This Christmas present was sent in 1916 all the way from Egypt during the First World War from Michael Dillon, ‘Mick’, who was serving in the Royal Engineers to his sister Henrietta Dillon ‘Hetty’, who lived at QueensPark in Bedford.
Christmas present sent from Micahel Dillon to his sister 'Hetty' in Bedford, 1916
The embroidered material was probably meant to be used as a decorative table centre piece. I expect the local traders in Egypt made a profit from machine stitching commissioned messages on souvenirs, like this one, for troops and servicemen away from their loved ones. Egypt was of crucial significance during the First World War, with the Suez Canal being a vital supply route as well as key to shipping troops to the Western Front.
At this time of year if we are lucky we are able to take a break from work and spend at least Christmas Day with family or friends. I chose this object because it reminds me of those who are not so fortunate, and have made a self-sacrificing choice to work over the Christmas break, perhaps away from their loved ones in order to serve others in whatever way.
Recently on the news there was a Christmas message sent by video from HMS Ocean posted on ‘You Tube’ of the crew singing along to Mariah Carey’s ‘All I want for Christmas’. This was also aired on the BBC News Embed video here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDZcGz4vmJc. The ship and crew had been serving in Libya, but fortunately the service personnel were granted leave to return home before Christmas after filming this video and arrived a week or two ago back in England. I am a sucker for a happy ending at this time of year, and the video did make me smile.
I am in the process of trying to trace more information about Michael Dillon through his service records and census data online. We have one other embroidered souvenir, also we think bought by Michael, from Malta.
Malta was known as ‘The nurse of the Mediterranean’ during the First World War, with so many Military Hospitals situated on the island nursing wounded troops back to health and aiding their recuperation.
Florence May Dillon, Sister of Michael and Henrietta and seamstress for E P Rose and Co. Bedford.
We also have a charming photograph of Michael’s other sister (above), who perhaps received a similar gift to ‘Hetty’ in 1916, Florence May Dillon thought to be around 19 years old in this picture and was a seamstress for E P Rose. Michael also had one other brother called Harry, but unfortunately we know very little about him..
If anyone is related to the Dillon family of Bedford and Michael who served in the First World War and are able to fill in any gaps, I would be pleased to hear from them.
I’d just like to wish all our blog followers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. May it be a prosperous and blogtastic 2012!
All of the archaeological objects in our collections have been made, used, owned and finally lost by people and for nearly all of them we have no idea what the owner may have looked like. When we are working on these items we at best see in our minds eye a fuzzy human shape probably based on an illustration from a history book or a character from a TV series. So this is why every once in a while one our artefacts will stun and surprise us by showing us the face of a person from the past. The stone corbel of a man’s head found in St Mary’s Church, Bedford, is one such remarkable item.
Objects like this offer us a direct link between us, the viewer and the face the stone mason had in his mind when he carved the corbel. We can only assume that the stone mason working on the rough lump of stone modelled it on someone he knew or at the very least of a stylised mans face of his time.
The carving shows the face of a man with well manicured moustache, beard and eyebrows and with locks of curly hair neatly tucked behind his ears. His eyes are fully open and he stares directly out at us and faint traces of red pigment are still just visible on his cheeks, lips and nostrils.
The date of the stone is put at about 1160 AD.
Our corbel was discovered a few years ago during restoration work at St Mary’s Church when a small Anglo-Saxon window, which had been blocked up in the fourteenth century, was being unblocked. The stone head had been used along with other stone rubble to fill in the window.
The basic details of the stone corbel are that it is 24cm wide, is 30cm high and is 23cm deep and as we have recently had to pack it away to be moved off site we can all vouch that despite its’ relatively small size it is extremely heavy too!!
The stone type has been identified as Caen Stone, which is described as a light yellow coloured, fine grained Limestone which outcrops in the north western part of France near to the city of Caen. This type of stone is known to have been quarried in the Roman period and then later in the Norman period and sculptures made from this hard, high quality stone are associated with important religious buildings such as cathedrals and churches or secular buildings of high status such as castles.
Unfortunately as this stone had been reused with other rubble to fill in the window in the fourteenth century we have no way of knowing where it may have come from originally. All we can be certain of is that its shape shows that it would have been used as a corbel to support beams for either a roof or a ceiling and because it is carved and painted with obvious skill and craftsmanship the building it was made for was fairly high status.
Back in 1856 a hoard of three Bronze vessels dating to the Roman period was discovered by chance near to the town of Sandy. Roman and Anglo Saxon artefacts were almost constantly being recovered whilst workmen were digging the railway line between Potton and Sandy. Most of these items were found in burials and included many personal items such as jewellery, pottery, keys and toilet sets. So the discovery of this group of rather fine bronze bowls instantly stood out as something very different.
The bowls are roughly the same size; the largest has a rim diameter of 32 cm and the smallest a rim diameter of 22cm. The only decoration appears on the top of the rim as delicate fluting creating a sort of pie crust effect.
Bronze Bowls of this high quality are rare and unusual from any period but for them to have survived for so long since Roman times and to still be in such a complete state is really very special. The original owner of the bowls would have been an individual with serious high status and maybe even have been a Roman official involved with some aspect of commerce and trade in Sandy.
Though hoards of bronze bowls are not common they are not unique either. Very similar bowls have been recovered nearby at Irchester, Northamptonshire, and further away at Sturmere in Essex and Knaresborough in Yorkshire.
Research carried out by DH Kennett and published in 1969 clearly shows that these hoards found in Britain are not unique within the Roman Empire. Similar bronze bowls have been found in Germany, Holland and in northern France. Nearly all of these continental bronze bowls have been found in the graves of wealthy Romans and from the coin evidence have been firmly dated to the late fourth century.
It is very sad for us today that so little is known about the Sandy bowls other than that they were found together as a hoard during the construction of the railway line a little over one hundred and fifty years ago. This is so very different to modern day excavations which routinely accurately record the exact location and the context of where and how objects are found.
It is tantalising to wonder who these bowls belonged to, how they got to Sandy and why were they buried. It is possible that like the examples from the continent these bowls were buried with their owner for use in the next world and that this information was not recorded by the workmen. Or what seems more likely, given the probable late forth century date of the hoard, is that the owner of the bowls buried them at a time of stress for safe keeping hoping to retrieve them later. The late fourth and early fifth centuries saw the collapse of the Roman Empire and it may be that the disintegration of law and order in the community in and around Sandy provoked their owner into the desperate act of hiding them in the ground.
Liz Pieksma
Keeper of Archaeology
Reference.
D H Kennett, “Late Roman Bronze Vessel Hoards in Britain, Jahrbuch des Romisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz 16, 1969, 123-148
In 1839, after what some considered a meagre Coronation for Queen Victoria, one man, Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton, decided to stage a medieval style tournament to right this apparent wrong.
View of the Tournament
Held at the Earl’s ancestral home, Eglinton Castle in Ayrshire, the tournament attracted over 100,000 visitors travelling from as far a field as America and Europe, and many dressed in the themed medieval costume. Unfortunately, what had promised to be a great event was literally a wash out; a torrential downpour that did not let up for the entire three days of the tournament caused the ground to turn into a quagmire. The jousting pavilion and the roofs of the stands collapsed, and the banqueting tents and ballrooms began to leak. Visitors who wanted to leave, some of whom had been sleeping in the open air due to the lack of available lodgings, had to walk through mud and rain to the local village after heavy flooding stopped any form of transport having access to the castle.
On the third day, with a smaller number of spectators and some hasty repairs, aspects of the tournament still managed to go ahead, but the damage had been done and the press had a field day.
Although the event had not been the success it was hoped it would be, it captured the public’s imagination and was reported across the globe, shining a light on Scotland and making a hero of Lord Eglinton for his chivalrous attempts to help the stranded crowds. And for those who had been unable able to attend the actual event, adaptations of the tournament were staged in London theatres.
Jug, William Ridgway, Son & Co, c.1840, white stoneware with relief moulded decoration.
This jug was one of the many souvenirs of the tournament. Made by William Ridgway, Son & Co it is decorated with knights in armour similar to those that would have taken part in the tournament.
Victoria Partridge
Keeper of Fine and Decorative Arts
One of the nicest things about the redevelopment is that the curatorial team now share an office. In the past I would have to walk from my office in the old Higgins House on one side of the site to offices in the attic of the brewery on the other side to see Lydia (Keeper of Social History) and Liz (Keeper of Archaeology). This meant I tended to only see them when I had a specific purpose, so didn’t get the chance to talk to them about what we were up to with our work.
Now that we are so close, and can bounce ideas off each other at the turn of a head, we have found lots of links between our collections we never knew existed. For example, if I didn’t share an office with Lydia I would neverhave heard her talking last week about how she is researching into Arctic explorers from Bedford, and she would never have known that a few weeks earlier I had come across a medal in the Cecil Higgins Collection given for Arctic Exploration. This led to Lydia finding the name Henry Piers on the rim of the medal, me remembering that Cecil Higgins had an uncle by the name of Henry Piers and Tom (Head of Collections and Exhibitions) googling Piers and finding that not only did Piers’ dates, name of wife etc. match the Higgins Piers, but that he had been on the boat in 1851 that had discovered the North West Passage. Meaning, we had found an Arctic Explorer with a Bedford connection that was related to the Higgins’, which in Curatorial terms is like discovering gold.
Obverse and Reverse of the Campaign Medal awarded to Henry Piers, Assistant Surgeon on the HMS Investigator
Since the 15th Century explorers had been trying to find the North West Passage, a navigable channel that was believed to connect the North Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. By the early nineteenth century the eastern and northern ends of the passage had been charted, with only the link between the two to be found. In May 1845 Captain Sir John Franklin of the Royal Navy with 127 men set sail on the Erebus and the Terror to discover this last remaining part. By 1848 no word had been heard from the expedition and the search for Franklin and his crew became a national priority. In the course of a decade almost 40 expeditions were sent out on the search, and although none were successful in bringing Franklin home (sadly, he and his entire crew had long since perished), major explorations of the Canadian arctic were made; including the discovery by Robert McClure in the HMS Investigator, of the Prince of Wales Strait, which was the last link of the fabled passage.
Henry Piers an Assistant Surgeon had volunteered along with 66 officers and men for McClure’s expedition, which set sail in 1850. What Piers can’t have imagined when he left Woolwich, was that he would not return to England until 1854, after spending three harsh arctic winters trapped by ice onboard the Investigator before abandoning the ship and walking with the remaining crew for fifteen days across the ice to rescue. Although the crew’s original mission to find Franklin had been unsuccessful, during the first year that they were trapped they made several explorations by sledge and on the 31st October an entry in the ships log stated that the existence of a Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean had been established.
On his return to England he married Ellen Colburne, Cecil Higgins’ maternal aunt in Bedford and a year later continued his naval career as surgeon various ships before retiring in 1873.
Colburne and Higgins Family Tree
What makes finding Henry Piers even more interesting is that unlike the Higgins, who we have very little personal information about, Pierce kept diaries of his travels, which are now in the National Maritime Museum.
More research needs to be done, but Henry Piers is turning out to be a very exciting member of the Higgins family.
Victoria Partridge
Keeper of Fine and Decorative Art
Thanks to Jane Wickenden the Historic Collections Librarian at the Institute of Naval Medicine and Jean Forshaw at the Institute of Naval Medicine for all their help with the research into Henry Piers.
As we will be commemorating Remembrance Day tomorrow on the 11th hour of the 11th day, of the 11th month, of 2011, today's blog is dedicated to a local Bedford family and a man who courageously served his country during World War I.
Henry Manton Senoir and his wife Kate outside the Woolpack Public House,
Commercial Road. Landlord for 28 years.
Picture Courtesy of Colin Manton.
I am sure that many of our reader’s local to Bedford will recognise the name Manton, after which the road Manton Lane is called. The Manton family had been potato, pig and cattle dealers and farmers connected with Bedford from 1652. Descendant Mr Henry Manton (1845 -1922) was also a farmer and pig dealer, occupying the Hoo Farm and lane up the hill to the waterworks Reservoir off Clapham Road. One son of a family of seventeen Mantons.
Image of Mr Henry Manton Snr with his eldest daughter, Doris,
Courtesy of Bedford Times and Citizen, Beds Times archive, obituary printed, 5.4.1922.
Henry farmed at Brickhill, TurveyPark, and Rookery as well as the Hoo. At one time he had quite a substantial property portfolio and lived in a large house in Alexandra Road. He later turned to the licensed trade as one of Charles Wells respected landlords. For over forty years he was landlord of the Swan at Clapham, the Woolpack at Commercial Road and the Hop Pole in Cauldwell Street, respectively.
Henry Hector Manton (1895-1917).
Picture Courtesy of Colin Manton
Henry Hector Manton (known as Harry) was born in 1895, the first son of Henry Senior and his second wife, Kate. Harry was educated at BedfordModernSchool, sited then at Harpur Street with the Blore Façade (now the Harpur shopping Centre). The school now resides, rather ironically, at Manton Lane having moved in 1974 to land that was once owned and farmed by Harry’s father.
The First World War broke out in 1914. Harry decided to join the Army Veterinary Corps (AVC) in January 1916, receiving his training at Milton Ernest. He would have experienced training with horses, perhaps something like the AVC recruits featured here in this film from the Pathe archive.
Henry Hector in his Military Uniform c.1916
Picture Courtesy of Colin Manton.
This was probably a good fit for a young man who was used to being around a farm and was experienced with horses. The AVC was well tested in WWI and were responsible for the welfare of the cavalry horses when they were injured on the Front. There were 2.5 million injuries treated, mainly on the Western Front and 80% of injured animals were treated and returned to duty. Without these men taking care of and treating the horses, the Allies may not have won the battle.
Picture of 'Harry Hester' Manton on a motorbike outside the Hop Pole Inn with his mother, father and youngest brother. Courtesy of BLARS, ref: Z50-142-809
Sadly Harry was in France just eight months, in that time receiving a promotion from Private to Sergeant, credited for his skill and knowledge of treating horses. On the 16th January 1917, only a year after he had been recruited into the Army, it was reported (according to the obituary in the Bedfordshire Times) to the family that Harry had undergone what was believed to be a successful operation for appendicitis. However, just 2 days later, further news came that he had unfortunately not recovered following the surgery and had in fact died on the 12th January, age 22. He is buried at Heilly Station Cemetary, Mericourt – L’Abbe, Somme, France.
An AVC decorative badge passed down the generations of the Manton Family and recently donated to Bedford Museum, these types of objects were often given by the soldiers as presents to their loved ones.
It seems likely that, although he was not directly killed in action, in being based at the 2ndVeterinaryHospital at the Somme he would have witnessed many casualties of men and horses coming from the Front over the months preceding his death, requiring both strength and bravery on his part.
His obituary in the Bedfordshire Times on the 28th January 1917 stated; ‘He was a promising young man, and in the town and county was well known, and very popular’.
A decorative embroidered hankerchief, these hankerchiefs varied in quality, this one appears to be factory made,
and sold to troops, with the relevant 'arms being added 'AVC' in this case.
This one was bought and given by Harry Manton to his family during the war.
Many families must have been relieved when the Armistice was signed between the Allied forces and Germany at Compiègne, France, marking the end of hostilities on the Western Front. This historically took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning—the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918. Following the end of the War the AVC was credited for its outstanding contribution and became known as the Royal Army Veterinary Corps on 27th November 1918.
The Manton family grieved for their son, as have many who have lost loved ones through both World Wars and other military engagements over the last century. Give them and their families a thought and your gratitude this remembrance day for their bravery and courage to fight when our country needed them. A minute or two's contemplation seems the least we can do considering the sacrifices that have been made by these men and women. Remember 11-11-11-11.
Lydia Saul Keeper of Social History
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Colin Manton and the photographs and the family tree information. Thanks to BLARS for the photographs of Henry Manton and information.
Thanks to Bedford Times and Citizen for the article 'The Man of Mantons Lane', printed May 1967 and picture of Henry Manton Snr printed in his obituary in Beds Times, 5.4.1922.
Our object of the week is a special First World War medal, awarded to Sergeant Augustus Edwin Brawn. Sergeant Brawn was the only person in the Bedfordshire Yeomanry to be awarded both the Military medal and the bar (in addition) to the medal during the First World War. During the war Sergeant Brawn was attached to the 15th King’s Hussars, a cavalry regiment serving on the western front.
Family photograph of Augustus Edwin Brawn of the 15th Hussars, Bedfordshire Yeomanry
Brawn was Lance-Corporal in 1916 of the 9th Cavalry brigade, and was one of a number of people who received a personal letter on the 15th February 1916 after returning from 6 weeks at the front, receiving thanks from the Brigadier General.
"I wish to convey to all ranks of the brigade my high apprecaition of the way in which they carried out their many duties. Nothing could have exceeded the keeness, energy and high state of discipline of all ranks.
The excellence of the trench discipline was undoubtedly in part responsible for the low percentage of casusalties incurred by the battalion."
The Military Medal, awarded during the First World War to Sergeant Brawn. The bar above the medal was given in addition to mark his bravery in battle.
He was promoted to Sergeant and it was reported that on 8th August 1918, whilst mounted on his horse at Rosieres, Sergeant Brawn was seriously wounded, receiving a rifle bullet to his neck. He recovered surprisingly quickly from his injuries and just thirteen days later he took part in further action at Achiet-le-Petit. The action started at on the 20th August, the 15th Hussars saddled up and started to approach Achiet-le-Petit via Souastre.The following morning a thick mist developed and did not lift until late into the day, at least providing them some protection from enemy fire and as a result the cavalry suffered few casualties.
Brawn's cavalry patrol proved their value in being able to communicate with the firing line and give them a constant stream of information about the enemy.It was here that Sergeant Brawn displayed ‘conspicuous gallantry, courage and tenacity of purpose’.During the fighting he went forward, despite his recent injury, four times under a very heavy barrage of shells and gas, facing enemy rifle fire and machine-gun fire.The information he brought back was ‘of the greatest value’, earning him his commendation and medal. Sergeant Brawn was one of the lucky ones surviving the war and having his bravery recognised, but it would seem the risks he was prepared to take to protect his men and his country went above and beyond a call of duty.
Lydia Saul
Keeper of Social History
Thanks to Mr Peter Brawn who gathered together much of the above information from "the Bedfordshire Yeomanry in the Great War", "The History of the 15th Hussars", as well as the King's Royal Hussars Museum at Newcastle, alongside family documents and photographs.
All of the changes at the Art Gallery & museum over the past few years have led to a much closer way of working between all the areas of the collections. For the first 6 years I worked almost exclusively with the Fine & Decorative Arts collection, initially under James McGregor and since 2008 under the current Keeper, Victoria Partridge. Since the collections have been packed away and we all moved off-site I have been documenting and reconciling the Foreign Archaeology and Ethnography collections, working closely with Liz Pieksma, the Keeper of Archaeology. This post is also a collaborative effort between the two of us.
One of the first things I had to learn about these kind of collections, in comparison to the art collections, is the importance of location context: where they were made or found is crucial to understanding. The location can be a very different kind of starting point for these collections. Of course with art, you can look at the output of a London art school between 1890-and 1910 or a Bedford Arts & Crafts furniture manufacture, but the whole process of engaging with an archaeological context is quite different. The objects in this sense are more important to archaeologists as carriers of information - a broken pot to an art historian needs repairing, to an archaeologist it reveals the material the pot was made of which can date or locate the origin of the pot which can tell you about trade, population migration or all manner of things.
Mike Luke, Life in the Loop,
Albion Archaeology (Bedford, 2008)
I chanced upon all of this when while writing about architecture in Bedford. I was looking at an online map of listed buildings, and followed a link to a map of scheduled ancient monuments - archaeological sites registered as significant. This showed me far more sites in the Bedford area than I expected, including an oval barrow just west of Queens Park in Bedford, an area I once lived. I asked Liz about how to go about finding out about a site from the location and whether we had any finds, and this led on to the main point of this blog. The barrow, I learned, was on the edge of a very important area known as Biddenham loop, a landscape enclosed on three sides by the meandering River Great Ouse. The history of it I'll let Liz explain, but this led me on to the other organisations that the Museum works with with regards to archaeological records. The area has been well researched in the past 20 years or so, and was allready earmarked to feature in our new displays. The archaeology in the area has been done by Albion Archaeology and Mike Luke has produced a book, Life in the Loop, of their findings. When all the research is complete they pass their finds to the Museum and their records to the Bedford Borough Historic Environment Records (HER) department. The book sums things up nicely, but if we want more information or images for displays it will be HER that we go to. HER, as well as Bedford and Luton Archive Service (BLARS) will possibly also have records of more recent life and occupation of 'the loop' which can add to our understanding of the entire history of the site.
So now I'll hand over to Liz...
The recent excavations prior to the expansion of developmentaround Biddenham and the even more recent publication of all of this archaeological evidence and research has enabled a fascinating series of landscapes for the area around Biddenham to be understood.
Evidence for the earliest settlements in the Palaeolithic, the Mesolithic and the Neolithic is sparse. Concentrations of manmade flints along the edge of the river terrace but out of the flood plain, show human activity whilst several rectangular enclosures and an oval shaped monument strongly suggest ritual and funerary ceremonies took place.
The evidence for human activity during the later Neolithic/ Bronze Age is more abundant and the presence of pits and flint concentrations shows that the whole area within the loop of the river is being utilised far more. The presence now of three separate barrow cemeteries spread out across the woodland landscape shows the continuation ceremonial importance of the area.
Towards the end of the Bronze Age and into the Iron Age the settlement becomes more organised. A larger, main settlement on the western part of the loop becomes established with a smaller area is situated to the east. However the most interesting feature of this period is the establishment of a numbers of deliberately dug pits which form a line across the southern part of the area between the bend in the river .This line of pits would have been a very significant feature in the landscape and has been interpreted as a physical boundary.
In the middle and later Iron Age the settlement pattern transforms into six separate farmsteads spread out along the river terrace. Several of the small farmsteads were found to have round houses and storage pits at their core and two of them were situated at either end of the earlier pit alignment.
The pattern of small farmsteads continues into the early Roman phase and becomes more formalised with the addition of individual enclosure ditches to demark space. The presence of individual burials on the outskirts of the farmsteads and a small cemetery next to one particular farmstead shows that the people farming in the area were also buried there. Overtime it seems that enclosures, boundaries and track ways around and between the farmsteads become more established in the landscape. The overall impression is that the small farmsteads situated close to the river terrace were using the interior woodland and grassland communally.
Evidence from the excavations shows that few finds or features dating to the Saxon period were recovered and this strongly suggest that whilst people still remained in the area it was at a much reduced level of activity.
The remarkable story to come out of this archaeological investigation is that people have been using a range of natural resources over and over again through time. The constant resources have been the river, the floodplain for pasture and the wooded interior for grazing. Amongst this landscape they have made farms, worshipped and buried their dead.
When I recently saw the new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery advertised I was immediately stuck by the painting of Mary Robinson as 'Perdita'. This was partly because it's a very fine bit of 18th century portraiture, with all bravura and richness that epitomises that era, but also because it was unmistakably by John Hoppner.
Hoppner (1758-1810) was one of the leading society portraitists of his day, and regularly patronized by royalty. Stylistically he was heavily indebted to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was dominated the art scene as the first President of the Royal Academy. Hoppner is no longer as well known today but anyone who has spent any significant length of time in the Victorian House displays at the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery would have become very familiar with his striking portrait of 'Mary Boteler of Eastry Kent', 1786 (below).
John Hoppner, 'Mary Boteler of Eastry Kent', 1786, detail.
The portrait of Mary Boteler is not as opulent as that of Mary Robinson, but in its quietness and confident handling, the portrait is still very distinguished. The brooding clouds of the background were a regular feature in Hoppner's portraits: here they add a melodramatic undercurrent to the mood of the piece. The palette and lighting is also carefully muted. The greys of the lace and silk merge into the clouds, framing and emphasising the pinkness of the lips, cheeks and eyes. Light falls most strongly across the silk bow on the front of the dress but it only serves to lead the viewer in to the picture and up to the clear focus of the picture - the face, and that marvellous open expression. It is an emotive and touching portrait, and draws a sympathetic response to the sitter. Mary (nee Harvey) was her husband's second wife. His first, Sarah Fuller had died following the birth of their first son, but in contrast Mary went on to give William a further six sons and five daughters.
The partner piece, a portrait of William Boteler, is far more serious in tone. With precision, Hoppner depicts Boteler's features and the details of his outfit. He pictured in a pose that is relaxed, but also professional, as if he has just turned from writing some official letter to give his attention to the viewer. Boteler was a surgeon and an amateur historian, a man whose brain was his sharpest tool, and the viewers focus is drawn just above his expression to the light upon his brow, to reflect on the mind behind the brow. The unfussiness of Hoppner's depiction of Boteler gives us a very matter-of-fact character. Instead of a picturesque backdrop of brooding clouds, the eye is halted by the wall of his study, and brought back to the man in front of us. The red fabric of the chair seems to serve a purpose too: the brightest patch of colour in the picture, it serves to detract from the pinks in the face. Where Mary's femininity is expressed through the soft reds of the lips and, more subtly, of the eyes, which are strikingly emotionally communicative, William's masculinity is reinforced by his lips seeming comparatively paler than the fabric, and his eyes are engaged in intelligent enquiry, rather than emotional expression.
The purpose of Black History Month is to acknowledge the contribution that people of African descent have made to history, so that they can celebrate their ancestral heritage and it can be embraced by all people in British society. It was started in 1987 and continues to be celebrated in October every year with a range of events celebrating the African diaspora (people of African descent 'dispersed' around the world).
Family photograph from Claudia Rennie
It is commonly thought that people of African descent were absent from Britain until the arrival of the immigrant ship Empire Windrush from Jamaica in 1948. However, there are records of black people in the British Isles since at least the 3rd century AD, when an African division of Roman soldiers is believed to have been stationed at Hadrian’s Wall. References are made to black people living in Bedfordshire from 1661 in Parish Registers, which note both baptisms and funerals.
Extract of William Rudd's will leaving part of his estate and an annual stipend to his maid servant Sabina.
Courtesy of BLARS, Ref: abp-wl745-22
A connection existed between the Caribbean and Bedfordshire sometimes as a result of local ownership of plantations by wealthy land owners. For example, the Payne family had plantations in St Kitts from the beginning of the eighteenth century. There were individuals locally that also fought for the abolition of slavery on plantations, including Henry Thornton of Moggerhanger Park. Occasionally plantation owners would bring their maid and man servants with them back to England when they visited. One of the few black maid servants mentioned in the Bedfordshire archive records, but who we know very little about how she came to Bedfordshire, is Sabina who was employed by William Rudd of Carlton. He specified in his will that ‘Sabina the black’ would live in a cottage as part of his estate with a stipend of £5 per annum. Sabina became the first black woman to be recorded to marry in Bedfordshire. She wed Robert Newton at St. Paul’s Church on the 23rd December 1745.
Moggerhanger Park, originally home to the Thornton family and supporters of the anti-slavery campaign.
Discrimination against black people is reported in the Bedford Bee local newspaper 19th November 1879. A letter was written by American Harvard graduate, De Witter Dumas, who had been unable to find employment in Bedford despite his qualifications and references, leaving him starving and homeless.
Jamaican born Joe Clough became a local celebrity in Bedford during the early 20th Century. He was well known as a local bus, and later taxi, driver, having come to Bedford in 1912. Most notably he drove the Poppy Bus for the British Legion every year. Joe Clough was probably the first West Indian from the area to join the Army Service Corps at Kempston barracks in 1915 and drove an ambulance in France during the First World War. Many people from African Caribbean descent also served in the British Army during the Second World War, supporting their ‘mother country’, and to them we owe a great debt.
Joe Clough in front of the ' Poppy Bus', Eastern National Omnibus Company, who Joe worked for from 1919 until 1947.
Courtesy of BLARS Ref: Z1306/13uncat
Ten years ago BedfordMuseum celebrated Black History Month with an exhibition called 'The Front Room' exploring the history of individuals from the Caribbean coming to Bedford during the 1950s and 60s. Following the war, due to a lack of employment opportunities in their homeland many people from the Caribbean came to England in search of an income to support their families. Some companies with labour shortages encouraged applications by immigrants, including the brickworks and Britannia Works. In 2001 some oral history recordings were carried out with local groups, such as the Cabana Club, to record local people’s experiences. Their photographs were also shared with visitors through the ‘Memory Bank’ computer in the gallery, some of which you can see below (press play).
Here is an extract from an interview with Josephine Corrion, who shared her story with us of coming to Bedford from Trinidad, during the 1960’s.
“I was born in Carriacou, sister island of Grenada. At the age of 19 I left home and went to Trinidad to get married, that was 1954 and in 1955 my first child was born.I lived there for 7, 8 years.I’ve got four children and 3 of my 4 children were born in Trinidad …My husband got a job; my brother got him a job at the Britannia steelworks, iron foundry …I took a job on a farm planting peas and beans and potato.There were hundreds of us on that ship and my brother was waiting for me and we boarded a train. It took about a week and a half …when we arrived at Southampton the immigration …officers were nice.
I applied at Bromham Hospital, domestics and … I got a letter telling me that (I had) an interview … When I got there the Matron called me in and she … asked me all sorts of questions and I answered, to the best of my ability and in the end she said “I’m sorry Mrs Corrion, I haven’t got a job for you as a domestic”. I thought to myself “Oh no, you’ve kept me talking all this time and she hasn’t got a job for me”. She said “But I have got a vacancy for a nursing assistant.Would you like that?” I said “Oh please.” … I was accepted and that was in 1963 and I worked there, in BromhamHospital for 31 years.”
“I must tell you the Bedford Carnival started in my dining room!
My daughter Elma being born in Trinidad and always hav(ing) the sound of the steel band drum in her head.She started it.I explained how things should be done and what they should do and do it on the cheap and they did.She had open(ed) up a workshop and the people bought their costume themselves. It went for three years and I don’t really know what happened.Bedford Carnival is no more, but it was nice, it was nice.”
Before BedfordMuseum closed for re-development an exhibition was hosted in 2010, as part of our Audience Development HLF funded work, in association with Utopia Mas, a Carnival Troupe run by Bedfordians David and Judith Brown. David and Judith run workshops for young people to encourage their appreciation of the Carnival tradition and to bring communities together. Below is a slide show of some of the carnivals Utopia Mas have taken part in (press play).
“I am very lucky that Mrs Brown works at my school St Gregory’s, so I was amongst the first to join Utopia Mas when she started it. I have always liked singing and dancing so this was a great way to meet new people, have fun and learn new dances. As part of the group, I have travelled to different carnivals all over the place from the local Luton carnival that is one of the biggest, all the way to the Isle of Wight. My favourite carnival was Notting Hill Gate because it was one of the largest carnivals I had been to. I had always wanted to go there from a young age and taking part in it was a very exciting time for me.
We’ve danced in the sunshine and also in the pouring rain but it was still fun being with all the friends I have made. Utopia Mas consists of many different schools with people from all ages. I am happy that I have been able to mix with people I never would have met if I hadn’t of joined the carnival band in the beginning of 2009.
I am now looking forward to 2010 and many more years of dancing and I hope they shall be bigger and better, and pray more people will join to make our dance group greater”.
Claire Collins, age 12, Utopia Mas participant.
Our next venture at the ArtGallery and Museum is to expand both our oral history archive and our collections to better reflect the culturally diverse heritage of Bedfordshire. Through our Audience Development Project, funded by the HLF, we have plans to work in partnership with the Bedford African and Caribbean Forum. This partnership will help us to make our collections and displays more representative and inclusive of all Bedford’s diverse communities in the future.
The BACF are rounding up the Black History Month celebrations with their ‘We are Amazing Finale’. This is a culmination of events that have taken place during the month with a variety award show. It will be held at the Addison Centre, Kempston on Saturday 29th October, from . All are welcome! See their Black History Month Diary for ticket prices and further details.
Lydia Saul,
Keeper of Social History
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to Bedfordshire and Luton Records and Archives Service (BLARS) for the information and image of William Rudd's Will and picture of Joe Clough.
Thanks to the participants of 'The Front Room' exhibition for their photographs.
Thanks to Utopia Mas for giving us permission to show their photographs.
'La Mort Poursuivant le Troupeau des Humains' 1896, James Ensor, etching on paper
With Halloween fast approaching I thought I would share with you one of my favourite spooky images from the Cecil Higgins collection, ‘La Mort Poursuivant le Troupeau des Humains’ or ‘Death Pursuing the Herd of Humanity’ by the Belgian artist James Ensor (1860-1949).
Ensor's work contains carnival masks, puppetry and skeletons which were probably influenced by his family’s souvenir and curiosity shop in the seaside town of Ostend. ‘My childhood was filled with marvellous dreams and frequent visits to my grandmothers shop, with its iridescent glow from the reflections of the shells, sumptuous lace, strange stuffed animals and terrible savage weapons that terrified me’.
The flying web footed skeleton brandishing a bladed scythe, terrorising the hoard below is one of Ensor’s more gruesome images of skeletons. They could also be reminders of mortality in the same way as memento mori jewellery or the 17th century ‘Vanitas’ still life paintings of Northern Europe. He would even paint himself as a skeleton as seen in 'Skeleton Artist in his Studio', 1896.
However, what is far scarier than Ensor’s print is the thought that the drawing that it is based on, in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, is still missing after being stolen from an exhibition in the The Hague in June. Now that's the stuff of curators nightmares!
When packing the library collections I noticed an extensive number of biographies produced over the centuries about Mr John Howard. He, aside from Bunyan, is the most familiar name within and outside of Bedford connected with its history, and there is still recognition for his valiant efforts as a prison reformer. As one of his biographers put it, Howard "was as eager to get into prisons as Bunyan was to get out".
John Howard, Lithograph by Antoine Maurin, 1820's - 30's, after artist Mather Brown 1789,
original in National Portait Gallery, reproduction from Lantern Slide, BEDFM 1974.27.1537
John Howard’s accurate birth date is not known, but it is generally acknowledged as 1726. His mother died when he was a boy and John’s father sent him to boarding school in Hertford around 1733. When John’s father died in 1742 he was an apprentice to Newnham and Shepley, grocers and sugar merchants near St. Paul’s in London. Following his father’s death, using the money he inherited, he set off on a Grand Tour of Europe, which was a popular thing to do during the age, and discovered an enthusiasm for travel abroad. John was taken ill with a ‘nervous fever’ and cut his travels short with a visit to Hotwells in Bristol. Around 1751 he lodged with Sarah Lardeau at Stoke Newington who cared for him during his illness and he married her a year later. She unfortunately died after three years of marriage.
Bristol Delftware Plate from Howard's dinner-service. BEDFM 2006.198
In 1757 Howard set off for Lisbon following a devastating earthquake there – curious to see the damage to the country and still recovering from the loss of his wife. The ship he travelled on, the Hanover, was captured by privateers and he was imprisoned firstly at BrestCastle, later some of the crew were held at Dinan. “In the castle at Brest I lay six nights upon the straw; and observing how cruelly my countrymen were used there … I had sufficient evidence of their being treated with such barbarity, that many hundreds perished; and that thirty-six were buried in a hole in Dinan in one day”.
Earthquake at Lisbon, 1755. BEDFM 1974.27.1570
Howard was fortunate that he was treated as if he was an English officer and was paroled to live as an almost-free man. He was eventually released and returned to England in exchange for a French Officer being released in his stead. When he returned he immediately complained about the abuses of the Englishmen he had witnessed to the Commisioners for the Care of Sick and Wounded Seamen, including Prisoners-of-war. This was the first attempt by Howard to reduce the suffering of prisoners. The event appears to be formative in his interest in seeing justice for those imprisoned inhumanely.
Henrietta Leeds, John Howard's second wife. BEDFM 1974.27.1542
After 1757 Howard moved to Cardington to his father’s estate and started making improvements to the cottages for the workers on the estate. On 25th April 1758, he married Henrietta Leeds and moved to WatcombePark in Hampshire for three years due to Henrietta’s poor health. In 1763 he made improvements to his own house at Cardington.
Howard's House at Cardington before improvements. BEDFM 1974.27.1544
On 25th March 1765 Henrietta gave birth to their son, Jack. Sadly, a few days after the birth, Henrietta died suddenly. John struggled to come to terms with Henrietta’s death and decided on a period of travel abroad, which was again to be interrupted by restorative visits to Bath and Bristol for his health.
He returned to Cardington in 1770 as at this time he is recorded as contributing £50 toward a new Pulpit. He later split from BunyanMeetingChurch in 1772, after a disagreement with the then minister over disallowing child baptism and went on to form his own Congregational Church further along Mill Street in 1774.
Howard Congregational Church, Mill Street. BEDFM 1974.27.131
John was appointed High Sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1773, after being nominated by and with persuasion from Mr Samuel Howard Whitbread to take up the role.
His attendance at the Assizes Court was the first time since his own imprisonment as a Prisoner of War that he had come into contact with real prisoners. Afterwards he decided to investigate the conditions of prisons locally, with his first visit to Bedford and Cambridge jails in that same year. He then travelled up and down the country gathering evidence and statistics for his report, published in 1777, on the State of the Prisons. He highlighted that a great deal of reform was needed to relieve the suffering and in particular he pursued the issue of debtors being trapped in prison by the release fees, set and administered by the jailor and forced to languish in jail. His main suggestion was the abolition of the Jailors fees, and paying the governor a fair annual salary by way of compensation from the state. He raised the issues of disease, malnutrition and lack of adequate facilities for prisoners that equated not only to a harsh punishment, but in effect a death sentence for many.
John Howard visiting prisoners, thought to be by James Gillray,
reproduction from Lantern Slide BEDFM 1974.27.1528.
Howard became obsessed with providing the evidence, not just in England, but also for comparisons of prison conditions Europe wide. He extended his travels to France, Switzerland, Holland, Germany and the Netherlands. In 1781 he extended his visits to Russia and Poland. In 1785 he set off to explore the causes of the plague and in 1786 he became quarantined at a lazaretto (a quarantine camp) near Venice. Following his publication Lazarettos and Tuscan Law on his seventh foreign visit he arrived at Kherson in the Ukraine. In January 1790 he nursed a young woman at Kherson who was suffering from a fever and unfortunately he caught the disease himself. He died just 12 days later. He was given a grand funeral in the Ukraine, although this was against his wishes and a memorial was created in his honour, that survives in Kherson today. At John Howard's express wishes a modest memorial was placed at St. Mary's Church, Cardington above his wife Henrietta's inscription.
Photograph of the unveiling of John Howard's Statue in St. Paul's Square, 1894. BEDFM 1974.27.1554a
Over a hundred years later in 1894 Bedford commemorated John Howard by unveiling a statue in St. Paul’s Square. A ha'penny was also produced in commemoration of his work, with the inscription 'Remember the Debtors in Jail'.
The Howard Penal Reform League was first formed in 1866 based on the principles John Howard had established through his international prison research, and to be a society for debate and reform in prisons for the future. You can find out more at The Howard Penal Reform League website .
The Curious Mr Howard by Tessa West is a newly published biography about the prison reformer. Tessa’s background of working both in education and within prisons gave her an insight and empathy with John Howard. In her introduction she states she was inquisitive to know what motivated Howard to travel as widely as he did and explore such horrendous conditions in prisons at considerable risk to his own health. She was interested in seeking a little more from known sources about his personality and character. Tessa endeavours to move away from the glorifying biographies to look more realistically at the man and his actions.
One aspect of John Howard that Tessa West explores in some detail in her biography is a scientific exploratory paper from 2001 by a psychiatrist looking at whether Howard may have suffered from Aspergers syndrome or something similar. His awkwardness with people, his strict religious beliefs and routines, his difficulty with numbers and writing, his insistent punctuality, his numerous re-visiting of prisons over and over are all suggestive factors. Many of his contemporaries noted his unusual or peculiar behaviour and at times even he referred to himself as ‘Mad Jack Howard’. The Gentleman’s magazine wrote the following obituary, when having received news of ‘the not unexpected, yet certainly untimely, death of the eccentric but truly worthy John Howard, Esq.”. Perhaps it was his eccentricities that made him well suited for the task he set himself of striving for prison reform, and gave him comfort from a life that had been less than ideal, but at least had proved worthwhile.
Lydia Saul
Keeper of Social History
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to Tessa West author of The Curious Mr Howard from which most of the facts cited above were compiled. Thanks also to Waterside Press, the publishers for providing a complimentary copy for the Museum and Art Gallery Library.
