National Museums Liverpool Blog - Monday, May 19, 2008

We’ve just received an interesting memoir for the Botany library with the intriguing title “Naughty Man’s Plaything”. It is by Roy Vickery, who works in the Botany Department at the Natural History Museum, London and is illustrated by Len Ellis. It’s all about the folklore and uses of stinging nettles in Britain, and covers their uses for food (for humans), beer, food (for turkeys), medicine, plus a long section containing sayings about nettles and their local names. Each story is referenced to its source, making this a valuable addition to our economic botany literature.

One of my childhood memories is going out with my mother picking nettle tips in springtime, from which she made nettle pudding – essentially porridge mixed with nettles. Once cooked, they don’t sting and in fact they are very nourishing, particularly at a time of year when there aren’t many fresh vegetables to be had from your garden. Nettle pudding is a Northern speciality; a similar concoction known as Spring pudding was mentioned in the memoirs of Bernard Ingham, who was born in Hebden Bridge, not far from my own birthplace in Burnley. This was made from Bistort.

Apprentices dhobying on the Malakand,1910. Image courtesy of Liverpool Daily Post and Echo

My late uncle Alfred Guy would tell stories of armies of rats moving between ships and warehouses when he served as a policeman at Liverpool’s docks in the 1930s. It was always in the dead of night when the vermin surged past him looking for holds full of grain or piles of food-filled sacks.

Seafarers have always dreaded illness and disease breaking out on board ship and in the past scourges like scurvy could decimate crews made vulnerable by poor food. Vessels were infested with vermin such as rats and cockroaches which could bring infections that spread like wildfire in the days before immunisation and antibiotics. There were tales of derelicts – ships found drifting months and even years after all the crew members had died from disease.

Before the Second World War mariners were particularly vulnerable to illness. This was due largely to their unhealthy diet and bad conditions on board. Other reasons were the poor health of new recruits and the exposure of many crews to highly-infectious diseases, especially on voyages to tropical countries. Although the situation has improved greatly since the 1940s, merchant seafaring is still a relatively unhealthy occupation.

More than 200 years ago slave ships were particularly unhealthy. Over one fifth of seamen on Liverpool and Bristol slave ships in the late 18th century died due to illness on the voyage.

Between 1918 and 1939 merchant seamen were three times more likely to die of TB than the average British male.

The Seamen’s Hospital Society was established in 1821 and incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1833. Today it is a UK charity which helps people currently or previously employed in the Merchant Navy or fishing fleets and their dependents. From 1821 to 1870 the Society ran Seaman’s Infirmaries on former warships before moving ashore as the Dreadnought Seamen’s Hospital, Greenwich, named after its last floating home. Today the hospital continues as the Dreadnought Unit at University College Hospitals London.

Merseyside Maritime Museum has a display focusing on disease and illness at sea. There are examples of surgical tools used on vessels. From 1894, all foreign-going British ships carrying more than 100 people were required to carry a qualified surgeon.

A large wooden medicine chest for seafarers contains glass medicine bottles, pestle and mortar and scales. It dates from 1854 which was the year British ships were required to carry medical equipment and stores for the treatment of illness and injury.

This photograph shows apprentices dhobying (washing their clothes) on the Brocklebank Line’s Malakand about 1910.

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

Strange things are afoot in the basement of Merseyside Maritime Museum, where a brand new permanent gallery 'Seized! Revenue and Customs uncovered' opens this weekend.

The gallery reveals the mysterious world of smuggling and surveilance that's all in a day's work for Customs Officers, with help from unusual exhibits including exotic birds, dangerous weapons and a highly suspicious garden gnome.

To celebrate the opening a busy weekend of events is planned, including displays by sniffer dogs and hopefully a visit by a Customs cutter - as long as it isn't called away for an official operation.

Also in the basement, the newly refurbished Emigration gallery reopens this weekend.

Everyone dreads airport delays but this week our touring exhibition officer Mary Hesling had to deal with an unusual delayed departure caused by a fire several miles away. Here's her report of how her latest project was cleared for take off:

"I was very pleased to be involved in the installation of seven stunning black and white photographs from the Stewart Bale collections at the Wetherspoons Lloyds Imperial, Liverpool John Lennon Airport. The display follows a broad theme, with images of the old Liverpool Airport, Liverpool city centre and docks.

After more than a year in development, all involved were delighted to see the final display going up. The installation, originally planned for 13 May 2008, was not without its problems! The awful Bluecoat fire in the early hours of Tuesday morning called all our handling and conservation teams in to help. This caused the airport installation to be postponed at short notice - and our thanks to Wetherspoon for their understanding about this!

We finally got out to the airport on Wednesday 14 May and, after only a few more hic-cups (not least of which being two inexplicably flat batteries for the power drill, despite them being charged over night!!!) our wonderful handlers put the display up beautifully, using only hand-powered tools and sheer determination!

The final display will be in place for one year, and I think it looks great. Next time you’re flying out of Liverpool why not get a drink at Wetherspoons and admire the show.

Thanks to Wetherspoons Pubs PLC for their contribution to this project."

Anne Williams and Mary Hesling put the final touches to the display

Hello there

Well I am pleased to announce my return to the world of blogging. The last time I wrote a blog post was way back in October. So what have I been doing since then? Well the answer is plenty!  First if all let me give you an update about the museum. We have had a fantastic response to the museum, from the public, museum professionals, academics and most importantly the local community. To date we have had upwards of 210,000 visitors. This is higher than we expected and we will hopefully exceed our annual forecast. We realise that there is still much work to do but in a way there always should be for a museum.  We aim to be receptive to ideas, comments and indeed criticisms but we truly believe we are a living and breathing museum and as such updating; revising and changing information as well as views and theories is part of that process.

Quite a lot of my time has been spent on putting together various strategies and policies for the museum.  This means that I have been having regular meetings with colleagues from various departments, as well as Angela Robinson - the curator of transatlantic slavery who is the person who looks after the museum collections. Angela quite rightly gets mad when I am sometimes referred to as the curator of the museum in the newspaper or on radio. But I always bring her a small present back from my travels to stay in her good books!

One of those policies is our new collecting policy. Not only do we aim to keep collecting archives and ephemera which relate to transatlantic slavery but we are looking to expand our collections into new areas. For instance, we already have in the museum a number of African American objects, what are often called ‘Black Americana’, objects such as prints, books, toys, games, ornaments or various household memorabilia, often produced from the 1920s through the 1950s in America. Some of these are on display in the Legacy gallery at the museum. Many of these objects depict racist stereotypical images and can be extremely offensive in their nature. We feel it is important though to highlight how these objects and images were used, and indeed tolerated, in popular recent culture.   

What we are now looking to do is increase our Black British memorabilia collections.  Again, some of these objects are very disturbing but we also aim to collect uplifting aspects of Black British life. If someone has an object that they feel we would be interested in please contact us here at the International Slavery Museum.

Another policy we have been developing is our international policy. As an internationally recognized museum we understand the need for us to build collaborations with a number of different countries, especially those who, like Britain, played a central role in transatlantic slavery. As part of this policy I was recently in Guyana for the Commonwealth Association of Museums conference on ‘Museums and Diversity’. I gave a paper titled ‘The International Slavery Museum: an active campaigner’. I wanted to draw attention in the paper not only to the fact that we want to work with museums in other countries, but how I see the museum as actively campaigning against contemporary forms of racism and discrimination as well as forms of contemporary slavery and bonded labour. This makes us an active museum, not a neutral one, and I challenge those that think we should be.

I also got to meet Dr Frank Anthony - the Minister for Culture, Youth and Sport. We talked about ways that we could link with museum and heritage institutions in Guyana, a country which we mention many times in the International Slavery Museum but which until 1966 was called British Guiana. There are many links between Liverpool and Guyana. One of them being that the family of four times Prime Minister William Gladstone owned a plantation near a town called Vreed-en-Hoop in a region of British Guiana called Demerara, a word which is now synonymous with brown sugar around the world. It was a very positive meeting and from it came an official invitation to participate in CARIFESTA.  We even managed to make the national press. The picture is probably the worst ever taken of me though!

Along with other delegates of the conference I managed to visit Iwokrama, a rainforest conservation and development centre. It aims to show how tropical forests can be conserved and sustained providing social, ecological and economic benefits to communities locally and indeed internationally.

On the second day we were told we would be going on a short hike up a very small mountain.  Alarm bells began to ring at the mention of the word mountain. Anyway, 2 hours and a lot of puffing and panting later I reached the top of Turtle Mountain. It was well worth the effort with beautiful views of pristine rainforest and the Essequibo River.

So I am pleased to say that the museum is a great success and there are some very exciting, as well as challenging, times ahead.  Thanks again to all of you who have visited the museum, and for those who have not had the chance, I hope you can make it soon.  Watch this space.

Have you ever had one of those afternoons when you want to see some artwork, network with some artists, listen to some performances of poetry and music, maybe join in for a bit of a sing-along yourself, or maybe even listen to a talk about some Liverpool artists but you just can't decide which one to do? I bet it happens to you all the time.

Well the good news is that this weekend you don't need to choose if you go to the Face of the City showcase event at Merseyside Maritime Museum, which features all these things and more.

The free afternoon of fun takes place this Saturday, 17 May, from 1-4pm at the museum's dockside gallery. Have a look at the Maritime Museum What's On page for further details and times of performances.

I remember the Prince’s Landing Stage at Liverpool as a constantly busy place when I was a boy in the 1950s – and the Empress of France was one of the monarchs of the sea attended by hundreds of passengers and crew.

This magnificent liner started as a Duchess before serving as a troopship in the Second World War and – after sinking a German U-boat and shooting down an enemy plane – was created an Empress.

The 20,448-ton Duchess of Bedford, of the Canadian Pacific Line, was a popular ship on the Liverpool to Canada run and she was renamed Empress of France in 1947.

She was a floating world of contrasts when first built in 1928. In those days the Duchess of Bedford could carry up to 1,570 passengers. It could take an army of some 70 waiters, 80 stewards and stewardesses, six chefs and 50 kitchen staff just to feed them. The crew numbered 510 in all, including the deck and engine room staff.

Conditions for crew members were basic, with no recreational facilities or dining rooms. Kitchen staff ate on the worktops and shared accommodation with up to 19 others in steel bunks. They had to travel light because each only had an 18-inch square locker for all their belongings.

However, for her passengers she set new standards of comfort when she began life as one of four Duchesses sailing out of Liverpool.

The Duchess of Bedford had hot and cold running water for all 580 cabin class, 480 tourist class and 510 third class passengers. This was at a time when many British homes had only a cold tap and did not have constant hot running water.

Requisitioned as a troopship, she carried a mammoth 179,000 personnel and covered more than 400,000 miles during her war service.

The Duchess of Bedford was sailing from Liverpool to Boston in August 1942 when she spotted a U-boat and sank the submarine by gunfire. She was later used in the north Africa landings in November 1943 when she shot down an enemy aircraft.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a large model of the liner when she was the Empress of France, shown in her post-war livery.

Resuming her Liverpool – Quebec – Montreal sailings in September 1948, she did 310 round voyages across the north Atlantic before her final crossing in 1960.

A photograph shows the 582-ft long Empress leaving Liverpool for the last time, heading for Newport, Monmouthshire, where she was scrapped.

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.

Image courtesy of the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo.

Leslie and Clifford Morgan

Danger lurks everywhere and it is essential to keep vigilant at all times. This painful lesson was literally driven home to me recently when I was knocked off my bicycle – flying 10 ft into the air, fortunately without serious injury.

Birkenhead-born Leslie Morton, aged 18, has a unique place in history for using his eyes. He was the lookout who first spotted the torpedo which sank the Lusitania as she headed for Liverpool on 7 May 1915. It was just after lunchtime on a bright, sunny day and the sea was calm when the German submarine U-20 launched its deadly attack.

As the great ship passed the lighthouse at the Old Head of Kinsale, southern Ireland, Leslie was stationed on the bow of the liner. Suddenly, he spotted thin lines of foam racing towards the ship and shouted: “Torpedoes coming in on the starboard”.  A large explosion shook the Cunard vessel as the torpedo blew a large hole in her right side. The Lusitania began to sink very rapidly at the bow and within 18 minutes she was on the bottom of the Irish Sea. A total of 1,195 people died in the tragedy.

Lusitania is featured in a permanent exhibition at the Merseyside Maritime Museum called Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress – the latter being the Empress of Ireland which sank in Canada in 1914. There is a section devoted to Leslie Morton and his brother Clifford, who was nearly 19 at the time of the disaster (they were not twins). 

Both brothers saved many lives and Leslie was later considered to be the “outstanding hero of the Lusitania disaster”.

They joined the crew of the Lusitania as ordinary seamen in New York. The brothers were among eight crew from the Liverpool sailing ship Naiad who jumped ship to join Lusitania. All planned to join the Royal Navy once they returned to England. The Morton brothers were the only ones to survive the sinking.

On display is the silver Board of Trade Gallantry Medal awarded to Leslie Morton for saving lives at sea.

Kapitan-lieutenant Walter Schwieger was the captain of the U-boat which sank the Lusitania. He was very successful, sinking three ships in two days before scuppering the Lusitania.

The sinking of the Lusitania sparked riots and attacks on businesses run by people of German descent in Liverpool and elsewhere. My late father, George Guy, as a four-year-old clearly remembered a mob attacking Yagg’s shop in Everton.

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

More from Reyahn King and the judging of the 25th John Moores prize.

After what can only be described as an excitable breakfast, the jurors got going this morning in great good humour. They have reached a remarkable degree of agreement about what they are looking for. Their approach is to look not just for good paintings but for paintings that have a sense of “time and place” – in other words, that have taken on board the history of art and painting, that are intellectually up to date.  And they have  great enthusiasm for originality and unpredictability in works. At least twice today their comments made me look again, harder, at works the subtlety or cleverness of which I had initially missed. I think by the time they’d gone through all the entries, there was only one of the around 150 they have selected to go to the next stage that I would disagree with – I’ll never reveal which!

Watch this space for stage 2 when we get together with the actual works in Liverpool! I for one am really looking forward to June!

Vikky Evans-Hubbard plays the role of Diane Nash

As usual our museums are packed with things to keep you busy this bank holiday weekend, but a new performance at the International Slavery Museum on Monday 5 May is definitely worth a special trip.

Keep your eyes on the prize tells the inspiring story of Diane Nash and her involvement in the civil rights movement in America during the 1960s. There are two performances at 2 and 3pm.

Or if like me you are planning a very lazy long weekend then let BBC's Woman's Hour bring highlights of the performance to you. They are doing a series on the treasures of National Museums Liverpool as picked by female members of staff. Watch this space for the others to follow throughout 2008.

Director of art galleries, Reyahn King, is in London at the moment, presiding over the judging of the 25th John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize. Here's her report from the end of day one (yesterday).

Dinos (left) and Jake Chapman. Image courtesy Mike Marsland Photos

Today, 1 May 2008, the John Moores Contemporary Painting Prize jurors started stage 1 of judging the exhibition and prize. The jurors are artists Jake and Dinos Chapman (shown), Paul Morrison, Graham Crowley and critic Sacha Craddock. Jake and Dinos are in the midst of preparing for a big show, Paul Morrison's work is on currently in lots of places including Liverpool, London and Japan, Graham Crowley has been on the news commenting on the state of art teaching in London and Sacha Craddock is a legend for her longstanding reputation as a critic and Chair of another competition, New Contemporaries. Given all this it is wonderful to me that these five will come together to spend two days in a darkened room selecting work for our exhibition in Liverpool.

At the beginning of the day over breakfast I stressed the sheer volume of art to see. With 3,448 entries I was worried that the process might run beyond the two long days everyone had set aside. Judging started at 9:30am and went on to 7pm with food breaks. Incredibly we finished ahead of schedule - the jurors were really keen, taking only short breaks before itching to get back to it.

My role is to keep the jury on schedule and coordinate with the technical team. In the main this means checking that all five jurors have agreed whether a work is to be selected or are they still pondering? Yesterday they were focused on a first sift, and if any one person liked a work it got put to one side without much debate. Already though you can see preferences for kinds of work emerging and I expect debate to really get going when we revisit the first sift.

Today we'll finish looking at all the entries and then go back to all those put on one side and reconsider them.

By the end of tomorrow, 2 May, we need to have decided which 250 or so artists will be invited to send their work to Liverpool to be judged at stage 2 in June. Watch this space!  

Our trading arm, NML Trading, is holding a Recruitment Open Day on Saturday 10th May. They're looking to recruit Team Leaders, Catering Assistants, Venue Supervisors, Chefs and Banqueting staff. They're looking for people who are passionate about catering for their daytime operation plus occasional evening work. You'll be working in Liverpool’s world class museums, providing high quality food and refreshments to over two million visitors each year.

To find out more about the roles on offer, bring your CV to World Museum Liverpool, William Brown Street, Liverpool between 10.30am and 4.30pm.

On this day in 1915 the Lusitania left New York on what would be her last voyage across the Atlantic. As the liner approached southern Ireland on 7 May 1915 she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-20. She sank in under twenty minutes with the loss of 1,201 of the 1,962 people on board.

To commemorate the tragedy the Merseyside Maritime Museum have added a lifebuoy (or ring lifebelt) from the liner to the displays in the Titanic, Lusitania  and the Forgotten Empress gallery.

The lifebuoy was found by the skipper of a fishing boat from Kinsale who helped to rescue Lusitania survivors. He gave it to a visiting fish merchant, Arthur Miller, who displayed it in his office. It is now on long term loan to Merseyside Maritime Museum courtesy of Arthur Miller's grandson Dr Arthur Neiland.

There will be an act of remembrance for those lost in the sinking of the Lusitania led by the Rev Steven Brookes, Rector of Liverpool, on the 93rd anniversary of the tragedy. Everyone is welcome to the event, which will take place at 1.30pm Wednesday 7 May on the quayside outside the Piermaster's House - see this handy city centre map for the location.

Update: please note that the remembrance event will now be led by Father Robert Mackley.