National Museums Liverpool Blog - Friday, July 06, 2007

We get a lot of enquiries from people asking if we hold passenger list records for people leaving and entering the UK. Just seen that findmypast.com in association with the National Archives have made available the passenger lists for people who left the UK between 1890 and 1960 (actually, they just got up to 1929 for now - the rest follows in the next few months and you can register to be kept informed). 

While I'm here, Karen in archives recommends the 'Watching the Boats Go By' website. It shows live vessel movements in the Mersey and other areas around the coast, so you can check out what's afloat at any time of the day. You can click on the map to see the individual ships, their stats, what sort of vessels they are, where they're from/going etc and photos.  Its great if you have seen a ship in the river and wondered what it was.

Detail of the mandala

Progress photos on the mandala at World Museum Liverpool are now in the mandala flickr set. You can see in a couple that the pattern isn't flat - crests of coloured sand.

Check out my post from Wednesday to see what the project is about.

A post from John Edmondson on a new book he's worked on.

Cover of the new edition of Linnaeus' travel diaries

2007 is the 300th anniversary of the birth of famous Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus, who published the first Flora of Sweden. To mark the event a number of publications have appeared, including one with a Liverpool connection. John Edmondson, head of science at World Museum Liverpool, has edited an English translation of Linnaeus’ travel diaries of his tours of the Baltic islands of Öland and Gotland in 1741. There, Linnaeus observed many plants and animals previously unrecorded from Sweden as well as many aspects of the local folklore, geology, agricultural practices and copies of runic inscriptions.

The account, which was translated into English by William T. Stearn and Marie Åsberg, has been brought right up to date, with the plant, animal and fossil names revised by numerous scholars including Guy Knight, Ian Wallace and Alan Bowden of World Museum Liverpool as well as specialists at the Natural History Museum and elsewhere. It has been published (ISBN2: 978 91 633 0361 6) by the Swedish publisher Gyllene Snittet, and includes photographs of Linnaeus’ plant specimens and notes from the Linnaean herbarium in London. A new Runic font has been designed for the book, which reproduces and translates the inscriptions on ancient memorial stones found during the expedition.

John

You've got just over a week (until Monday 16 July) to send us your feedback on our draft disability equality scheme. We want to know what you think about it and about what National Museums Liverpool are doing to meet the needs of our visitors.

The document is on our main website, as are our access standards and our equality and diversity policy which are on the same page. You can sent us your comments either through our 'contact us' system or by calling Human Resources on 0151 478 4677.

Hello, I'd like to introduce myself! I'm Lisa Jones and I'm filling in for Dawn Carroll as E-PR Officer for National Museums Liverpool, while she is away on leave. This is my first blog post and I am bringing you an update about the entomology fieldwork at Smardale Gill, from Curator of Entomology, Guy Knight. There are lots of great photos of the team at work on Flickr and you read on to find out more about his team's latest findings...

The team at work in Smardale Gill

Because of the awful weather during the past month, the visit to Smardale Gill NNR we had scheduled for June threatened to be a fairly miserable affair. Luckily the rain did hold off for most of the time and we even got a few sunny spells! This time we were accompanied by Tom Mawdsley, retired Curator of Diptera (flies) at NML and Dr Jennifer Newton the county spider recorder for Cumbria. Much of the day was spent servicing and repairing traps which had been damaged by the weather and livestock but it was also a good opportunity to see some of the rare plants and butterflies already known from the reserve. Meanwhile, some specimens from the samples are being prepared for our collections, allowing us to make accurate identifications and providing a lasting record of the presence of these insects at the site for future researchers.

The monks working on the mandala

This week World Museum Liverpool is really lucky to be hosting a group of Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Tashi Lhumpo monastery. They are creating an intricate sand painting called a mandala in the Treasure House Theatre. Millions of colourful grains of sand are positioned using tubes and scrapers to create the most beautiful painting - this one depicts a celestial mansion of the Buddhist deities. The concentration is amazing and helps the monks in their meditations. You can see the progress so far on flickr (it's good to watch the progress in the slideshow).

The mandala won't be on display at the museum for long though - just as a ceremony marks the beginning of the process so another ceremony marks the destruction of the mandala, symbolising the impermanence of existence and warning against attachment to worldly goods. So if you would like to see the mandala there are talks at 2pm and 3pm today, tomorrow and Friday, and the destruction ceremony at 10.15am on Saturday (7 July). Hopefully have snaps of that ceremony next week. More info on these and other talks in the what's on section on the main site.

And if you want to learn more about mandalas check out wikipedia.

You might have seen this BBC article last week on the discovery of the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut. It is being described as the biggest archaeological find in Egypt since Howard Carter found Tutankamen's tomb in 1922. We have a few pieces related to Hatshepsut so Ashley Cooke, curator of antiquities, agreed to do a blog post on who Hatshepsut was.

Statue of Hatshepsut as a sphinx in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Egyptologists in Cairo believe they have identified the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut - one of the most famous queens of Ancient Egypt. Alongside her nephew, Tuthmosis III, she ruled Egypt as a crowned king during the prosperous Eighteenth Dynasty (about 1473 – 1458 BC). She was a the daughter of king Tuthmosis I and Queen Ahmose Nefertari. She married her half-brother, Tuthmosis II and gave birth to daughter called Neferura. When her husband died his son by another marriage assumed the throne of Egypt. However, he was only a child so Hatshepsut ruled as regent and later assumed full royal titles and enjoyed a long co-regency, thus effectively blocking him from full power.

Hatshepsut was a very successful ruler and built many monuments that can still be seen today, including a spectacular terraced temple, set within the cliffs at Deir el Bahri (near to the Valley of the Kings) (see a pic on our Flickr page). It is from this temple that a carved relief of Hatshepsut’s father was recovered in the early 1800s, probably from the ruined Anubis chapel within the temple complex, and is now within the Egyptology collection at Liverpool. You can see it on our flickr page.

This is a fragment of limestone fallen from a temple wall, 35 cm high and carved in raised relief, representing the pharaoh Tuthmosis I, the father of Hatshepsut. The king wears the long royal beard and a coiled uraeus over a wig cover. The carving of Hatshepsut’s father is unusual because it reveals that the sculptor has obviously changed his mind about the position of the arms. A previous outline reveals that the king’s right arm was originally raised, but a decision was made to place the arm by his side. The earlier carving would have been covered by a layer of plaster and concealed in the final painting of the temple wall.

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?