Inside the Museum of London

Watch it at this link: Victorian London, Jack the Ripper, Museum in Docklands video.

There are more videos at the Museum in Dockland’s Jack the Ripper and the East End exhibition playlist.

You can also view (and buy) images of Victorian London at the Jack The Ripper & The East End section of the Museum of London print site or find out more about the exhibition at the Museum in Docklands.

If you’re in London before November 2, 2008 then watch to the end of the video for a discount code for 20% off the full ticket price for the exhibition.

Museum in Docklands was about to open its first ever major exhibition and the press team felt that something special was needed to mark this momentous occasion. We knew what we wanted it to involve; Jack the Ripper and the East End, web 2.0 and the public – but how would we use those ingredients to create a magical mix?

Naturally, we would kindly ask members of the public to transform themselves into East End street urchins and pretend to sell newspapers, screaming the headlines at the top of their voices. The Jack the Ripper video was born. I was volunteered to take to the streets of London armed with a digital camera, tripod and props to find willing participants.

Day 1 was spent in Canary Wharf, not far from Museum in Docklands. It was a Friday lunchtime and the square was filled with people whom I presumed would be more than keen to don a flat cap, sandwich board and speak in a cockney accent. Oh how wrong I was. I approached countless people and suffered knockback after knockback until a very lovely chap decided that it was a Friday; he was in the mood for fun and would very much like to be on YouTube for all his mates to see! Inspired by what had just been recorded I fearlessly approached people to persuade them to take part and found some brilliant folk who were more than willing to be filmed. At times small crowds gathered whilst others appeared disinterested but the session had been a success and I left with fantastic footage.

There was a change of location for day 2 of filming, which took place in Covent Garden. Stood upon the cobbles, I once again encountered some rejection before finding video gold. A perfect blend of Londoners and tourists had once again impressed me with their ability to transform themselves into East End street newspaper sellers.

It was then back to the Museum to edit the footage and create the fantastic short films that would form a series online. I am forever grateful to those that took part and helped make the project such a success.

Check out our Facebook and YouTube pages over the coming weeks to see the finished videos. You can also see photographs from the Jack the Ripper exhibition on Flickr and the Museum in Docklands website. Enjoy!

Two podcast tours of London’s East End are now available on the Museum of London’s YouTube channel or as direct downloads. They were produced for the exhibition ‘Jack the Ripper and the East End‘ at the Museum in Docklands.

The tour starts at Whitechapel tube station and takes you through the streets of London, re-populating them through photos, maps and interviews with experts.

Watch Part 1 of the Jack the Ripper and the East End tour on YouTube (09:49 minutes)

or

Download Part 1 of the Jack the Ripper and the East End podcast tour for your iPod (m4v file, 90MB)

Watch Part 2 of the Jack the Ripper and the East End tour on YouTube (07:42 minutes)

or

Download Part 2 of the Jack the Ripper and the East End podcast tour for your iPod (m4v file, 71MB) [Incorrect link was updated on 15 December 2008]

I am one of the team working on Jack the Ripper and the East End. I am an archaeological conservator but I often work on projects or exhibitions that are not archaeological. The material for this exhibition is fascinating; I’ve just finished reading the book that accompanies the exhibition so I understand more about the objects that we are installing now in the display cases.

My role has been to act as the link between the exhibition project team and the conservation and collection care staff who prepare the material for display. There are 20 of us in conservation and collection care working at the Museum of London, Museum in Docklands and our resource centre (Mortimer Wheeler House). I am one of the archaeological team; there are also conservators who work on paper, textiles and costume and decorative arts/social history material.

A quarter of the team work in collection care and object handling; they look after the objects in storage and carry out the movement of our collections between our three main locations and sometimes to other museums when objects go out on loan. The conservators also do a lot of collection care work for our stored collections and work on individual objects in our laboratories and workshops. We ensure that the objects are in good condition and carry out treatments when needed. For this exhibition, the conservators worked on a huge variety of objects from wax heads to police uniforms. The paper conservators were kept particularly busy as there are so many paper items, many of them such as police reports and files in poor condition because they were working documents.

There are nearly 200 objects going on display in about 30 cases, on the walls and on open display. Some of the display cases are new so part of my job was to work with the designer to make sure that they are the right type and size for the objects . Conservators are particularly concerned that the cases are stable and secure, dust-proof and made of good quality materials.

We also need to check on the overall conditions for the objects. For this exhibition, because there are so many original 19th century documents, light is our biggest concern. Many of the documents have writing in ink which is already faded. The light levels will need to be low to keep any further fading to a minimum. Just before the exhibition opens, we will check every case to make sure the light is within the right levels. Luckily the designer wants a dark, atmospheric look!

The most challenging part of the work has been working out how to fit all the material into the cases. Some of the cases only have a few items, say two documents relating to one of the victims. Others have many objects made of many different materials. Each case has to be carefully planned so that everything fits and is well supported. The designer started this process many months ago working with the curator, Julia Hoffbrand.

The next step was to work from the plans and try out mockups of each case to see how the objects fitted into the cases and if they needed supports. A small team of us, a curator (Jackie Keily), our chief technician (Cliff Thomas) and others, started this process in February. It was a challenge as we had to work from photos and records of the objects since so many were coming from other museums or individuals as loans.

We are now putting the objects into cases and it’s great to see everything, some for the first time as couriers bring them from other museums and archives. Maps, prints and plans are also being hung on the walls; this has had its moments with different opinions on how high or low to place things. Luckily our collection care team (Alison Guppy and Paul More) are used to this and are very patient!

A huge amount of other work went into the exhibition before we started with the cases and objects (graphics, set construction, installing the lighting and audio-visuals). It’s all coming together now and with a few more days work (captions are on their way!), will be ready for the opening on the 15th of May.

You can see more photos from the installation of Jack the Ripper and the East End on Flickr.

Rob Campbell, Project Manager at the Museum in Docklands, managed to find a few moments to update us on progress in the final week of installation for the exhibition, Jack the Ripper and the East End which opens on Thursday, May 15 :

As we enter the last week of the exhibition everyone has been filled with manic energy and fear. Malfunctioning DVDs, players, incorrect graphics, broken emails, difficult lenders, oversized stuffed dogs and scratched cases have all taken their toll on the team.

However, we have managed to overcome all of this and in the week that Olympic torch made it to the top of mount Everest we too near the summit! Nearly all of the objects are now installed (including all of the original Ripper letters from the TNA), all the captions are running hot off the presses and our electricians are tweaking lights and fixing emergency signs.

Hope to see you all when it opens and you can see what all this hard work has produced!

You can see more photos from the installation on Flickr.

Hi, my name is Vicky Lee and I’m the Marketing Manager for Museum of London and Museum in Docklands. In essence it’s my job to raise awareness of both museums to get people to visit our amazing collections and attend our brilliant events.

I work across many projects here but for the last few months the new ‘Jack the Ripper and the East End’ exhibition at Museum in Docklands has been taking up most of time. I can safely say that I now know far more about Jack the Ripper than I ever wanted to… but in truth it’s a fascinating project and I’ve been having a lot of fun working on the marketing campaign, which properly kicks off next month.

Since the beginning of this year I’ve been working with an agency called Dotcog to develop an online viral campaign to tie in with our fantastic marketing visual (so far the origin of many excited noises from staff and soon to be seen on the front cover of BBC History magazine!), designed by Cog Design.

Back last year I was struggling to think of an idea for a viral that wasn’t tasteless (as opposed to some of the rather disturbing Jack the Ripper games I discovered while researching online) and yet still interesting enough for people to pass around to friends and ultimately to get them to visit the exhibition.

As with most successful virals the simplest ideas are usually the best and after talks of Victorian sleuth games and 3D maps of the labyrinth that was East London we plumped for ‘Ripper Ransoms’, which later became ‘Notorious Notes‘.

Anyway, at last the viral is live but you’ll have to check out ‘Notorious Notes‘ to see exactly how it works. What I can tell you is that the basic premise takes its inspiration from a note made up of cut-out newspaper letters sent to the Metropolitan Police in 1888 claiming responsibility for the murders (soon to be seen in the exhibition!), and that if you send it to three friends, you’ll get 20% off entry to the exhibition.

Please do have a play and let me know what you think!