National Museums Liverpool Blog - Monday, June 25, 2007

The Prince of Wales bell

The story of the Prince of Wales and her short but glorious career has been for me, Stephen Guy, one of the great inspirational naval sagas.

In her brief and tragic career of just a few months in 1941 HMS Prince of Wales became one of the legendary warships of the Second World War. The Royal Navy battleship was adopted by the City of Liverpool whose citizens had raised the full building cost of £10 million – a staggering £280 million in today’s money.

The Prince of Wales, built at Cammel Laird’s between 1937 and 1941, was with HMS Hood when that ship was sunk by the enemy battleship Bismarck off Iceland in May. During the action, two shells from the Prince of Wales damaged the Bismarck’s fuel tanks. This caused a large oil slick which led to the German warship being hunted down and sunk.

In August the Prince of Wales carried Prime Minister Winston Churchill across the Atlantic for crucial talks with American President Franklin D Roosevelt. Soon after, she was sent with the veteran battle cruiser HMS Repulse into the Indian Ocean to discourage Japanese aggression. On 8 December the two warships left Singapore escorted by four destroyers but without air cover.

Two days later the Prince of Wales and Repulse were attacked and sunk by 86 Japanese aircraft. Three hundred and twenty seven men were lost on the Prince of Wales and 513 on the Repulse. For the Royal Navy and Britain, this was one of the darkest days of the Second World War.

The bell from the Prince of Wales is on display at Merseyside Maritime Museum. Although the wreck is a designated war grave, there were fears that the bell might be stolen by unauthorised divers. In the Royal Navy the ship’s bell has been traditionally regarded as “the soul of the ship”. British divers rescued the bell from the wreck in 2002 after permission was granted by the Ministry of Defence.

The bell has been kindly loaned by the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth. It was presented to the Merseyside Maritime Museum by First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sir Alan West. The moving ceremony took place in May 2003 during the events held on Merseyside to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic. The silver-coloured bell is inscribed HMS Prince of Wales 1940. Included in the display are photographs of the ship.

Next week we look at the German battleship Bismarck which the Prince of Wales helped to destroy.

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

If you’re sat wishing you had tickets to Glastonbury, wondering what to do with your weekend, never fear there's lots to do on your less boggy and much drier doorstep.  

The Walker Art Gallery is spoiling you with three new exhibitions ripe for discovery. Enter the mystical world of Josh Kirby and Peter Chang or mark the end of Refugee week with a visit to Once upon a tile.

If abstract art is more your thing Laura Galloppo, one of National Museums Liverpool’s hard working volunteers, has curated a show at the International Gallery on Slater Street. For one week only the vivid and minimalist work of Italian artist Pasquale Napolitano will be on show. Catch it while you can.

Who wants to queue for hours for a filthy toilet and swim around in a pool of mud anyway?

Everyone has been talking about the two new exhibitions at the Walker, Out of this World and Unnatural selection. However, for the staff at the National Conservation Centre, those shows are so last week. Paintings conservators David Crombie and Rebecca Kench are already preparing paintings for the Walker's next big exhibition about Joseph Wright of Derby, which opens in the autumn.
 
I popped in today to see them conserving two of the Walker's portraits by the artist, of Fleetwood Hesketh and his wife Frances Hesketh. You can see a Filckr slideshow of the partly-conserved paintings here.

David updated me on the progress so far:

 "When these paintings were hanging in the gallery they appeared to be in good condition, apart from their slightly discoloured varnish. However nobody expected how discoloured the varnish and dirt layers would turn out to be.   Once the varnish and dirt were removed, we could see the bold areas of colour and Wright's distinct subtle purples that were somewhat obscured until now. It's remarkable just how bright the paintings really are.
 
The yellowing of the varnish is a result of the gradual oxidation and degradation of natural resin varnishes over time. Underneath, the original paint is generally in very good condition and these portraits are good examples of a sound oil painting technique. Wright painted them in a very consistent manner and didn't use any particularly radical techniques, unlike Sir Joshua Reynolds for example, who could be more experimental. 

One interesting thing that we noticed in another portrait being lent to the exhibition from a local collection is that the lady in the painting appears to be wearing a similar blue material wrap and wristband to the ones worn by Frances Hesketh in the Walker's portrait. The wrap is even tied in a similar way at the front. This may mean that they were studio props given to sitters by Wright. However, we'll have to check to confirm this when the loan painting comes in and we can examine them properly together."

National Museums Liverpool have developed a draft disability equality scheme and would like to know what you think of it. The document outlines what we are doing to meet the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act. What do you think of our plans? Is it enough or appropriate? What could we be doing better?

You can find the document on our main website. You may also want to read our access standards and our equality and diversity policy which are on the same page. You can get in touch either through our 'contact us' system or by calling Human Resources on 0151 478 4677, with comments to reach us by Monday 16 July 2007.

It's just over 14 hours until a receation of the famous slave ship, Amistad, sets sail from its home port of New Haven, Connecticut, USA on a 14,000 mile round trip to Europe and Africa. The ship will retrace the slave triangle travelled by thousands of European slaving ships during the 18th and 19th centuries, with a crew augmented by English and American students including 19 year old Michael Simon from Toxteth.

The Amistad became famous in 1839 when the slaves on board - who were being taken to the Americas - revolted, captured the ship and eventually won their freedom.  

The ship will be in Liverpool in a few weeks time for the opening of the International Slavery Museum on 23 August, which is also Slavery Remembrance Day.

You can learn more the background to the trip, Amistad America Inc, and the orginal Amistad on the official website.

Image courtesy of Elizabeth Hawkins

In December 2005 you may remember that Blackie, the much loved rocking horse from Blackler's Department Store and Alder Hey Children's Hospital, went on display at the Museum of Liverpool Life for the first time after being kindly donated by the hospital.

This image of Blackie been ridden in the children's clothing department shows how much pleasure he brought to generations of Liverpool children.

The following is just one of the happy memories in the comments book from the display. "Blackie was a childhood friend to us kids - to us he was real!" L.F., Old Swan.

Hat display from the Maritime

Today there is a vast variety of waterproof clothing available protected by many different processes which I, Stephen Guy, find amazing.

In the days before modern materials, seafarers used tar to protect themselves and their belongings from the elements. Sailors became known as Jack Tars because of their clever use of this natural gooey substance to waterproof things. The name Tar, in this context, dates back to the 17th century and is short for 'tarpaulin' which in those days meant a seaman.  In a bid to keep dry, mariners slapped tar on hats, capes, coats and even sea chests – anywhere where the ever-restless sea, spume and driving rain were likely to penetrate.

Tar was also used in the days of sail for the Crossing the Line ceremony when seafarers sailing over the equator for the first time had to go through bizarre rituals. The victim’s face was smeared with a mixture of tar and grease before being “shaved” with an iron hoop instead of a razor.

Merseyside Maritime Museum shows many different types of marine clothing from different times. A fascinating display (shown) has summer straw hats and straw hats coated with tar from the 19th century. However, few other items of everyday clothing survive from the days of sail. Another display shows clothing worn by officer cadet Walter George Hiscock when he was on the training ship Conway 1909 -11, including his smart uniform waistcoat and jacket.

A uniform from about 1930 was worn by George Linford when he was chief engineer on the Daldarch. Also on display are his original cap badge and uniform epaulettes. A jacket and cap from about 1936 were worn by Thomas Seed when he served as a lamptrimmer (deck storekeeper).

There is the uniform jacket worn by Sir Ivan Thompson, a Cunard Line commander from 1953 to 1957. Sir Ivan joined Cunard in 1916 and had a long and distinguished career which included commanding Mauretania, Caronia, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth.

A comfortable woollen dressing gown belonged to Captain Thomas Jones (1869 – 1957), showing the quieter side of sea life. Two jackets from about 1970 belonged to chief steward and purser Jack Hanson of Liverpool. He wore the jackets when he was chief steward with the New Zealand Shipping Company. Working clothes and uniform were worn by Andrew Stammers when he was a trainee deck officer with FT Everard & Sons Ltd in 1994.

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

I noticed on Liverpool Blogs this morning that Mark McNulty now has his own blog.

Mark was one of the two photographers featured in our Street Life exhibition at the National Conservation Centre last year. His blog promises to 'include news, recent photographs, published work and selections from the archive'.

The painting is in a private collection and is currently on a long term loan to the Lady Lever Art Gallery. In her talk Sandra looks at Holman Hunt's early years, the formation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, his time in Italy and his aptitude for painting portraits of children.

Darth Vader. Alfred Hitchcock. Elephant Man. Captain Cook. Rincewind. Luke Skywalker. Monty Python. These iconic figures are all currently battling for wall space as the finishing touches are added to Out of This World, our Josh Kirby retrospective opening at the Walker on Friday.

Liverpool born artist Kirby is best known for his cover illustrations of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, but he started his career producing film posters and book covers. Some of the titles for the books he illustrated are brilliant, The Robot in the Closet, A Whiff of Madness and Hello Lemuria Hello, to name but a few. I can’t wait to see how Kirby interpreted these.

Don’t forget to catch Unnatural Selection also on show from this Friday. Peter Chang’s vibrant jewellery, objects and sculpture are really breathtaking. Let’s hope Darth and Luke control themselves - note to participating science-fiction characters, all breakages caused by over-exuberant use of light sabers must be paid for. 

Update 15.6.07: If you click on the Out of This World link you can now see our lovely new Josh Kirby exhibition pages rather than our coming soon page.

The handling team hard at work