National Museums Liverpool Blog - Monday, April 14, 2008

'King Eddie' just clearing the ceiling in the conservation studio

As you may know the Pier Head is undergoing a bit of a transformation at the moment, and that extends to the statues there. King Edward VII atop his horse has undergone a face lift, spending the last few months in a studio at the National Conservation Centre - he almost didn't fit in. Work to remove the grime is now finished (this photo was taken pre-conservation) and you are invited to come along and meet 'King Eddie' before all 16ft of him is hoisted back on top of a granite plinth at the Pier Head. There's a special open day this Thursday - 17 April - from 1-4pm when you can chat to conservators and see long-obscured features up close. Just come to the information desk at the main entrance on Whitechapel and you'll be shown through to the studio.

Sir Percy Bates. Image courtesy of Liverpool Daily Post and Echo

This portrait of Sir Percy Bates is one of my favourites as it makes you want to know more about the man as he looks quizzically over his spectacles. The painting hangs in the Life at Sea gallery in the Merseyside Maritime Museum along with personal items and other memorabilia.

Cunard chairman Sir Percy (1879-1946) had the idea of building legendary liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. He was one of a long line of shipowners and shipping company bosses who had tremendous influence when British vessels led the world.

Sir Percy, a baronet, began his career with the family shipping firm of Edward Bates & Co. He joined Cunard in 1910 and was chairman from 1930 to 1946, a crucial period in the Liverpool-based company’s history when both the Queens were built and Cunard merged with rival White Star.

In December 1930, Sir Percy’s dream of two world-leading ships had begun to take shape when the Queen Mary’s keel was laid at John Brown’s Shipyard at Glasgow. Work was delayed because of the Depression before the Queen Mary was launched and sailed on her maiden voyage in May 1936. The Queen Elizabeth was completed in 1940 and both Queens became troopships in the Second World War. Queen Elizabeth did not enter normal passenger service until 1946. Sadly, Sir Percy died from a heart attack, aged 67, at this time.

Items on display include a beautiful illuminated scroll carrying the speech Sir Percy made at the launch of the Queen Elizabeth in 1938. A cigarette box is made from oak off the Cunard liner Aquitania. A gold medal produced to mark the launch of Queen Mary. Only four others were produced – for Edward VIII, Queen Mary, President and Mrs Franklin D Roosevelt. In contrast, a simple leather briefcase was used by Sir Percy when he was Cunard chairman.

Other leading shipping figures are featured. A photograph of members of the Liverpool Shipowners’ Association 1890-1 shows the top-hatted grandees standing proudly in rows.Alfred Holt (1829-1911), founder of the Blue Funnel Line, was also an engineer and designer of the compound engine. His work ensured the ultimate success of the long-distance steamer.

Sir Alfred Read (1871-1955) brought together a number of small companies to form Coast Lines in 1912. Until the Second World War, Coast Lines was the largest trading group between British ports, including Ireland.

Lord Kylsant (1863-1937) was chairman of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company from 1903 to 1931.The group was broken up in 1931 after financial problems and irregularities for which Kylsant was convicted.

Merseyside Maritime Museum is open seven days a week, admission free. A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

Gallery attendants Brian and Dave meet Aled Jones at the Walker Art Gallery

BBC’s Songs of Praise filmed at the Walker Art Gallery yesterday. Presenter Aled Jones met up with local artist Cecelia Matson who introduced him to the gallery by showing him work by her favourite artist and source of inspiration JMW Turner. Cecelia told Aled how the Walker was a great place for contemporary artists to learn from old masters.

The feature, which is part of a programme dedicated to Capital of Culture will be aired on Sunday 4 May.

There will be more Turners to feast on over at the Lady Lever Art Gallery this summer when Masterpiece Watercolours and Drawings opens from 28 June- 9 November 2008.  The exhibition features other big names such as Constable, Burne-Jones and Cox and offers a rare opportunity to see a selection of the gallery’s most delicate artworks.

Image courtesy Liverpool Daily Post & Echo

I’m always fascinated by the ‘what ifs?’ of history and the sinking of the Titanic might never have happened if the rivets had been different.

Riveters played a vital role in shipbuilding when Britain’s shipyards boomed as the Empire expanded and the Royal Navy dominated the seas. Riveting was the only method of fastening together the plates and frames of early iron and steel ships. It was a very laborious process and accounted for much of the banging and clattering associated with traditional shipbuilding.

About three million rivets were used to hold Titanic together. Rivets recovered from the wreck were apparently made of poor quality iron. One theory about the sinking claims that the impact with the iceberg caused the heads of the rivets to break off and sections of Titanic to break up. Better quality rivets, it is argued, may have prevented the ship sinking.

The most effective way of making rivet holes was with an hydraulic punch. By the 1870s such machines were capable of punching up to 30 holes a minute in half-inch thick plates. When riveting was done by hand, large shipyards such as Cammell Laird’s employed more than 100 riveting squads, each with five men. They were:

• The heater, usually the youngest of the team, who softened the rivets in a portable forge before picking them up with long-handled tongs and throwing them to …
• The catcher who caught the rivets in a tin then, with short-handled tongs, placed the rivets in the holes where they were held by …
• The holder up whose 14 lb hammer kept the rivets in place while they were hammered by …
• The riveters who worked in pairs with hammers weighing between  three and five lbs to round over the ends of the rivets, thus fastening the plates together.

On display at Merseyside Maritime Museum is a riveting hearth and examples of plates riveted together.

The death-knell for riveting was sounded in 1920 when Cammell Laird launched the Fullagar, the world’s first all-welded steel ship. Welding was perhaps the greatest development in shipbuilding in the 20th century. The time-consuming and labour-intensive process of riveting was replaced by the stronger and more efficient method of welding steel plates. There was no need for overlapping plates or connecting flanges so less steel was used.

The speed of construction was greatly increased and automatic welding machines could be used. Today large sections of hull and superstructure can be built under cover so that final assembly is simplified.

Merseyside Maritime Museum is open seven days a week, admission free. A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

Here's the final blog post from Tom McConnell, our work placement student and Beatles fan, who has been lucky enough to see some rather special objects from the band's history.

Hi

On Tuesday and Wednesday I have been working on the Beatles stage that John Lennon played on when Paul McCartney first met him. I had to sand parts of it and help take it apart before it is fully constructed.

Today I have been in paper conservation where I found all the Beatles autographs!! and I also saw many other Beatles items such as a Beatles writing pad.. Beatles stockings.. Beatles tickets.. Beatles newspapers.. and much more.

You know what it's like, you wait ages for a cultural bus then two turn up at the same time.

The Living Memorial

One bus, 'The Living Memorial', is actually a unique mobile memorial to the Nigerian activist and writer Ken Saro-Wiwa by the Nigerian-born artist Sokari Douglas Camp. It will be visiting the International Slavery Museum from 23-25 April as part of Celebrate Earth Week 2008. The programme of events for the week involves three days of African-inspired live music, art and poetry across Liverpool, including an artist's talk in the International Slavery Museum.

The week before that Liverpool City Council, the Culture Company and English Heritage are offering free coach tours of Liverpool's World Heritage Site - an area of the city including several of our venues. Appropriately enough the tours will take place on International World Heritage Day, 18 April at 11am and 2pm. Each 2 hour tour starts outside St George's Hall and takes in sights including the Albert Dock, Pier Head, Stanley Dock, Ropewalks and the historic commercial district. For further details or to book a free place see the Liverpool World Heritage website or ring 0151 233 2880.

'Art Matters: The Pool of Life', image courtesy of the Singh Twins

In the normal scheme of things, art galleries are where you go to see paintings. However, in the fantastic work of the Singh Twins (deserved winners of the recent Liverpool Art Prize People's Award), you can look at art galleries in paintings instead.

You may remember that last year I spotted some of our venues in their painting 'Liverpool 800' when it went on display at St George's Hall. The talented sisters have just unveiled a new painting, 'Art Matters: The Pool of Life' to celebrate Liverpool's Capital of Culture year. As always, the picture is bursting with life, featuring a plethora of Liverpool people and landmarks infused with the vibrant colours of the traditional Indian miniature style of painting.

There's way too much detail to cram into a tiny space like this, but you can just about make out in this image that the Walker Art Gallery has made an appearance once again, half way down on the right hand side. It's being visited by the blue time-travelling taxi from the Magical History Tour exhibition, which appears to be driven by an escapee from World Museums Liverpool's Bug House. There's even a poster advertising the upcoming exhibition The Beat Goes On (thanks for the publicity ladies!)

Here's the latest update from Tom McConnell, our work placement student, who in case you hadn't noticed is a big fan of a certain Liverpool band!

Hello,

Today I have been checking up on the music desk at the International Slavery Museum. This basically involved listening to many tunes on the desks and writing if it was working and to see if any improvements could be made to improve it for the benefit of the visitor… I particularly enjoyed "Sail Away" by Ray Charles but was disappointed that The Beatles had been taken off!!

The music desk at the International Slavery Museum. Photograph © Redman Design/International Slavery Museum

One of my favourite scenes in the classic film Around the World in 80 Days (1956) is when virtually everything that’ll burn is thrown into the furnaces to keep the ship going – with hilarious results. A real incident many years before may have inspired French author Jules Verne when he wrote the original story in 1873.

The paddle steamer Sirius was the first ship to cross the Atlantic by steam power alone. She achieved the feat in 18 days, arriving in New York on 22 April 1838. Setting out from London and stopping briefly at Cork, she battled against head winds on the stormy ocean crossing in a race to be the first to steam all the way across.

As Sirius neared Long Island and the end of her voyage, she had run out of coal and was burning her supplies for fuel. A great crowd gathered in New York harbour to cheer her in. Sirius arrived just eight hours before her much-larger rival, Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Western, which had set out three days behind her.

Only 200 feet long, Sirius was built in Scotland for the coastal trade between Cork and London. Although she had sails, her steam-powered paddles were her main source of propulsion.

Early in the epic Atlantic crossing, her captain – the naval officer Lt Richard Roberts – had to persuade his crew not to turn back because of the bad weather. Sirius was carrying 40 passengers (29 man, 11 women) travelling in three classes. Cans of salmon, oysters and lobsters were among the provisions carried.

Both Sirius and Great Western suffered big financial losses, mainly because neither ship attracted many passengers for the return voyages to Britain. However, this trans-Atlantic steam race had sparked the imagination of the public and shipowners began to build steam packets to meet the demand. Steamers had conquered the mighty Atlantic, changing ocean travel forever.

The Sirius. The text at the foot of the painting reads: Steam-vessel Sirius, Lieutenant Richard Roberts: R.N Coff New York. The first British Steam-vessel that ever crossed the Atlantic: performed her Voyage from Cork in 18 Days!!

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a fine oil painting of Sirius (shown). She is seen off New York with passengers and crew on deck, her helmsman at the wheel. There is also an exhibition model made by D Balfour and SH Phillips at the time of her 100th anniversary (1937). Sirius sank off Ballycotton, Ireland, in 1847 with the loss of 20 lives.

Until the mid-19th century sea travel was often unpleasant and hazardous. It was not usually undertaken lightly and only if absolutely necessary, such as for business reasons.

Merseyside Maritime Museum is open seven days a week, admission free. A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

Here's the latest update from Tom McConnell, who seems to be keeping busy on his work placement at National Museums Liverpool:

Ancient Egyptian scaffolding!

Hello,

I’m now on my third day here at NML. I had a good day yesterday at World Museum Liverpool. Highlights for me were seeing the new Egypt galleries taking shape and a visit to the zoology department. I also fitted in a visit to the National Museums Liverpool stores where I spied a fab looking Paul McCartney poster.

Today I was back at the stores helping with the Museum of Liverpool project. There I had to locate and find objects for the up and coming The Beat Goes On exhibition. These objects included Stuart Sutcliffe’s Guitar, a Beatles 7 inch vinyl singles folder, a piece of fabric from the original Magical Mystery Tour bus in the film and Beatles bobbing-head dolls.