National Museums Liverpool Blog - Monday, July 02, 2007

Last year textile conservator Anne-Marie Hughes helped prepare some of the best looking mannequins ever to set foot in a gallery, with the Inspiration - forty years of designer fashion display at the Walker. Last week she brought that touch of glamour to the Battle of the Atlantic gallery in Merseyside Maritime Museum, with a quick makeover for one of the mannequins on display.

The mannequin, inspired by the photograph of a WREN on this web page, needed a new wig as her old wig was looking a bit worse for wear.  You can see a few photos in this Flickr slideshow of Anne-Marie at work replacing the wig. She describes how the job took an unexpected turn below.

"The mannequin makers had stuck the wig on with some serious epoxy adhesive and had stuck some of the hair to its face, I assume in error.

This job was a bit of a departure for me, I have to say I'm not usually called upon to remove facial hair from mannequins mainly because they don't usually have it (particularly female ones), but I do think the mannequin looks refreshed after her makeover."

Detail of Stewart Bale Ltd photograph of Dunlop Rubber Co Ltd factory in Walton, reference 4064-2

When I looked out at the rain this morning I did wonder if I should stay at home and build an ark rather than come into work, the downpour did have a bit of a biblical feel about it. It's days like these when I really wish I had a pair of wellies. Nothing too fancy, just a really bling pair with sparkly letters like the ones that Dame Shirley Bassey wore at Glastonbury will do.

The latest Stewart Bale online exhibition, on the subject of work, includes a photograph of the local Dunlop Rubber Co Ltd factory that had made rubber boots and shoes since the turn of the last century. In 1940, when this picture was taken, the factory was using what was probably cutting edge technology in this field at the time. No bling, but there was a war on at the time. It's a great photo, all the lines of boots hanging on the production line look like a strange contraption out of a Wallace and Gromit film. You can zoom in to see every detail with on the Dunlop factory zoomify page.

Other images in the online exhibition include the construction of the Queensway Tunnel and the Mauretania II being built at Cammell Laird shipyard.

The sinking of the Bismarck was the subject of a feature film in the 1960s which left an indelible impression on me, Stephen Guy.

The giant German battleship Bismarck was hunted down and destroyed after a frantic search by 46 British and allied warships and many aircraft.

The Battleship, Bismarck. Image courtesy Liverpool Daily Post & Echo

German naval top brass believed that by breaking into the Atlantic they could have a decisive effect on the war at sea. In May 1941 the 42,000-ton Bismarck sailed from Norway with the heavy-cruiser Prinz Eugen for operations against the North Atlantic convoys – the lifelines between Britain and the United States.

Bismarck was one of the most powerful warships afloat and even by herself posed a formidable naval threat.  She had four twin 15-inch gun turrets firing high speed shells with the aid of a radar-guided aiming system. She was divided into so many watertight compartments that her crew believed she was unsinkable. The Bismarck’s dramatic Atlantic sortie caused great anxiety in Britain as she was capable of doing untold damage unless stopped.

In a brief action off Iceland she sank the old British battle cruiser HMS Hood with the loss of more than 1,400 lives. In this action she also damaged the new battleship HMS Prince of Wales, built at Cammell Laird’s. However, two shells from the Prince of Wales damaged the Bismarck’s fuel tanks. This resulted in a large oil slick which led to the German being hunted down and sunk by the British warships Rodney, King George V, Norfolk and Dorsetshire.

The destruction of the Bismarck and the subsequent sinking of her supply ships largely ended the threat of German surface warships in the Atlantic. The Germans now relied almost totally on U-boats to continue their Atlantic campaign.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there are exhibits linked to the Bismarck. There is a metal splinter from one of Bismarck’s shells recovered from Rodney’s deck. Pre-war tea and jam spoons were sold as souvenirs of the Hood. A Royal Naval issue pair of binoculars has HMS Hood stamped on the case and is dated 1940-1. An inflatable lifebelt was worn by stoker Stan Higgins of Anfield, Liverpool, on the Dorsetshire during the Bismarck action. He was one of the many Merseyside crew members on the cruiser. Ten months later Stan was luckily wearing the same lifebelt when the Dorsetshire was sunk in the Pacific by Japanese dive-bombers. It kept him afloat for 36 hours until he was rescued.

Next week we look at Bismarck’s sister ship, Tirpitz and how she was destroyed.

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

It's all go down at Merseyside Maritime Museum. The Transatlantic Slavery Gallery in the basement closed on Sunday, as part of the preparations for the new International Slavery Museum, which opens upstairs on the third floor on 23 August.

With less than 2 months to go before the opening, staff have had to work fast. When I popped in today it looked as if at least half of the objects had already been taken out of their cases. Most of these are now being checked and treated in the National Conservation Centre before going on display in the new museum.

I was just in time to see curator Angela Robinson removing an ivory anklet from a former display of artefacts from West Africa. If I'd been any later I would have been photographing an empty case!

The new displays will include familiar objects from the old galleries, which will be joined by new acquisitions, items that are currently in storage and specially commissioned artworks, such as the Freedom! sculpture that is currently on tour.

Last Friday the web team attended the Museums on the Web Conference at Leicester Uni. We were all pretty impressed by Sebastian Chan from Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and the work the team there has done on folksonomies. Encouraged us to just do it with our own collections. You can check out their blog, Fresh + New(er), which is also pretty good. Not sure if the conference papers are going to be available on the site but you might want to check back at some point.

Then yesterday I saw that a fab bracelet currently featured in the Peter Chang exhibition comes from Powerhouse and has a zoomification on their site (the same feature we use), so you can see the piece in all its shiny detail.

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'.