Mourning Jewellery

In the Higgins archive are a few pieces of mourning jewellery related to the Higgins family. The most poignant and beautiful are two pieces in memory of Mary Ann Higgins, Cecil Higgins’s great aunt who died in 1829 when she was just 14. They are both made from gold and black enamel and engraved with Mary Ann’s name and the date of her death; the brooch contains a piece of her plaited hair under glass.



Memorial Ring for Mary Ann Higgins, about 1830



 

Memorial Brooch for Mary Ann Higgins, about 1843

Reverse of brooch showing the engraving to Mary Ann

I have always thought of mourning jewellery being the preserve of the Victorians, and though they certainly produced it on a mass scale, jewellery that remembered the dead had been made since the 17^th Century when Memento Mori (literally ‘remember you must die’) jewellery was worn as a reminder of mortality.

In the 18^th century one of the most popular items of jewellery was the mourning ring, usually set with the deceased’s hair. One ring in the collection was made to remember Ellery Sydenham who died in May 1770 when she was just 10. A quick internet search brought up an Ellery Sydenham, buried at All Saints Church Dulverton in Somerset on 2 June 1770 aged 10, but I will need to do a bit more research to be sure if it is her. Like Mary Ann Higgins’s memorial brooch, the ring is also set with hair, this time surrounded by diamonds.

Memorial Ring for Ellery Sydenham, about 1770

The Sydenham ring was a donation to the collection, which is how the majority of jewellery has been acquired as Cecil Higgins did not leave very much in his original bequest. The largest donation of jewellery came from Mrs Hull Grundy, who gave over 120 pieces in the 1970s. We were not the only museum to benefit from her gift, with jewellery going to over 70 collections including the British Museum and the Fitzwilliam Museum. Bed-bound from her early twenties due to a respiratory condition, Mrs Hull Grundy bought much of her collection by post and, guided by the principal that ‘if you don't fall in love, don't buy it', she amassed a collection of thousands of exquisite pieces.

It is from Hull Grundy that the majority of our Victorian mourning jewellery comes. The rituals of death became increasingly elaborate in the Victorian period mainly due to the example set by Queen Victoria after the death of Prince Albert in 1861. Mourning jewellery became mass produced, and whole industries were set up around the manufacture, particularly in Whitby where the most popular material for mourning jewellery, jet, was found. What’s interesting about some of the pieces in the Cecil Higgins Collection is that on first glance you wouldn’t think they were mourning jewellery at all. This includes pieces made from ivory carved to simulate wood, which are quite subtle in their depiction of remembrance. The brooch below, at first glance, looks merely decorative, but on closer examination you notice that one of the acorns is empty, which to the Victorians represented the inevitable end of love in death.

Ivory Brooch, about 1850

Another piece from the Hull Grundy collection is also a bit confusing as to whether it was made for mourning or another occasion. Made from plaited hair with gold clasps, the bracelet is typical of Victorian hair-work which could either be made from the deceased’s hair, or with the maker's hair, when it would be exchanged at happier occasions such as engagements or weddings.

Hair work bracelet with an engraved gold clasp, about 1860

These are just a few of the many beautiful pieces in the collection which we will be researching over the coming months, so there'll be plenty more to follow.

Victoria

More news on Lucy

Back in June we blogged about a previous resident of the museum - Lucy the Locust. We've just come across something in the Christmas 1939 edition of The Eagle (the magazine of Bedford Modern School) which we thought we'd share. Be warned, though, as it's a bit of a tear-jerker!

'It will be recalled that early last February we received a live locust, which soon became very popular under the name of Lucy. It lived all through the Easter and Summer Terms and the long vacation, eating nothing but fresh privet leaves. The first spell of cold (or old age?) proved too much for Lucy, and she breathed her last on October 3rd. Her corpse, however, is still on view and still quite popular.'

Object of the week: Ceramic Tiles by William Frend De Morgan



An owl catches a mouse on this tile c.1895.

 This week's Object of the Week looks at some of the tiles in the collection by William Frend de Morgan (1839-1917) who produced some of the most imaginative ceramic work of the late 19th century.

De Morgan trained at the Royal Academy Schools at he same time as the painter Simeon Solomon, and through his friendship with another  painter, Henry Holiday (who also painted furniture for Williams Burges and William Morris) was introduced to Morris, later designing ceramics, furniture and stained glass for Morris & Co.  In 1887 he married the Pre-Raphaelite painter, Evelyn Pickering.




A typical De Morgan motif - a
galleon with fish, c.1895.

 De Morgan was a keen inventor and the technical process of glazing was fascinating to him. He rediscovered lost methods such as the metallic finish lustre, and would make his own blanks, preferring the uneven surface and lower absorbtion of his own tiles to manufactured ones. It seems that emphasis on beautiful decorative effects was far greater for De Morgan than the commercial success of the business, which was continually beset by difficulties. In 1907 he retired from the pottery he had established in 1872, which continued without him, finding that despite continued technical advances and discoveries in the techniques of glazing his designs were now seen as old fashioned.

The tiles in the collection feature De Morgan's classic themes of fantastical creatures and galleons. His early work shows an influence or awareness of the ideas of the Arts and Crafts Movement but his style develops away from the medieval motifs of his peers as De Morgan becomes enamoured with Persian ceramics (today what would be known as fifteenth-and-sixteenth century Iznik Ware).

The striking tile below uses a two tone pattern in lustred red and a muted pink. The background is made of plant forms stylised to a geometric decorative extreme providing a back-drop of pure pattern for the fanciful scene. In the foreground an eagle rampant and a curious coil-tailed, bird-beaked creature face each other in profile. A similar tile, with the motif in reverse was used with others in Arnold Mitchell's 1900 designed house, The Orchard, in Harrow, London.



Lustre glazed tile, c.1900

Other pieces in the collection include two large jars designed for the Tsar of Russia's in 1894. They were intended for a new Summer palace in Livadia, near the black Sea, but were never delivered.



Kristian Purcell, Curatorial Assistant

Fire Fire!



The Bedford Volunteer Fire Brigade was founded in 1870. This was a group of part-time volunteers, under the command of a chief officer. One full-time engineer was also employed who lived at the engine house in Mill Street, which was built in 1888. The brigade was paid for by public subscription until 1919 when it was taken over by Bedford Borough Council.  The Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service (BLARS) have the Bedford Brigade scrapbooks for 1896-1935,  which contain accounts of fires attended, as well as those employed by the brigade. There are group photographs of the personnel, as well as images of the aftermath of fires attended by the service. In 1941, due to the demands for countrywide control of fire services the National Fire Service was formed. The Fire Services Act of 1947 created a nationwide service merging all the local brigades, which was regionally centralised from Bedford, and came under the newly formed County Council Fire Services Committee until 1974.




Photograph of Bedford Fire Brigade at Longholme Lakes, with Fireman Mead driving (1905), Ref: AD1082-3p51, Courtesy of BLARS

Recently, a donation was made to the museum of a collection of objects relating to Foreman Mr Walter Mead of the Bedford Volunteer Fire Brigade from the 1890’s into the early 20^th Century. Walter Norman Mead was born in Bedford in 1872, son of Norman Mead a painter and glazier from Cranfield and Elizabeth, a lacemaker from Cople. The couple had moved to Derby Street in Bedford after their marriage. Walter was the eldest of 5 siblings according to the census data of 1881.  Included in the group of objects donated are his certificate to operate a “Shand Mason Steam Pump”, as well as many awards and medals.



Picture of Walter Mead with his championship cups. Ref: AD1082/3[45]* courtesy of BLARS

These items are supported by documentation in the Bedfordshire and Luton Archives of his participation in similar competitions. The annual championship of the brigade for the Captains cup was the combined success of three events, getting the manual engine to work, getting it to work from a street hydrant and mounting the escape in picking up, carrying down and depositing a dummy to safety.  Mr Mead is recorded as winning the challenge in 1904, taking 141 seconds and was awarded the three cups you can see in the picture above.

We have also been given personal items from Walter’s uniform, such as his BVFB armband and his watch chain with decorations of his achievements engraved. This group is a wonderful addition of items closely associated with the Bedford Volunteer Fire Brigade and the people that served bravely the local community in this profession.



Bedford Volunteer Fire Brigade Armband

Walter Mead's Watch Chain



Medal for the Captains Drill Prize, W N Mead

If you would like to find out more about the fire service records in the Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service please visit http://www.bedfordshire.gov.uk/CommunityAndLiving/ArchivesAndRecordOffice/GuidesToCollections/FireServiceRecords.aspx

Lydia Saul, Keeper of Social History

Pagan Saxon Window Urn from Kempston

The function of many of the objects in our archaeological collections tends to be fairly straight forward and obvious for instance even if we have never thrown a spear or cooked soup in a metal cauldron over an open fire we have an educated idea as to how these items work and what we can do with them.

However once in a while we encounter objects in the museum which at first sight seem easy to understand and we can even relate to the use, but then when you examine them more closely their function becomes more unknown and even mysterious.

One such item is a small ceramic vessel found by workmen digging in Kempston during the mid 19^th century. The report of the find published in the Notes of the Bedfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society, dated February 1857, describes,

“the discovery of a unique specimen of Saxon pottery. It is unburnt clay of a dark brown colour, 31/2 inches high, of beautiful proportions, and has 14 deep flutings from the shoulder to the base. It is not however in the outline or ornamentation that its peculiarity exists, for there have been several urns discovered in this country exhibiting somewhat similar design and workmanship; but on being carefully cleaned it was found to have a piece of glass about an inch in diameter inserted into the bottom” The report goes on “ This is the first and only instance of glass being let into the clay by the Saxon potter which we have met with, and the discovery has created great interest amongst antiquarians”

The inclusion of a fragment of reused Roman glass into the base of the vessel led to it being referred to a “Window Urn”.



This very detailed woodcut of the vessel accompanied the report



The window urn was not the only item found in the grave by the workmen, another report goes on to say ,”shortly after this discovery the men found another skeleton, in a crumbling state; and near the lower jaw a number of pieces of metal, thin and of the size of a florin; a quantity of small beads, apparently of glass; and fragments a twisted wire”

The practice of placing personal items to accompany the body in the grave is not an unusual occurrence in the Pagan Saxon period however what is unusual is the inclusion of a complete, and at the time unique window urn.

Since this find in 1857 a few other windows urns have been discovered both here in England and in Germany, so though the Kempston window urn is no longer unique it still belongs to a group of odd and rare vessels. However, even though there are more known examples we are still none the wiser as to the function of this group of highly specialised pottery and glass vessels.

View from the side showing the fluting on the body of the vessel.

View of the base showing the fragment of Roman glass inserted into the base.

Liz

The Higgins’s of Castle Close

Work has been quite hectic these last few months, with moving the collections off site but when we are not doing that the curatorials are all working hard on the redevelopment project, looking at what stories we can explore and researching which objects best tell them.

I’ve been working predominantly on the fine and decorative art galleries, such as a new William Burges Gallery and a Design Gallery, but for the last month I’ve been working on the Victorian House, ‘Castle Close’ and researching its previous residents.

Castle Close forms part of the gallery and museum complex (complex being the operative word!), a mixture of an early Victorian villa, brewery buildings, a hexagonally-shaped former militia depot, Bedford Gallery, and a 1970s gallery extension.

The Higgins family may not be as well known today as other Bedford philanthropists such as William Harpur and John Howard, but if you live in the borough you may well have stepped inside one of the many buildings associated with them.

Hopefully it will have been the Art Gallery and Museum, but if not then it could have been one of the many public houses once owned by the Higgins & Sons brewery, including the Embankment Hotel, the Swan Hotel, the George and Dragon on Mill Street, the Slaters Arms in Box End, the Bell in Odell and the Royal Oak in Woburn. Even when you’re buying sandwiches in Bedford’s Marks & Spencers you’re standing on the remains of one of their pubs ‘The Star’. Others, such as the brilliantly named ‘Cat and Custard Pot’ in Shelton and ‘The Mad Dog’ in Odell are still there but have long-since become private residences.

The Bedford Times Coach, Bradford Rudge, 1846

Charles Higgins Jnr is in the forground tying a handkerchief around his face to protect from dust.
Charles Higgins Snr is at the door of the Swan Hotel, wearing red carpet slippers
seeing his son off on his journey.

But it’s not just their successful business that I have been finding so interesting whilst researching the family. It’s also the individuals themselves. They are all so intertwined with Bedford’s history: Charles Higgins (Cecil Higgins’s grandfather) was Mayor of Bedford in 1848 and was honoured for his work in saving the town from a cholera epidemic; his son George (Cecil’s father) was a Councillor, Alderman, Justice of the Peace and a County Magistrate; George’s second wife Mary (Cecil’s stepmother) was sister to another of Bedford’s Mayors and was on the Governing body of the Harpur Charity’s girls school.

The last of Higgins’s to live at Castle Close were Cecil, his two brothers and his sister. George, the eldest, was a Commander in the Navy. Lawrence spent most of his life at Castle Close running the brewery and like his father was a Justice of the Peace. Edith, the only daughter, is more of a mystery. She lived at Castle Close all her life but her obituary mentions only her being a keen member of the Oakley Hunt in her younger days.

And then there is Cecil Norman Colburne Higgins himself, who even after moving to London in 1902 was still an active member of the Bedford community, for instance acting as a local magistrate. When he decided to start collecting ceramics and glass it was in Bedford that he wished his collection to be housed.

‘It has long been my desire that there should be founded in Bedford for the benefit of the inhabitants of that town a museum of works of art of all kinds and that if practicable such museum should be housed in the Castle Close at Bedford which for many years belonged to my family.’

We’ve got a lot more finding-out to do about the Higgins family and we’ll be using this blog to share the interesting stories we come across.

Victoria

Object of the Week: Domestic Lighting by W.A.S. Benson

Oil reading lamp, with tilting reflector in brass and copper.
Accession no. M.359

William Arthur Smith Benson has been described as “one of the most original metalwork designers", and was connected with both the Arts and Crafts movement and Art Nouveau. The Cecil Higgins collection contains a number of pieces designed by Benson and the lamps in the collection display all of the finest aspects of his work.  

Benson had hoped to be an engineer but with direct encouragement from William Morris decided to set up his own workshop to produce sinuous teapots, kettles, and gas and electric light fittings. Morris & Co. sold his products and Morris and others, such as Philip Webb frequently used him on architectural commissions to provide the lighting. When William Morris died in 1896, Benson took over directorship of the Morris firm. Later, he was a founding member of the Design and Industries Association in 1915.


Benson’s interest in art preceded his architectural training, and the practical skills that gave him such an intimate knowledge of the problems of constructing parts for his products in metal were learnt within his family. His maternal uncle, William Smith, had introduced the young Benson to the lathe and this first-hand experience of machine production marked him out from his Arts and Crafts peers who rejected machine production on principle and without any direct knowledge of that method.



After he established his firm, the first year was spent training his team of craftsmen, getting them to hone their technique. That year, from Easter 1880 to Easter 1881 was well spent because the sheer quality of the products coming out of the Benson factory after that point was the bedrock of his reputation, and the defining factor between his produce, and that of the copyists and imitators that sought to make a living off of his reputation.

 

Initially his designs were for lamps were fitted with oil burners and in our collection we have a beautiful hanging oil liamp with a reflector of polished curved copper petals. It used to hang in the panelled Baring room, for those familiar with our Victorian House. The lamp at the top of this article (M.359) shows a desk top reading lamp with an elegant reflector made from one expertly cut copper sheet, which also includes little chain pulley to adjust the angle of the light emitted on to your reading material.

Hanging oil lamp in copper, brass and glass, Accession no. M.364

The electric light bulb had been invented in 1878 but only the wealthiest were able to afford the generators needed for an electricity supply until a general supply of domestic electricity became possible in the 1890s. Benson was a pioneer of electrical light fittings and incorporated the electrical fittings and cables into his designs while still incorporating his familiar fluid lines and foliage inspired shapes. Below the hanging 'stem' and light 'bud' emerge from the base with a sprouting of leaves, but refrain from twee-ness by clearing showing the hook form that the shade hangs from and the clean, regular forms of the petals that make up the light fitting.

  

An electric table lamp c.1902, Accession no. M.367

His use of organic flowing lines and simplified floral forms were part of the evolution of Art Nouveau, and were sold in the shop that gave the style its name, Seigfried Bing’s Salon de L’art Nouveau, Paris. Benson’s products were amongst those selected by Bing as the best Eurpoe and America had to offer when his shop first opened in 1895.

Kristian Purcell

The Adams Car Rides Again

This car built in 1907, one of the last of its type, was manufactured in Bedford at the Elstow Road factory of the Adams Manufacturing Company. It is an Adams Mail Phaeton ‘V’ model and sold for £265 when new.

Sales literature for the Adams car at the time stated “Anyone can learn to drive it in an hour… An average speed of 20mph is assured in any give-or-take country with the car fully loaded”. The company went into liquidation in 1913. The Managing Director, A.H. Adams died on the Lusitania, a ship sunk by a German submarine on the way from New York to Liverpool in May 1915.

In 1964 the Adams Car came into the hands of Cutler-Hammer who were successors to the Igranic Electrical Company which, in turn had succeeded the Adams Company at Elstow Road. In 1978-9 the car was fully restored by Cutler-Hammer, and finally handed over to be displayed at the Bedford Museum.

In order to be moved out of the Museum the car needed to be loaded on to a car transporter and taken to our store. Fortunately the car had been on display in the ground floor gallery, which has suitable doors that it can fit in and out of (narrowly). It just had to be manouvered with sufficient man power.

With the car being over 100 years old we were reluctant to attempt to get the engine started, so decided it was safer to push it manually. The hand brake was disengaged and it took a several point turn to line the car up with the narrow doorway, to avoid any damage to the paintwork. The lack of power steering of course made this quite difficult!

Once we made it through the door we had to manually push the car out of the courtyard as the car transporter wouldn’t fit under the bridge and gateway of the museum entrance. The car was attached to the winch of the lorry and again the challenge was to line up the car onto the ramp to get it onto the vehicle, but it all went smoothly.

Getting the car off the vehicle at the other end was again difficult, especially with the forces of gravity pulling the car down the ramp (despite the stability from the winch) and the inability to brake – so everyone stood well clear – just in case! Happily, with the Adams Car unloaded successfully from the car transporter without incident, the car had its soft cover placed over it to protect it from dust whilst in storage.

Lydia

The Stone Altar to Hercules from the Roman Fort at Whitley

Placed in the corner of the Archaeology Gallery next to the Roman case used to stand a rather interesting object, a stone altar dedicated to the God Hercules. The label behind the altar stated that it had originally been found at the Roman Fort known as Whitley Castle in Northumberland.

The first question that springs to mind having read the label is, “why is it here in Bedford Museum”?

The challenge to track down the answer began. By searching through our own records and consulting other published sources the answer proved to be very interesting and highlighted the odd and unusual ways that archaeological objects end up where they do.

The site of the Roman fort at Whitley had been known about by antiquarians and surveyors since the early seventeenth century. It seems that over the next two hundred years many Roman artefacts were dug up and removed from the fort. Various records show that several altars and stone sculptures together with all sorts of other archaeological material were taken off the site. Some of these items found their way into the personal collections of notable antiquarians others were put on show in local ale-houses and farmhouses and others were simply lost. The fate and travels of the Hercules Alter has been particularly bizarre.

Records show that the altar was kept at a public house near to the fort for a number of years before being purchased and taken down to London in 1812. Once in London it seems that the altar was sold at least twice more to other collectors before, in 1924, ending up in the private collection of Mr. J L Higgins the owner of Turvey Abbey.  

The altar seems to have stood in the garden at Turvey Abbey for many years until it was donated to the Bedford Modern School Collection by Mr. and Mrs. Rupert Allen. At the time the altar was described as one of the star attractions at the new museum on The Embankment by the curator at the time Mr F W Kuhlicke. Since then the altar has been on the move again, firstly to the current Bedford Museum and more recently to our off-site stores.

With all of these moves it is quite remarkable that it has not come to any harm and that the carvings and inscriptions are still fairly clear. I almost dread to think how it would have packed and moved in the past, presumably by horse power but maybe by canal barge or even train, especially on its long journeys into and out of London.

 When the time came for us to pack and move the altar ourselves we were very apprehensive. The altar is quite large, 863mm high and 457mm wide and seemed to be pretty heavy, we manoeuvred a suitable packing crate along side the altar and with the help of the strongest removal man on the team the altar was inched safely into its padded crate. Phew!   

Liz,   Keeper of Archaeology 27^th June 2011