Snippets #1

John Ruskin ponders penguins. . .

John Keats borrows a book from the journalist Thomas Alsager. . .

An 1849 court case shapes current discussions about British libel law. . .

Jeannette Winterson restores a Victorian building in the Cotswolds. . .

Ada Lovelace, pipe-smoking computer programmer (right), impresses Queen Victoria. . .

Brontë, Nightingale, and Darwin jump to conclusions about that nagging headache. . .

And finally: Afghanistan? Been there, done that. . .

Census Records Reveal Details of Ripper Victims

Some of Jack the Ripper's victims appear to have been living respectable domestic lives just a few years before their murders, according to census records that went online today.

The company findmypast.com trawled records of Britain's 1881 census for information on the five women generally accepted as victims of the Ripper: Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. All were killed between August 31 and December 20, 1888, in London's East End, where they worked as prostitutes. Their bodies were horribly mutilated.

The records reveal that several of the victims were living with husbands and children in 1881, apparently resorting to prostitution only later, following the disintegration of their marriages. According to newspaper reports of the time, none of the victims was living with their husbands at the time of their deaths.

Catherine Eddowes, who was 38 in 1881, appears in the census as "Kate Conway" (below) and is listed as a "charwoman" living with her husband John Conway, an Irishman listed as a "hawker," and their two children.

Annie Chapman, then 40, was living with her parents but listed as a 'stud groom’s wife.' Her husband, John Chapman, was living above stables in St Leonard’s Hill, Berkshire; later in the year his wife joined him there. But in 1882 the couple’s 12-year-old daughter Emily died of meningitis and both parents began drinking heavily. The marriage ended in 1884. It seems that Annie Chapman was then forced onto the streets to support herself.

Elizabeth Stride, 37, was living with her husband John, a carpenter, in 1881. Unlike the others, Stride, who was from Sweden, had already been registered with the police as a prostitute, at the age of 22 in Gothenburg.

The other two 'canonical' victims of the Ripper, Mary Ann Nichols and Mary Jane Kelly, do not appear on the census, suggesting that they were already out walking the streets on the night the census was taken, April 3, 1881.

However, Nichols, who was 43 at the time of her murder, was married with three children at the time of the 1871 census.

"Some people treat the Jack the Ripper story as a bit of a game," says Alex Werner, a Museum of London historian who curated a recent Jack the Ripper exhibition at the Museum in Docklands. "It wasn't a game. It was a crime against real people in the East End, people who had fallen on really hard times, who had gravitated to the East End as a place where they could earn some kind of living as a prostitute."

Resources

"Jack the Ripper and the East End" (Museum of Docklands), Podcast Tour: Part 1


"Jack the Ripper and the East End" (Museum of Docklands), Podcast Tour: Part 2

A War Between Science and Love

Here's the trailer (below) for the upcoming film Creation, which is based on the book Annie's Box by Charles Darwin's great-great-grandson Randal Keynes and shot in part at Down House, the Darwin family home in Kent.

The film, which opened the recent Toronto International Film Festival, stars real-life couple Paul Bettany (in photo above) and Jennifer Connolly. Visit the film's excellent website here; The Hollywood Reporter has a glowing review here; the Los Angeles Times previews the film here. Roger Ebert has some interesting things to say about the film in his online journal, as does Eugenie Scott at Panda's Thumb.

Can it possibly be true that Creation is having trouble finding a US distributor because Darwin's theory is, according to Jeremy Thomas, the film's producer, "too controversial for American audiences"? His assertion that "outside of New York and LA, religion rules" is patently absurd. Thomas's comments smack of a disingenuous marketing ploy. . .they're just too ridiculous to be sincere. How unfortunate, since all signs are that the movie is superb and can stand on its own without the whipping up of a fake controversy.

"A Wonderful Dog"

The Victorians adored dogs, which were by far the most popular domestic pet of the era, and perhaps no breed was more beloved than the Newfoundland, a frequent subject of artists such as Sir Edwin Landseer, Arthur Batt, George Earl, Samuel West, John Emms, and George Stubbs. Generally depicted with great sentimentality, the breed featured in countless paintings, songs, and poems. (See my previous post on a life-size sculpture of a Newfoundland named Bashaw by Matthew Coates Wyatt here.)

The newly restored Landseer work shown above, "A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society" on loan from Tate Britain, is the centerpiece of "Pets and Prizewinners: An Exhibition Depicting the Development of Victorian and Edwardian Canine Art" on display at the Kennel Club Art Gallery in London through January 2010.

As noted in Landseer's Wiki biography, "so popular and influential were [his] paintings of dogs in the service of humanity that the name 'Landseer' came to be the official name for the variety of Newfoundland dog that . . . features a mix of both black and white; it was this variety that Landseer popularized in his paintings celebrating Newfoundlands as water rescue dogs, most notably Off to the Rescue (1827), A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society (1838), and Saved (1856), which combines Victorian constructions of childhood with the appealing idea of noble animals devoted to humankind—a devotion indicated, in Saved, by the fact the dog has rescued the child without any apparent human direction or intervention."

The valour and intelligence of the Newfoundland were regularly hailed in the press, as in this article from The Times, 1 October 1859:

"A WONDERFUL DOG. -- On Sabbath last two local preachers, belonging to the Primitive Methodists at South Shields, went to preach at Usworth, a colliery village some eight or nine miles off. They finished the labours of the day a little after 8 o'clock, and soon after set their faces homeward. The evening had passed, and night, robed in her starry stillness, had approached, giving the two preachers an opportunity of conversing on the sublimities of the stellar regions.

"They had not proceeded far in their interesting conversation when they were overtaken by a large Newfoundland dog, and some time elapsed before they took any particular notice of the animal. They pursued their way and still the dog followed, when they thought it necessary to drive him back, as he appeared to be a valuable animal, and his owner might come to some loss should he stray away from home. Notwithstanding all the means employed, the dog followed, keeping the two preachers ahead at a respectful distance.

"They continued on their way, and came through some fields which lead to the main road. When coming through one of those fields, the dog passed them, making a whining noise as he came by, which, by their interpretation, sounded like a mark of disapprobation at their driving him back. Before they came to the hedge at the bottom of the field they heard the dog growling and barking, and upon advancing a few steps further, they were terror stricken at beholding three men in the hedge ready to pounce upon them. Two leaned back in the hedge, and the other slunk down, as the dog snarled and the two preachers passed by. The preachers went on quickly, leaving the dog in front of the rascals.

"After they had got about a mile further the dog came up to them again, and appeared pleased, as if he had found his master. They determined that he should follow, and that, when they separated, the one he followed should take him home, give him his supper and a night's lodging, and take him back the next day. They went on and down the railway, and as soon as they turned off the line to come into a lane leading into the town, the dog turned round and took his departure home, leaving the two preachers in safety, and thankful for his sagacity and protection." -- first published in The Newcastle Daily Express

Above, Landseer's Saved; below, sheet music with similar imagery for a song by Henry Russell celebrating Carlo, the Newfoundland dog that saved a child who had fallen overboard from a ship on the Atlantic.


Recommended Reading

Deborah Morse and Martin Danahay, eds., Victorian Animal Dreams: Representations of Animals in Victorian Literature and Culture (London, Ashgate Press, 2007)

Salmagundi #11

The film The Young Victoria, which tells the story of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne, her first shaky steps as monarch, and the courtship that led to one of the most famous romances of all time, will open in the U.S. on November 13. It stars Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend and was produced by Sarah Ferguson and Academy Award winners Martin Scorsese and Graham King. Read my previous post on the film here.

A catalogue to the collections housed in the Brontë Parsonage Museum is now accessible online. This is a landmark achievement in the history of the museum, allowing global access to information on more than 7000 items, including books, manuscripts, letters, paintings, drawings, furniture, household items, and personal possessions belonging to the Brontë family, their friends, and associates.

A yellow-and-white-gold pin designed by Queen Victoria to commemorate her faithful ghillie John Brown after his death in 1883 (shown at left) has fetched £5,760 at a Bonhams auction in Edinburgh. The pin, which shows a likeness of Brown and his initials on one side and the royal monogram on the other, made ten times its estimate after what was described as "frenzied" bidding. It was designed by the queen to be given to her Highland servants and cottagers, to be worn by them every year on the anniversary of Brown's death (27 March).

And speaking of Bonhams . . . on 8 October the firm will auction an important nineteenth-century emerald and seed-pearl necklace that was reputedly worn by Maharani Jindan Kaur (1817-1863), wife of the Maharajah Ranjit Singh and mother of Duleep Singh, who became a godson of Queen Victoria. The necklace, which features 50 carats of emeralds, is expected to sell for about £35,000. A plaque was unveiled in July 2009 in a West London cemetery to commemorate the maharani, a formidable woman who fought two wars against the British in the mid-nineteenth century. Read more about the unveiling of the plaque here. Read my post about the fascinating and tragic life of Duleep Singh, the last maharajah of Punjab, here.

Queen Victoria vs Zombies

To coincide with the release of A. E. Moorat's Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter, a "blood-curdling and hilarious historical zombie mash-up novel" and "alternative history . . . packed full of blood, guts, and flesh-eating zombies," publisher Hodder & Stoughton is sponsoring a short film competition. Send them your Victorian-inspired zombie short film or animation and you could win £100 of Hodder books. For information and a look at the first chapter of the book, click here.

Tennyson's Farringford Library Restored

"...Take it and come to the Isle of Wight:

Where, far from the noise of smoke and town,
I watch the twilight falling brown
All around a careless ordered garden,
Close to the ridge of a noble down.
You'll have no scandal while you dine,
But honest talk and wholesome wine.
And only hear the magpie gossip
Garrulous under a roof of pine:
For groves of pine on either hand,
To break the blast of winter stand;
And further on the hoary Channel
Tumbles a billow on chalk and sand."

That's how Alfred, Lord Tennyson, described his life at Farringford in a poem to a friend in 1854. Now the poet laureate's library there has been restored and opened to the public.

From The Guardian, 6 August 2009:

"Although Benjamin Disraeli, Charles Darwin, Lewis Carroll, Giuseppe Garibaldi, and the Queen of Hawaii have been unable to accept the invitation to Lord Alfred Tennyson's birthday party today, his library on the Isle of Wight will again be full of distinguished guests talking of literature, science, and art.

"A private passion for Victorian art has given rise to a new museum at Farringford House, Tennyson's home of 40 years, opening today to mark the bicentenary of the birth of a giant of the Victorian literary scene. Furniture, including his writing desk and chair, and portraits by his friend G. F. Watts – of the poet, his wife, and their sons – have come back to the house for the first time in over a century.

"The poet laureate was an A-list celebrity of his day, hounded by fans. His works, including The Charge of the Light Brigade, Maud, In Memoriam, and his Arthurian cycle, Idylls of the King, were read by millions, recited, painted, sung, and dramatised. He moved to Isle of Wight in 1853 when he was so stalked that he could no longer work in London. But everyone who was anyone followed him there – many as house guests – including politicians, painters, authors, scientists, and royalty.

"The house became a hotel in the early 20th century, owned at different times by both Thomas Cook (of the travel firm) and Sir Fred Pontin (of holiday camp fame). Older islanders, including the craftsman who restored pieces for the exhibition, remember bonfires in the grounds of surviving Victorian furniture, many commissioned by the Tennysons from trees on the estate.

"The hotel was bought three years ago 'on a whim, not a very well-thought-out business plan,' by Martin Beisly, senior expert on Victorian painting at Christie's auction house, and his friend Rebecca Fitzgerald. Beisly was brought up on the Isle of Wight, but didn't start out particularly interested in poetry, never mind Tennyson or crumbling Victorian architecture. 'I really came to Tennyson through painting. Wherever I looked at the painters I loved – Millais, Holman Hunt, Watts – I realised they were completely in awe of Tennyson. The house struck me as like a work of art, too, a painting in urgent need of sensitive restoration.'

"Beisly and Fitzgerald spent the winter making the building watertight before restoring the extension the Tennysons had added to make a party room and a library – with a staircase concealed in the corner so he could flee visitors. The extension was designed by another Tennyson worshipper, the architect of the Natural History Museum in London, Alfred Waterhouse.

"The library (shown below) has been restored to museum display standards, and will house regular exhibitions. With curator Veronica Franklin Gould, an expert on the period, they have secured major loans from national collections, including the Watts Gallery in Compton and the Tennyson Research Centre in Lincoln, which holds the family archives. The paintings, letters, and photographs by his next-door neighbour, the pioneering photographer Julia Margaret Cameron – who kidnapped his most distinguished guests – give a vivid impression of the life of the house.

"Visitors were sometimes overawed: in 1865 Anny Thackeray, daughter of the novelist, herself renowned as an eccentric, wrote: 'Everybody is either a genius or a poet or a painter or peculiar in some way.'

"The islanders were highly entertained by the procession of notables, including Prince Albert leaving with a bunch of primroses from the garden; or Garibaldi, campaigner for Italian unification, in embroidered shirt and scarlet-lined white poncho. They queued to wave to the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, author of Hiawatha (Tennyson also brought him to the village stores to buy tobacco and clay pipes), but clearly every day was as good as a cabaret: Thackeray recorded locals coming to their doors to stare as Tennyson, Watts, and Henry Thoby Prinsep, brother-in-law of Cameron, walked past in sweeping cloaks and giant hats.

"The exhibition includes the throne Tennyson had made of timber from the garden for the widowed Queen Emma of Hawaii when she came to stay for four days in 1865. Photographs include Cameron's portrait of Longfellow. When he escorted the poet to her door, Tennyson warned: 'You will have to do whatever she tells you. I'll come back soon and see what is left of you.'"

Update: "Poet’s home may be forced to close," Isle of Wight County Press Online, 28 August 2009.

Big Ben Celebrates 150th Anniversary

An excellent new website created by Parliament commemorates the 150th anniversary of its famous Clock Tower, Great Clock, and Great Bell ("Big Ben").

Construction on the clock tower began in September 1843; the clock first kept time on 31 May 1859.

The website offers a wealth of facts and figures about the clock tower, historical and contemporary images, a virtual tour, links to YouTube and Flickr resources, animations, and (of course) downloadable ringtones, banners, and wallpapers. There's even an online game for kids called "Race Against Chime" that requires players to clean the clock's face while dangling on a rope and dodging birds and gusts of wind.

UK residents (only) can arrange a tour of the clock tower through their local MP.

Shown above: "New Palace of Westminster," c. 1858, colour lithograph on paper, in Parliament's Works of Art Collection.

Darwin at Home

A full-scale replica of Charles Darwin’s cabin on HMS Beagle is one of the highlights of a new exhibition at Down House (shown above), the naturalist's family home in Kent, that celebrates his 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species.

"Uncovering Origins" charts the progression of Darwin's ideas and the controversy they provoked. Multimedia tours include the Darwins' living quarters and the extensive gardens that served as Charles's outdoor laboratory.

Can't get to Kent? The next best thing is a virtual tour of Down House created by English Heritage, which manages the property. You can explore Darwin's study, listen to Sir David Attenborough describe what the house meant to Darwin and his family, and page through interactive versions of his field notebooks and Beagle diary.

Darwin's life at Down House with wife Emma and their children will be the subject of two upcoming films. The first, Creation, is based on the book Annie's Box by Darwin's great-great-grandson Randal Keynes and was shot in part at Down House. It stars real-life couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connolly. (Visit the film's excellent website here.) This will be Bettany's second turn as a naturalist: in 2003 he played Dr. Stephen Maturin to Russell Crowe's Captain Jack Aubrey in the film adaptation of Patrick O'Brien's Master and Commander. (Below: Bettany as Darwin in Creation.)


The second new film is Mrs. Darwin, with Joseph Fiennes and Rosamund Pike, who says, "I'm definitely a Darwinist, but playing his wife has been a real eye-opener. She was very religious and his discoveries placed a heavy strain on their marriage. We are exploring different angles to his life story."

Resources

Darwin Correspondence Project (Cambridge University)

Emma Darwin's Diaries 1824-1896 (Darwin Online)

The HMS Beagle Project will launch a sailing replica of the ship, crewed by scientists and sailors, that will retrace the 1831-36 voyage of the original Beagle.

For What It's Worth . . .

Two economics professors, one from Maine and one from Illinois, have provided an invaluable service to those wanting to measure the relative worth of things over time, from the eighteenth century to today.

Their website, http://www.measuringworth.org/, features several calculators based on a variety of official UK and US government statistics and economic indicators, including the retail price index (the cost of goods and services purchased by a typical household in one period relative to a base period), average earnings, and three measures based on gross domestic product.

One calculator allows you to learn the present worth of a past amount (for example, the cost of Big Ben, the salary of the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the price of tea); another tells you what a historic price in British pounds is worth in US dollars today (and vice versa).

A quick crunch of numbers related to my own specialty, theatre history, reveals that Lillie Langtry's £250-per-week salary at the Haymarket Theatre in 1882 translates into a whopping £126,478 in purchasing power per week today. Of course, exorbitantly paid performers like Langtry were by far the exception and not the rule.

This site should come with a Surgeon General's warning about how addictive it is.

Shown here: The Royal Exchange and the Bank of England in an undated photo, c. 1890.

"The Young Victoria" Arrives

"The Young Victoria" has opened in London to a resounding . . . thud. This despite two very attractive lead actors in Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend (above).

"The [film] is intended to blow away the cobwebby image of the grumpy old Empress in her widow's weeds and show us instead the vibrant, brilliant younger woman who was very much amused by the glorious freedom she suddenly assumed at the age of 18," says The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw. Instead, "a tone of celebratory reverence for Victoria predominates" and "the film sometimes tasted like a damp slice of Balmoral-heritage shortbread." Read the rest of Bradshaw's review here. The Daily Mail (click here for the full review) called it a "pleasant but plodding biopic of our longest-serving sovereign, mainly to be recommended for those with a limitless appetite for stately homes, lavish costumes, and Mills & Boon romance. . .It has more than a faint whiff of mothballs and antimacassars." The Times liked it better; click here to read the review and see the trailer. (Below: the film's poster.)

Apparently, the most egregious historical howler in the film is the depiction of Edward Oxford's attempt to shoot Victoria as she rode in a carriage down Constitution Hill with Albert on 10 June 1840. In real life, Oxford's two shots missed; in the film, Albert shields his wife with his body and is hit in the chest. Victoria and Albert had been married just four months at the time, and Victoria was pregnant with the first of her nine children, a daughter named Victoria (who would become the German Empress in 1888). Edward Oxford (Wiki bio here) was later tried and found not guilty by reason of insanity. (Below: detail from an 1840 engraving by J. R. Jobbins of the assassination attempt.)

I'll review the film after it's released here in the United States. In the meantime, visit the film's pretty website here (and try not to be distracted by the anachronistic music, which was also used prominently in the film Love, Actually). Sarah Ferguson discusses her fascination with Queen Victoria and her role as a producer of the film here. Emily Blunt talks with the BBC about corsets and court etiquette here.

Paxman's Partial View of the Victorians

Christopher Howse takes issue with the way the Victorians are presented in Jeremy Paxman's new series, which starts today (Sunday, 15 February) on BBC1. "To Jeremy Paxman, Victorian houses look grim," he says. "Grimness is a leitmotif . . . workhouses, gruel, industrial accidents, slums, the usual suspects of 'Dickensian conditions.' But that is all wrong. The Victorians were a fiery bundle of energy – noisy, voracious, partial to bright colours and bad jokes, fit, energetic, sentimental but hardy, unconventional but addicted to reform and liberty."

A. N. Wilson has another take on the series: "The programme is a meditation on the Victorian success story: how they invented the modern city and learnt to live in it. Behind each sequence is a pair of self-contradictory thoughts. As someone who has himself written about the Victorians, I completely sympathise with Paxman's dilemma. On the one hand, we recognise the sheer monstrous cruelty of it. On the other, how can you not admire the brilliance which constructed the London sewers, or the railway system, or the ever more ingenious machinery that spun cotton or smelted steel?"

Read more about the series and get broadcast times here; Paxman is interviewed by the BBC here. The book based on the series is reviewed -- er, savaged -- by The Times here and given the "Digested Read" treatment by The Guardian here. Read my previous post on the series here.

Shown here, two of the paintings featured in the series. Top: The Bayswater Omnibus (1895) by George William Joy (1844-1925), in the collection of the Museum of London (click for much larger image). Bottom: Eventide: A Scene in the Westminster Union (1878) by Hubert von Herkomer (1849-1914), in the collection of the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.

Salmagundi #10

Pathetic phallacy: Actress Emma Thompson and her husband, the actor Greg Wise, will reportedly travel to Majorca in March to begin work on "Effie," a film based on the marriage of John Ruskin, the Victorian art critic, and Euphemia ("Effie") Gray. Thompson and Wise wrote the script together and will co-star as the unhappy couple, whose marriage was annulled in 1854 based on the charge (attested to by physical examination and never contested by Ruskin) that, after five years, the marriage remained unconsummated. Ruskin was widely supposed to be impotent. Effie later wed the painter John Everett Millais, with whom she had eight children. Shown here: Millais's portrait of Effie from 1873.

UPDATE, 5 February: Here's one clue to how the marriage might be portrayed; Thompson is quoted as saying the film is "about the great Victorian art critic John Ruskin, who was married to this frightful woman named Effie." Hmm. Seems to me Ruskin was the more frightful of the pair.

Celebrating Darwin: The January 2009 issue of Scientific American is all about the 150-year-old theory that still drives the contemporary scientific agenda. Charles Darwin was born 200 years ago next month.

Cabinets of curiosities: England’s oldest university zoological collection, the Grant Museum of Zoology at University College London, is a treasure trove of skeletons, mounted animals, and specimens preserved in jars -- all crammed into a series of rooms lined with old-fashioned cabinets that recreate the atmosphere of a Victorian natural-history museum. Founded as a teaching collection in 1827 by the radical zoologist Robert Grant (one of Darwin's mentors), the museum is still used for teaching by the Department of Biology at UCL. Look out for the bones of a dodo, the skeleton of a quagga (a type of zebra), and the dissected corpse of a Tasmanian tiger. You can adopt one of the 55,000 specimens and have your name displayed on a label next to it.

Grueling: Earlier this month the Royal Society of Chemistry in London served gruel to members of the public after recreating the workhouse porridge made famous by Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist (see my post of December 27 here). The glutinous concoction of water, oats, and milk was prepared by a French chef in the society's kitchen and ladled onto pewter dishes for those brave enough to sample it. The event coincided with the premiere of Cameron Mackintosh’s revival of Oliver! at the Drury Lane Theatre (visit the show's amusing website here) and was a clever way to generate press coverage of the society's new report on sustainable food. "The part that food plays in our lives has perhaps never been more memorably portrayed in literature than in the workhouse scene [in Oliver Twist]," says RSC chief Dr. Richard Pike. "Thankfully in Britain matters have improved tremendously but it remains a daily threat in many parts of the world. This year we will be looking closely at food sustainability and the part that science and engineering play in this." Shown here: Lawrence Wright tries some of the gruel on offer outside the RSC office at Burlington House, Piccadilly. The apparent presence of Napoleon behind Mr. Wright is unexplained. Perhaps it is the French chef, who -- if he ever returns to France -- will be imprisoned for this crime against gastronomy, sans doute.

Speaking of orphans: The large cast of child actors who portray nameless workhouse inmates in the Mackintosh Oliver! are believed to be earning around £20 a night, less than the fee recommended for child performers by Equity, the actors' union. Children playing named characters are thought to be earning between £35 and £60 a performance. More than 150 children are employed in the £4.5m production, including three Artful Dodgers and three Olivers. Lewis Jenkins, a spokesman for the production company, said that the company was meeting all applicable legal requirements and explained that the children taking part are divided into three grades. "There are those playing Oliver and the Artful Dodger on one grade, and there are three gangs of children on another grade. And then there are 'the coach kids', as we call them, who are in the workhouse scene and have a little less to do." Hmm. It's enough to make one wonder who the real pickpockets are. Shown above: Some of the talented actors in Oliver! who could be making more money working at McDonald's.

The best London museum you've never heard of: The quirky Cuming Museum in Southwark houses one of the very few Victorian private collections to have survived intact to the present day. Opened in 1906, it’s the legacy of Richard Cuming and his son Henry Syer Cuming, who bought more than 25,000 artifacts from all over the world at London sales between 1780 and 1900. The collection spans the areas of archaeology, British social history, ethnography, decorative art, geology, textiles, natural history, prints, coins, ceramics, and ancient Egyptian and Etruscan objects. The many treasures include a nineteenth-century beaded apron from Guyana, a Hawaiian gourd bottle acquired during one of Captain Cook’s voyages, slippers belonging to Queen Anne and Queen Victoria, and a dentist’s cap embroidered with extracted teeth. You can also gaze at a small group of prints by Daumier, photos that document the development of the Elephant and Castle area of Southwark, and several items belonging to the experimental scientist Michael Faraday. The "Lovett Collection of Superstitions" features lucky charms and fetish objects that show the myriad ways in which the Victorians attempted to appease the Fates. The Cumings collected with abandon: important objects, worthless objects, fake objects . . . they didn't care. It all adds up to a wonderful testament to Victorian curiosity and acquisitiveness. Shown here: A bracelet of blue beads of a type worn in London by children under their clothes as a cure for rheumatism, c. 1870-1900.

The Workhouse Diet: A New "Twist"

An article published last week in the BMJ (British Medical Journal) is creating quite a stir in Victorianist circles. In it, dietitians conduct a nutritional analysis of workhouse diets in use throughout England in 1836 and find that although the food provided was dreary, it would have been adequate to support the health of inmates.

The popular belief that the opposite was true -- that the diets barely sustained life -- was fostered in large part by Charles Dickens' vivid depiction of workhouse life in Oliver Twist, published in 1838. In that novel, little Oliver gets by on three meals of gruel a day, an onion twice a week, and half a roll on Sunday. On feast days he's given an extra two ounces of bread. (Shown above: a scene from Roman Polanski's 2005 film Oliver Twist.)

Such a diet would have resulted in multiple nutritional deficiency diseases, including anemia, scurvy, rickets, and beriberi.

After studying a unique contemporary source, Jonathan Pereira’s Treatise on Food and Diet with Observations on the Dietetical Regimen, the researchers conclude that the diet described in Oliver Twist was not typical of that given to children in workhouses at the time and note that inmates usually received a ration that included bread, cooked meat, potatoes, rice pudding or suet, and cheese in addition to gruel, soup, or broth.

Historian Peter Higginbotham comes to a similar conclusion in The Workhouse Cookbook, published last August. (Read The Independent's review here.) Higginbotham discovered that at various times in the history of the workhouse, the fare included beer, chocolate, and cheesecake.

In fact, Oliver Twist is a polemic written in response to the passage of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which Dickens opposed. He seems to have exaggerated for dramatic effect.

(Shown at left: Oliver "asks for more" gruel in one of George Cruikshank's 24 illustrations for the first edition of Oliver Twist; click for a much larger image.)

The BMJ website includes an excellent video featuring interviews with the researchers and a group of modern-day schoolchildren who try the Oliver Twist diet, with mixed results.

Resources

The Dickens Project (University of California)

The Workhouse (Peter Higginbotham)

Gertrude Himmelfarb, “The Dickensian Poor” in The Culture of Poverty (1983)

Sheila Smith, The Other Nation: The Poor in English Novels of the 1840s and 1850s (1980)

Victoria's "Two-Horse Open Sleigh" on Display at Windsor

To mark the festive season, Queen Victoria’s sleigh has gone on display for the first time at Windsor Castle. Built by the carriage-makers Hooper & Co., the sleigh, which is painted in bright red and gold and lined with red velvet, will be on view in St George’s Hall until 12 January.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert spent many Christmases at the castle, and the queen often enjoyed sleigh rides around Windsor during the winter months. According to contemporary newspaper accounts, Prince Albert drove the sleigh, which was pulled by a pair of gray horses with harnesses decorated with ostrich plumes and silver bells. The grooms and outriders who accompanied the royal couple were dressed in scarlet livery. The royal children often travelled in a smaller sleigh, pulled by a pony.

Extracts from Victoria's journal reveal her enjoyment of sleigh rides. In the entry for 12 February 1855, the queen recalled an outing with Princess Clémentine of Orléans: "Another sharp frost and a fine day – Albert drove Clem and me out in the sledge … with the exception of 2 or 3 little places, we went beautifully and as smoothly as though we were on ice. The sun bright & the sky so blue. We were out for an hour!"

The Victorian Painting that Inspired Barack Obama

This is Hope by the Victorian artist George Frederic Watts (DNB entry here, Wiki entry here), an oil on canvas painted in 1885. It has been called the most influential, striking, memorable, and strange of all Watts’s works.

One copy (Watts painted several) was presented to the nation by the artist in 1897. It can be seen in Room 15 of Tate Britain, where it hangs next to other works depicting "Victorian Spectacle." Another copy is on display now through April as part of "GF Watts: Victorian Visionary" at the Guildhall Art Gallery in London. (A related exhibition, "GF Watts: Parables in Paint," opens at St Paul's Cathedral in London next week.)

"The figure of Hope is traditionally identified by an anchor," says the caption on the wall next to the Tate's version. "In this picture she is blindfolded, seated on a globe, and playing a lyre of which all the strings are broken except one. Watts wanted to find a more original approach to symbolism and allegory. But Hope’s attempts to make music here appear futile and several critics argued that the work might have been more appropriately titled Despair. Watts explained that ‘Hope need not mean expectancy. It suggests here rather the music which can come from the remaining chord.'"

Twenty years ago this painting was the subject of a now famous sermon delivered by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. In the audience: a 27-year-old community organizer named Barack Obama.

"The painting's title is Hope," Wright told his congregation. "It shows a woman sitting on top of the world, playing a harp. What more enviable position could one ever hope to achieve than being on top of the world with everyone dancing to your music? As you look closer, the illusion of power gives way to the reality of pain. The world on which this woman sits, our world, is torn by war, destroyed by hate, decimated by despair, and devastated by distrust. The world on which she sits seems on the brink of destruction. . . . [yet despite all this] she had the audacity to make music and praise God . . . the audacity to hope." (Here's a link to one version of the complete sermon.)

That last phrase struck the young Obama and he adapted it both for the title of his speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 and for the title of his second book in 2006.

Obama was not alone in being inspired by the imagery of this painting; Nelson Mandela reportedly kept a reproduction of it on the wall of his Robben Island prison cell.

Resources

"Where There's Life, There's . . ." Paul Barlow on George Frederic Watts, from Tate Etc (August 2004)

Victorian Lives: Sarah Greengrove, Hopper

In case you were inclined to think that Dickens made up some of the more piteous episodes in his novels . . .

From The Times, 17 October 1844:

"Maidstone Petty Sessions ~ Sarah Greengrove, a girl about 15 years of age, was charged with stealing 10 turnips, value 4d., the property of Mr. Charles Frederick Baxter. James Smith, a man in the employ of Mr. Baxter, stated that on going into the field yesterday (Thursday) morning, about 6 o’clock, he observed the prisoner pulling turnips; he went up to her, when she dropped them and walked away, but was apprehended in the course of the morning.

"The girl denied taking 10, but stated that she had come from Marden that morning, where she had been hopping [i.e., harvesting hops -- KT], and being very hungry and thirsty, went into the field and drew four turnips.

"Mr. Ellis [the magistrate] said there was no direct evidence of her having taken 10 turnips, but from her own admission she had taken four under the circumstances stated. It did not appear that she was one of those that had committed depredations there before, and he should leave it for Mr. Baxter to use his own discretion in going any further with the case.

"Mr. Baxter said he wished to press the case, as he had lost a great many turnips, and had been subject to several severe depredations lately on his farm.

"Mr. Ellis thought this a very different case to that of an old offender.

"Mr. Baxter said they had a great difficulty in catching them, and he was determined to make an example of the first one.

"Mr. Ellis regretted very much that his appeal to Mr. Baxter had no effect, for he felt extremely sorry to be obliged to send her to prison; but, as Mr. Baxter seemed determined to press the charge, they had no alternative but to do that. She was then sentenced to pay 4d., the value of the turnips, 3s.6d. costs, and 6d. penalty.

"Prisoner said she had no money, and was ordered to sit down.

"Shortly after, a boy entered the court, crying bitterly, and on going towards the bench said that he had taken his shoes from off his feet and pawned them to pay for his sister. He then gave the money to the magistrate's clerk, Mr. Case, and the girl was discharged.

"We understand that the money was refunded to the boy, and he immediately went to redeem his shoes."

Shown here: Unidentified "Waif Girl," from Hidden Lives Revealed: A Virtual Archive ~ Children in Care, 1881-1918 (this fascinating website features unique archival material about poor and disadvantaged children cared for by The Waifs' and Strays' Society).

Resources

"Hopping Down in Kent," The Museum of Kent Life

"The Hoppers of Kent," BBC Legacies

Charles Darwin on Display

Next year the world will mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species and the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth with several blockbuster exhibitions and events. Here are a few; you can find a comprehensive list (more than 100 so far) at Darwin Online. If you attend any, please feel free to provide a short review in the comments.

I've added a special set of Darwin links in the right-hand sidebar that includes selected events and online resources.

While you're thinking about Darwin, why not donate to the HMS Beagle Project, which will launch a sailing replica of the ship next year? Crewed by scientists and sailors, it will retrace the 1831-36 voyage of the original Beagle.

In the UK

Now through 31 January at University College London: "Charles Darwin of Gower Street" ~~ Darwin lived in a house on the site now occupied by UCL's Darwin Building from 1839-1842, just over two years after his return from H.M.S. Beagle's second voyage. The exhibition illustrates Darwin's life, work, and the influence of his ideas about inheritance and evolution on his contemporaries and successors. UCL's long association with the development of genetics stems from this period, and several items come from the personal libraries and papers of Sir Francis Galton, Darwin's cousin, and Karl Pearson, first Galton Professor of Eugenics. An online exhibition is available here.

Now through 19 April at the Natural History Museum, London: "Darwin" ~~ This "biggest-ever" exhibition about Charles Darwin celebrates his ideas and their impact. Discover the man and the revolutionary theory that changed our understanding of the world. See incredible, revealing, and rare exhibits, some on display for the first time. There's a cool slideshow here and an interactive map of the Beagle voyage here.

Summer 2009 at Christ's Church College, Cambridge: "Darwin at Christ's" ~~ Darwin attended Christ's College from 1828 to 1831. This exhibition, which will be held in Darwin’s former rooms in the College, will feature rare letters, paintings, and the university diary of William Darwin Fox, a second cousin of Darwin and the person who introduced him to beetle collecting.

In the US

Starts 12 February at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut (and then moves to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University, on 16 June): "Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science, and the Visual Arts" ~~ Science meets art in this groundbreaking exhibition exploring Darwin’s interest in the visual arts and the vast range of artistic responses to his ideas in the later 19th century. "Endless Forms" considers how Darwin’s ideas penetrated the consciousness of the great artists of the era, inspiring visual representations of the struggle for existence, of natural attraction and sexual selection, and the origin and descent of man. This will be explored through paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, taxidermy, and fossils, many of which will be on public display for the first time. Among the artists featured will be Monet, Degas, Cezanne, Turner, Church, Landseer, Tissot, and Rossetti.

Great Ball of Fire in County Durham, 1855

From The Times, 12 December 1855 (click for larger image):

Life in Broadmoor Hospital Revealed

The Berkshire Record Office in Reading has recently made nineteenth-century patient records from Broadmoor Hospital available for the first time, enabling researchers to get a better picture of life inside England's first "criminal lunatic asylum," which opened in May 1863.

The archives tell the stories of some of the hospital's most famous patients, including William Chester Minor (DNB entry here; Wiki entry here), the "Surgeon of Crowthorne" and amateur lexicographer who supplied entries for the Oxford English Dictionary while a patient at Broadmoor, and Richard Dadd (DNB entry here; Tate Britain bio here; Wiki entry here), murderer and celebrated painter of fairies and other supernatural subjects. Roderick MacLean, who shot at Queen Victoria at Windsor Station in March 1882, was sent to Broadmoor after being found not guilty by reason of insanity.

(Concerning the last, there's a famously awful poem by the even more famously awful Victorian poet William McGonagall, one stanza of which goes: "MacLean must be a madman / Which is obvious to be seen / Or else he wouldn't have tried to shoot / Our most beloved Queen.")

Some of the newly released records are included in an exhibition that runs through 22 February at the Reading Museum. "The Secret World of Victorian Broadmoor" features documents and artifacts never before seen by the public, revealing the hidden lives of the hospital's patients, doctors, and staff.

The exhibition marks the completion of Berkshire Record Office’s project to catalogue and conserve Broadmoor’s archives, and includes paintings by Dadd on loan from Bethlem Royal Hospital.

"Broadmoor is one of those collections where every page tells a story," says Dr Peter Durrant, county archivist of Berkshire. "There are many sad tales of lives destroyed by mental illness, of families broken up and never mended, of fear and paranoia.

"It is not history for the fainthearted. Yet at Broadmoor's heart is a community of patients and staff, and it is the history of this community that is now available to all."

Broadmoor, in Crowthorne, still operates as a secure psychiatric unit.

Shown here: Broadmoor Hospital (top), Minor (middle), Dadd (bottom).

Resources:

Patricia Allderidge, The Late Richard Dadd, 1817-1886 (Tate Gallery Publications, 1974).

Simon Winchester, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (HarperCollins, 1998).