National Museums Liverpool Blog - Monday, June 21, 2010

I remember my brother’s bugle – a bright brassy one he used in the Scouts – but until recently I never knew they blew one on the Titanic.

It was with trepidation that I pursed my lips and gave the instrument a quick blast and the noise that came out almost deafened me.

Titanic had strong links with Liverpool but never visited her home port - by 1912 the White Star Line had switched its transatlantic liners to Southampton.

The organisation of her maiden voyage, including choosing the officers, was supervised by Charles Bartlett, the shipping line’s marine superintendent based in Liverpool.

Ironically he was known as Iceberg Charly because of his skill in smelling ice or sensing when there were dangerous bergs in the vicinity.

At least 90 members of Titanic’s crew on her tragic maiden voyage – about 10 per cent – were from Merseyside or had close links with the area.  Most of her key officers and crew had originally sailed from Liverpool for White Star.

In Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress gallery there is a display of White Star items from the pre-Titanic era.

A chief officer’s frock coat was worn by William Lightfoot of Litherland, Liverpool, about 1900. Titanic’s officers wore similar coats as can be seen in photographs. There is an officer’s cap badge and uniform button.  

A White Star bugle was made by RJ Ward & Sons of Liverpool about 1885. A bugle like this was used to call Titanic’s passengers to meals.

A First Class china coffee cup and saucer of about 1905 was supplied by the famous Liverpool store Stoniers Ltd. The same design, featuring the White Star house flag, was used on Titanic. Stoniers also provided the1900 cobalt blue and gold china soup bowl made by Spode Copeland.

An iron rivet is engraved with the White Star emblem and RMS Titanic 1910. It is probably a shipyard worker’s souvenir taken from the slipway.

Bartlett joined White Star in 1894 and was given his first command in 1903. Titanic’s slightly-larger sister ship Britannic was commissioned as His Majesty’s Hospital Ship (HMHS) G618 on 13 December 1915 in Liverpool. Bartlett took command the following day as medical equipment was installed.

Britannic struck a German mine on 21 November 1916 in the Aegean off the Greek island of Kea. When he saw there was no way to save the stricken vessel, Captain Bartlett issued the order to abandon ship.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).

If you have an iPhone you can now download a free virtual 3D model of the Titanic based on the model in Merseyside Maritime Museum.

A very unusual thing happened during the development of Cargo-a-go-go, the fun new game on the Merseyside Maritime Museum's website. I was involved in the development of the game and had tested it thoroughly during this process, so when it was first launched my score was  right at the top of the leaderboard. This doesn't happen to me very often so I was very tempted not to tell anyone else about the game.

The word is out now though and thousands of people have now played Cargo-a-go-go, knocking me of the top spot in the process. Of all those people, I did wonder how many actually realised that the game has its roots firmly in Liverpool's maritime history, thanks to some very thorough research.

You can now read all about the development of the game on our website. The process started when the web team at National Museums Liverpool produced a thorough brief and an initial concept sketch for the game. Thankfully the game's developers, Glow, produced some much better graphics, thanks to some detective work of their own.

On a recce to the Albert Dock, technical director Thom Shannon found inspiration for one of the key elements for the game right outside the Merseyside Maritime Museum when he spotted an original wheeled crane on the quayside. You can see the full set of Thom's photos of the crane on Flickr.

Based on this information and examples of cargo ships from the era, provided by the museum's curator of maritime history, the artist Sophie Green produced an initial illustration which the game's graphics were based on.

If you haven't seen Cargo-a-go-go yet then why not have a play - it is Friday afternoon after all. If anyone asks, you're learning about Liverpool's heritage!

Rose Hardman reports on funding that will enable fantastic new opportunities for conservation trainees.

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We were delighted to receive the news recently that the Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded £350,700 to help National Museums Liverpool and the North West Fed deliver training opportunities for 12 Positive Action Trainees.

The money, awarded under the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Skills for the Future programme, will give trainees a chance to learn about heritage conservation and audience development.

National Museums Liverpool’s six trainees will spend two years looking at conservation techniques with the Institute of Conservation as a key partner. We will begin advertising for placements at National Museums Liverpool in 2012.

In addition, six trainees will be placed in Manchester Museum, Salford Museum and Art Gallery, and Towneley Hall where they will develop visitor services and community outreach skills. Recruitment for these placements will begin in November 2010.

The scheme will boost the North West heritage sector’s training and development provision for Black Minority Ethnic (BME) and Disabled people; this award will enable us to expand our work whilst helping existing staff build on their skills. It will also help us reach varied sections of the community.

We look forward to updating you on the progress of the project!

Here's our Curator of Botany, Geraldine Reid, to tell us about a curious new arrival at the botany department...

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Today started like any other and then suddenly a new acquisition arrived in the botany department. It was a costume from the performance piece 'Grains of Paradise' created by Adela Jones back in 2008. She used the botanical collections as inspiration for her costumes and piece, which was hosted by the Bluecoat and was part of 'Fragrant', which explored Liverpool’s Botanical Collection.

As you can see, after I unwrapped the costume I seemed to end up totally engulfed in it and almost turned into part of a living plant exhibit! I’m not quite sure what species I am meant to resemble, but as we’re celebrating the International Year of Biodiversity in 2010, maybe I’m morphing into a new species down in the basement of world museum...

Here's an update from Clare Wolfarth's third week of her sabattical in Haiti, where she has been helping Oxfam's earthquake relief operation:

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"Today represents the half way point of my six weeks here in Haiti. As someone here has observed, the days seem long but the weeks fly by.

This last week has been one of contrasts. On Sunday I took the day off and a few of us went to a beach that is a couple of hours drive from the capital, Port au Prince, where I’m based. It was my first time getting out of the city and it felt really good to be in the fresh air and have a change of scene. The beach was beautiful – white sand, palm trees and Caribbean turquoise sea - and I had fresh grilled lobster for lunch followed by a coconut cut off the tree above my head for dessert.

It was a strange day as we had to drive through some really poor parts of the city to get to the beach and I saw some of the worst shanty town living conditions I have ever seen. There was mile after mile of extremely poor shelter (I don’t think it could be accurately classed as ‘housing’) – basically just corrugated iron and plastic sheeting. The shanty areas have no clean water or sanitation and rubbish and rubble piled is high everywhere with goats and pigs - and occasionally people - picking through it.

By and large you would not be able to gauge by their appearance that the people you see on the streets here are living in such extreme poverty. Religion is very important to most Haitian people and we saw lots of people on their way to or from church in their Sunday best and looking immaculate. I don’t know how people manage to do it.

Even before the earthquake, 80% of the population of Haiti was living on less than $2 per day and nearly 60% of the population was deemed under-nourished with one in four children stunted as a result. It seems so unfair that in a country where life is already so hard and the poverty is already so overwhelming, there should be a natural disaster as huge as the recent earthquake. I know life isn’t fair and disasters are indiscriminate but it does make me appreciate all that we have at home and the relative wealth and safety that we live in.

So the day was a little strange because of the juxtaposition between the luxurious beach resort where we relaxed and recuperated and the ordinary life for so many people here but it was good to get some time off and to get away from the city.

In general, there is a curious mix of hope and despair here. For every good news story we hear that demonstrates the courage and resilience of the Haitian people there seems to be an equally depressing one of violence or corruption. The colonial history and the legacy of the slave trade continue to be felt here in very real ways and make it both an extraordinarily interesting and an extremely challenging context to work in.

One of the good news stories recently was that on May 24 the Ministry of Culture and Communication signed a memorandum of understanding with the Smithsonian Museum to restore Haitian cultural property damaged by the earthquake and to train local people in restoration techniques. Countless works of precious art have been buried here and lost forever but it is comforting to know that there is some concrete international support to help the country salvage and restore what it can. We have also just sent a suggestion to the Oxfam Head Office that the Oxfam Unwrapped catalogue also includes the opportunity for people to pledge direct support to the musicians and artists who create such a vibrant cultural scene here.

The other good news to report from Haiti this week is that the chickens who live in the yard where we work have had babies so there are 3 little fluffy chicklets running around during our meetings now. Definitely not like meetings in National Museums Liverpool!"

We would spread out in the huge cinema with acres of empty seats and settle down with six-penny packets of popcorn for the double feature.

It may have been the Regent or the Regal, the Carlton or the Curzon but I always thought the programmes were great value – two films, a newsreel, trailers and Pearl & Dean’s glossy adverts.

Often the support (or B) picture was a naval war film or period sea drama. Key scenes often resounded to the clanging of the ship’s telegraph – its bells heightening the drama.

The ship’s telegraph – usually housed in a brass pedestal on the bridge - transformed communications on vessels as they grew in size.

Chadburns of Liverpool pioneered the system of pulleys and levers after taking out a patent in 1870.

In the days of sail it was relatively easy for the captain to pass on commands to crew members. Sailing ships were relatively small and simple to operate, whether under canvas or entering and leaving port.

The arrival of steamships in the 1840s initially did not cause problems because these powered ships were also small. Many of these ships used a trip-gong in the engine room to transmit coded messages.

One gong meant Stop, two Slow Ahead, three Full Ahead and so on. However, this system was prone to human error. For example, if the engineer miscounted the gongs the ship could easily go in the wrong direction. Engine room staff also had to remember and verbally pass on the speed orders that had been issued.

The Chadburn pulley system telegraph enabled instructions from the bridge to the engine room to be relayed mechanically. There were also steering and docking telegraphs to control the rudder.

A ship’s telegraph in the Battle of the Atlantic gallery (pictured) was salvaged from the wreck of the American cargo steamer Steel Worker sunk by a German mine in Kola Bay North Russia in 1942.

As ships grew larger, telegraph systems grew more sophisticated. By the 1890s the successful brass pedestal telegraph had become well established.

The Titanic had three vital areas linked by telegraphs. The captain’s bridge was the navigation centre of the ship and focal point of the telegraph installation.

This was connected to the starting platform, housing the controls for the ship’s engines, and the after docking bridge.

Electric telegraphs were later introduced although the pulley system remained in use on merchant ships until the 1950s.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).
 

Ever wondered what might happen if one of the animals in the museum escaped? To continue our celebration of the World Museum's 150th anniversary, we have asked Senior Education Manager of sciences, Mike Graham to tell us about one of his memories from working in the Aquarium in the 1970s...

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I started in 1972 at the museum in Liverpool when it was the city museum. We had 26 four-foot, cube shaped, aquaria displaying temperate and tropical marine fish, invertebrates and temperate and tropical freshwater fish. We also had a number of displays of snakes lizards, spiders and other invertebrates. It was a brilliant place to work and in those days it was at the cutting edge of aquarium technology. Every day was different with something new to see and experience. We accepted numerous donations from the general public with surprising results.

We were once offered a large green Iguana which had out grown its owner’s home. It's owner told us that it was about 4.5 foot long - which we assumed was an exaggeration - and when she appeared with a tiny zipped shopping bag, we thought our assumptions were correct. I made the big mistake of opening it in the public gallery to have a quick look and this 4.5 foot monster poked its head and shoulders out of the bag. How she got it in there in the first place was beyond me! It scanned the area in a nonchalant sort of way and then leapt out and scuttled off down the gallery. We had a marble floor and it wasn't really able to run on this surface, so it made loads of noise which alerted the visitors and of course lead to absolute pandemonium. I rugby tackled it at the end of the corridors and managed to get back into the lab area.

In that job, no two days were the same and you had to expect the unexpected at all times!

Here's an update from Clare Wolfarth's second week of her sabbatical helping out Oxfam in Haiti on how she found settling into the new role:

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"There is always a lot to get used to in a new job and it’s not too surprising to find that there are significant challenges in working in a developing country whose fragile infrastructure has recently been all but destroyed.

The HR team here has spent the past four months responding to the enormous demands that an emergency scale up generates. In a country where the official unemployment rate is between 70 to 80 %, the chance to work for an international NGO (non governmental organisation) such as Oxfam represents a potentially life changing opportunity for many Haitians. In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, the office was inundated with people dropping off their CVs for consideration to a point where full crowd control measures needed to be taken to ensure public safety. The team received over 3,000 CVs in the first few days after the office reopened and stopped counting at 20,000 at the end of the first week, although the total received is estimated to be double to triple that.

We now have about 400 local staff and many more employed on a daily basis to support the programme in positions such as community mobilisers. Oxfam’s main programmes here are water and sanitation, public health, emergency food security and livelihoods, and shelter. The priority is to support the earthquake survivors to stay well and healthy and to rebuild their lives after the disaster, and particularly to assist the most vulnerable such as the elderly, those with disabilities or orphans. Many people who lost their homes have congregated in makeshift camps where conditions can quickly deteriorate into squalor without proper sanitation and clean water supplies; particularly now it is the rainy season. So far, Oxfam has already helped over 300,000 people and has plans to reach more than 600,000 over the next three to five years of its recovery programme here.

From a HR perspective, ensuring that all the systems are set up, trying to recruit staff into the remaining positions when skilled workers are in short supply and in great demand and ensuring Oxfam remains fully compliant with local employment law is challenging. Although I do my written work in English, I still have to speak French with the local staff and even then I sometimes need a translator as some of them only speak Creole. All the contracts and legal documents are in French so I have the pocket dictionary my Gran bought me before I came out on my desk at all times!

We are currently working in a building that used to be a school (see photo below) but there isn’t enough space so lots of people sit at desks outside with laptops in what used to be the playground. Even the climbing frame is used as storage place for some of the HR files. The internet connection is slow and unreliable and can go down for up to an hour at a time which can be really frustrating.

There’s no air conditioning but we do have electric fans and a generator to keep them going when the power supply fails. My day at the office starts at 7am and finishes around 5.30pm and we’re currently still working six days a week so it’s tiring work but immensely rewarding on so many levels. I love working with the local staff and the expatriate staff here are from all over the world so I’m part of a rich and diverse team.

I feel a long way from National Museums Liverpool but am very grateful for all the support from friends, family and colleagues back home - and am still very glad to be here."