National Museums Liverpool Blog - Thursday, January 05, 2012

Clearing ice from the deck of Montrose, 1928 (reference PR 154)

I have been trying to find a photograph on a Christmas/Winter theme for a festive blog post to advertise the Maritime Archives & Library online exhibition Christmas at Sea. I discovered this photograph of the crew of the Canadian Pacific vessel Montrose shovelling ice off the deck after the ship struck an iceberg in fog off Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.  I could have passed this off as a winter event, but unfortunately it happened on Easter Monday in April 1928.  This is not the festival I was looking for, but a good reminder of how harsh conditions can be at sea.  The Montrose was requisitioned during the Second World War and renamed HMS Forfar.  It was torpedoed and sunk on 2nd December 1940 with the loss of 184 crew - a tragic winter event.

Staff at the World Museum are getting very excited, as a generous donation has meant that a massive refurbishment can go ahead on the much-loved planetarium!

It will be closed from 4 - 30 January 2012, but here's planetarium demonstrator John Moran to tell us what fantastic new facilities will be available in the new year...

I used to get asked, "Are there any changes coming to the Planetarium anytime soon?" My answer would always be, "Only if a private benefactor with deep pockets decides they;d like to invest some money into the planetarium!". But I never believed for a moment that it would happen.

For years, the team at the planetarium have gone on trips to other planetaria around the country and always came back saying how great it would be to have digital projectors in the World Museum's planetarium.  Well, dreams do come true, because the nice folks at Zeiss have kindly given us £110,000 worth of digital projection equipment absolutely free! (Thanks Zeiss!)

Throughout January 2012 the planetarium will be closed for the installation of a Zeiss Spacegate Duo as well as brand new software. This will enable us to run more exciting and more immersive shows than ever before. We will be able to use the 'all-dome' technology of this system to create mind blowing shows. These could be; a close-up of the moon or the volcanoes of Mars or even the rings of Saturn spread across every inch of the dome. 

It's worth remembering that we are still the only free static planetarium in the country and we will stay that way after the refurbishments too. The planetarium is about to go digital and if you liked it before, you won’t believe your eyes at the beginning of February. See you then!

The planetarium before refurbishment.

It’s the 20 December which can only mean one thing, and not that we’re only five days away from Christmas.

No, today marks one month exactly until the deadline for artists to register for the John Moores Painting Prize 2012. This blog is for any artists out there or people who may know artists. Enter before 20 January 2012 and be in with a chance of winning the first prize of £25,000 or four further prizes, each of £2,500.

This is the biggest painting prize in the UK and has played a significant role in some famous artistic careers.  Previous winners have included David Hockney, Peter Doig and Lisa Milroy. Sir Peter Blake was a winner of the Junior section of the Prize in 1961 which he describes as “...a thrilling moment when I was told I’d taken first prize in the Junior section and it spurred me on.” Fifty years after winning the Junior section Sir Peter is now patron of the Prize.

Judges for this year’s competition are Fiona Banner who is from Merseyside, director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery Iwona Blazwick, Spanish born Angela de la Cruz, a former Turner Prize 2010 nominee, Turner Prize 2011 nominee George Shaw and creative director of the BBC, Alan Yentob. 

To enter the Prize or find out more follow the link – go on, it could be the start of something amazing! 
 

Sir Peter Blake won the John Moores Painting Prize junior section in 1961 and continues to paint today.

Stewart Bale Volunteers: Hard at work helping to clean glass plate negatives.

Ann Stewart; Head of Framing, Paper and Paintings Conservation tells us a bit more about the wonderful work our Stewart Bale Volunteers have achieved this past year…

“Based in the paper conservation studio, a volunteer project to clean and re-house glass plate negatives from the Stewart Bale collection began in March this year.

Mainly due to the poor condition of the original packaging, most of these images haven't been seen since the collection came to us.

9 months later the volunteers have steadily worked their way through an amazing 10,000 negatives. There are approximately 30,000 negatives still to be cleaned! The entire collection which also includes film sheet negatives is c.200,000.

During the course of the year we have seen 26 volunteers involved in the project with a further 17 due to start in the New Year.”

Well done to all volunteers involved!

If you are interested in volunteering, please contact the Volunteers Team to find out more.

Sudley House in Mossley Hill, Liverpool, was the home of Victorian shipowner George Holt who amassed a huge fortune as one of the proprietors of Lamport & Holt.

Despite his wealth, he was a modest man who did not go in for lavish entertainment. He was married with one daughter and the family were not ones to splash the cash on themselves.

In fact, they were among Liverpool’s greatest philanthropists and gave away most of what they acquired – including Sudley House.

George’s daughter Emma handed it over with its amazing art collection including paintings by Gainsborough, Millais, Holman Hunt and Turner.

Her stunningly generous gift ensured that the only art collection by a British Victorian merchant in its original domestic setting survives.

The atmosphere of historic homes is best captured when people dress in clothes reminiscent of the period.

This happened on 14 November 2011 when this crinoline dress (see my picture above) was unveiled in Sudley’s drawing room.

The Liverpool-made garment is seen in tonight’s episode of Desperate Scousewives on the E4 TV channel.

Made from synthetic human hair, it weighed 15 stone and took its toll on the model during the two hours of filming.

I am only really interested in women's clothing when a woman is wearing it, so this was a bit of a treat for me.

As my grandma May Kendrick (1868 - 1954) used to tell her friends: "Loosen your stays or you'll get the vapours."

Image courtesy Liverpool Daily Post & Echo

I have some fabulous foxtrot 78 rpm wax records from the 1920s which evoke the crazy days when people reacted to the horrors of the Great War.

This was also a time when countries such as the United States started to put restrictions on immigration after the great free-for-all when virtually any healthy person could settle.

The three sister ships took settlers to Canada in the closing years of the great age of emigration which lasted from 1830 to 1930.

In 100 years nine million people set sail from Liverpool for new lives, making it probably the greatest emigration port in world history.

The Andania, Antonia and Ausonia were A Class liners built by Cunard in the 1920s for the Canadian service. All were about 14,000 tons and carried about 1,700 passengers.

In Merseyside Maritime Museum’s emigration gallery there is a fascinating 1923 film called Travel Cunard Line. This would have been shown at the ever-increasing numbers of cinemas as well as trade fairs and other promotional events.

There are views of the new Cunard Building with trams rattling outside, ships on the river and passengers embarking on liners at the Princes Landing Stage.

Stage hands skilfully handle ropes securing a liner, people hurry to board as crowds wave from the stage. A ferry boat scurries nearby.

Third Class passengers make their way up the gangplank, smartly dressed for the voyage to new lives. They hand boarding passes to Cunard staff. Two young travellers are framed in a lifebelt marked Andania Liverpool.

Kitchen staff work hard over huge ranges in the galley of the Ausonia. Third Class passengers are seen at breakfast.

An oil painting by Arthur J Burgess is also on display in the gallery (pictured). It represents one of the three A Class liners. She is pictured at sunset heading out to sea with two yachts off her port side.

The Ausonia was built in Newcastle by Armstrong, Whitworth & Co and made her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Montreal in August 1921. She had a fairly uneventful career and was requisitioned by the Admiralty in 1939 and converted into an armed merchant cruiser.

She ended her days as a repair ship for the Mediterranean Fleet from 1958 to 1964. Ausonia was scrapped in 1965.

The Antonia, built by Vickers at Barrow, followed a similar career path before being scrapped in 1948.

Andania, built by Hawthorn Leslie & Co of Newcastle, was not so fortunate. After working on the Liverpool – Montreal route, she also became an armed merchant cruiser at the start of the Second World War. She was torpedoed and sunk off Iceland in June 1940, fortunately without loss of life. 

This is an edited version of the Maritime Tale that originally appeared in the Liverpool Echo.

Here's our Planetarium demonstrator and resident star-gazer, John Moran, to tell us what to look out for in the night sky this month...

Composite wide angle camera image taken during the peak of 2010's Geminids.

Who needs X-Factor, I’m a Celebrity or Strictly Come Dancing when there is so much viewing pleasure in the night sky above you?

For starters there is the king of planets Jupiter, which you may have already seen but not realised. If you have noticed an unusually bright star directly above your head you have actually been looking at the gas giant with the great red spot. A pair of small binoculars is enough to see its four main moons orbiting either side of it. If you have access to a telescope you should be able to see the equatorial bands running through the planet.

The red planet Mars is currently fighting his way through the constellation of Leo the Lion - but my money is on the god of war! You’ll find Leo rising above the eastern horizon from around 10.30pm but as the weeks go by you should see Mars at a more reasonable time.

Now for the big one this month, the Geminids meteor shower. If we get clear skies on the 13th into the early hours of the 14th you may get to see one of the most abundant meteor showers of the year.

This year the Gibbous moon will reduce the number of shooting stars on offer but you still should bag a few dozen providing you’re away from bright lights or better still in the country. But don’t worry if you live in the city as I’ve seen plenty of meteors from my back garden and believe me I couldn’t be more in the city if I tried!

Nothing is certain with meteor showers, but as someone once said; "Meteor showers are like fishing; you go you enjoy the outdoors, and sometimes you catch a fish". So happy sky hunting this December and all the best for Christmas and New Year.

Laura Cox, Visitor Assistant at the Museum of Liverpool shares her experience of the recent royal visit

As I’m sure you know we had a couple of very special visitors to the Museum of Liverpool on the 1st December, The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh came to officially open the building. It was a wonderful day and one I will never forget.

As a Visitor Assistant I was situated in the Wondrous Place gallery, to say I was excited/nervous would be an understatement. Up in the gallery we also had Yoko Ono and Olympic cyclist Chris Boardman waiting to meet the Queen.Being upstairs and not in the atrium of the museum meant I didn’t see the Royal arrival, but I did hear it. Prior to their arrival there had been a buzz around the museum, you could feel the anticipation in the air, but upon their arrival the museum fell silent.

They had arrived, our Royal visit had begun.I pictured everybody downstairs holding their breath watching the Queen and Prince Philip enter the building, and then the initial nerves turning into excitement as they began to wave their pink Museum of Liverpool flags, the buzz was once again being carried through the building.

When the Queen entered Wondrous Place I couldn’t help but smile, I couldn’t believe that the Queen was standing just a few feet away from me. She was shown around the gallery by Phil Redmond; she stopped to talk to Yoko whilst looking at suits worn by The Beatles and then she spoke to Chris Boardman whose bicycle is on display at the museum. She was particularly interested in the skeleton of Ambush II, the last Royal horse to win the Grand National. Just before she left the gallery she was shown Ken Dodd’s costume and tickling stick.

History made in Liverpool – 1st of December 2011

See photos of the royal visit.

King Cotton postcard, published New York, 1861, on loan from Museum of Science & Industry, Manchester.

The Merseyside Maritime Museum is currently marking the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War with an exhibition outside the Maritime Archives & Library on the second floor and a trail pointing out relevant collections throughout the museum.  This image shows part of an envelope that we have borrowed from the Museum of Science & Industry in Manchester to add to the exhibition.  It was printed in New York and was designed to send a powerful message regarding the economic and moral position of England (represented by John Bull).  England claimed to be powerful and free, but the economic success of places like Manchester was reliant on access to cotton produced by slave labour.  John Bull is kneeling on a slave while worshipping King Cotton.