National Museums Liverpool Blog - Monday, December 27, 2010

As the freezing weather continues I can understand why people want to get away to warmer climes over the festive period.

However a permanent move is a different matter. I am told homesickness really kicks in at Christmas and New Year - we often have rosy memories of Christmases past, in particular.

Someone celebrating Christmas in the tropics may long for the ice-cold weather of home and vice versa.

Liverpool helped change the world by providing the means for millions of emigrants to settle in distant lands.

The impact of emigration was huge and the port was the gateway to a new world. Many parts of the globe were enriched as cultures were transplanted and flourished in new communities.

Liverpool was probably the biggest emigration port in world history, with nine million people passing through between 1830 and 1930. The port offered the best deals and people travelled from all over northern Europe to board the emigrant ships.

On display at Merseyside Maritime Museum’s emigration gallery is a Steerage inspection card for the emigration officer at the port of arrival in Canada. It belonged to Ellen Rogerson who sailed from Liverpool with her family aboard the Megantic on 27 May 1911, arriving on 4 June.

Liverpool’s role in the emigrant trade and as a transatlantic passenger port began to decline after the First World War (1914 -18). One factor was Cunard’s decision to transfer services to Southampton.

In the 1920s the United States introduced new laws to reduce the numbers of immigrants but emigration to Australia and Canada continued largely through Government assistance programmes.

After the Second World War, partly due to the growing popularity of air travel, the numbers emigrating through Liverpool continued to fall.

The third Empress of Canada is seen in the Mersey in 1961. This ship made the last North Atlantic passenger voyage from Liverpool on 7 November 1971.

A finely-detailed cross-section plan of the Aquitania (pictured) shows the functions of different parts of the ship including areas used by First, Second and Third Class (Steerage) emigrants.

Visitors can explore a full-sized reconstruction of a Liverpool quayside and wooden emigrant sailing ship of the 1850s.

These sailing ships had only the barest of facilities for Steerage passengers - a world away from the steam floating palaces of 50 years later.

Emigrants were accommodated not in a cabin but a large dormitory where families and groups hired a big pallet to sleep on. These could be curtained off to provide some privacy.

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 and bookshops.

Last Friday was a sad day at the National Conservation Centre as the doors closed to visitors for the last time.  However, yesterday brought with it a silver lining, as we relocated our conservation themed event ‘Crystal Magic’ over to the Clore Natural History Centre at World Museum.

The event was buzzing and despite the icy conditions outside, over seventy people attended the afternoon event.  ‘Salty’ our magical crystal growing snowman stole the show, as he busied away growing snow-like crystals.  He even let us borrow a few to look at more closely.  With our video microscope having also made the transition from the National Conservation Centre over to World Museum, we were able to examine crystals up close and discovered all kinds of beautiful colours, shapes and patterns.

For those who have already had their fill of snow crystals over the past few days, we also looked at how crystals might grow in our collections!  It was revealed that although crystals may look very beautiful and harmless they can be a menace for conservators.  You may ask why?  Well, crystals can in fact grow from soluble salts inside some objects such as ceramics and sculpture.  When these salts crystallize inside the object they expand causing serious stress and damage. 

So, ‘Crystal Magic’ marked the start of a new era, as the National Conservation Centre spread its wings for the first time, to begin conservation-themed events at other venues.  Although the big blue doors at the National Conservation Centre may now be closed to visitors, the dedicated work of the Centre’s conservators continues inside.  Keep your eyes open for new conservation themed events in the New Year on our Events pages.  You can also keep up-to-date with what’s going on behind-the-scenes via the blog, with more in-depth features and information on our Opinions Service available on our website. 

At lunchtime on the 25th December I will be tucking into roast turkey and all the trimmings, especially cranberry sauce, the culinary highlight of the Christmas season.  If you were a first class passenger on the White Star Line ship Gothic on 25th December 1895 you would be enjoying the fare on this menu, part of the collections at the Maritime Archives & Library.  It's a rather meat heavy menu, with a lot of mutton, but would have been considerably more varied than the food provided for the third class passengers. The Gothic was on a voyage from Plymouth to New Zealand and had left Table Bay, South Africa on the 20th December, so there would have been fresh food on board.

Spending Christmas away from home was a fate often suffered by seafarers, but they tried to make the best of it with a good meal.  We hold the journal of William Oates (D/O/17), master of the ship Hants, who writes about his first Christmas Day away from home, anchored off the coast of West Africa in 1853. 'Dr T & I agreed to have a stylish dinner prepared on his vessel..., so of course this morning I sent half the pig with 1 goat and a couple of fowls on board with him, and at 12 noon took myself there and I daresay we enjoyed as good a dinner as any of our friends at home in cold England'  Another meat heavy menu, I hope it wasn't just the two of them.

The International Slavery Museum's role as an active, campaigning museum has led to a number of initiatives, including the creation of a Campaign zone as well as exhibitions such as Home Alone and Trafficked. Dave Cookson from the Liverpool ACT Group reports on another recent event at the museum:

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"The International Slavery Museum was host to the first ever Northern Forum for Active Communities against Trafficking groups (ACTs) on 23 October this year. The Liverpool ACT group were joined by members of groups from Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam University and Manchester in addition to representatives from the STOP THE TRAFFIK organisation based in London.The event was held in the Anthony Walker Education Centre where members were greeted with complimentary fair trade chocolate bars and asked to participate in an appeal to Nick Clegg regarding human trafficking.

The forum was used as an opportunity for STOP THE TRAFFIK volunteers to inform each other of what their groups had been doing, in what proved to be a fruitful exercise as attendees left with new ideas about how to fight the problem of trafficking.

Volunteers were told about the successes STOP THE TRAFFIK had achieved in campaigning for chocolate products to be manufactured within fair trade restrictions prohibiting the use of slavery and trafficking in production. Members were encouraged to continue this campaign, targeting Nestle in particular.

Human rights drama group Ice & Fire gave a performance of a short play that told the true story of a girl who had been trafficked into the UK, her experiences were incredibly frustrating as she struggled to get support when she needed it most after escaping, only getting help when she had been put in contact with the Poppy Project.

Attendees participated in workshops concerning getting the most out of the media, including guidance on writing press releases and how to interest journalists in covering the work being done by STOP THE TRAFFIK. The networking workshop featured members discussing potentially useful contacts and ways in which such contacts can aid campaigns. Another workshop addressed the need for people to find their place within their groups so that they could utilise their skills and knowledge for the benefit of STOP THE TRAFFIK, whilst mobilising themselves better knowing what their role was.

Speaking about the day Liverpool ACT Group Co-ordinator Brenda Garner said 'I think it is good to meet up like this to hear from others, share ideas and encourage each other to increase activity and possible action we can take together as groups in the north of England.  Also each person at the forum wrote down the action they as individuals were going to take. We hope to build on this and meet again; perhaps a couple of times a year'."

It’s that time of year when many of us will be making our annual trip up to the loft to get down the tinsel, fairy lights and all important star for the Christmas tree. But this time while you are up there cast your eyes around- you may very well be able to help the Walker Art Gallery with one of their major exhibitions for 2011!

Curators at the gallery are on the hunt for paintings by local artists that were included in a ground-breaking exhibition held in Liverpool almost 100 years ago and feel sure some of them must have made their way into local homes.

Could you have one hanging in your home or collecting dust in your loft? Do you think you might even be a descendent of one of the artists? Our curators would love to hear from you.

In 1911 the Bluecoat held an exhibition of post-Impressionist artists, who were relatively unknown and anti-establishment at the time, but some of whom are now recognised as giants of 20th century art.

Works by Picasso, Matisse, Gauguin and Van Gogh all starred in the exhibition alongside other European and local avant-garde artists.

Next year the Walker Art Gallery is hosting 'Art in Revolution: Liverpool 1911', an exploration of this important exhibition. Our curators have been researching both the exhibition itself and the backdrop of social unrest in Liverpool at the time. Their research has led them to collections all over the world but there are some works which are still eluding them.
 
Below are the local artists and artworks our curators are most interested in finding out more about. If you think you can help please contact Charlotte Keenan on charlotte.keenan@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk or 0151 478 4141.

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Caroline Richards – Exhibited three drawings or watercolours of the Lincolnshire area: 'Lincoln Cathedral', 'Tealby-Lincolnshire',  and 'Rochford Tower, near Boston, Lincolnshire'.

Constance Irving – Exhibited a drawing and painting titled 'In the Sere' and 'Bet Ty' respectively.

Eleanor B. Page – exhibited one painting, 'Poppies and Cabbages'

Enid Jackson – Two untitled drawings

Ethel Martin Frimston – 'Boats' (Painting), 'The Sphinx' (Bronze), and 'Urn from Dove Park' (Plaster).

George T. Capstick – Two paintings: 'Portrait Study' and 'Interior'

Hamel Calder – 'A Balcony in Liverpool'

Hilda Goffery Atkinson - 'The Landing Place'

Kate Sargent – 'Lilacs' and 'Sussex Landscape' (paintings)

Mary McCrossan - 'The Foreshore', 'Green Shutters', 'The Fair', 'Washing Day' and 'The Fleet - Night'

Mary Palethorpe - 'The Harbour, Volendam'

Maud Glynn - 'Hills near Bethesda, Wales'

Prescod Malcom - 'At the top of the field'

Thomas Handley - 'The Hayle Bar - Low Tide (Sketch Near St Ives)'

William Wilfrid Cave - 'After the Dance' and 'September Morning – Amberley'

Winifred Burne - 'The Bathing Houses - Wort See'

Winifred Phillips - 'A Town Garden', 'A Cliff', 'Hastings Beach', 'Wild Flowers', 'Portrait of the Artist' and 'Flowers'

I’ve always been conscious about the way I dress and admire the way our ancestors took such care over their appearance.

Over the Christmas and New Year periods passengers on the stylish liners would have packed extra clothing to make an impression.

This would have certainly been the case in First Class but all passengers would have dressed up for festive occasions. It might be a new gown or suit to mark the occasion. Poorer people made their own.

It was, and maybe still is in some families, a tradition to have a complete new set of clothes when travelling or on holiday.

This was the age of elegance – beautiful ships moving gracefully through sparkling seas, passengers and crew equally immaculately turned out.

This is one of the most enduring images of Victorian and Edwardian times, a period of huge confidence matching the growth of Britain’s power and prestige.

All sections of society wore hand-made clothes and most people took great trouble with their appearance. The Victorian idea of casual dress was very different from our own.

By the standards of the time people tended to dress more casually when they were at sea. Among the wealthy, top hats and other formal titfers were abandoned for more practical flat caps which stayed on in the wind.

Ladies made sure they had extra scarves and hat pins to secure their headgear. Even on board ship it was unthinkable for people of all ages, rich and poor, to be seen without their hats.

Only the very poorest could not afford hats or bonnets – in Liverpool bareheaded women were called Hairy Marys. It was only after the First World War that people began to be seen out of doors without hats.

Exhibits in Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Life at Sea gallery indicate what life was like for passengers on British ships from the 1850s.

A contemporary colour illustration shows a lady being dressed for dinner by her maid.

I love the hilarious colour comic strip (pictured) showing a gent struggling to dress as the ship rolls and heaves. He falls over as he attempts to get his detachable collar from his suitcase but makes it in the end.

Crews also had to be smartly dressed to match the style of the passengers. Photographs from 1889 to 1960 show the many different types of uniforms worn on passenger liners. A uniform worn by a chief engineer in 1930 is among those on display.

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 and bookshops.

Way back in the early 1990s when I was an architecture student I went on a site visit to the shell of a building that had been the Midland Goods Depot in a past life. I was fascinated to hear how it was being converted into an innovative Conservation Centre for the museums, with every studio inside specially set up for the particular needs of conservators specialising in different materials.

A couple of years later – having abandoned a career in architecture in favour of art history – I started work at the Walker Art Gallery. The paintings conservators were based there at the time (in rooms which later became part of the exhibition galleries) and I got to know them over many cups of coffee in the staff room. I did miss them when they moved into the new building but was excited to see their impressive new studio.

Not long afterwards the National Conservation Centre opened to the public to great acclaim. It was ground breaking in focusing on the essential behind-the-scenes work of conservators that people would never normally see. This included everything from the cutting edge use of lasers by Conservation Technologies to traditional skills used to conserve objects such as the Lutyens cathedral model.

The Centre also built up a great reputation as a venue for photography exhibitions. I’ve particularly enjoyed the glimpses of the city’s past in exhibitions from Stephen Shakeshaft, Philip Jones Griffiths, Bernard Fallon and the fantastic Stewart Bale collection.

With all these great memories I can’t help feeling sad that the National Conservation Centre will close to visitors today, it really is the end of an era.

Behind the scenes the work of the conservators is, of course, continuing – they’re rather busy at the moment preparing displays for the Museum of Liverpool. You can read about the work they do on the website and see special in-depth features about the research they carry out, such the surprising discovery about the past of a painting of St Michael from the Lady Lever.

There will also be special conservation-themed events at our other venues, starting with a look at Crystal magic at World Museum next week, with more to follow, so do keep an eye out for them.

We were pretty confident this was a special exhibition but it is always nice when our visitors agree! Almost 47,000 people have visited since it opened its doors in September, making this the most popular 'John Moores Painting Prize' in the competition’s 53 year history!

The exhibition is open until 3 January 2011, but visitor figures already stand at 10,000 more than the final figure for the last exhibition in 2008, when Liverpool was crowned European Capital of Culture.

If you are stuck for Christmas present ideas or would just like a memento of this year’s fantastic exhibition why not pick up one of our exclusive Gary Hume badges at the Walker Art Gallery shop (£9.95)? All proceeds go towards funding future exhibitions.

I am an amateur cartoonist and caricaturist – all right, a doodler – who’s also very interested in the development of this art form since it emerged about the time of the English Civil War.

The Second World War inspired some classic newspaper and magazine drawings which kept up morale and were sometimes also used on propaganda posters and leaflets.

This cartoon (pictured) is not particularly well drawn but it captures perfectly the mood of the time and one man’s brave determination to have a go.

Allied merchant shipping carrying vital supplies used the convoy system in an attempt to protect itself from combined U-boat submarine and air attacks during the war.

However, German sea and air forces were never fully co-ordinated as the Germans did not have anything similar to Britain’s Fleet Air Arm, the branch of the Royal Navy responsible for the operation of aircraft.

The fall of France heightened the German threat to shipping. By mid-1940 German planes based in France were increasing the peril to Allied shipping in the Atlantic.

In particular, the squadron of long-range Focke-Wulf Kondor or Kurier aircraft had been established near Bordeaux. Flying up to 600 miles into the Atlantic, the Kondors could direct U-boats on to convoys or bomb the almost-defenceless merchant ships.

In their first two months of operations they alone sank 30 cargo ships. Fortunately for Britain, the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) was never able to fully control the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) missions over the Atlantic.

Hitler’s decision not to set up an Arm meant that German air power was largely directed elsewhere away from the Atlantic.

On display at Merseyside Maritime Museum's Battle of the Atlantic gallery is a photo of the Focke-Wulf Kondor or Kurier (FW-200) long-range aircraft.

Dramatic photographs show the sinking, more than 200 miles west of Ireland, of the Elder Dempster liner Apapa by bombs from FW-200s.

The 9,000-ton Apapa had been sailing in convoy on a voyage from Freetown, West Africa, to Liverpool with 200 passengers and crew plus general cargo. Twenty-four lives were lost.

The 1941 cartoon commemorates a morale-boosting event. Jimmy Ryan of Hull was on HM rescue tug Seaman when it was attacked by a Kondor. He crawled to a Lewis gun, lit a cigarette and brought the bomber down with a deadly burst of fire.

Jimmy, a peacetime tug master, then helped to rescue the three German airmen who had ditched in the sea. He was awarded the George Medal for his remarkable success.

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 and bookshops.

Last week, the Volunteers team along with a group of young volunteers attended the prestigious NCVYS Young Partners Awards 2010.

We were thrilled to have been shortlisted as one of three organisations in the North in the running for winning an award, to celebrate ‘young people’s involvement in decision making within voluntary and community youth organisations or projects’.

Richard Wan, one of the youth volunteers who attended the awards gives us an overview of the day…

‘On Saturday 4th December 2010, a group of youth volunteers and members of staff from the Volunteers team attended the Young Partners Awards 2010 in London’s 4-star Lancaster Hotel; following their shortlisted nomination for an award to recognise the input of young people in decision making within the youth volunteer programme at National Museums Liverpool (NML).

The ceremony began with a bang! A group of dancers first hit the stage showing off a couple of good dance moves in the process. It was slightly concerning too see somersaults metres away from ruining the clean ceiling. Amongst the other performers were a trio of African dancers, a singer and a rapper.

The complimentary three course meal was of an unquestionably high quality and there was an ongoing quiz throughout the ceremony. During the quiz there was no match for Lauren Yule, Assistant Volunteer Co-ordinator – who was ON FIRE with her answers!!!

It was unfortunate that NML did not win the award for the North but the volunteers did succeed in coming third in the quiz.

Despite not winning, I speak on behalf of the volunteers, when I say it was an honour to be nominated in the first place and being acknowledged for all the work NML has done and congratulations to the deserved winners.’