Tag: Cornwall

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Old Heritage Archive

History 51 and All Our Stories

Part of the Judith Cook archive, Elizabeth Treffry Collection.
Part of the Judith Cook archive, Elizabeth Treffry Collection.

History 51 logoIn November 2012 the Hypatia Trust was awarded £10,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund’s All Our Stories programme for a project entitled History 51: Unveiling Women in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

History 51 has been designed as a community-led project  based on the Hypatia Trust’s Elizabeth Treffry Collection to trace the journeys, make things inspired by, and document and publish the life stories of historical Cornish and Scillonian women.

Why we applied

At the instigation of Hypatia Trust Founder-Chairman Melissa Hardie, I was commissioned to design the project and write the application. This was my first attempt at writing a funding application for someone or an organisation other than myself and so I was personally delighted that it was successful. However, on a more altruistic level, I was pleased that the subject of women’s history was deemed worthy enough to fund.

Is it really a niche or minority subject to study and promote the history of 51% of our population?

Part of the Judith Cook archive, Elizabeth Treffry Collection.
Part of the Judith Cook archive, Elizabeth Treffry Collection.

The small team that runs the Hypatia Trust has long lamented the seeming dearth of women’s history in history curricula across school, further and higher education. Many women’s history courses have been displaced by more theoretical programmes on gender history, which is not at all the same thing. Is it really a niche or minority subject to study and promote the history of 51% of our population?

With the recent appalling treatment of the Women’s Library in London we felt there was no better time to do our bit to raise public awareness about the importance of women’s history for everyone, women and men, old and young.

When I became Honorary Curator for the Hypatia Trust my immediate priority was to find a way to dramatically raise the profiles of the historical women that the Elizabeth Treffry Collection represents. This, in my view, was more important than immediately focusing inward on cataloguing the collection itself. Melissa Hardie and previous Hypatia volunteers had already undertaken significant work through the Trust’s publishing and indexing activities. What was needed now was a project that had the potential make a much wider impact.

History 51 and me

Cornwall is a deeply patriarchal part of the UK. This is reflected in our politics, media, industries and job market.

History 51 is also personal voyage of discovery. I have not undertaken women’s history, to speak of, for many years. However my curiosity and sense of duty have been peaked. Cornwall is a deeply patriarchal part of the UK. This is reflected in our politics, media, industries and job market.

That’s not to say women aren’t doing anything. They are, but their work is not recorded or noted in the same way as that of men. I want this HLF project to be the beginning of a radical new movement to raise the profile of women and women’s heritage.  Women are in the majority and yet the structures of traditional historical study do not allow for the subject to be considered as anything other than a marginal element of social history. This is wrong.

Designing History 51

We had two unique selling points. Firstly that our project would represent the biggest under-represented group in the UK, i.e. women, and secondly that it would advance the history of a currently marginalised aspect of British history, that of Cornwall and Scilly.

HLF’s All Our Stories programme (now closed) was a fantastic opportunity for many local groups, networks and societies to contribute to ‘grassroots’ or people’s history. It was pitched as part of Michael Wood and the BBC’s Great British Story which aired in 2012. In HLF’s words:

“From researching local historic landmarks, learning more about customs and traditions to delving into archives and finding out the origins of street and place names All Our Stories will give everyone the chance to explore their heritage and share what they learn with others.”

Early and formative discussions suggested very strongly that the project’s activities should allow participants to both contribute and discover. The classic platitudes of a funding application, you might say.

We had two unique selling points. Firstly that our project would represent the biggest under-represented group in the UK, i.e. women, and secondly that it would advance the history of a currently marginalised aspect of British history, that of Cornwall and Scilly. In addition, HLF South West identifies South East Cornwall as being one of its five priority areas.

Early and formative discussions suggested very strongly that the project’s activities should allow participants to both contribute and discover. The classic platitudes of a funding application, you might say. However for me this meant that the open sharing of information about women represented in the Elizabeth Treffry Collection, and elsewhere, was paramount. It also meant that we would emphasise the team, the network and the community that would produce the information as much as History 51 and Hypatia Trust themselves.

What we are promising

We want to make sure that HLF gets its money’s worth and that we aim for both high impact and sustainable deliverables that will also contribute to the long-term objectives of the Elizabeth Treffry Collection.

£10,000 is not a lot of money. However it is more than we started with. We want to make sure that HLF gets its money’s worth and that we aim for both high impact and sustainable deliverables that will also contribute to the long-term objectives of the Elizabeth Treffry Collection. This is what we are going to deliver:

  • Train volunteers to explore, research, catalogue and create information
  • Develop a Wikipedia-style Cornish Women’s Index that will create hundreds of free, publically accessible records of women
  • Hold six local community workshops on different women and themes in locations across Cornwall (and hopefully Scilly too).

What we are asking from contributors and correspondents

Information comes in many forms and it should be expressed in as many different ways as possible.

We do want well-researched, well-considered information to result from this project. However it is not intended as a scholarly study or library project. Information comes in many forms and it should be expressed in as many different ways as possible. So what we are asking of our contributors and correspondents is any of the following:

  • Researching the life stories of women who have lived, worked or come from Cornwall or Scilly
  • Photographing and scanning historical documents and artefacts
  • Producing transcripts of documentary sources
  • Creating art, music, poems or literature inspired by Cornish and Scillonian women
  • Conducting oral history interviews
  • Work on our social media channels and blog (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube)
  • Writing copy for short Wikipedia-style biographies
  • Entering information into the Cornish Women’s Index (a free online database of words and images)
  • Organising, leading or participating in informal and fun workshops scheduled for venues across Cornwall in 2013.

What the History 51 army can expect in return

Books of the Elizabeth Treffry Collection of the Hypatia Trust
Books of the Elizabeth Treffry Collection of the Hypatia Trust

… it is very easy to feel used and to feel absorbed into the corporatising identity of a heritage organisation or project.

I know from my own previous experience of working on ‘other people’s projects’ that it is very easy to feel used and to feel absorbed into the corporatising identity of a heritage organisation or project. I do not want this to happen to all those who have so warmly and enthusiastically already given of their time to History 51.

We stated in the application that we want History 51 contributors and correspondents to become ambassadors for women’s heritage in Cornwall and Scilly and so we, as the Hypatia Trust, have to provide the support they need in return. So this is what we have promised them:

  • Free training and ongoing support, including by email and online
  • Free access to the Elizabeth Treffry Collection and other resources at the Hypatia Trust
  • Access to equipment such as cameras, scanners, photocopier and laptop
  • Your name next to contributions on the Cornish Women’s Index and Elizabeth Treffry Collection website
  • Limited travel expenses for those who lead or help organise a History 51 workshop
  • VIP guest entry at the History 51 party in November 2013
  • A certificate of participation for those taking part as part of a qualification or undertaking CPD, which will outline the skills they have gained.

Promoting the project and recruiting interest

… we hope that the workshops, which are aimed at highlighting local women in their communities, will rebalance this and indeed we will be using all the methods we can to reach those who do not explore their past through digital heritage.

History 51 was officially announced at the end of November 2012. We started recruiting volunteers in December 2012, mainly via our website, where interested contributors could submit an expression of interest, and will be able to for the duration of the project.

The Cornishman newspaper, read by an estimated 75% of the west Penwith population, covered the project in a feature on 6 December. The story was also syndicated online which reaches a much wider audience. This considerably boosted our visibility and we received a number of requests for more information on the back of this.

The project was covered again on 31 January with the launch of a campaign to get Alice De Lisle officially recognised in Penzance. I have posted more about the Alice De Lisle Campaign on the Elizabeth Treffry Collection blog.

A steady stream of news and posts circulated on the Elizabeth Treffry Collection blog and its social media channels on Twitter and Facebook have seen a steady increase in interest, judged by the numbers of Likes and Shares we have been receiving. Nothing dramatic but visibility is certainly higher than it was when we launched the Elizabeth Treffry Collection website early last year.

To date we have approximately 20 people willing to be active contributors or correspondents. We are unashamedly embracing digital media and communication for this project so that we are not limiting ourselves to those who can physically get to Penzance to use the collection. So inevitably we are excluding people who are not online regularly. However, we hope that the workshops, which are aimed at highlighting local women in their communities, will rebalance this and indeed we will be using all the methods we can to reach those who do not explore their past through digital heritage.

Inaugurating History 51

I don’t think I have been in a room full of more articulate people in my life! And that includes the very many academic conferences I have attended and at which I have presented.

On 9 February we invited all those who had expressed an interest in the project to attend an open afternoon at the Hypatia Trust in Penzance. Several were not able to make it but we still had a room of about 18 people (all women) eager to share their passion, thoughts and ideas about how their own experiences could be brought to bear on this seminal project. I think everyone would agree that the local rug hookers really made our meeting, they turned up in force!

I don’t think I have been in a room full of more articulate people in my life! And that includes the very many academic conferences I have attended and at which I have presented. I will post about this on the Elizabeth Treffry Collection blog very soon.

Each person was given a folder with an information pack aimed at familiarising contributors and correspondents with History 51 and answering questions I predicted they may have. This pack will be emailed to all those who were not able to attend.

Next steps are to start recording who is interested in what and sharing this information amongst our group. The great thing about History 51 is that even those running the project are getting stuck into some new research and exploration.

The online database for the Cornish Women’s Index is being developed and will be due for testing early next month and then it will be time to organise some training. I am also contemplating using screencasts and Google Hangouts for live online training.

Our events co-ordinator, Jo Schofield, is currently scouting venues for our workshops. We already have one in Liskeard Museum confirmed and another almost confirmed in Fowey.

So for now I am occupied with buying the equipment we need, making sure that History 51 is regularly promoted online and in the press, and commissioning some quirky bookmarks or postcards to be widely distributed across Cornwall and Scilly, and beyond.

Switching between this project and my more usual exploits in industrial heritage is constantly challenging. Sometimes it is a downright pain to have to change modes so frequently. But it is all the more worthwhile because of that broad perspective you get when you don’t just plough one furrow but take a step back and contemplate the field, and the moors beyond.

 

Categories
Old Heritage Archive

Artistic licence: misrepresenting (Cornish) history

Last week the temperature under my collar was raised twice over. Both times it concerned a poor representation of the past. One probably down to lazy journalism (but with no real excuses) and the other possibly down to poor editing choices and an over-reliance on a ‘pat narrative’. Here I discuss the first of these, a review of a new exhibition of Newlyn school paintings. In my next post, I will discuss the omission of Richard Trevithick, the over-emphasis on Watt’s achievement, and the deeply selective portrayal of British engineering history currently being shown by the BBC in Genius of Invention.

Amongst Heroes: the Artist in Working Cornwall

This exhibition, curated by budding art historian Roo Gunzi, brings together a wide range of paintings from the Newlyn school at the unlikely venue of Two Temple Place, a neo-gothic confection situated on London’s Embankment. The exhibition was made possible through partnership with the Royal Cornwall Museum and significant loans were made by Penlee House Gallery and Museum, home to Cornwall’s pre-eminent collection of west Cornish and Newlyn art. Roo herself was a Hypatia Trust, Jamieson Library scholar last summer, as part of her research itinerary.

So far, so good. This exhibition marks the first time in a while that a significant number of Cornish paintings from a variety of locations have been brought together outside Cornwall, and highlights the work of the west Cornish art communities, including those based in Newlyn. Unfortunately it has been the reporting and reviewing of this exhibition that has somewhat deflated the balloons of those of us who champion Cornish history and heritage.

The biggest culprit is a review by Telegraph newspaper and online journalist Rupert Christiansen (21 Jan). The review came to my attention via Twitter when someone tweeted the link to a letter written to the Telegraph from J Garry Mitchell of Portmellon (23 Jan). In this letter response, Mr Mitchell wrote:

Too often Cornwall gets portrayed as a tourist destination with no substance, but it has always produced clever creators.

The letter took particular umbrage to Christiansen’s flippant comment that Cornwall was by the end of the nineteenth century “largely untouched by industrialism.” The nine, mainly inane, comments that follow this letter are indicative of the deep ignorance that prevails about Cornish culture and history, judged as it so often is, through the eyes of holiday-makers who consume without discernment the Cornwall of inconceivably beautiful sandy coves and ‘quaint’ fishing villages so beloved of Caroline Quentin.

I read the review. I thought it said more about the writer’s preconceptions or misconceptions about Cornwall and Cornish history than it did do justice to reviewing the exhibition.

Here is my rebuttal of Christiansen’s review. As you will read, I didn’t even get around to introducing the reviewer to the coming of the railways in the 1850s, nor did I dwell to take issue with his mindless comment that “What they [the Newlyn paintings] characteristically depict – in a style influenced by masters of the naturalist Barbizon school such as Millet and Corot – is the daily life of peasants and fisherfolk, recorded with an absence of special pleading.”

My criticism

“Around the end of the 19th century, Cornwall remained an undiscovered part of the country, largely untouched by industrialism and not a holiday destination or romanticised by Daphne du Maurier.”

I find it extraordinarily lazy of the reviewer that he should make such an erroneous comment. Or perhaps it has escaped his notice that the mining landscapes of Cornwall and West Devon, largely shaped during the 19th century, are designated as a World Heritage Site? I’m not sure that would be the case if Cornwall had been untouched by ‘industrialism’.

Whether you are of the opinion that the now chocolate-box (or tinned fish) images of working life depicted in Newlyn school paintings are real or romanticised, they only show one tiny part of Cornish life, then as now.

Hardly ‘undiscovered’, then.

Hard rock mining had a profound impact on Cornwall, as did other forms of industry. The towns of Penzance, Camborne, Redruth and St Austell were bustling centres of commerce and banking. Before the London Metal Exchange was established in the 1870s big money wheeling and dealing in tin, copper, lead and other metals took place in Cornwall (and also in Swansea). Cornwall even had its own Stannary Parliament to oversee the financing and taxes levied on tin (yes–it was _that_ important). Cornish mines traded directly and indirectly in a highly globalised economy in metals, particularly copper and tin.

Hardly ‘undiscovered’, then. Did you know that Porthcurno in the far south west of Cornwall, now the site of an excellent museum, was the centre of  Britain’s transatlantic and overseas telegraphy? Operators from all over the world came to Cornwall to be trained in telecommunications until relatively recently.

Camborne School of Mines was world famous and again people from all over the globe came to Cornwall to be trained in mining engineering, surveying and other scientific skills throughout the nineteenth century and twentieth century.

The Royal Geological Society of Cornwall will be celebrating its bicentenary next year, is one of the oldest geological societies in the world.

It was the hotbed of technological innovation and the demands of a cutting edge mining industry that provided the right environment for engineers such as Richard Trevithick to invent the high-pressure steam engine (a feat far more impactful than Watt’s earlier effort) and scientists such as Humphry Davy to identify important rare metals, and solve serious safety problems by inventing the miner’s safety lamp.

This review is typical of the huge assumptions people make about Cornwall as a place that is on the margins rather than at the centre. Certainly concerning nineteenth-century innovation, science and industry quite the opposite was true.

/ends

I circulated the link to the review and my letter to colleagues and this in itself elicited a variety of responses, many of them more astute than my own criticism. The consensus was that we ought to be doing more to get good history out there and much more easily accessible. We live in a world now where most people turn to Google rather than the local library to answer their most pressing questions. We have to respond to it. I should like to reproduce an excerpt of a further criticism, this time related to how the Newlyn school is portrayed, worth pondering:

“I also take issue with the persistently isolationist approach of British ( and probably other) curations of such exhibitions which too often suggest that such movements sprang up by chance through largely local factors. Newlyn was not found by accident – it was deliberately searched for and found by artists seeking somewhere in Britain to compare with the Breton centres such as the famous Pont Aven or the lesser known Cancale, Le Faouet etc,  which themselves were part of the wider European movement of rural art schools inspired by Barbizon.”

 

 

 

 

Categories
Old Heritage Archive

Approaches to regenerating industrial heritage sites

Vivian and Sons engine house and chimney, 1860, Hafod Copperworks, Swansea
Vivian and Sons engine house and chimney, 1860, Hafod Copperworks, Swansea

Following on from my survey of industrial heritage education this article discusses different approaches to the regeneration of industrial heritage sites. By their very nature, industrial heritage sites are often also classed as ‘brownfield’ sites and therefore fairer game for redevelopment than areas of ‘greenfield’.

This was well-illustrated in English Heritage’s Industrial Heritage at Risk report of 2011. I was particularly taken by the figure that placed metal and coal mines most at risk in the Register.

I live and work amongst the most significant mine workings in the world (West Cornwall) and the conservation work on mine workings over the last 30 years has been extensive, culminating in the inscription of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape in 2006. The Cornish engine house is now an icon that is synonymous with Cornish identity and culture and several sites have regenerated into visitor attractions so compared with many other parts of the world mining heritage, at least here seems to be enjoying a new lease of life.

Having worked extensively on historic copper smelting landscapes, particularly of the Lower Swansea Valley, that really are in danger of physical collapse and until recently, erasure from collective memory, I wonder about the criteria for assessing risk? Some of this is bound up in the different statuses of structures that are Scheduled or Listed. I have recently completed work on producing a prospectus for the heritage-led regeneration of the old Swansea copperworks sites of Hafod and Morfa and it became quickly evident that those structures that were not Scheduled or Listed were most in danger of being omitted altogether from the regeneration plans. Listing and scheduling can create islands out of features that were once part of inter-dependent working landscapes.

Heritage-led regeneration at industrial heritage sites have also brought extensive opportunities for bring large properties and land back into use while also preserving some of an area’s historical character.

Heritage-led regeneration: Reuse vs visitor attraction

Industrial heritage sites, like other historic structures and landscapes, have undergone regeneration in a variety of ways. The benefits or otherwise of reusing a building for new purposes such as housing, retail, other commercial uses or as a museum or cultural centre have recently been debated on a LinkedIn thread on the use of industrial complexes as cultural centres.

As part of my report in the regeneration of the Hafod-Morfa copperworks site I had a stab at trying to categorise different types of heritage-led regeneration in a UK context although it is fair to apply several of these categories to industrial heritage in Europe and beyond.

  1. The open-air museum.
  2. The working museum/site which retains traditional processes and products.
  3. Industrial park with visitor centre or museum as central focus.
  4. An industrial building or complex converted exclusively to heritage activity.
  5. Brownfield site regeneration which retains heritage features and offers some interpretation but primarily functions with unrelated businesses and activities.
  6. Conserved structures retained in the landscape with no designated centre and minimal interpretation.

The following examples have been chosen to be representative of the full range of industrial heritage site or landscape present in the UK and are not intended to be geographically inclusive. In addition there are great numbers of projects that have regenerated industrial buildings but could not be considered ‘heritage-led’, for example the Toffee Factory in Newcastle which might be usefully defined in a seventh category of ‘vestige’. A sort of façadism. This is not a criticism, it just isn’t what I would call ‘heritage-led’.

Examples

1. Amberley Museum and Heritage Centre
Situated in the former Amberley Chalk Pits, now dedicated to the industrial heritage of the whole of South East England featuring narrow gauge railway and historic bus service, traditional craft demonstrations and a regular series of events and festivals.

2. Whitchurch Silk Mill
Working early nineteenth-century silk mill in Hampshire, still producing traditionally-woven silk for interior design. Visitors can see the internal workings of the mill and silk weavers at looms (now powered by electricity, not mill wheel).

3. Wheal Martyn China Clay Museum and Country Park
Set in spent china clay pits which have been largely given over to park and woodland with museum containing displays and artefacts from the industry, access to viewing point to see a commercially working neighbouring pit, and access to Clay Trails cycle route.

4. STEAM. Museum of the Great Western Railway
Situated in the restored former Swindon Grade II-listed railway works. The entire works complex has been integrated into a single museum building. Displays incorporate artefacts, static locomotives, archives, film and audio footage of the railway and dioramas. The museum runs themed and non-heritage events programme.

5. Heartlands, Cornwall
Set in the derelict area around Robinson’s Shaft, previously part of South Crofty tin mines, in Pool, Cornwall, the complex is now billed as a ‘cultural playground’ with ‘state of the art’ exhibition space containing displays related to Cornish mining, an adventure playground themed on Cornish mythology, landscaped gardens with flora and features related to Cornish migration abroad, craft studios and offices, and soon to be extended to a new housing estate. One of the site’s principal attractions are its rolling series of events, markets and activities for visiting schools.

6. Derwent Valley Mills
World Heritage Site since 2001, designated as the ‘birthplace of the factory system’ for textile production, it comprises a series of conserved water mills along a 15-mile stretch of the River Derwent from Matlock Bath to Derby. The Derwent Valley Heritage Way has been instituted as a series of walks which lead visitors through the landscape’s historical and natural environments.

Conclusions

Let’s state the obvious first. There are many approaches to heritage-led regeneration. Each is specific to the period in which the site was redeveloped, the funding available, the potential for future income and the vision of those charged with undertaking it. Some are more successful than others. In many cases it is too early to tell what will actually become of the industrial heritage of the site or area.

And this brings me to my second conclusion and one about which I will write more soon, that the interpretation of a site’s industrial past is crucial in qualifying it as ‘heritage-led’. Interpretation can take many forms, such as activity or demonstration as in allowing the public to view Victorian silk weaving techniques at Whitchurch Silk Mill, through displays and exhibitions, through a sensory experience such as riding on the narrow gauge railway at Amberley, or just simple self-guided heritage trails–using a leaflet or smartphone app.

I fear that sites more recently regenerated are allowing interpretation and opportunities for immersion in the industrial past to play second fiddle to ‘inspired by’ activities such as art installations, public sculpture and the performance of plays. These are stylised activities that may entertain but often do not convey an authentic sense of the past to audiences, even if they are infused by it. And at sites that were hives of activity, often busy, smelly and noisy, the experience you get at many industrial heritage sites and lanscapes is almost the opposite..

Categories
Old Heritage Archive

Old pilchards and Cornish industrial fishing heritage

Pressed and salted pilchards, Newlyn Pilchard Works
Pressed and salted pilchards, Newlyn Pilchard Works

Industrial heritage in Cornwall is completely dominated by mining, and most of that is heavily focused on tin mining and china clay extraction as opposed to that of other metals and minerals such as copper, arsenic and so on. Even more neglected is Cornwall’s fishing and fish processing heritage.

The Cornish Quaysude gallery in the National Maritime Museum Cornwall, in Falmouth, provides a tantalising glimpse of fish processing and export, specifically that of pilchards (salted and pressed) which took place in St Ives, Mevagissey and Newlyn amongst other fishing centres. Other interesting exhibits can be found in a number of the smaller museums of Cornwall, such as St Ives Museum, Padstow Museum and Fowey Museum.

Penzance no longer has its maritime museum and Newlyn, today home to the largest fishing fleet (in terms of numbers of boats) in the UK, has no centre for its fishing heritage. However this was not the case until relatively recently, and may change in the near future. Villagers in Mousehole, west Cornwall’s most ancient port, is currently looking at integrating some of the region’s fishing and maritime heritage into displays in the project to establish a new community centre (in the derelict sail/net loft which also housed pilchard processing pits on Duck Street). Talk of old pilchards reminded me of the now defunct Old Pilchard Works Museum in Newlyn.

I had occasion to revisit some photographs I took back in Summer 2003 of the Old Pilchard Works in Newlyn when it was open to the public as a working museum. It remains one of the most memorable museum experiences I have had. The working part of the museum allowed visitors to get a feel for an ancient delicacy which the vast majority of Brits and Cornish would probably turn their nose up at. Salted and pressed pilchards, or Cornish sardines. Caught in abundance off the Penwith coast, pilchards landed in Newlyn would be salted and then pressed, then arranged in barrels ready for export to Italy (and sometimes Spain). Think anchovies and their growing status as a trend ingredient in British gastronomy, then think of a more rounded, almost sweeter flavour and you will have an idea of the wonder that is a salted pilchard.

Press play to view a slide show of my photographs or view on Flickr.

The pilchard presses resemble book presses and there is something timeless about seeing military rows of fish lined up and piled up ready to have their life extended to at least a year through this processing. Barrels were marked with various marks according to the importer, one of them being ‘Cigno Bianco’ or White Swan as you can see in one of the photographs of a box of ‘salacche inglese’ –in future that would probably read ‘salacche cornovagliese’. Part of the museum experience was having the chance to do ‘brass rubbings’ of the copper stencils that marked the boxes and barrels. To my sadness, I can no longer find the one I did but I do remember it was of the Cigno Bianco mark. The museum also introduced visitors to traditional fish processing and the particular relationship between the Cornish and Breton fishing industries, especially those of West Penwith and the region of Concarneau.

As you will hear in this video, from Terry Tonkin who worked here, they were a particular delicacy of the Italian dish, spaghetti alla puttanesca. So prized were the Cornish salted pilchard that they were considered superior to the usual Italian acciughe or anchovy. This dish is a classic of southern Italy, particularly the south-eastern region of Puglia (Apulia) and parts of Sicily. It’s a brazen dish (possibly accounting for its unashamed name, ‘whore-like spaghetti’) made with fresh tart tomatoes, salty black olives, anchovies or other salted fish and capers. It’s time of year is from harvest time at the end of summer to Christmas when these preserved delights are made and put in store for the winter.

Some time in 2005-6 the museum closed, for various reasons, mainly financial, but also because the demand for salted pilchards began to decline. As the Managing Director Nick Howell said in a statement regarding the circumstances of the closure, no amount of good publicity from TV chefs such as Keith Floyd and Rick Stein could persuade the British public to embrace this delicacy. The privately run museum was subsidised by the business which had also just begun to use traditional Breton canning methods to preserve Cornish pilchards and mackerel (in olive oil). You’ll be hard pushed to find a salted pilchard in Cornwall at the moment but thankfully you can still buy Pilchard Works canned fish all over the country. I hope we see salted pilchards in British and Cornish cuisine in the future.

Categories
Old Heritage Archive

Copper research funding success!

Excerpt from a copper ore book
Excerpt from a copper ore book

I was delighted to hear on Friday that I had been successful in my application for a small research grant from Glamorgan County History Trust for continued research on my project entitled, Biographies of British copper: The heritage of a global commodity, c.1700-1980. The Trust supports research into any aspect of the history of Glamorgan, south Wales.

The specific aspect of my research this funding will benefit is for further work into business archives relating to the copper industry found in Bangor University Archives. Following my survey of copper business archives held in Swansea, I identified related papers held in Bangor which not only have direct relevance to understanding the supply chain between mines and the Glamorgan smelters but also to further my knowledge about how the Grenfells operated during the formative 1800-1830s period.

The key relation to the Swansea Grenfell Collection are the records in the Williams and Grenfell Copper Smelting Firm collection, 1829-34, held at Bangor University Archives. I will use the grant to enable me to travel to Bangor and study the records and then use copied material for furthering this project in subsequent months. Having already consulted the small number of business records relating to the early years of Grenfell involvement as mine agents and speculators in the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies in Aylesbury last winter, this will be a crucial stage in gathering evidence for reconstructing supply chain information through the development of one company.

The most valuable part of these fonds are twelve bundles of ticketing documents dating 1829-34 which document a formative period in the growth of the copper industry and the centralisation of smelting and refining processes in Glamorgan, especially Swansea.

These documents are rare survivals which have hitherto escaped the attention of scholars. They bear testimony to the business negotiations that took place between smelters’ agents (overwhelmingly based in Swansea, Neath and Llanelli) and mine companies. The ticketing events took place in Cornwall (Redruth) for Cornish ores and in Swansea for the sale of Welsh, Irish and foreign ores.

While statistical synopses are available for this period in contemporary editions of the Mining Journal and other serials, analyses of these documents will enable me to map actual relationships between specific mining companies and smelting concerns. It will also help to establish how the supply chain centred in Swansea compared with that of Cornwall.

Combining this new research with that I have already undertaken on the Swansea and Buckinghamshire documents, I hope to publish an article on these archives that will also highlight their value as sources for understanding the nature of how business was done and also more about how industrial history can be better appreciated through tracing the biographies of the commodities themselves.

Categories
Old Curatorial Archive

Hidden Treasures of the Elizabeth Treffry Collection

Books of the Elizabeth Treffry Collection, Hypatia Trust
Books of the Elizabeth Treffry Collection, Hypatia Trust

This week I am leading tours of the Elizabeth Treffry Collection on Women in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly at Hypatia Trust HQ at Trevelyan House, Penzance. Hidden Treasures is a national campaign organised by the Collections Trust in association with the Independent newspaper who featured the campaign in the 2 June edition. About 54 organisations are taking part, mainly museums. Hidden Treasures aims to help give special access to collections that are usually not available to the public. The Hypatia Trust is the only Cornish organisation to open up its collections for Hidden Treasures!

Hidden Treasures of the Elizabeth Treffry Collection tours take place throughout the week at 2.30pm on each listed day:

Monday 4 June, Tuesday 5 June, Wednesday 6 June, Thursday 7 June and Saturday 9 June (no tours Friday 8 June).

Tours are free. All welcome. Visitors to Trevelyan House can also view the Redwing Gallery and browse the bookshop. Cornish books available at sale prices! All profits in aid of the Elizabeth Treffry Collection fund.

Find out more on the Hidden Treasures tours in Penzance.

What can you expect?

The Elizabeth Treffry Collection is comprised of books and archives and therefore are not always visually appealing exhibits in the same way as a rare vase or exquisite painting. During the tours I try and get people interested in the subject, explain why collecting on women is important to Cornwall and Scillonian heritage and what’s in store for the collection in the future.

The Hypatia Trust has just started a campaign to fund a new permanent home for the collection in Cornwall and contribute towards creating a free online Index of Women in Cornwall and Scilly that will make a major impact on the way Cornish and Scillonian history, culture, art and literature is perceived, researched and used. We need funds to conserve rare items, especially archives, apply a better standard of curatorial care, furnish a new home and promote the collection to everyone with an interest in women’s and Cornish-Scillonian heritage.

Remember: we are talking about better representation for 51% of the population, past and present!

How’s it going?

The tours were featured in the local press, the Independent, promoted online through our very recent entry into the worlds of Twitter and Facebook and circulated via flyers, emails and word of mouth. Guess what? Word of mouth has won out so far. Today was the first day and we had 14 people turn up, albeit at various times of the day. We are treating the event quite informally and are happy to accomodate and chat to people at any time I or another Hypatia volunteer is available. We want to use this opportunity to get the word out there that the collection exists and what we wish to achieve with it. I’ll look forward to seeing what the rest of the week holds in store.

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Old Curatorial Archive

Curating the Elizabeth Treffry Collection on Women in Cornwall and Scilly

La Demoiselle Sauvage From King Arthur's Wood by Elizabeth Armstrong Forbes
La Demoiselle Sauvage From King Arthur's Wood by Elizabeth Armstrong Forbes (credit: Hypatia Trust)

My first commission since relocating to Penzance, Cornwall was an audit of the little-known Elizabeth Treffry collection held by the Hypatia Trust that serves to document the lives and works of women in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

Meeting Hypatia

Having heard much about the Hypatia Trust and its founder, Dr. Melissa Hardie, publisher, author and collector, I wandered into Trevelyan House on historic Chapel Street on a cold January morning to find out more. A warm welcome and two hours of chat resulted in the start of a working relationship and friendship that I hope will last for many years.

…to collect, and make available, published and personal documentation about the achievements of women in every aspect of their lives.

(Ethos of the Hypatia Trust)

The situation I was greeted with goes something like this. The Hypatia Trust exists to further the knowledge of and about women and her achievements. It has a strong basis in understanding women in their regional or geo-historical contexts and so Hypatia exists in several locales, including Hypatia in the Woods in Shelton, Washington in the USA. Its ethos is strongly based in academic and intellectual pursuits and so collecting, especially books, is central to its activities.

Melissa Hardie, in the name of the Hypatia Trust, has already donated significant collections to libraries across the world from Exeter to Bonn, with the sole motive to improve the knowledge and visibility of women in social and historical studies. Other landmark achievements are the creation of the West Cornwall Art Archive with Newlyn Art Gallery and the innovative Cornish Artists Index, a freely accessible online database of artists in Cornwall and their works, past and present.

Elizabeth Treffry Collection
Elizabeth Treffry Collection at Trevelyan House

Finding a room of one’s own

And so the Elizabeth Treffry Collection is one of Hypatia’s several efforts to turn the tide of male-dominated narratives of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly by actively gathering knowledge about women’s lives and works in Cornwall and Scilly (not just those of Cornish and Scillonian women but all those who have made their lives and home there) and communicating it to a much wider audience through publication, education and participation. The collection’s strengths are in art and literature of the 19th and 20th centuries but its stretches far beyond Daphne Du Maurier and Dolly Pentreath, embracing the Cornish Land Army, women scientists, religion and more besides. And this was part of the attraction of wanting to get involved, to learn more about the relatively silent women’s stories in these enigmatic regions.

The collection comprises books, journals and archives (and a few artefacts) and mainly resides at Hypatia HQ at Trevelyan House with more stuff kept at the Jamieson Library of Women’s History, based in rural Newmill just outside Penzance. Melissa Hardie and the Hypatia Trust wish to tackle the urgent need to find it a new, permanent home where the collection can be publicly accessed, intoning Virginia Woolf’s essay on ‘A Room of One’s Own‘.

But before this search could begin in earnest, and an associated fundraising campaign could commence, a better idea of what the collection comprised and what its future might look like was required. And so I was invited to help Hypatia establish a professional basis for the curation of the collection by conducting a basic audit to quantify it, describe it and make recommendations for its future care and uses.

You can download and read the report to understand more about the collection and what I think its future could look like but I wanted here to write down some of my thoughts about auditing collections and the value of collections in our cultural lives.

Download Curating Elizabeth Treffry Collection report (PDF, 976KB)

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