National Museums Liverpool Blog - Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Bernard Fallon finds himself on the other side of the lens

Photographer Bernard Fallon's exhibition, which opens at the National Conservation Centre on Saturday, is called The Long Way Home, and he has travelled a very long way to come home for the opening this week. Although he was born in Liverpool, Bernard now lives in Los Angeles, where I bet it's raining much less than it is here today.

His incredibly atmospheric photos of Liverpool 40 years ago are a world away from the Californian sunshine. However, his humourous reminiscences in the exhibition show that it's clearly a time he remembers with great affection.

This afternoon Bernard had a role reversal when photographer Tracey O'Neill took his picture for the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo. He has a packed schedule of press calls and catching up with friends and family over the next few days, but has promised to return to to give a free public tour of the exhibition on Saturday 3 March at 1pm - see the National Conservation Centre What's On page for details. If that's busy he says he'll do another one afterwards as well. Do try to pop along if you can.

Sharon Brown, curator of land transport, catches the train

The Lion railway locomotive, one of the most popular objects from our land transport collection, returned to Liverpool yesterday after being on long term loan to the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.

Lion became a bit of a celebrity in 1952 when she appeared in the popular film the Titfield Thunderbolt. More than half a century later it's good to see that she's lost none of her appeal and is still making headlines - you can see her returning home on the back of a lorry on the BBC news website.

Unlike some celebrities (I wont be as indiscreet as to name names), Lion hasn't had to resort to major surgery to keep her good looks and combat the advancing years. However, after decades in the spotlight the locomotive needs a bit of a rest and some TLC before facing the public again. So Lion is going to be treated by our conservators before she goes back on display as one of the key exhibits in the new Museum of Liverpool when that opens in 2010.

The 'Community, faith and fair trade'display

You might have seen in the papers over the weekend that 26 February to 11 March is Fair Trade Fortnight. There is a series of events focusing on Liverpool's modern day 'fair trade' status working with faith groups from across the city. World Museum Liverpool is hosting a flag display which I popped in to see before. Pretty spectacular it looks too.  Kids from local schools have create the flags which were inspired by Tibetan prayer flags we had sent over last year when the Dalai Lama visited Liverpool, and they are hung in the same way. If you fancy making your own pop along to the museum this Saturday between 12 and 4.

Then on Friday night local schools will be setting out their displays on what they're up to for Fair Trade fortnight with prizes for the best ones. All good stuff.

An appeal for help from John Edmondson at World Museum Liverpool. Anyone wishing to reply to him should use our 'contact us' system.
Karen

William Roscoe

2008 is Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture. One of its oldest institutions, founded by William Roscoe, is planning to mark the event by holding a special reunion of descendants of William Roscoe (1753-1831). He was one of Liverpool's most distinguished citizens and arguably the person responsible above all others for setting our city on the road to its present status as a 'cultural capital'.

Would any of our readers be interested in any of the following?

* Helping to locate William Roscoe's living descendants by researching his family tree
* Contacting his relatives to ask them to sign up for a reunion in Liverpool
* Meeting at the Athenaeum Club, Church Alley, Liverpool to help plan the arrangements for this reunion

If the answer to any of these questions is 'yes' then I look forward to hearing from you.  I am particularly keen to hear from people who can prove they are descended from William Roscoe. Rumour has it there are plenty of these around.

I am not (so far as I know) related to William Roscoe myself. In fact I am Head of Science at World Museum Liverpool, and a member of the Athenaeum. But I want to help our club to celebrate the Capital of Culture year in a way that honours its founder, and also provide a lot of fun for those lucky people who can trace their ancestry back to Roscoe.

John

The figurehead from the Indefatigable Image courtesy Liverpool Daily Post & Echo

They conjure up to me, Stephen Guy, images of a time when ships were like living beings sailing the seven seas. Ship figureheads evoke the age of sail when no ship was complete without a carved figure decorating her bows. They were brightly-coloured and skilfully carved to reflect the names and functions of the ships.

Figureheads have a long and fascinating history going back to ancient, pre-Christian times with their origins shrouded in the mists of time.  Ancient figureheads were looked on as the guardians of the ships they adorned as well as for frightening enemies. In modern times the golden age for figureheads was between 1790 and 1825.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there are several stunning examples of figureheads from this era when Britain ruled the waves. Among those on display is one from the training ship Indefatigable – originally a Royal Naval frigate launched in 1848. It depicts the famous “Sailor King” William IV when he was Duke of Clarence. He is shown (left) in naval uniform with gold epaulettes and medals across his chest.

TS Indefatigable was used on the Mersey between 1865 and 1912 to train boys for the Merchant Navy. The school went ashore and was at Plas Llanfair in Anglesey for many years, closing in 1996. The figurehead went along too but suffered from being out in all weathers. In 1994 four old boys of the school – Harry Traynor, Jim Clark, John Harrison and Alf Eady – began to painstakingly restore it. The figurehead was presented to the museum by the Old Boys Association in 1997.

The figurehead from the Verajean (see her on our Flickr page), a steel ship of 1891, shows a buxom redhead dressed in a red, blue and white formal Victorian dress. She clutches a bunch of red roses to her breast. In 1943 the figurehead was found abandoned in Preston docks and saved from destruction.

A massive white and gold figurehead came originally from the 76-gun warship HMS Hastings, built in 1818 (see him on our Flickr page). It represents the Governor General of India Lord Hastings. HMS Hastings was converted to screw propulsion and came to Liverpool as a coastal defence vessel in 1857.

When figureheads fell out of fashion with the end of sail, wood carvers who produced them turned to other things. Several figures that decorate Liverpool pubs are believed to have been carved by them.

The Verajean, Hastings and other figureheads can be seen on our Flickr page.
More on TS Indefatigable can be found in our archives section.

A new Maritime Tale appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

Merseyside Maritime Museum welcomed some very special visitors yesterday - a group of artists who had travelled all the way from Haiti to deliver their latest sculpture. The Freedom! sculpture was made in workshops with young Haitians, led by sculptors from Atis Rezistans in collaboration with internationally renowned Haitian artist Mario Benjamin. Together they made the piece from recycled materials, to explore what freedom and slavery means to people in Haiti today. 

Freedom! was commissioned by international development charity Christian Aid and National Museums Liverpool to mark 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. It is on show at the Maritime Museum until 18 March 2007 as the first stop in a UK tour.

After visiting London, Bristol and Cornwall, the sculpture will return to Liverpool to become a permanent exhibit in the new International Slavery Museum when it opens on Slavery Remembrance Day, 23 August 2007. Did you know that Slavery Remembrance Day commemorates the anniversary of the uprising of enslaved Africans in Haiti, which led to the creation of the first Black republic? Which makes this new Haitian sculpture an especially fitting way to mark the occasion.

I’ve just been acquainting myself with Merchant Palaces, our photographic exhibition of Wirral and Liverpool mansions, currently on show at the Lady Lever Art Gallery. I was interested to discover that Dawpool in Thurstaston, the magnificent home of Sir Thomas Henry Ismay, was designed by Richard Norman Shaw the architect responsible for the White Star Line offices in James Street. I’ve always had a strange obsession with this candy striped masterpiece and yet again this morning its hooped turrets of copper and cream stirred me from my rush-hour induced slumber as I crept along the dock-road. Ever since I visited Liverpool, as a wide eyed 7 year old Boltonian, I’ve always had a sneaky feeling the White Star building actually has an edible façade. I remember looking longingly and almost salivating at the prospect of a huge building encased in chocolate and icing. So far I have resisted giving its auburn bricks a cheeky lick so I’d like to think there’s still a small chance it could be Liverpool’s equivalent of the Hansel and Gretel gingerbread house.

This got me wondering if there are any more buildings in Liverpool with culinary characteristics and I discovered the Radio City tower is in fact a marshmallow ripe for melting and the columns of the Walker Art Gallery bear more than a slight resemblance to sticks of coltsfoot rock. Ah, if only Lutyen’s Cathedral that Never Was had made it past the planning stage, Liverpool would have been home to an ice-cream sundae of mammoth proportions. 

The delicious White Star Line offices

Our renowned National Conservation Centre in Whitechapel Liverpool is the expert place for conserving fine paintings, but even they'd be hard pushed to make them appear quite as lifelike as photographer John Paul Pietrus has in this stunning Guardian recreation.

I couldn’t resist sharing these beautiful pictures of Coleen McLoughlin for those who missed the feature on Saturday. She may share her WAG initials with the Walker Art Gallery but this is taking it too far!

You've already heard about Wallace and Gromit and how they a going down a storm at Animated Adventures at World Museum Liverpool, but the older visitor should take the time to check out the other animation pods too.

The pods are all dedicated to different individual animators or their studios and their approach to developing a particular animation. Each one tells a different story and they are definitely worth a read if you are even remotely interested in the field. I've done a bit more hunting round on the web so you can see some of the work that's under the spotlight:

• A Barbaric Tale by Richard Vaucher
• Theme Planet by Michael Sormann
• Honey by Evan Cagle (whose website seems to be experiencing hiccups so I've linked elsewhere)
• D7 Peacemaker from D7 Studios
• Gene-Fusion AD 2310 by Banjax
• and last but not least, Kaze Ghost Warrior by Timothy Albee Animation.

One of the perks of this job - other than the obvious joy of working in a museum - is flexi time.  We always get back the hours we work which is very convenient when you fancy an early dart to the pub on a Friday or a Monday morning in bed. Not everyone is so blessed though - apparently we (sorry, you) give your employers £23 billion in free hours every year. So the TUC is running its annual 'Work your proper hours day' this Friday to encourage the UK's workforce to leave on time, take a proper lunchbreak etc.

One of the suggested activities is to pop to a museum in your lunchtime, so the 24 Hour Museum has put together lunchtime trails for several cities, including Liverpool. The Walker Art Gallery, World Museum Liverpool and National Conservation Centre are all close to the main shopping and business districts, all have cafes and are all more fun than sitting at your desk praying for home time.