The working life of Museum of London

Valentine’s Day….I know, I know. BUT, this year why not avoid the over-priced roses and crowded restaurants and come to the Museum of London where there’s all sorts of fun things happening: readings, dance classes, vintage Valentines and most exciting of all (for a serious historian like me, obviously) is that the Museum will be blowing the dust from its collection of erotic objects. In partnership with Polari and Coco de Mer, it promises to be an evening with a difference. Call 020 7001 9844 to book and more details here.

Anish Kapoor: Turning the World Upside Down in Kensington Gardens from O Production Ltd. on Vimeo.

If you travel across the city by Tube and are anything like me you’ll have found yourself, in recent months, staring across the tracks at the thin, curved screens arriving where before were peeling billboards.  At first very little happened, but it was clear that ‘live’ advertising was about to start on the London Underground.

I found this quite exciting, in a distracting-yet-moving-with-the-times sense.  Of course I expected this excitement to be dampened instantly with advertisements extolling the virtues of life insurance or personal shopping.  Yet it doesn’t have to be that way.  The screen is only a blank canvas, a servant, and a project which has taken that literally is Smile For London.

They have invited film-makers to produce shorts – films, art or animation, to be cycled between advertisements on selected Tube platforms during the rush hour, between the 17th and 28th of January.  Participants include Aardman (the creators of Wallace and Gromit), Anish Kapoor, Laurie Hill, Light Surgeons and Amy Thornley.  Keira Knightley stars in a silent film called Maze made by artist Stuart Pearson Wright.

Last week the Museum of London hosted a celebration of the work of Smile for London, and an awards ceremony for the creative individuals and collectives who have taken part, with a showing of the shorts to be screened.  Until the 28th the Museum will continue to screen the shorts in its digital space by the Galleries of Modern London.

The Museum’s support for Smile for London is a reflection of its constant participation in the curation and also creation of London’s history.  It seems particularly fitting that thistakes place, for a short time on the London Underground, in Victorian tunnels on wartime platforms, obscured by 1980s carriages, seen by passengers carrying Oystercards and flicking through their Blackberrys.  So if you’re on the Tube from now until the 28th look up and Smile for London.

On Saturday I spoke at an Untold London workshop held at the Museum of London, on the subject of LGBT history and blogging. This was coupled with a tour of the ‘gay’ artifacts in the Museum and a writing session.

LGBT history is full of great stories and many brave individuals right through history who were ready to defy the convention, and often the laws of the day to lead their life. Its interpretation is fraught with difficulty, often due to twentieth century abstract perceptions of what it means to be ‘queer’. What was it like to be of alternative sexuality two hundred or three hundred years ago? Despite my grasp of the stories and facts I don’t know, do I? I don’t know what it’s like now (I managed to announce, to much hilarity, that ‘I am not a gay man’). I have never felt alone or rejected because of my sexuality, and have certainly never been persecuted for it.

So when I was preparing for the workshop, I had no idea what to expect – and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. What a crowd! For a start, our venue in the Clore centre was packed, almost double the attendance expected. Interests ranged from high fashion in court circles to trades unions to concepts of what it means to be trans-gender, genealogy and education.

The lovely Babs gave an introduction, I blathered for a bit about being alternative in Georgian London and then Kate took us on a tour of the gay artifacts of the Museum. What is a gay artifact? Well might you ask. After all, gay people own clocks, shoes and read books just like everyone else. A ‘Pride’ badge is not enough to show the input of gay people into the history of London. So we looked at objects such as the head of Hadrian found near London Bridge. Hadrian was devoted to his lover Antinous, whose death almost broke the emperor. Did you know Antinous’s ‘head’ was the only non-imperial one ever to appear on Roman coinage? As our large group wended its way through a busy Saturday afternoon Museum of London, the sense of fun and enjoyment was clear. I learned things I didn’t know, and not just from Kate – my knowledge of Marie Antoinette’s fashion dictatorship is now considerably increased. As we walked we discussed the difference between the performance of alternative sexuality (Alexander McQueen came up here) and the reality of living an alternative life. Which is which and which deserves to be remembered?

We returned to the Clore for questions, discussion and writing. The challenge was to put something down about the experiences of the day, and the results were quite simply, brilliant. Varied, eloquent and often very funny, they highlighted what had been learned and often passed sharp comment on modern gay life. I would like to thank everyone who came (and Babs and Kate for a splendid day), and to extend an invitation to celebrate LGBT history month in February: email me a blog post please (lucy@georgianlondon.com), up to 500 words on your favourite pre-1950 LGBT Londoner, to be featured on the Georgian London blog. Tell me how you found them and why you admire them. It can be integrity, heroism, social daring or killer style. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

As you wander from the Museum’s Galleries of Modern London to the cafe for a nice cup of something and a sit down, just take a moment to look up and right.  Up there, in the niche on the wall is a group of figures, smaller than adults but bigger than children.  They look much like any other Classical sculpture, apart from their size but there is something about the material that is not only intriguing, but remarkable.  This tableau is made from Coade stone, an early form of ‘fake’ stone.  Finer than cement and far more durable, the exact composition of Coade is still unknown, but it is closer to a ceramic than a stone and this is no surprise, for Eleanor Coade herself was from a famous family of ceramicists in Lyme Regis in Dorset.  Although patents for similar ‘fake stone’ existed from the early 1720s, it was Coade, with her factory in Lambeth (where the Royal Festival Hall now stands) who, from 1769 made such a success of artificial stone.

The secrets of her success lay in the very fine nature of her Coade stone, which allowed it to be cast into very high relief, the good taste and fine workmanship displayed in its execution and its durability.  Architectural historian Sir John Summerson noted that he had entered burned out churches where all that remained were the Coade ornaments; other Coade pieces around London include the still-crisp doorway of the Twinings tea shop in the Strand and the lion on the south side of Westminster Bridge.

Coade passed her factory to her daughter, also Eleanor, but the success of the business was already over by the Victorian period when the formula was finally lost.  Coade, both the woman and the stone, were a marvel of the Georgian period and she is sadly neglected as one of the greatest artisan industrialists of the age.

(The photograph featured here is from the redevelopment of the Museum, and of course now it is all painted and beautiful – but this image reminds me of how the piece would have sat in the yard at Lambeth, surrounded by the detritus of its manufacture, waiting to go to its new home.)

Painting the Town Red: the Museum of London unveils ‘Hidden’ by Red Saunders

What have black Chartist William Cuffay, revolutionary thinker Thomas Paine and rebel Watt Tyler got in common? They have all been ‘photographed’ by activist Red Saunders for the photo tableaux ‘Hidden’, now installed in the foyer of the Museum of London.

These rich and inspiring images use a modern cast with period touches to depict key moments and characters in the history of the ordinary man. Red Saunders said: “I recreate important moments in the long struggle of working people for democracy and social justice. History has been dominated by kings, queens, war and ‘great men’. Hidden engages with a different historical narrative involving dissenters, revolutionaries and radicals.”

The images are beautiful and detailed, encouraging the viewer to engage with the subject and setting, reminding us that people had faces and identities before photography. All of these men were real, and their achievements are still with us today. ‘Hidden’ is on show in the foyer now – if you can come and see it, do!

This week I was lucky enough to venture into the very depths of the Museum of London to meet Jelena Bekvalac and her team in Human Osteology where they are slowly but surely reassembling and recording the skeletons of Londoners from a 2000 year period. This mammoth task includes separating and cataloguing the bones of everyone from plague victims to newborn babies.

The plague, or the Black Death, is a particularly interesting period in London’s history; it was both short and dramatic, hitting hardest in 1349 to 50. Whilst outbreaks of plague in London would continue throughout the following two centuries (and still occur throughout undeveloped parts of the world), the largest death toll occurred in a very brief period. Families were wiped out, whole neighbourhoods destroyed and the landscape of the medieval city was changed for good.

Chatting to Jelena and the team, one thing became clear, that the architecture of ‘catastrophe cemeteries’ has changed little over hundreds of years. When the need arises to bury many bodies in a very short space of time, multiple burials or ‘pits’ are how it works. The London Plague Pits are remarkable in their construction, forming two long trenches rather than rough holes, indicating some order and forethought. This is, as far as is known, a unique site.

London’s plague pits in East Smithfield are, of their type, the finest and most complete in the world, matched only by a similar Black Death catastrophe cemetery of similar age in Germany. Catastrophe cemeteries are invaluable in providing a ‘living cross-section’ of society. This sounds strange, but as plague is an indiscriminate and ‘unnatural’ killer, the cemetery contains the remains of Londoners from every strata of the city and from tiny babies to healthy youths, all the way to the elderly. Jelena and her team have worked with the remains disinterred from this cemetery to reconstruct a picture of the city in those years. The results are fascinating.

Jelena will be speaking on excavations undertaken at the catastrophe cemetery at East Smithfield (upon which the Royal Mint was subsequently built), at the upcoming Museum of London free Lunchtime Lecture.

A short post today, about something new to the Museum’s display – a ‘kosher’ Delftware plate bearing the Hebrew character ‘chlav’ for milk.

This striking dinner plate dates from c.1720 and was made in Lambeth on the South Bank. Blue and white Delft was very popular at the time and made in large quantities for tiles and everyday domestic items, such as dinner services. However, to find one that would have been part of a ‘milk’ dinner service within a Jewish home is exceptionally rare – I’m not sure another one is known.

Kosher dietary law, or kashrut decrees that separate food utensils be used for milk and meat products. Whilst being aware of this requirement, I had previously assumed that families had simply used two distinguishable services, such as one patterned, one plain. The presence of this plate in London at this date suggests two things: that the Jewish community was large enough to warrant the Lambeth manufactory producing ‘milk’ and ‘meat’ services, or that a Jewish member of the community had the two services commissioned (I am assuming the existence of a matching ‘meat’ service).

I think this plate is an important piece of London’s diverse history and definitely worth a moment or two of your time on your next visit.

In 2008, The Tower Theatre Company stood examining a plot of land in Shoreditch, wondering whether it would provide suitable accommodation for their troupe. Little did they realize another theatre company had stood there four hundred and sixteen years earlier thinking exactly the same thing, amongst them James Burbage and William Shakespeare.

Both companies decided the site was ideal. The Tower Theatre Company called in MoLA (Museum of London Archaeology) to conduct the necessary works to establish what lay beneath the lighting warehouse that had occupied the site since WWII. Almost immediately, the team discovered what appeared to be the corner of a polygonal structure in the western corner of the dig, the kind of structure that would indicate a Tudor theatre.

The idea of finding a Tudor theatre in Shoreditch was hugely exciting; for years archaeologists and historians had been trying to pin down the site of ‘The Theatre’, James Burbage’s purpose-built playhouse, erected on a corner of the site of the old Holywell Priory. Tudor London was incredibly densely populated, challenged only by Edo (old Tokyo) in terms of people per dwelling. The space for entertainments was limited, both physically and legally, with strict controls on where and when plays could be performed.

In 1575, the City fathers banned plays for the public within the City walls. Troupes could still perform for the wealthy within private houses, but cheap theatre for the masses had to find a new home. James Burbage was a carpenter-turned-actor, leading a group of actors under the patronage of the fabled Robin Dudley, Earl of Leicester. In 1576, disgruntled with the lack of a popular playhouse (and the revenue playing to the masses brought in), Burbage began to eye up potential sites for a theatre; Shoreditch was perfect. Just outside the City walls, Shoreditch was ideal for a walk to the theatre, and was outside the City regulations so things such as drinking and prostitution could operate unhindered by the authorities.

The Theatre was an instant success. People crowded to see the productions; Jonson, Marlowe, and Thomas Kydd’s Revengers’ Tragedy were performed regularly. Theatre-goers walked up a narrow stone path and dropped their entrance fee in to earthenware boxes which were broken open after the performance (and kept in a small, safe room which soon became known as ‘the box office’). Once inside the theatre, much like the modern Globe, the groundlings stood in the open whilst those who had paid for seats sat in tiers around the polygon. The actors, protected by a roofed stage, performed in the open.

So popular was The Theatre, others soon followed suit, with The Curtain opening only 200m to the south. At the height of The Theatre’s popularity, a new young playwright appeared: William Shakespeare. After being befriended by Burbage, Shakespeare’s work began to appear on stage at The Theatre from 1594, including the first ever showing of Romeo and Juliet, as well as a Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The Shoreditch site has produced many surprises, partly due to the nature of it being built on and occupying some of the Priory outhouses. Burbage didn’t choose an open piece of ground for his theatre, and the paved pathway to it (discovered at the very end of the dig) led between other buildings. Further evidence of the presence of the theatre was discovered in the form of pieces of seven pottery ‘money boxes’, the disposable, sealed earthenware vessels used to collect the entrance fees. These were stored in the small room that rapidly became the ‘box office’ and smashed open at the end of the evening so the takings could be counted.

In 1594, James Burbage died and his sons inherited their father’s chaotic, speculative legacy. He had been involved in too many deals, and the lease on The Theatre’s plot was rapidly running out. In 1597, time was up and the owner of the land refused to renew. The brothers made a plan and took a 31 year lease on a plot in Southwark.

On the 28th of December, 1598 in the middle of a snowstorm James Burbage’s widow, his two sons, a builder and a dozen labourers arrived at The Theatre. They took it down, numbering each timber and carted it to the frozen Thames, where it was dragged across that night. In the summer of 1599, the timbers had been reassembled and a new theatre was ready to open: The Globe.

The Shoreditch site was taken over by tenements and warehouses. A thousand human dramas have since played out in the plot occupied by Burbage’s playhouse. Those stories are lost, but evidence of the players in them remains in the finds the Museum of London archaeologists made: pottery, money and blackened hearths. In what was a garden behind one of the small houses that would have stood there in the 18th century, was found the skeleton of a dog, interred with his bowl as if merely asleep.

The Tower Theatre Company’s serendipitous choice of a new location has resulted in the discovery of a missing piece in the story of early theatre in London. This summer, just before the dig closed, I was lucky enough to be part of the last audience of The Theatre, when Paul McGann and Susannah Harker, both supporters of the Tower Theatre Company, read from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, recreating the atmosphere of Shakespeare’s first playhouse. The discovery of The Theatre has been referred to as ‘the holy grail of English Theatre’, but I think that small performance amongst scaffolding and duckboards, glasses in hand was as close to the original spirit of Shakespeare’s time as we are likely now to come: entertainment with just a little bit of magic.

My words here are just an overview of the huge amount of work done on the dig. The team working on site created a brilliant and very detailed blog on their work. Do click to have a read: http://bit.ly/cNCdp2

It gives me great pleasure to post the first entry here as Blogger in Residence for the Museum of London. Having lived on the doorstep of the Museum of London for six years, it has always been a place to come to access London’s history in a matter of minutes, from a Romano-British child’s shoe, to a 17th century mummified cat, to a silver tankard commemorating the Great Fire, to a century-old black cab.  Over those years the Museum has moved from being a dark place filled with remarkable artifacts to a bright, interactive and welcoming space to learn more about the city.  It is an invaluable resource: somewhere that instantly enables me to feel at the centre of the City in both geography and time.

So, as I love nothing more than a good story and live next to a place simply spilling over with them, it seemed like the sensible thing for us to put our collective heads together and bring some of the Museum’s, and hence London’s people and objects to you on a regular basis.

There can be few greater statements of the Museum’s commitment and respect for London than the 17,000 skeletons of Londoners from pre-history to 1850 carefully interred in its brick rotunda, forming the Western edge of London Wall, the ancient boundary of the City.  The innovative new Modern Galleries reflect this commitment to bring the people of London’s past – the artisans, street performers, tourists, the pleasure garden and theatre-goers into the experience of today’s museum visitor.  As blogger for the Museum (the first ‘in residence’ for any museum in the world), it will be my aim to bring out the tales within the Museum and its huge collections.  I hope to spark debate on objects and their purpose, people, buildings and on how London has, and continues to grow and change.  Blogging is interactive and organic: involvement and comment is encouraged.  It is hoped the blog will create another way for visitors to enhance their enjoyment of the Museum of London and promote an awareness of its holdings and work outside the London Wall site.

One little known aspect of the Museum’s work is the Archaeology Department’s involvement on every earthworks within the City of London.  The quiet, industrious MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) is responsible for discovering and preserving the history hidden beneath the high-rises.  The blog will be bringing more of this fascinating and extensive work to light, which recently involved uncovering the theatre in Shoreditch where Romeo and Juliet was first performed, and whose timbers when dismantled were rowed across an icy Thames to build the original Globe.

And blogging for the Museum doesn’t mean I’ll just be sitting behind a screen: I’ll be donning everything from white coats to waders, looking at bones and boxes of treasure, and also taking photos and making podcasts.  The blog will be a chance to see behind the walls of this very special, very lively museum.  I hope you’ll join me – I think it’s going to be amazing.