manor and St Peter’s Church would be forgiven for believing the restored wall to be centuries old rather than a mere 34 years. The flints and mortar have weathered and plant life has grown, giving the impression of antiquity.

Restored south wall of Preston Manor, May 2017

Floral walls

In May and June fan-trained roses are in bloom and you will also find various species of wall-loving wild flowers including the aptly named Pellitory-of-the-wall.

Pellitory of the Wall, May 2017

Pellitory-of-the-wall is a common plant that everyone has seen but few really notice. Herbalists of the past used this plant to ease a range of diverse complaints from urinary infections to tinnitus. The apothecary Nicolas Culpepper (1615-1654) recommended Pellitory-of-the-wall for cosmetic purposes: ‘the said juice made into a liniment…helpeth the hair from falling off the head.’

Yellow Corydalis, May 2017

Yellow corydalis is in flower at the base of the wall. This attractive member of the poppy family originated in the Alpine regions but now grows freely in Britain as it thrives on neglect in cool shady places.

In 2015 volunteers from St Peter’s Church cleared a plot on the eastern side of the wall and planted a mix of wildflowers, which self-seed annually to produce a display attractive to visitors and supportive of bees and butterflies.

A postcard donated to Preston Manor in 1979 by former butler Mr Maurice Elphick (1885-1980) shows the north end of the wall covered with ivy. The tower on the south face of Preston Manor was demolished after 1905 and the ivy removed mid-century to protect the fabric of the building.

Preston Manor House and Church

The raised grassy mound under the church tower was turned into a rockery by Sir Charles Thomas-Stanford after 1905. Rockeries became popular in the early 20^th century as a naturalistic rebellion against Victorian formality. Parts of the low rockery wall can still be seen today in gardens that are open to the public every day and free to visit.

Rockeries & Vampires

Rose Frost as vampire Lucy in adaptation of Dracula, 2016. Courtesy Tanya Cressey.

Drama occurred on Sir Charles’s rockery during the staging of the death of Lucy Westenra in the acclaimed production of Bram Stocker’s ‘Dracula’ by Brighton’s Brief Hiatus theatre company. Here, accompanied by blood-curdling screams echoing across Preston Park, vampire Lucy was despatched by a stake through her heart on eight nights in October and November 2016.

Conor Baum directing Dracula by Preston Manor walls, 2016. Courtesy Tanya Cressey.

Murderous walls

If you walk into the churchyard you will find a plaque fixed onto the restored wall in commemoration of 1831 murder victim, Celia Holloway.

‘Beneath this path are deposited portions of the remains of Celia Holloway who was brutally murdered in the Lover’s Walk of this parish.’

Celia Holloway plaque 1981. Courtesy John Barrow.

As this plaque was reinstated in 1983 and no path exists, there is some doubt as to the exact location of the portions of poor Celia.

Celia’s husband John and his accomplice lover Ann Kennet decapitated and dismembered Celia not at Lover’s Walk but at a slum dwelling in the now demolished Donkey Row, Brighton (not far from the Royal Pavilion) and buried her torso in a shallow grave in Lover’s Walk near Preston Manor. John and Ann soon apprehended and tried for Celia’s murder. John was found guilty and executed by hanging. Astonishingly, Ann walked free.

There are a number of notable persons buried at St. Peter’s including two veterans of the Battle of Waterloo but Celia Holloway is the best known and most piteous.

Entombing walls

Re-enactment of bricked up nun at Preston Manor

Preston Manor is famously claimed to be haunted and is supposedly home to various white and grey female figures wearing long dresses or robes. The house has ancient origins and it is possible a religious building once stood on the spot or nearby, so ghostly nuns are appropriate.

Entombed nuns are a common motif in female ghost sightings across the British Isles ranking in popularity with suicidal maid-servants delivered of illegitimate babies.

The bricked-up nun legend was well known to the Edwardians. In E. Nesbit’s children’s classic, The Railway Children (1906) the character of Roberta, played so memorably by Jenny Agutter in the 1970 film, creeps fearfully into a dark railway tunnel to rescue an injured boy: ‘she knew now, she thought, what nuns who were bricked up alive in convent walls felt like.’

The legend at Preston Manor probably started with the finding of the buried skeleton close to the Manor south wall in January 1897 following a séance some months before. At the séance the ghost of a nun, Sister Agnes was contacted via a ouija board. She spoke of being excommunicated and buried in an unconsecrated location leaving her a wandering spirit.

Original documents regarding the findings at the séance are held at Preston Manor but there is no mention of Sister Agnes being bricked-up in a wall. Over the years fact and fable have become entwined creating an enduring and melodramatic story with no basis in truth…although perhaps not all walls in and around Preston Manor have yet revealed their secrets.

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.

As you may have seen in the news last week, a Quaker burial ground has been discovered during redevelopment work on the Brighton Dome Corn Exchange.

While archaeologists continue to examine the site, several of my colleagues have been piecing together some facts about the burial ground. In this post, I’ll bring together what we currently know about the history of this section of the Royal Pavilion Estate.

The Quaker Meeting House

Cropped detail from 1799 map of Brighthelmston

The cemetery was located near a Quaker Meeting House which stood on North Street during the 18th century. A 1799 map of Brighton shows the Meeting House standing next to a chapel, with the pleasure garden of Promenade Grove behind. The map was created at a time when the Prince of Wales’ residence, then known as the Marine Pavilion, was a much smaller building than the Royal Pavilion visitors can see today, and work had not yet begun on the stables and riding school that would eventually become the Brighton Dome complex.

The Meeting House looks to have been a rather small building, yet the Quakers owned a sizeable area of the land behind it. An 1803 plan shows that Promenade Grove was not so wide as the 1799 map suggests, and the western section of this land was known as Quakers’ Croft.

According to the 19th century Brighton historian John George Bishop, the Quaker Burial Ground was on the northern end of Quakers’ Croft.

“The meadow-land behind the House, running northward, was enclosed, and thenceforth became known as the Quakers’ Croft (or field), a square piece, however, abutting on the Spring Walks (Church -street), being set apart for a Burying Ground”

JG Bishop, A Peep into the Past, 1892

This suggests that the cemetery was located in the boxed area adjoining Quakers Croft on the north (right hand side of the plan).

Mrs Fitzherbert and the Quakers

The Quakers moved to a new, larger Meeting House in The Lanes in 1805, and this is still used by Brighton’s Quaker community today. The Prince of Wales (later King George IV) was thought to have bought Quakers’ Croft on 1 May 1806 for £800, but the Quakers still retained some ownership of the land.

In 1806 Maria Fitzherbert,the first (albeit illegal) wife of Prince George, built some stables to the west of Quakers’ Croft. Later that year, a dispute seems to have arisen over Mrs Fitzherbert’s right to a window that overlooked the Quakers’ property. In November a ‘Committee for the management and disposal of Lands at Brighton belonging to the quarterly meeting of Friends of Sussex’ judged that:

“This committee, unwilling to pursue a conduct which may assume the appearance of acting otherwise than neighbourly (notwithstanding injury may arise to the said premises by complying with such request), consents to the window not being stopped up for the present, upon condition of Maria Fitzherbert’s agreeing to pay one penny per month for such permission, and also undertaking to brick-up the same, at any time within one week after notice for that purpose from any of the trustees or committee for the said premises, and in default thereof that any of the Friends be authorized to brick-up the said window at the expense of the said Maria Fitzherbert, and that such agreement be prepared, signed and delivered to the said committee within two weeks from the date hereof, otherwise the foregoing proposals to be void.”

 

Committee for the management and disposal of Lands at Brighton belonging to the quarterly meeting of Friends of Sussex, 13 November 1806

An annotated version of the 1803 plan shows the location of Mrs Fitzherbert’s stables.

Annoted version of 1803 plan of Promenade Grove

Dome Cottage, c1930

According to the committee, the disputed window was on the ‘north side of her stables’ in a cottage that was used by her coachman. Whether Mrs Fitzherbert agreed to the Quakers’ ‘neighbourly’ request is unknown, but the building survived for many years. The stables were purchased in 1850 by the town as part of the acquisition of the Royal Pavilion Estate. Known as Dome Cottage, the building was later used as the workshop and residence for the Royal Pavilion Estate’s carpenter. The window was probably last exposed during the demolition of the building in the early 1930s, prior to the construction of the Pavilion Theatre.

Demolition of Dome Cottage, c1930

Further questions

The Quaker Society of Friends retained ownership of at least some part of the burial ground until the early 1890s. Minutes of the Pavilion Committee indicate that negotiations between Brighton Corporation, the local authority of the day, and the Society of Friends began in early 1892. By 5 June 1893 the land had been purchased for £21.

However, this purchase does not seem to have been straightforward. According to Pavilion Committee minutes from 14 November 1892, the Corporation initially intended to purchase ‘the Freehold of the site of the Old Quakers Burial Ground’. Rather than purchasing the land outright, by June 1893 the Corporation had acquired a long extension of the lease:

“The Town Clerk reported that the purchase of the premises in Church Street known as the Quakers Burial Ground had been completed and that the premises had been assigned to the Corporation for the residue of the term of 1,000 years from the 7th February 1700 at peppercorn rent.”

 

Pavilion Committee Minutes Vol.20, p.287, 5 June 1893

Aside from the legal complexity of the purchase, this raises the question of why the acquisition was addressed at this time. Had it simply been a legal oversight for many years, or was the site of the burial ground visible and well known locally? Bishop’s note in A Peep from the Past was published in 1892, so he may have been made aware of it from the the legal process taking place.

Extract from 1867 plan of the Royal Pavilion Estate.

An 1867 plan of the Royal Pavilion Estate shows a yard opening onto Church Street. Dome Cottage, marked in blue to the south, would have once overlooked this space. Might this have been a remaining part of the Quaker burial ground?

Kevin Bacon, Digital Manager

Author’s note: while I have written this post, it is entirely based on research conducted by several of my colleagues, to whom all thanks is owned.

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

When Charles Dickens visited Brighton 175 years ago he probably didn’t imagine that his touching of a doorbell would transform the simple object into a museum piece.

It has been well documented that Charles Dickens made several visits to Brighton: he gave public readings of his works, including A Christmas Carol at the Royal Pavilion, and stayed at the Old Ship and the Bedford Hotel, where he wrote Dombey and Son. He also mentioned the town in novels such as Bleak House and Nicholas Nickelby.

Bleak House, former residence of Charles Dickens, at Broadstairs in Kent, c.1910, G. D. & D. (Preston Manor Archive)

The Bedford Hotel, Brighton, by DH Greenin, 1890s (Local History & Archaeology, photograph collection)

What is more surprising is that the Royal Pavilion & Museums has over 50 Charles Dickens-related objects in its collections – of great variety. There are theatre programmes, periodicals, postcards; ceramic, wax and papier-mâché figurines of characters, magic-lantern slides, etchings, paintings, jugs, plates, mugs and teapot stands. There is a brass handle from an old visitor’s bell, apparently used by both Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray, when it was attached to a house in Arundel Terrace. Intriguingly we have also acquired a cutlery set and picnic box said to have belonged to Charles Dickens.

One of my favourite pieces is this oil painting in the Fine Art collection Little Nell and her Grandfather Leaving London, 1857 by the Victorian painter, John Ritchie (1828-1905). The two characters from The Old Curiosity Shop rest by an ivy-entwined tree, after fleeing London. The natural world is depicted in sharp detail in the foreground – the blades of grass, the stony path, the moss – and is in contrast to Nell and her grandfather’s rather flat features and the smoky smudgy London, dominated by St Paul’s Cathedral, in the background far away from the green countryside where they sit.

Little Nell and Her Grandfather Leaving London, 1857, by John Ritchie (Fine Art collection – FA000040)

The exaggerated, distinctive features of Dickens’s characters, familiar from illustrations of his works, have been used to decorate all manner of ceramics. We have many examples in the Decorative Art collection.

St Paul’s and Little Nell make an appearance again in this earthenware memorial plate to Charles Dickens, the central figure. He is encircled by a host of his most famous characters, such as Fagin and Bill Sykes from Oliver Twist, Little Nell, Little Dorrit and Mr Pickwick from the Pickwick Papers. Made by Doulton & Co. 1902-1930.

Made by Doulton & Co. 1902-1930 (Decorative Art collection)

The collection also has 24 earthenware miniature figurines of popular characters such as the Artful Dodger, Scrooge, David Copperfield and Sairey Gamp which were designed by Leslie Harradine at Royal Doulton. Their Dickensware range was one of their most popular ranges, produced between 1922 and 1983. Harradine copied their poses and idiosyncrasies from illustrations by Joseph Clayton Clarke which accompanied serialisations of Dickens’s works.

Trotty Veck from The Chimes, Royal Doulton,1959 (Decorative Art collection)

Henry Willett (1823-1905) was one of the founders of Brighton Museum and he donated his vast collection of popular pottery, which included many examples of Charles Dickens memorabilia. Here, for example, is a colourful pair of enamelled earthenware and Prattware Staffordshire teapots, c1840. The two characters were considered by Willett to represent ‘Mr and Mrs Weller Snr’ from The Pickwick Papers’. (A Potted History: Henry Willett’s Ceramic Chronicle of Britain by Stella Beddoe (ISBN: 9781851498116)

Staffordshire teapots, c1840 Staffordshire teapots, c1.840 (Decorative Art collection)

These two earlier hard-paste porcelain figurines from Germany, c.1880, depict The Fat Boy and Mrs Bardell, biting her apron, from The Pickwick Papers. This novel seems to have inspired much ceramic creativity for these two Staffordshire earthenware teapot stands and mug, both c.1840, are printed with illustrations by Phiz from the same work. (A Potted History: Henry Willett’s Ceramic Chronicle of Britain by Stella Beddoe (ISBN: 9781851498116)

Germany, c.1880 and Staffordshire c.1840 (Decorative Art collection)

Staffordshire, c.1840 (Decorative Art collection)

The Fine Art print collection, not to be outdone, can also lay claim to objects with a Dickens theme. Charles Dickens wrote Dombey and Son while staying at the Bedford Hotel in Brighton. This engraving, Bedford Hotel & Esplanade, Brighton (Looking East) by T. Jeavons, was made c.1845, around the time that Dickens wrote the novel. The print shows the hotel as it would have looked at the time with the Chain Pier in the distance. By the middle of the 1800s it was one of Brighton’s most fashionable hotels (possibly helped by Dickens’s patronage) but unfortunately the hotel was destroyed by fire in 1964.

Bedford Hotel & Esplanade, Brighton (Looking East), c.1845, by T. Jeavons (Fine Art collection – FA208047)

A closer reference to Charles Dickens can be found in this coloured lithograph What are the Wild Waves Saying?, c.1855, attributed to C.W. Nicholls, Letts Son & Co. It apparently depicts characters from Dombey & Son on the esplanade with the Chain Pier this time behind. A fisherman is pulling Paul Dombey in the cart with Florence Dombey, holding the parasol, at his side. Intriguingly it is written below the print that the figures are Prince Edward (3½ years) in the cart, Princess Royal (7½ years) with the parasol and Queen Victoria (aged 26) behind. It is also dated June 1845, which is a year before Dombey and Son was first serialised. Other versions of the print are dated 1855 so perhaps the additions were added later, a fancy maybe of a royalist.

What are the Wild Waves Saying?, c1855,  attributed to C.W. Nicholls,  Letts Son & Co. (Fine Art collection FATMP000643)

Memorialised in many different forms in the Royal Pavilion and Museums collections, it won’t be forgotten that Charles Dickens came to town.

Discover More

• Charles Dickens’ Links to Brighton
• Charles Dickens Memorial Plate

Lucy Faithful, Collections Assistant

With thanks to Kate Elms, Lavender Jones and Stella Beddoe

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

On 5 April 1895, writer Oscar Wilde was arrested, charged with gross indecency. The ripple effect was felt by many, including Brighton-born artist Aubrey Beardsley…

The Yellow Book, Volume II, 1894

Beardsley was born in 1872 to an upper middle class family, although his father had lost his inheritance shortly after marriage. Aubrey and his sister Mabel grew up well aware of the need to work for a living. At the age of seven he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and consequently faced a rather uncertain future. In spite of this, he managed to develop his artistic talent enough to break free from his position as a London insurance clerk and become a full time professional artist at the age of twenty. His career spanned a mere six years and yet his highly original work made a significant contribution to the history of art.

Filled with an urgency to make his name, Beardsley took on various commissions which proved successful in bringing him to the attention of the wider public. However, it soon became clear that Beardsley was not just following in the footsteps of other artists he admired, but was forging a path in a style of his own. He was inspired by a variety of influences and gained a reputation for being part of the Decadent movement. Despite his success, many people felt his art had a distinctly ‘unwholesome’ air about it.

Although Beardsley and Wilde moved in the same social circle, their relationship was somewhat strained, due to rivalry in celebrity status. Beardsley had recently collaborated on a project, his first and only with Wilde. The English edition of Salome, Wilde’s play originally written in French, was published in February 1894. Beardsley had been commissioned by Wilde to produce a series of drawings to illustrate the biblical story. Rather than taking the traditionally supporting role of the illustrator, Beardsley used this opportunity to upstage Wilde, and created pictures which would elevate him to equal status with the author. Daring and sexually suggestive, they incorporated design elements from Japanese art and a number featured caricatures of Wilde himself. The overall nature of the publication ensured that the book was a sensational triumph with the public, even if the critics disapproved. This was just the excitement Beardsley wanted to drum up as he prepared to unveil his next venture.

The Yellow Book was founded in 1894 by Beardsley and his friend Henry Harland. The concept was to produce a new quarterly journal that would feature both art and literature on an equal basis. The difference was that, instead of merely illustrating the text, the art would consist of stand-alone pieces, serving as a showcase for the artists. Harland would take care of the literary side, while Beardsley was appointed as principal artist and art editor.

This was of course the perfect opportunity to showcase himself. The first four volumes of The Yellow Book all bear striking cover pictures by Beardsley, designed to draw attention in both style and moral tone. The colour yellow was also chosen to be provocative. It aimed to imitate the yellow covers of contemporary French novels, considered by many to be ‘risqué’ and therefore entirely unsuitable reading for the British public.

1894 was Beardsley’s peak year. The Yellow Book was launched in April with great success, and sales of the following issues continued well. It was not without critics, and Punch magazine delighted in spoofing Beardsley’s latest offerings. Nonetheless, at least it meant that The Yellow Book was being talked about. The contributors were a mix of established and new names but both Harland and Beardsley insisted on the exclusion of Wilde. 

The fourth issue was published in January 1895 and it looked to be another good year for the controversial journal. The eye-catching covers had raised it to an iconic status, and Beardsley became synonymous with the colour yellow in the public’s mind. Happily, work commenced on the fifth issue, the staff and contributors unaware of what was about to unfold.

Cover design for The Yellow Book, Volume V, 1895. FA100365

All was not well with Oscar Wilde. The Marquess of Queensbury, father of Wilde’s lover Lord Alfred Douglas, was on the warpath. He had long disapproved of his son having any kind of friendship with Wilde. By making a public statement regarding Wilde’s perceived sexuality, the Marquess goaded Wilde into initiating a libel suit against him. The trial was held and Queensbury was acquitted when Wilde could not prove the statement to be libellous. Furthermore, this now meant that Wilde found himself as the accused, when the Marquess turned the tables and Wilde was charged under the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, forbidding all sexual acts between men.

On the evening of 5 April, two detectives arrived at the Cadogan Hotel where Wilde was staying and arrested him. Wilde prepared to leave with them and happened to pick up a book to take along. The next morning the news was out, as well as the headline which proclaimed ‘Arrest of Oscar Wilde – Yellow Book under his arm’. It is generally understood that the book he carried was in fact a French novel. However, the British public were more likely to identify it as The Yellow Book and they immediately took the headline at face value.

Angry crowds gathered outside the offices of The Bodley Head, publishers of The Yellow Book, and of Wilde. They threw mud and stones, smashing the windows. On top of this, prominent writers threatened to leave The Bodley Head unless Wilde’s name was removed from the catalogue and Beardsley was dismissed from his post as art editor. Publisher John Lane could not afford to lose them and felt he had no choice but to sack Beardsley.

As a result of Wilde’s simple action, the course of Beardsley’s life was changed forever. He never regained the success he once enjoyed and often struggled financially. He completed some further commissions, with the help of publisher Leonard Smithers. He even set up another journal The Savoy to rival The Yellow Book but was unable to sustain it for more than a year.

Beardsley’s health became poorer as he gradually succumbed to the effects of tuberculosis. He travelled down through France in search of a suitable climate, settling in Menton on the south coast. He barely survived the winter there and on 16 March 1898, Aubrey Beardsley died, aged just 25.

Following his trials, Wilde was found guilty and sentenced to two years’ hard labour. He continued to write in prison and published some works with Smithers after his release in 1897. But he was shunned by society, even needing to adopt an alias. Wilde didn’t survive much longer than Beardsley. He was 46 when he died of cerebral meningitis on 30 November 1900.

And what of the drawing? It was never re-used by John Lane as a cover design, although Beardsley later drew a similar scene as the cover of a catalogue for Smithers. Lane bequeathed it to Brighton Museum and Art Gallery in 1926. It shows a satyr reading to an eager young woman on the bank of a river, an idyllic and tranquil scene. Every picture tells a story, so the saying goes, but often you must look beyond the picture to find the full story…

A copy of The Yellow Book, Volume IV, 1895 and Beardsley’s good conduct medal from Brighton Grammar School

Discover More

• A copy of The Yellow Book, Volume IV, 1895 and Beardsley’s good conduct medal from Brighton Grammar School are featured in the Queer The Pier display, Brighton Museum.
• The original drawing ‘Cover Design for The Yellow Book, Volume V 1895’ is currently on loan to Tate Britain for the exhibition Aubrey Beardsley. You can read more about Beardsley in the Tate exhibition guide.

Alexia Lazou, Collections Assistant

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

Photographer Marilyn Stafford trailblazed her way through the photography world, beginning by snapping Albert Einstein followed by a career revolutionising fashion photography and press photography.

On International Women’s Day in March 2017 Nina Emett, Founding Director of arts organisation FotoDocument, announced a new photographic award for women documentary photographers. The Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award, to be granted to a female documentary photographer for work addressing an important social, economic, cultural or environmental issue, was named after one of the world’s greatest 20th century documentary photographers who, after a career spanning street scenes, fashion, and portraiture, as well as some of the most famous names – and moments – in 20th century history, now lives in Shoreham-by-Sea.

Marilyn Stafford, 2020, with thanks to Julia Winckler

Born in Ohio, USA, Marilyn Stafford originally had her sights set on a career on stage rather than behind the lens.  After studying drama at Wisconsin University, she found herself in New York in the 1940s, hoping to find work on Broadway.  Instead, she found her first camera and an invitation to photograph Albert Einstein as a favour to friends who were making a film about him.  Remembering that she was given a quick lesson on how to use the camera in the journey on the way to Einstein’s house, Stafford told the Los Angeles Times in 2017: ‘He met us at the door and there was really no fuss. He was dressed in baggy pants and a sweatshirt. He was completely at ease and made us feel the same. My friends filmed him, he talked and I snapped.’

And so, although Stafford probably didn’t know it at the time, her photographic career began.

Further steps were made in early 1950s Paris where Stafford was singing at a supper club near the Champs Elysees. Here Stafford met luminaries including Eleanor Roosevelt, Charles Aznavour, Bing Crosby, and Edith Piaf, whose house she would often find herself for breakfast after a night singing in the club.  Importantly, she also met Robert Capa, the war photographer and photojournalist, and street-photography pioneer, Henri Cartier-Bresson.  Both encouraged and supported her talent.

Soon she was taking commissions from big-name French fashion houses, photographing haute couture collections and the new rising ready-to-wear designers.  To this Stafford brought great inventiveness when, instead of sticking to the norm and photographing the models static in opulent surroundings, she placed them on the street, active and moving in urban environments, part of a story.

One particular photo of the time shows a model in a Chanel suit crossing the road outside the Louvre, another has a model in a white coat with a pair of high-heels casually swinging from her hand, sending up the seriousness of fashion photography. This approach was new and attention grabbing and paved the way for the grittier and more photo-documentary direction that fashion photography would take later in the twentieth century.

With her background growing up in Depression era America in her mind, Stafford also took an interest in photographing Parisian working-class neighbourhoods, including areas close to the Bastille and the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt in the shadow of the Renault car plant. With both neighbourhoods soon falling prey to gentrification, Stafford’s vital and dynamic images, freezing in time a long lost area of narrow streets and open doorways, of children playing with balloons and swinging on lamp-posts, are the only remaining traces of this part of the city’s history.

Children playing in the Cite-Lesage-Bullourde, Paris, 1950s, with thanks to photographer Marilyn Stafford

In 1958 Stafford, now married to a British journalist, started to document the plight of Algerian refugees who, displaced by France’s ‘scorched earth’ aerial bombardment of their country during their war of independence, had sought refuge on the Tunisian border.  When two of her images showing women and babies at a refugee camp were published on the front page of The Observer newspaper on March 30^th 1958 under the headline, ‘From Terror to a Sanctuary of Tents’, it shed light on a humanitarian crisis that many people knew little about.

Moving to Rome and then to Beirut, Stafford made a series of work featuring life in remote Lebanese villages.  This was later collected in the 1998 book ‘Silent Stories: A Photographic Journey Through Lebanon in the Sixties’.

In the mid 1960s, Stafford and her daughter moved to London where her work was frequently published in The Observer and other big name newspapers, magazines and the BBC.  As a rare woman on Fleet Street at the time, Stafford helped to open the door for future women press photographers.

In 1972 Stafford went to India where she was given permission to follow and photograph Indira Gandhi, herself a pioneer as the first – and as yet only – female prime minister of India for a month.  Striking images from this remarkable series show Gandhi face-on, mounting a plane with a solemn crowd behind her, her expression steely and purposeful.  Another shows her laughing at home as she plays with her grandchildren.  Stafford was to visit India several times afterwards, photographing tribes little known outside the country.

Having retired at the onset of digital photography, Stafford now lives in Shoreham-by-Sea and focuses her energy on nurturing and giving opportunities to a new generation of socially engaged women who want to bring important stories to the world’s attention through their work through the Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award.

Recent years have seen a timely resurgence of interest in Stafford’s work.  In 2013 a retrospective of her work was held in Arundel Museum, as well as an exhibition, ‘Indira and her India’ at the Nehru Centre in London.  In March 2017, photographer and senior lecturer at the University of Brighton, Julia Winckler, who had fallen in love with Stafford’s street images after coming across them in a cafe in Shoreham, curated an exhibition of her work of the now lost districts of Paris ‘Photographic Memories – Lost Corners of Paris: The Children of Cite Lesage-Bullourde and Boulogne-Billancourt, 1949 – 50’ at the Alliance Francaise, Toronto.

Later in 2017, ‘Marilyn Stafford Stories in Pictures 1950s and 1960s’ was held at the Lucy Bell Gallery in St Leonards and Art Bermondsey in London. The following year ‘Marilyn Stafford – Fashion Retrospective 1950s – 1980s’ was held in Hull, at the Lucy Bell Gallery, and a portrait exhibition of her work, curated by Nina Emett, was exhibited at London’s After Nyne Gallery.

On 9^th March this year Stafford was presented with the prestigious annual Award for Lifetime Contribution to Photography by the UK Picture Editors Guild.

This April, Julia was curating an extended exhibition of Marilyn Stafford’s Parisian street photographs in the Sorbonne in Paris, uniting, for the first time, the photographer with one of the former resident of the Cité, and returning the photographs to Paris where they were made 70 years ago.  This is now being postponed.

Stafford has published two books of photographs, Silent Stories: A Photographic Journey Through Lebanon in the Sixties (1998), and Stories in Pictures: A Photographic Memoir 1950 (2014) of Paris in the 1950s.

The 2017 winner of her FotoReportage Award was Delhi-based Rebecca Conway for her project ‘Valley of the Shadow’ based on the treatment of civilian trauma in Indian-controlled Kashmir.  The 2018 winner was Ozge Sebzeci from Turkey for her project ‘Divorced at 15’ which focuses on the marrying and divorcing of displaced Syrian refugee children in Anatolia.  The 2019 winner has just been announced as Anna Filipova, for her work, ‘Research At the End of the World’, which focuses on international scientific research taking place in the Arctic region on climate change.  The Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award 2020 opened its Call for Submissions on 12 March 2020 in celebration of International Women’s Day 2020.

For more information and to submit, please visit: https://fotodocument.org/fotoaward/

With grateful thanks to Marilyn Stafford and Julia Winckler

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.

Popping into your local museum may not be an option while under lockdown, but there are a few ways in which you can virtually visit our galleries from the safety of your home.

Royal Pavilion

360 Saloon

The spectacular Saloon reopened to the public in 2018 after a long and detailed restoration.

• View the Saloon

This 360 degree panorama was captured by photographer Jim Holden shortly before the room reopened to the public. While it doesn’t allow you to move to any other rooms, there is plenty of fine detail to see.

You can also flip between two different views. The Visitor view provides a clear view of the decorative detail. The Information view contains clickable hotspots with details about the restoration process.

Royal Pavilion walkthrough

You can enjoy three of the Pavilion’s most popular rooms in this virtual tour: the Banqueting Room, the Music Room and the Great Kitchen.

• Virtual Tour

Each room is accompanied by a sample from the audio guide.

You can also use the tour to see the Red Drawing Room, a room that is not part of the public route. This tour is available in seven different languages.

Booth Museum of Natural History

Osteology gallery

It may lack the visual splendour of the Royal Pavilion but the Booth Museum has its own wonders.

• Booth Osteology gallery walkthrough

Once again photographed by Jim Holden you can take a walk through the Osteology gallery and examine the animal skeletons on display.

You can also see our impressive killer whale, who is currently waiting to go on display in Cornwall.

Preston Manor

A more playful approach to presenting the house, Murder in the Manor is a fictional murder mystery based in the real rooms.

• Murder in the Manor

You can explore eight rooms of the manor covering both upstairs and downstairs.

If you want to take part in the game, follow the stories written by Little Green Pig and a team of young writers. If not, you can simply enjoy the ambience of a grand Edwardian house.

3D models

If you like virtual walkthroughs, you may also want to immerse yourself in these 3D models of the Royal Pavilion Estate by Colin Jones. Both offer a 360 degree panorama from a fixed viewpoint, but there is plenty to see.

Royal Pavilion Estate today

• 3D Royal Pavilion Estate today

This shows the Royal Pavilion Estate as it can be seen today. It features audio commentary by curator Alexandra Loske.

Repton’s Pavilion

• 3D Repton’s Pavilion

This view shows the Royal Pavilion Estate as it might have looked, based on unrealised designs by Humphrey Repton.

You can read more about Repton’s designs and see a digitised copy of his 1808 book in our Tales from the Pavilion Archive.

Kevin Bacon, Digital Manager

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

Soaking in the bathtub is often credited as the place occupied when inspiration strikes. For Chrissie Berridge it was not sitting in a bath, but looking at one.

The bath in question wasn’t a plumbed-in version familiar in every modern bathroom, but its predecessor –  a slipper bath in one of the bedrooms at Preston Manor in Brighton.

The original bath at Preston Manor

The oval-shaped slipper bath was a low portable tub, placed in front of a lit fire. Pitchers of water would be used to fill the tub, to pour water over its occupant, and ultimately to help empty the water once washing was done. Poorer families would have a tin bath, more wealthy ones (like the Stanford family, owners of Preston Manor in its heyday) would have a grander version with servants to heat, fetch, fill and empty the water.

Instruction pages from the book

At the time of visiting Preston Manor, I was writing a craft book on making items for a Victorian-style dolls’ house. Looking at real period houses provided plenty of inspiration for finding items to replicate in 1:12 scale. I thought that this bath tub would make an ideal item to include. I set about working out how to create the oval shape of the tub, and paint it to resemble the original.

Miniature bath

I was very pleased with the result, and the finished item now sits in the main bedroom in my own Victorian-style dolls’ house. The instructions feature in my published book. This humble slipper bath remains one of my favourite miniature pieces.

Front cover of the book

Find out more about bath time in the Edwardian period.

Written by Christiane Berridge