I Like Museums

Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it

Our new exhibition opened on Saturday 15 October entitled ‘Crossing the Tyne’. It was all a bit touch-and-go for a while, as at first I thought we didn’t have enough items to exhibit; however, by the end of the week I was fretting that we had too much!

As Exhibitions Officer, the installation of exhibitions usually falls to me to oversee but I must admit that art exhibitions are not my speciality. I trained as an Egyptologist so 3D objects are much easier for me to get my head around when it comes to displays!

Since this year saw the opening of the second vehicular Tyne Tunnel in South Tyneside it made sense for South Shields Museum & Art Gallery to celebrate this feat of engineering in some way. Several years ago there was an exhibition at the Shipley Art Gallery in Gateshead called ‘Building Bridges’, which used many of the beautiful art works that you can see in this new exhibition. However, anyone who visited that exhibition will be pleased to know that we have added plenty of new acquisitions (including objects!) to ‘Crossing the Tyne’.

The premise of the exhibition is that it takes a closer look at the different ways and means of crossing the River Tyne- starting with the ‘Pons Aelius’ (Hadrian’s Bridge) in Newcastle upon Tyne dating to AD 122 through to the Tyne ferries and tunnels.

Last week we beavered away to get everything ready in time for the opening, and as it transpired it was not the artwork that created the biggest stumbling block, but the large, to-scale model of part of the Tyne Bridge that really stumped me (or should I say, nearly killed me). If you do go and see the exhibition, have a look at the size of the plinth that was made and you will see what I mean…

Anyway, the exhibition runs until the 28 January 2012 and we have some great people contributing to the free events programme so I genuinely hope you enjoy it. Personally, I think it looks great…

The Emperor Hadrian Landing at Pons Aelii (now Newcastle) AD 122

By Gill Scott, Exhibitions Officer

Recent developments on the ‘We Mak’em’ Sunderland Shipbuilding archives project

Collections & objects Discovery Museum Local history Maritime History Social history Tyne & Wear Archives
Posted by Tyne & Wear Archives on October 24, 2011 Permalink Leave a comment

It’s been an exciting past month on the Sunderland Shipbuilding archives project. For one thing I now have a ‘glamorous’ assistant, Colin Boyd, who will be working part-time with me for the next year. Colin has worked in the shipbuilding industry and so he brings valuable technical and historical knowledge to the project. He is already making excellent progress sorting through the large quantity of unlisted ships plans we hold for the company of Bartram and Sons Ltd.

Most of my recent work has focussed on cataloguing the records of the firm of Sir James Laing & Sons Ltd. The firm dates back to 1793 and was established by two brothers, Philip and James Laing, who moved to Sunderland from Fife, in Scotland. Our collection of Laings records is one of the largest that I will work on during the project and includes many of the oldest Sunderland shipbuilding documents we hold.

The earliest shipbuilding record we hold for Sunderland is a ships particulars book for Laings dating from 1794 to 1895 (TWAM ref. DS.LG/4/2/1). This is a fascinating volume, which includes general information about the earliest vessels built by the firm. The collection is full of such gems and includes something to appeal to everyone. For instance there’s a wage book covering the years 1800-1801 (TWAM ref. DS.LG/2/12/1). This wage book is by far the oldest shipbuilding employee record we hold for Sunderland. The names in the book will be of interest to family historians, while the information about rates of pay to foremen, carpenters, hewers, sawyers, borers and smiths should prove just as valuable for social history research.

Wage book entries dating from 1800 (TWAM ref. DS.LG/2/12/1)

I also recently discovered an early ships cost book for Laings (TWAM ref. DS.LG/4/12/1). This cost book contains interesting details of the materials and labour used in building individual ships and includes the names of firms that supplied Laings. This cost book dates back to 1857 and includes a double-page entry for one of the best known vessels built on the River Wear, the ‘Torrens’.

Cost book entry for the Torrens, 1875 (TWAM ref. DS.LG/4/12/1)

Launched in 1875, she was a composite ship of iron frame and wooden planks. The ‘Torrens’ was renowned for her speed and set a new record journey time from London to Adelaide, making the voyage in 64 days. She is also well known through her association with the novelist, Joseph Conrad, who served as an officer on the ‘Torrens’ in the early 1890s, during which time he started writing his first novel.

The collection includes many excellent series of photographs. These relate mainly to the ships built by Laings and I hope to include some of these images in a future blog, once they have been catalogued. Other subjects are covered as well, including royal visits, employees and the shipyard premises. I’m particularly keen on aerial photographs and the collection includes several excellent shots of the Deptford Yard, taken in July 1959 by the firm Turners (Photography) Ltd. As well as showing the shipyard itself they also reveal fascinating details of the surrounding area.

Aerial photograph of Deptford Yard, Sunderland, July 1959 (TWAM ref. DS.LG/5/3/2)

All in all, it’s been a busy but very rewarding month … and that’s without mentioning a fantastic new donation of Sunderland shipbuilding records that I collected just over a week ago. I’d love to reveal more but that will have to wait till next month’s blog.

By Alan Hayward, Archivist

A grim death for a most heinous crime…

Collections & objects Local history Social history South Shields Museum & Art Gallery
Posted by South Shields Museum & Art Gallery on October 18, 2011 Permalink Leave a comment

The other week I participated in a ghost walk around Newcastle city centre and although I’m not a believer in the supernatural by any means, I was intrigued by this region’s gruesome history and wasn’t disappointed. As Exhibitions Officer at South Shields Museum I often wander past a grim reminder of South Shields’ own reminder of a macabre story involving the murder of local Town Magistrate, Nicholas Fairles in 1832.

If you visit the Changing Faces gallery within the museum you will undoubtedly come across the gibbet with the (replica) body of the miner, William Jobling. The story goes that strikes at the Jarrow Colliery over pay and working conditions had left many of the miners in dire straits and following a night on the drink, Jobling approached Fairles for some money. Having been refused this loan, Jobling and an accomplice, Ralph Armstrong, viciously beat the magistrate and left him to die. Armstrong was never caught, but Jobling was hunted down, tried and sentenced to his death with his body to then be suspended from a gibbet thereafter.

A gibbet was a frame, often made of metal, built to contain the body of a criminal and hung from a gallows for all to see. Apparently it was common for criminals to be placed inside this structure whilst alive up until the 17^th century. They would have been left to slowly die and then decompose over a number of months as a stark reminder to all na’er-do-wells that this would be their punishment if caught and tried for crimes such as murder and even sheep-stealing.

Gibbeting was a form of punishment that was used alongside hanging but not everyone was in favour of this form of death penalty, especially given that rotting bodies emitted a stench that led to fears over the spread of disease!

We know of several gibbeting structures around the North East, including “Winters Gibbet” in rural Northumberland, demonstrating just how popular this punishment was. Following the passing of the 1752 Murder Act, the bodies of gibbeted criminals were often passed over to the Barber-Surgeons for dissection providing one last bit of humiliation for the criminal. However, in the case of William Jobling’s death, this was not the case. Having been placed in the gibbet (probably having been executed beforehand), his tar-covered body was supposed to have been left there in public view for a significant period of time. The addition of the tar meant that decomposition was slowed significantly and the body could be left on display for much longer.

Jobling’s body was not on public view for long however. His remains were stolen in the dead of night less than one month after he was placed there. Whilst speculation was rife that it was his family who removed his body to spare him from the fate of the Barber-Surgeons, nothing was ever proved. To this day the whereabouts of his burial place is unknown- a secret his own family took with them to their grave. However, at South Shields Museum & Art Gallery we still have part of the original gibbet structure to act as a chilling reminder of this country’s brutal practices surrounding criminal punishment between 1700s and the abolishment of gibbeting in 1834- only a few years after Jobling was hung…

Happy Halloween!

Part of William Jobling's gibbet on display

The first exhibit for the display arrives

Collections & objects Monkwearmouth Station Museum Social history
Posted by Monkwearmouth Station Museum on October 11, 2011 Permalink Leave a comment

Another milestone in the Wagon Refurbishment Project has been reached with the delivery of the first exhibit for the displays, other than the wagons themselves of course. It is also quite a big exhibit….a 1963 Rover P4 model 110 that has been acquired on loan from the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, in Hampshire. It was delivered by a specialist car transporter company in an enclosed car transporter early on Friday 23 September 2011 and was received by a small team of curatorial and conservation staff, as well as front of house staff and large object handling specialists from Dowse Cranes, to ensure that it was received and put in its new home safely. The operation of receiving, checking and maneuvering it into place took just under two hours.

It is 8am and the Rover P4 arrives in its car transporter from Hampshire.

It is carefully offloaded by the driver of the delivery wagon.

As it is too heavy to push up the bank into the car park it is towed in by the specialist lifting company hired to ramp the Rover into the CCT.

After checking its condition the car is pushed to the ramp through the folding doors that were designed into the building with this type of operation in mind.

The Rover is connected by its rear axle to the line from the winch and it is slowly hauled up the ramps provided for the occasion into the CCT.

Slowly the car is hand winched into the CCT using a Tirfor winch.

It is 10am and the car is safely positioned in its display position where it will be seen by visitors within the wagon.

As it will be seen by visitors outside of the wagon through one of the side doors.

The car is typical of those carried on British Railways Motorail services in wagons like our Covered Carriage Truck during the late 1950s and 1960s. As such it is a great object to put on show in the displays.

Made in Solihull, near Birmingham, Rovers were in their time top-of-the-range family cars built to high standards of quality and luxury. They became known as ‘the poor man’s Rolls-Royce’. This model has a 2.6 litre engine and a top speed of just over 100 mph.

It became part of the National Motor Museum’s collection in 2005, having had only one owner, who lived on the Isle of White, from new.

David Horsefield

Discovery Museum Volunteering
Posted by Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums on October 7, 2011 Permalink Leave a comment

We’re fast approaching our annual volunteer awards in November of this year. David won an award for his Outstanding Contribution to Customer Care last year after volunteering with us for over 8 years across all of our venues. I asked David, a true star volunteer, to share with us a little bit about his experiences so far…

David after winning an award for his outstanding contribution to customer care at the 2010 North East Regional Museum Hub Volunteer Awards with Councillor Ged Bel

David: “I started volunteering about 8 years ago with carers from the Alzheimer’s Society. We went out once a month on trips with the carers and a disposable camera each, to take lots of photos.

At the end of the six months we put an Exhibition on at the Discovery Musum in the Peoples Gallery. This involved using the workshop in the Peoples Gallery, which was really full of things! So I started to help to tidy the workshop up too.

Then one day I was asked by Lucy Cooke, Volunteer Co-ordinator, if I would like to help do some other volunteering in the Discovery, and also at other museums I said yes. It was the best thing I did!

I’ve volunteered at all the museums including, Sunderland, South Shields and in Newcastle. I’ve helped with allsorts including the Tudors Exhibition and two Open Days at Sunderland in Mobray Park. I even helped to pack all things away at the Hancock when it closed for refurbishment.

I was presented with a certificate for doing what I like best, meeting and welcoming people to the Discovery Museum which, I was very surprised and grateful for. I would like to thank all those who voted for me.

I am now on the front desk where I meet lots of people and new faces and try and make them feel welcome.

The Museum over the last year has a new venue called Mediatheque, which lets you watch British made films and programs so if you have time to spare call in, it will keep me busy on my Tuesday afternoons and also keeps me out of trouble!”

Thank you very much David for all of your enthusiasm and support!

Blog post by Lauren Prince, Project Coordinator for Culture Track at Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums.

I Like Museums

Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it

David Horsefield

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