Homes for the Homeless: the experience of Victorian poverty

We have to be honest, we usually find ourselves at the Geffrye Museum only around Christmas time. And for this, we are ashamed. For on a recent visit on a sunny spring day, not only did we realise that the building and its gardens are glorious in the sunshine, but it's exhibitions and displays are fascinating all year round. On this particular trip we were there to see 'Homes for the Homeless: Seeking Shelter in Victorian London' exhibition because, well, you know how we feel about the Victorians. (We love them in case that wasn't clear). What we found was a thoughtful, beautiful designed, multi-faceted exhibition that brought home the realities of life in the nineteenth century city.

The Pinch of Poverty - Thomas Benjamin Kennington 1891

Why is it that we are so fascinated by the Victorians? I think there's something fascinating about being able to look back at history through the medium of photography- which seems so immediate and 'real'. I also think we recognise a lot of ourselves in them - their socialising, family life, businesses, travel, aspirations : the Victorians are really the birth of the modern age we are still living in. But for all of the exciting technical innovations and fabulous clothes, Victorian London was a place of poverty, illness, and a pre-welfare state which left most of the work of looking after the vulnerable to charity organisations.

Meal-time at Holborn workhouse, 1885

We get pretty used to seeing images of Victorian families in slum conditions, dirty children playing in the street, or homeless people sleeping on benches. But we forget that for the homeless of nineteenth century London, they had to figure out everyday how to find a place to sleep and something to eat. How they achieved that shows the maze that was the Poor Law system (hospitals, workhouses), charity, and sometimes just sheer determination.

Corridor at a casual ward, early 20th c.

The Geffrye exhibition really aims to try and humanize all those black-and-white pictures of Victorian poverty that most of us have become desensitised to. Sure it's history, but those are really people's lives. Through recreated voice-recordings of contemporary testimonies, we hear about the experience of getting into a casual ward, living in a crowded common lodging house, or the best places to sleep rough. You can try the harrowing task of picking apart rope or sleeping in a coffin-like box bed. The displays show the savvy needed to navigate what relief was available, the conditions people endured, but also how people made the best of a bad situation.

Sleek, graphics-dense exhibition design

The messages of the exhibition are really hit home by a complimentary exhibition in the corridor in which vulnerable teens and children from the New Horizons Centre in Kings Cross. The participants reflect on their own experiences of homelessness, and see a surprising number of similarities with the situation as it was experienced over 100 years ago. With the new government possibly preparing to slash disability benefits, the Geffrye's exhibition takes on a new meaning as both a well-crated temporary display, and a meaningful warning for the future. 

 Homes for the Homeless is on at the Geffrye Museum until the 12th of July 

#Hipstermuseums Leighton House Museum

In this series we are exploring London’s smaller, offbeat museums. Unlike the big players (*Nudges* BM and V&A) the little guys may not be slamming visitor figures with blockbuster exhibitions but they are fascinating, often beautiful and inspiring places that you just have to see. So this season #hipstermuseums are freaking sick. Lad.

Of course he has a beard.

Leighton House museum situated just off of Kensington High Street is the former home of the infamous Victorian painter and sculpture Lord Frederick Leighton and it’s totally exclusive as the only purpose-built studio-home open to the public. Only one bedroom occupies this house with numerous impressive studio rooms and exhibition spaces filling up the large plot of Land in Holland Park. Leighton had dreamed of a purpose build studio house but it wasn’t until he acquired the land in 1864 and collaborated with his close friend and architect George Aitchinson that this dream could become reality. Like every wealthy Victorian Leighton was inspired by his travels across the expanding empire and further afield in the Middle East, resulting in thirty years of redesigning and remodelling with the help of Aitchinson to create the hugely characteristic home.

The house provides on of my favourite singular collection displays in London, the extraordinary Arab hall is the main attraction of Leighton House, added to the house in 1877 – 1871 it is a pure example of how Leighton’s travels inspired his interior décor. The design was inspired by La Zisa in Palermo, Sicily a 12^th century Norman Palace and his collection provided the decoration. Visiting Turkey, Egypt, Syria and Damascus across in mid-19^th century he collected Arabic tiles and with the help of his friend Ethnographer and explorer Sir Richard Burton, Leighton was able to line the walls of the Arab Hall with his impressive hoard.

Can I tile my bathroom with these beautiful ceramics? 

Not only is Leighton House a perfect example of a #hipster museum (down the off beaten track past Kensington High Street) he was the Victorian answer to a hipster. He was from a wealthy medical family he was supported financially and able to explore his biblical and classical work, build a fabulous house and start a movement. Leighton’s move and purpose built studio house inspired a whole group of artists to do the same combining a domestic home with a studio resulting in the Holland Park Circle Including infamous painters like George Frederick Watts and Valentine Prinsep the Holland Park Circle became the leading group of Victorian Artists with the majority becoming royal academia’s. His notoriety and influence was a key part of the Victorian art movement and his works even inspired the rebellious pre Raphaelites.  Months before his death the ‘Silk Room’ was completed, a purpose built exhibition space the room’s walls were lined with green silk upon which works by the pre-Raphaelites like Millais, Sargent and Alma-Tadema are hung.

An Athlete Wrestling with a Python.
On display at Tate Britain

Like every good hipster home the studio became the place to party and Leighton’s gatherings were notorious - Queen V even popped over once. The studio space dominates the rear of the first floor, with huge windows bringing in streams of sunlight and deep Victorian red walls you can see why he chose this plot and this size. The walls  are now adorned some famous pieces and photographs of favoured sculptures sit on the window ledge. My fav Leighton Sculpture currently on display at Tate is ‘An Athlete wrestling with a Python’ because it’s like so homoerotic, sexual and like… progressive.

Leighton’s role on the Victorian art scene was honoured in 1878 when he became President of the Royal Academy of Arts, a leading figure both academically and socially he was regularly consulted on matters of art and culture, however his personal life remained closely guarded and he never married. Rumours and debates over his sexuality and illegimate children are still rife, however having left no personal letters or diaries all that is left to interpret is his home and collection.

I hope he tidied it up for the Queen's visit. 

The Museum is open daily except Tuesday from 10 -5pm and costs £5.

Find out more: http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/subsites/museums/leightonhousemuseum1.aspx

Art installations and dangerous ice cream at the London Canal Museum

Happy October everyone! It’s a new month, and that means it’s a new edition for our #hipstermuseum series. This is particularly appropriate as the museum we have picked is holding a pop-up art exhibition for all of October, and really what is more hipster than that? So with no more ado allow us to introduce you to the London Canal Museum.

Trendy Kings Cross location

The first thing to say about this #hipstermuseum is that is says its a museum about canals, but really it appears to be mainly about ice cream. The museum is set in a building which once served as one of the many warehouses for Carlo Gatti, a Victorian baron of ice imports. Yes back in the day before ice makers in your fridge, ice had to be imported from Norway and stores in underground cellars so that rich people could have their ice creams in the summertime. The ice trade was also called the ‘death trade’ because of the number of people that died trying to bring enormous chunks of ice from Norway to London on the winters seas. The Canal Museum focuses on this history in a big way and features ice-cream themed displays and objects. We particularly enjoyed the story of the ‘penny licks’- small glass containers which the Victorians used to sell small amounts of ice cream to London’s poor for just a penny. The only thing was that they never cleaned them and ice-cream is a pretty good carrier for bacteria. Oh you dirty Victorians.

Measuring up the ice blocks

So once you get your fill of ice cream downstairs, you can head upstairs for some displays which are actually about the canals. The museum is incredibly small but features all of the things you remember from going to museum-trips in school: canal boat models, old-timey videos of the canal, and even a model canal horse. Personally I quite enjoyed the ‘how locks work’ interactive, which is probably the only ‘interactive’ thing in the entire museum. You know what thought? I liked it. This is the kind of old fashioned museum that reminds me of being a kid. Also, there is something incredibly hypnotizing about those historic canal videos.

But I did promise you a hipster art installation and the London Canal Museum does not disappoint. Until the 20th of October, you can go to visit ‘Superposition’ an artistic collaboration between the museum and the Physics Society. Done a hard-hat and climb down to ladders into the museum’s Victorian ice well where you will discover a brightly lit glass installation inspired by neutrino experiments. There is something really striking about the damp old ice wells and the electric coloured glass which brings to mind something high-tech and alien being dropped into the completely wrong time period. Your trip down the well even comes with a physicist guide who explains more about the inspirations for the art work and how it brings together modern scientific theory with nods to the history of science. 

The London Canal Museum is undeniably the place all museum hipsters need to be this October- snap some Instagram shots in the ice well, some selfies in the life-size canal boat, and ponder modern video culture while watching a canal boat travel through London in the early twentieth century accompanied by classical music. You’d better get down to the canal museum before it gets way too mainstream. 

Superpostion at the Canal Museum runs Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays until the 20th of October, booking in advance recommended:http://www.canalmuseum.org.uk/whatson/superposition.htm

God I love the Victorians: Object in focus at the Royal College ofSurgeons

Everyone knows that all museums have their star objects. The British Museum has the Rosetta Stone, the V&A has the Great Bed of Ware, the Natural History Museum has…dinosaurs. But what only insiders know are all their wacky and wonderful objects stories that don’t get featured in their institution’s displays. We think that’s the best part about museums, and I would say most people agree. They even made a show about it, it’s called Museum Secrets, and it’s awesome. In the past we’ve brought you John Dee’s angel and demon stones from the stores of the Science Museum, but today it’s all about those wacky death-obsessed Victorians at the Royal College of Surgeons.

As you may or may not know, the Royal College of Surgeons of England in Holborn houses the Hunterian Museum. If you do not know this, shame on you and get your ass over there ASAP to see it. Moving on. This is an object secret hiding in plain sight- it’s not kept in the museum but actually in the entrance hall of the building. As you enter into the grand foyer of the College, heading towards the sweeping staircase leading to Museum (because obviously that is why you are there) just take a quick look to your left and you will see…

Copyright the Royal College of Surgeons

THIS! Enormous bronze and green marble monstrosity. That’s not that weird, you might say. Everyone knows the Victorians loved funerary statuary, and this is obviously just some kind of memorial commissioned by someone close to the College. In green marble because you know, why not? You can clearly see a couple, lovingly leaning on each other in grief, looking at an urn containing the ashes of their child.

Well what if I were to tell you the ashes in that boxes aren’t their child, it’s those people themselves! Lovingly gazing at their…dead selves? What? This enormous piece of funerary statuary was commissioned by one Eliza Millard McLoghlin (1863-1928) in 1909 for her husband Dr Edward Percy Plantagenet Macloghlin (what a name). Edward was a GP and a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. After she died she requested that her ashes be moved in with his. The only slightly odd this was that Eliza had a love affair with the artist Alfred Gilbert while he was making the sculpture. Gilbert is probably best known as the sculptor of Eros in Piccadilly Circus. Poor Alfred, in the throws of the kind of dramatic love only a Victorian can experience, built in an a hinge on the top of Eliza’s head for his own ashes to be stored.

Yes, we are seeing a creepy Victorian love-triangle forever enshrined in statuary. As it turned out, the Alfred-Eliza affair turned sour towards the end and he was buried elsewhere (ie not in Eliza’s head for the rest of time).

But aside from the completely ridiculous back story, the sculpture titled Mors Janua Vitae (Death is the gate of life) is an actual work of art. The Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool even has the model for making this monstrosity.

So over-the-top expensive decorations, a creepy love storyand a couple of deaths to boot, what’s more Victorian than that?

Playing dress-up at the Bath Fashion Museum

Much like wealthy of yesteryear, when the Ministry need a weekend away we put the spa town of Bath at the top of our list. Sadly unlike the highest classes of Georgian Society, we were not there for the season nor to spend entire days in the hot baths (well…not the whole day anyway). But when the Ministry travel you can be sure that museum visiting is still high on the agenda. So, it may not be a London museum but today’s post is about our wonderful neighbour to the West, the Bath Fashion Museum.

Ok I'll admit I liked this pretty dress

I am not really one for fashion or textile museums. Doesn’t really interest me, I find the interpretation generally pretty boring and staid. I’ve been to see the new fashion galleries at the V&A and found them well, a bit blah. Mannequins in period-era scenes. The development of the corset-induced profile. Tiny shoes. Whatever.

The Bath Fashion Museum knows it is essentially a museum of pretty dresses and you know what? They are ok with that. The Museum is currently showing an exhibition called ’50 Fabulous Frocks’ to celebrate the decades of fashion represented in their collection, and it’s one enormous room full of, you guessed it, mannequins in dresses. What really shone was the audio tour. Each dress was accompanied with a short audio clip which essentially ran: When/where/ how the dress was made in two sentences and another brief phrase or two about why the dress is interesting. Amazing! It shouldn’t be this novel, but the approach was so refreshing. Tell me what I need to know and something I might like to know in 30 seconds so I can actually process it. Genius! The commentary wasn’t dumbed down, it was just succinct and exactly what a non-specialist wanted to hear.

Getting into the spirit of things

Now I couldn’t review this museum without telling you they have ADULT DRESS-UP! You heard me, adult dress-up. A whole room dedicated to ‘Dress Like a Victorian’ with corsets, hoop skirts, top hats, bonnets, coats and dresses all for real-life adults. Hear this all you other museums who think dressing up is only for children, you are missing out on a hugely key audience. Adults want to have fun too! And have fun I did. Possibly too much fun.

Just when I thought I couldn't like the Fashion Museum any more, I came across their ‘Behind the Scenes’ displays. Essentially they have converted their store rooms into open store displays organized by decades. Not only do the public get to have more access to the collections, but you get to physically see how delicate textile collections are stored. Plus (and this cannot be emphasized enough) it saves expensive space. Open storage is something that I think really adds so much to a visitors experience and it was great to see how it was done here.

Impeccable open stores

Essentially the Bath Fashion Museum took a die-hard cynic of textile museums (moi) and turned me into a twirling 10 year old, seduced by adult-size hoop skirts and a comprehensive audio tour. It may not be London, but the museums in Bath are on to something. 

The Fashion Museum at the Assembly Halls: Admission fees apply (unless you are a Museums Association member!) http://www.museumofcostume.co.uk/ 

My History Valentine: An Ode to Mrs. Beeton

In the last of our #historyvalentine series, Ministry member Laura waxes romantic about that icon of domesticity, Mrs. Beeton (completely in verse no less).

Ode to Mrs Beeton

A love-letter to good taste and sweet ordering…

Some say it was just lucky
You were wedded to a spouse
Who happened to own and operate
His own publishing house.

Too many dull historians
(Most of whom are male)
Discount your work as trivial

A trifling travail.

But it is a masterpiece

That no home should be without

After all, what modern girl

Could make so many meals from trout?!

Although she only lived to 28, her legacy
lives on in this ode

All your modern copycats

Are better left unread

It can’t be called a cookbook

Without a page on quadrupeds.

And as for being topical,

Your work has stayed the course

There is an entire chapter

On what to do with horse.

Who among us doesn’t love

A brunch of Plover’s eggs

Followed by Dutch Flummery

Or curried Lobster legs?

And you’re strong on family harmony

Your well-reasoned discourse

Prevents a mal-cooked Parrot Pie

From ending in divorce

But if it does go horribly wrong

You thought of all that too

It might not have been explicit

But you showed us what to do.

A husband struck with Manflu

(Or ‘Concussion of the Brain’)

Treated with lead and camphor pills

Will never moan again!

Or if a restless child

Is keeping you up at night

Some Calomel and Opium

Should set the noisy bugger right.

 
And so to Isabella
Who taught our Nans and Mums
And who, now that the world has changed
Will begin to teach our sons

I write a simple ode of thanks
For your well-read kitchen file
I may not like your forcemeat balls,
But I bloody love your style.

Laura is an accidental historical geographer, scholar of the Victorian home and urban forager. Follow her on twitter @tweetingbogart