National Museums Liverpool Blog

This past Saturday saw our latest intake of Discovery Volunteers achieve their v50 Award at our Celebration & Feedback Event.

They were presented with their certificates by Steve Judd, Director of World Museum and also a representative from ‘v, the national young volunteers service’.

Our large group of youth volunteers (all aged 16-25) attended training sessions in July and then volunteered throughout the summer holidays at World Museum.

The Discovery Volunteers chatted with our visitors on both the Ancient Egypt and World Cultures galleries, using specially chosen handling objects to engage their interest and help start conversations.

If you visited World Museum this summer, you may well have chatted to one of them yourself.

In completing their training and volunteering, our volunteers amassed a grand total of more than 50 hours volunteer work each. Their v50 Award certificate is delivered by ‘v’ and recognises their achievement and commitment to volunteering.

We would like to say a big thank you and well done to all our Discovery Volunteers this summer for their involvement with our family activities.

To find out more about youth volunteering, visit v’s website,

You can also contact the Volunteers Team to find out more about volunteering at National Museums Liverpool.

Our Discovery Volunteers receive their v50 Award Certificates, with members of the Volunteers Team.

Image courtesy of the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo

My Liverpool ancestors in the 1700s and 1800s would have doubtless called themselves Dickey Sams rather than Scousers. Dickey Sam was a nickname applied to anyone born within the sound of the bells of St Nicholas’ parish church.

The latter term probably came in later with the popularity of Irish stew or lobscouse among Liverpool seafarers and their families. It was originally a Scandinavian dish and had little or nothing to do with Ireland, where potatoes and buttermilk were the staple diet for many people before the Great Famine. Scouse became popular because it was relatively cheap and easy to make.

Tugs Off New Brighton (pictured) in the Art and the sea gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum was painted by an unknown Liverpool artist. It shows two early steam tugs towing a dismasted vessel into the Mersey assisted by four small sailing boats known as flats.

The twin-funnelled tugs, John Bull and Robert Burns, were owned by John Watkins Jnr and were active on the Mersey in the 1850s. The damaged ship being towed is traditionally identified as the barque Dickey Sam.

She was built in Liverpool by William Seddon and launched in 1841 and made trading voyages to India and South America. Incidents of vessels losing their masts in rough weather were quite common in the days of sailing ships.

The painting shows a group of passengers in a small boat watching the proceedings. In the background are the familiar landmarks of Perch Rock fort and lighthouse. To the left of the picture is the stern of a sailing ship with the helmsman at the wheel.

The Brocklebank is a modern motor tug dating from 1964 which is a working vessel within the collections of the Merseyside Maritime Museum. She is the only active sea-going ship owned by a British museum. Run by an enthusiastic group of volunteers, Brocklebank acts as a floating ambassador for the museum. When in port she is generally moored in the Albert Dock.

Brocklebank served as a ship-handling tug on the Mersey throughout the 1960s and 70s. She would sometimes work ay Heysham, Larne and Barrow to assist at ship launches. She also towed barges laden with stone from an Anglesey quarry for the construction of the Royal Seaforth Dock (Liverpool Freeport).

Brocklebank’s commercial career came to an end with the advent of huge container ships requiring larger and more powerful tugs to handle them. She was acquired by Merseyside Maritime Museum in 1989.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).

The Beat Goes On: Liverpool, Popular Music and the Changing City

It's all go on the publications front at NML with new titles arriving and due shortly.

You may already know that we recently launched a book to accompany the Hitched exhibition at Sudley House. Also called Hitched it features 13 beautiful wedding outfits in full colour, together with close-up details and many original wedding photographs. It's a snip at £4.95 and is available through our venue shops and our online bookshop.

If you enjoyed The Beat Goes On exhibition at World Museum last year then the new book of the same name is for you. It is a critical historical account of popular music in Liverpool, looking at why the city is so important musically and how has it sustained its importance, from the Beatles to the Zutons and beyond. It's also available to buy online and through our venues.

Very soon we'll be launching Transatlantic Slavery: An Introduction and that old favourite, the John Moores catalogue to accompany this year's exhibition - more on both on the online shop.

Win a book: If you fancy getting your hands on any of these just answer this simple question - how many art books are featured in the NML online shop? (clue: some are available in more than one package so count carefully.) Send us your answer with your name, address and the name of the book you would prefer using this contact form. The deadline for entries is noon on Friday 10 September at 2010.

Update 01.09.10: Apologies to people who tried to enter yesterday and couldn't. Please use the entry form instead.

I came across this story while reading about the conflict at sea during the First World War and was filled with gloom.

This liner seemed to have been earmarked for destruction from the start and was sunk even when under the protection of warships. Her brief life had been blighted by the misfortunes of other great ships.

The 32,234-ton Justicia was built for the Dutch Holland America Line at Belfast’s famous Harland & Wolff shipyard and launched just weeks before war broke out.

She was bought by the British Government but because of war shortages she was not completed until 1917 and named Justicia.

She was originally destined to be a replacement for the Lusitania (pictured) which had been torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat submarine in May 1915 with the loss of 1,200 lives.

Cunard was experiencing manning problems so Justicia went to the White Star Line as a troopship because it had a crew available from the Britannic, Titanic’s sister ship sunk by a German mine.

Justicia was painted in camouflage paint, in common with other troopships, and worked successfully for a time in this role.  

In July 1918 she was travelling unladen from Belfast to New York escorted by destroyers. Justicia was torpedoed by the German submarine UB-64 23 miles south of Skerryvore lighthouse, Scotland.

Her watertight doors were closed, preventing her from sinking, and she was taken in tow by the tug HMS Sonia. It was intended to beach her in shallow water.

However, another submarine – the UB-124 – caught up and fired two more torpedoes which struck her side. Justicia sank surrounded by 30 Royal Naval and other vessels. Most of the crew had been taken off but 16 engine room personnel died. The UB-124 was sunk by gunfire from three Royal Navy warships.  

The Lusitania was eventually replaced by the Imperator, known as the German Titanic. She was handed over as part of war reparations and became the Cunard flagship, later renamed Berengaria.

There are contrasting models of the Berengaria and Lusitania in the Merseyside Maritime Museum.

The Lusitania waterline model is just three feet long and was made by James McKee, the ship’s carpenter from 1908 to 1915. He used a piece of damaged teak handrail from the ship to make the model’s hull.

McKee did not sail on the Lusitania’s final voyage. He left the model unfinished and it was completed for the museum by his son John in 1982.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).

From tomorrow, there are only three full days left for you to visit the National Conservation Centre’s popular exhibition Lewis’s Fifth Floor: A Department Story.

This image of the hair salon on the fifth floor is in Stephen King's exhibition. Image (c) Stephen King.

This exhibition by Liverpool photographer Stephen King has been a real success, having received over 37,000 visitors since it opened in February.

Sadly, the store closed at the end of May, but it’s been lovely to see so many people coming to the exhibition to relive memories of the fifth floor and often uncover its hidden secrets for the first time, unaware that this closed floor ever existed.

This Sunday 29 August, we will be hosting a Farewell to Lewis’s event, to celebrate the success of the exhibition and reminisce about the department store, which became a Liverpool institution.

All are welcome to come along between 1 and 3pm to enjoy the music and afternoon tea on offer, and share memories of the store. People are also invited to bring along any of their own Lewis’s photographs to be scanned by the exhibition team.

Ask a Curator day is Wednesday 1 September and curators from all over the world are signing up to take part in this giant Q&A session - taking place on Twitter!

We are joining in and want you to ask our curators questions on either art, slavery or Egyptology, as these are their specialist subjects.

We have three great experts ready to answer you; Egyptologist Ashley Cooke, art curator Laura MacCulloch and curator of transatlantic slavery Angela Robinson.

To ask a question and get your reply, this is what you do:

1. Get yourself a Twitter account by going to Twitter.com

2. On 1 September 'tweet' your question with #askacurator at the end to:
@LivMuseums (Art or Egypt questions)
@slaverymuseum (Slavery questions)

3. Check your Twitter account for our response!

So get thinking and tweet us your questions on 1 September!

During the summer our Volunteer Project Supervisors (Fred & Emma) have been looking after a very large team of volunteers over at World Museum.

Here in their second blog post, Emma fills you in on the some of the handling activities that have been taking place on gallery…

Volunteers and visitors chatting about Ancient Egyptian handling objects.

“August saw the launch of our new Discovery Volunteers Go Wild! and Discovery Volunteers Go Ancient! projects in World Museum, as part of a number of volunteer initiatives across the museum this summer. 

Discovery Volunteers began in summer 2009 and was so successful that it was brought back over Easter 2010. The project has returned again this summer, bigger and better than ever! Originally located in the World Cultures gallery, this time around more than 40 youth volunteers, aged 16-25, have been split between both the World Cultures and the Egypt galleries. The Discovery Volunteers project allows visitors the opportunity to handle objects on gallery and to learn more about them from our volunteers, making their museum visit that bit different. If you are planning a visit to World Museum, why not come along and say hello to the volunteers?

Our youth volunteers had several training sessions before the project was rolled out in the museum at the beginning of August, with sessions ranging from learning about the objects they would be handling to developing their customer care and group working skills. The eager volunteers were then unleashed on to the galleries, and have so far done a great job chatting to visitors about their objects.

Our Go Wild! Volunteers have set themselves up on the World Cultures gallery, with a plethora of objects coming from across the globe for visitors to handle. The snow goggles from the Arctic are a particular favourite with children. There is also a replica of our codex which is a great chance to learn about one of the museum’s star items and to see how it would have been used. The codex is a very rare object, with only around two dozen known to have survived the Spanish invasion of Mesoamerica in 1521, when whole libraries full of these books were destroyed. Our handling trolley also has some Japanese Netsukes, made from a surprising alternative to their traditional material, ivory. These figures are carved into a variety of animals and other characters and would have been used in a similar way to a toggle on a kimono.

Meanwhile, our Go Ancient! Volunteers are resident in the Egypt gallery, with a replica of a wall fragment from an ancient temple. The original of this wall fragment can be seen on the gallery, along with a second replica, this time painted as it would have originally appeared in the temple. The volunteers also have a number of related handling objects including the minerals which the Ancient Egyptians used to make paint to decorate their walls. This is a great chance to learn how these objects relate to the perhaps more well-known aspects of Ancient Egypt, such as the burial of the dead. Being the first time that our Discovery Volunteers have been positioned in the Egypt gallery, this is a special chance for visitors to handle objects and learn more about this very popular subject.

The Discovery Volunteers can be found in World Museum from 11am-4pm everyday until the 29th August.”

For more information about volunteering at National Museums Liverpool, please contact the Volunteers team.

You can also find out more about youth volunteering for 16-25 year olds through v, the national young volunteers service.

During the summer our Volunteer Project Supervisors (Fred & Emma) have been looking after a very large team of volunteers over at World Museum.

Here in their first blog post, Fred fills you in on the some of the activities that have been taking place on gallery…

Children and volunteers enjoying craft activities in Plantastic.

"As part of The World Museum Liverpool’s programme of events to celebrate 2010 being the year of biodiversity, a number of arts and crafts activities have been running daily during the Easter and summer holidays. It would have not been possible to run these activities without the efforts of volunteers. Nearly 60 volunteers have committed their time to enable us to teach children and young people the importance of biodiversity and how it creates good habitats for wildlife through a range of interesting and inclusive activities.

On our Savannah gallery, an African waterhole scene has been used as inspiration for a worksheet. Volunteers assist children in colouring in and decorating a picture of a lion hunting a zebra at the waterhole. Alternatively, they are given stencils to draw their own wildlife pictures. Through these activities, the volunteers show children how Savannah and grassland areas are threatened by increasing desertification, caused by poor farming methods reducing the biodiversity of the habitat. This enabled volunteers to link this activity to other areas of the museum such as the Ancient Egypt gallery, where a similar process is thought to have once occurred. When the children complete their drawing and colouring, volunteers help them to display their creations on the wall, or they have the option to take them home as a colourful souvenir of their day out!

Downstairs on the Plantastic Exhibition, volunteers work alongside demonstrators to help children learn about the importance of having a diverse range of insects and flowers to form a habitat. Different boards on the wall signify different types of habitat, such as ponds, woodlands and meadows. Children are helped by volunteers to make 3 dimensional flowers and insects to add to the habitat boards. Whilst helping with the craft work volunteers help children learn about the important role played by insects in pollinating plants, and how different types of plants and shrubs exist in different habitats, linking in to some of the messages that can be learnt through the Plantastic exhibits.

A flower shop display has also been set up. For this, volunteers help teach children how bright colours and patterns on flowers are used to attract pollinators such as bees and insects. It also gives kids a chance to get creative and they have created a really spectacular display!

All these activities are great fun for the kids, helping them create personalised souvenirs of their day out, as well as teaching them about important conservation and ecological issues.

Both sets of activities have been a great success, with volunteers seeing over 400 visitors on some days.

The Volunteers can be found in the Plantastic exhibition on Level 2 and the Savannah area on Level 4 every day until Sunday 5th September, from 11am until 4pm."

If you are interested in volunteering, please contact the volunteer team to find out more.

I popped along to the last session with my trusty Rubik's cube, which conservator David Crombie x-rayed from a couple of different angles in order to reveal the clever way that the pieces are held together but can still be moved round into all sorts of colourful combinations.

While I was there lots of other visitors brought toys, watches, games and even a couple of shoes into the lab to be x-rayed. You can see what these objects look like inside and out in our X-rayed toys set on Flickr. The set also includes photos showing the x-ray machine itself, the digital x-ray plate that stores changes in energy from the x-ray process, and the reader that uses a laser to convert these changes in energy into a digital image.

Of course David and the other conservators don't just use this equipment to examine toys, as it all serves a serious purpose in their work at National Museums Liverpool. X-ray images are just one of the methods that conservators use to examine objects in the collection without damaging them. A good example is this painting of 'St Michael and the Dragon' from the Lady Lever Art Gallery. An x-ray of the painting revealed lots of information about the panel it was painted on, including an unexpected former use.

So what secrets lie beneath the surface of your toys? Bring them to the lab tomorrow to find out.

Greek legend says that King Midas tied a cart to a post with an intricate knot. An oracle foretold that whoever untied the knot would become King of Asia.

Years passed and the knot remained untied until 333 BC when Alexander the Great tried to unravel it. His solution was to cut the knot in half with his sword.  

The prophesy was fulfilled when he went on to conquer Persia. I suspect the knots mentioned below would have been easier for Alexander to untie.

Seafarers in the days of sail literally had to know the ropes – but knots were equally important. Ships could have 25 or more sails which harnessed the power of the wind with the aid of ropes and knots forming the rigging.

Large varieties of knots evolved over the centuries as vessels became more and more sophisticated. The knots had to be able to withstand the stresses and strains created by all types of weather and wind strengths.

The names of knots evoke the romantic era of sailing ships. Some, such as slip and reef knots, are still familiar and in common use. Less well-known are cat’s paw, crabber’s eye, Turk’s head, sheepshank, halliard hitch, carrick bend and granny knots.

Reef and bowline knots were probably the most important methods of tying ropes while the others were useful in certain applications.

Today there is great interest in knots, how they are created and their history. Basic knots can be learnt by practice which makes it easier to interpret diagrams and pictures illustrating more complex creations.

Learning how to tie knots, which requires patience and dexterity, reveals patterns in their structures and tying methods.

Complex knots can be changed and rearranged usually by pulling on rope ends in certain ways – this is called spilling or capsizing. For example, the carrick bend is usually tied in one form then capsized to make it stronger.

The invention of wire rope in the 1830s brought a strong competitor to traditional hemp rope. Wire ropes had clips and shackles rather than knots.

A spin-off from the mariner’s knowledge of rigging was decorative rope work. A number of examples are on display in Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Life at Sea gallery.

A hand-worked pochette is a particularly fine example dating from 1930. It was made from cotton twine by retired Captain Eckford  when he was a passenger on a voyage.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).

Readers of Dan Brown, famous for the blockbuster novel and movie, 'The Da Vinci Code', will know that his most recent art linked tale, 'The Lost Symbol' delves into the hidden world of Masonic secrets and legends.

I was intrigued to hear that secret messages and symbols in Albrecht Dürer’s 'Melancholia I' play a key role in the elaborate plot which sees Robert Langdon decipher a number of clues. The intricate engraving is currently on show at the Lady Lever Art Gallery as part of the Dürer & Italy exhibition.

Langdon and his comrade Katherine Solomon examine the composition carefully, making particular note of its ‘magic square’. Using the numbers as the key to a hidden code, they go on to interpret the letters on a Masonic pyramid. I won’t say too much more as I don’t want to spoil the plot. However, a trip to the Lady Lever Art Gallery would be well worth the effort for any Dan Brown fan (not only because of the Dürer & Italy exhibition which runs until Sunday 26 September 2010), but because Lord Leverhulme was himself involved with freemasonry and there are many Masonic items in our collections.

However, if you can’t make it to the gallery and want to have a go at deciphering the clues in the Dürer etching you can take a closer look at it by using our ‘zoomify’ feature.

To celebrate the occasion we have 4 paperback copies of 'The Lost Symbol' to give away and one audio CD in an online draw. To enter just answer the following question:

In Dan Brown’s, The Lost Symbol, Langdon examines the ‘magic square’ in Dürer’s Melancholia I. What number do each of the rows, columns, diagonals, quadrants, the centre-squares and four corners each ‘magically’ add up to?

Update: Use the contact form to enter. (If you previously entered using the 'comments' you don't need to resubmit it). All correct answers will be entered into a draw to receive one of the prizes – closing date Monday 20 September 2010. Remember to specify whether you would prefer the audio copy or paperback copy. Happy counting!