National Museums Liverpool Blog - Friday, August 03, 2007

Anyone in the area this afternoon will have noticed that the usually tranquil William Brown Street was a riot of noise and colour. Our roving reporter Laura Johnson couldn't resist going to see what all the fuss was about:

Surf's up outside the Walker

So a sandy beach arrived outside the Walker Art Gallery, dancers and musicians performed on the steps to the old entrance of World Museum Liverpool and William Brown Street was invaded with stilt walkers, jugglers, face painters and role players."

Benin artist Romauld Hazoume was at the Maritime Museum today to oversee the installation of his artwork La Bouche du Roi, which goes on show from Saturday as part of the museum's year long programme of events commemorating the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade.

The picture above shows him with some of the 304 masks that make up the main body of the artwork. Each mask, made from a petrol can, represents a real person and they are arranged on the floor packed closely together to show the cramped conditions on board the ships that took enslaved Africans across the Atlantic as part of the slave trade. With film footage, the sounds the the slaves' voices calling out and evocative smells of the tobacco and spices transported as part of the trade, this is an incredibly powerful and moving immersive experience.

Freshly dug King Edward potatoes from the Piermaster's House wartime garden

Over the last few months I've been keeping an eye on the garden at the Piermaster's House, where green fingered attendant Brian Jones grows an incredible range of vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers, as an example of the types of things people might have grown in their own gardens during the war.

When I first visited the garden in May the crops were barely out of the ground, then in June the runner beans had grown about halfway up their poles. It was incredible to see the difference this morning - the runner beans are now taller than Brian! The recent wet weather has really done the garden good, at least there were some benefits to all that rain last month.

Brian's already planning to cook up some of his produce for a meal with his colleagues at the Maritime Museum. There have been glowing reports from people who have tried some of the peas and runner beans already. It's all organically grown, which Brian feels adds to the great taste. He says the salty air at the docks keeps the slugs away naturally, which is a benefit of the exposed city centre site. People are always surprised by the quantity and the huge variety of things that he grows in the tiny garden in such an unusual location. He hopes that he has inspired some visitors to see what they can grow themselves at home.

There are more photos in a Flickr slideshow of the wartime garden that show how it has developed since May, as well as some of the strawberries, peas and other things Brian has grown there.

The latest in a series of online exhibitions of photos from the Stewart Bale archive is now on the website, featuring some of Liverpool's architectural landmarks. As always, they're all great pictures, but of particular interest to me are three photos showing the city's cathedrals during construction. It's fascinating to see how these now familiar features on the Liverpool skyline actually took shape.

You can zoomify in to see the details of each picture - in the interior shot of the Anglican Cathedral for example you can examine every block in a temporary wall at the back.

The British Bryological Society is holding its annual general meeting at World Museum Liverpool on 29-30 September. If you're new to the world of bryology (the study of bryophytes, aka mosses and liverworts) and want to learn more then the Saturday morning session is for you, with a workshop on identifying bryopgytes - feel free to drop in.  More on the BBS website.

When I, Stephen Guy, was a child we visited Bidston Hill with its windmill and glorious views. I was always intrigued by a series of neat holes bored into the solid rock. It was many years before I learnt the purpose of these strange holes. In the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s collections there is a painting which explains the mystery.

It shows the Bidston lighthouse in 1825 – and there next to it is a row of flagpoles, standing in the holes. Shipowners had their own flags which were hoisted when one of their ships was identified. This meant shipowners and others had notice that one of their ships was approaching port. Use of the flags was discontinued in 1826 following the introduction of the more sophisticated Hoylake to Liverpool telegraph.

Great ingenuity is used to guide ships safely to Liverpool – lighthouses, lightships, buoys and signals have all played their part during the long history of the dynamic port. Before the days of radio and modern communications, various methods were devised to announce the imminent arrival of a ship to dockmasters and owners.

Today the Mersey approaches are comprehensively marked according to the system agreed by the International Association of Lighthouse Authorities. This ensures that the meaning of every buoy and light is clear even to the master of a foreign vessel on his first visit.

Model of the Vigilant. Image courtesy of the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo.

Other items in the collections include a wooden buoy made by a cooper (barrel maker) and a model of the buoy tender Vigilant (1978) which is shown here. The Mersey Docks and Harbour Company is responsible for the maintenance of buoys within the port limits. This ranges from the routine changing of gas bottles which power the buoy lights to bringing buoys ashore for repair and repainting. Fine detail on the Vigilant model shows a crane for lifting buoys in and out of the water. A buoy in the shape of a boat is used to mark a single hazard or point of interest.

A model depicts the buoy that was stationed at Spencers Spit off Hoylake. This had a bell with four clappers on each side so that the bell rang regardless in which direction the buoy rocked. The museum has a large model of the Mersey Bar lightship Alarm (1912) and the original lens from Hale lighthouse on the banks of the Mersey between Speke and Widnes.

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

It's most people's favourite time of the week, the last few hours and minutes of work on a Friday before the weekend. Yet sometimes it's hard to escape reminders of the working week completely. At the moment there are a few quite artistic reminders out there.

In the latest exhibition to open at the National Gallery, artists explore the themes of Work, rest and play from the 16th century to the present.

Meanwhile, on our own website you can see photos from the Stewart Bale archive in a work-themed online exhibition. I really like this one of the laying of the keel of the Mauretania II at Cammell Laird shipyard. If you've ever wondered how to build a ship, it seems that you need a lot of cranes and a lot of scaffolding. You can zoom in on the Mauretania being built and work out the rest for yourself with the zoomify feature. 

I'm sure that this far into 2007 most people are pretty well aware that it's Liverpool's 800th birthday, so I wont mention that again here. Apart from just then, that is, but I'm done now. Really.

With all the historical activities that have been taking place this year I thought that I'd heard just about everything there was to hear about the story of this great city. So I was quite impressed when just a quick look through the research for the Magical History Tour exhibition revealed all sorts of new facts and anecdotes that I was completely unaware of. For example, did you know that the first x-ray machine in Britain was installed at Liverpool's Southern Hospital in 1896? 

If you did know that and consider yourself a bit of a local history buff then you should take the Cab driver's challenge quiz on the exhibition website. Or from tomorrow you can pop along to see the exhibition itself. The opening weekend promises to be quite spectacular, with performances from the Beat Beatles and all sorts of other activities.

The Guardian has an interview with illustrator, Shirley Hughes, on the homepage of its books channel - you can listen here.  There's also an article about her latest collection (in case you're wondering why I'm telling you this, we had a Shirley Hughes exhibition a few years ago and still get a fair few enquiries about it).

Local after school clubs have been treated to a programme of activities showing a different side to the Walker Art Gallery over the past couple of months. Starring King Henry, Millie Smith and the Athlete Struggling with a Python, almost 700 children have witnessed characters from the collections come to life in a production by Fuse Theatre company. Staff from the Walker have also been bringing out the children’s creative side with art workshops and follow up visits to Big Art for Little Artists. I remember when all I had to look forward to after school was an ice-pop, the occasional game of kerby and if I was really lucky an episode of Fun House with Pat ‘The Mullet’ Sharp and those scary twins.

The closing days of Liverpool as an emigration port were witnessed by me, Stephen Guy, as a teenager watching the Empress liners embarking from the Pier Head decorated with bunting and streamers.

Liverpool was probably the most important mass emigration port in world history in terms of numbers of people carried. Between 1830 and 1930 more than nine million emigrants from all over Europe sailed from the port to seek new lives.

During the Victorian age sail gave way to steam including ships involved in the emigrant trade.  By 1870 almost all emigrants to the United States and Canada went by steamship. Liverpool-based steamship lines such as Cunard, Inman, Guion, White Star, National and Allan dominated the carriage of emigrants to North America.

Image courtesy of Liverpool Daily Post & Echo

On the Australian run, steam did not overtake sail until the late 1870s. There were a few steamships taking emigrants to Australia from the 1850s. However, they had sails and only used steam for part of the voyage. 

Between 1860 and 1900 conditions improved on the emigrant ships. The 1855 Passenger Act had introduced cooked meals for all emigrants and a doctor on larger ships.

Exhibits at the Merseyside Maritime Museum include a model of the Inman Line steamship City of Paris built in 1866 for the Liverpool to New York run. In 1852, Liverpool-based William Inman had introduced the first transatlantic steamer service for emigrants. On display is a Swedish emigrant’s Guion Line ticket from about 1890. The emigrant travelled by sea to Hull, then by rail to Liverpool before joining a ship to New York.

By the early 1900s steamships were bigger and faster. There is a fine detailed model of the Cunard Line’s Saxonia built in 1900 specifically for the emigrant trade without a cheap steerage section.  All the passengers on Saxonia were accommodated in cabins, including 1,600 emigrants in third class.  She operated on the Liverpool to New York and Liverpool to Boston routes before being transferred to the Mediterranean to carry emigrants from southern and eastern Europe to America.

A new generation of super liners came into service during the Edwardian age. Ships like the Mauretania and the ill-fated Titanic and Lusitania had elegant, luxurious first class accommodation but they also carried many emigrants in third class.

The First World War brought a temporary end to emigration. From the 1920s emigration was limited by newly-imposed entry restrictions to the US and Canada.

More information on Liverpool emigration and emigration to Australia on our main website.  There is also an interactive following the fate of a family emigrating to Australia through Liverpool - Leaving from Liverpool.

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

The installation of the new access ramp at the Lady Lever Art Gallery is continuing this week with the fitting of the new glass balustrade. Did a previous post on the ramp itself if you are interested.

The first piece of glass is lowered into position