Geelong: world class wool industry buildings

Geelong was proclaimed a town in 1838. At the time Geelong was developing as a Victorian port, Australia was still a series of separate colonies which levied customs duties on goods coming from overseas and goods passing between the colonies. For some years, all customs clearances had to be made through Williamstown, forcing ships trading with Geelong to travel north for customs before offloading their products back in Geelong.

Customs House, 1856

Merino sheep across Victoria produced wool that was soft, plentiful and appealing to Britain's mills. And so in the 1840s, wool became Geelong's most important industry. The raw product was transported into Geelong, processed there and exported from Geelong. Wool heading for the Australian colonies was taken to the port in loosely packed bales. Wool to be shipped to Britain was packed in solid bins, at the behest of specialist sorters, consignment agents and shippers.

Pioneer merchant James Ford Strachan constructed his first bonded store in 1840, the first stone building in newly colonised Geelong.

Only when Geelong was declared a free port in 1848 was a proper Customs House needed near the Geelong wharves. The officers made sure that duty was fully collected, on both colonial and overseas trade. The Geelong Customs House was built in Corio Terrace/now Brougham St, in 1856 as a three storey ashlar sandstone and basalt structure, and a slate roof. Architect WG Cornish’s distinctive colonial Georgian style clearly reflected the influence of earlier NSW colonial public building traditions.

In 1857 Charles Dennys conducted the first wool auction in Geelong. I don’t suppose many bales were sold, but the idea of a regional market soon caught the attention of local growers and buyers, so more auctions were held in a central Geelong pub.

Dennys Lascelles bluestone wool store

Wool stores became necessary, and they needed to be as close to the foreshore as possible. In the very early days, the difference between a wool store and one for general merchandise was largely the existence of a wool press. Few Geelong merchants handled nothing but wool.

So it was not until 1872, with the arrival of Dennys Lascelles bluestone wool store, that a specific design of building was evolved for wool. A row of very impressive wool stores stretched down the street in a unified manner, designed by architects Jacob Pitman (basement) and Jonathan Coulson (the other floors). Wagons entered from the street via an archway, discharged their load and moved out into a right of way on the other side of the building.

Dennys, Lascelles, Austin and Co. in Brougham St was the proud owner of one of the most important early modern structures in Australia. This concrete woolstore, designed by Edward G Stone, was largely free of architectural decoration, and was in a style that anticipated European and Australian architectural trends of the inter-war years. Dennys buildings had used solid bluestone in 1872, cement render in 1880 and the mansard tower of 1889. It is not surprising, then, that when expansion was planned in 1900, the firm elected to use the most modern material – reinforced concrete.

Strachan, Murray, Shannon and Co. wool stores

The remarkable bowstring roof trusses of reinforced concrete spanned, when completed in 1912, apparently the largest column free space in the world. Dennys Lascelles and Co. was one of the oldest wool broking firms in Victoria and the concrete woolstore still forms part of an historic woolstore precinct. Today it hosts the National Wool Museum.

"National Wool Museum is Australia's only comprehensive museum of wool, showcasing wool's enduring impact on Australia social and economic life. With a brief to explore the past, present and future of the Australian wool industry, the Museum acquires, documents, preserves, stores and exhibits objects and materials directly related to the Australian wool industry". And it kept two of my grandchildren mesmerised for 1.5 hours (no mean feat).

The Strachan, Murray, Shannon and Co. wool stores were built at the corner of Moorabool and Brougham Sts Geelong. Systematically developed as the wool industry expanded, this four storey brick complex was stylistically unified from the 1889 section onwards, to present an impressive austere Classical Revival structure of great note. Remember that the Strachan Company premises had been associated with the wool industry since 1840.

The Wool Exchange

The Wool Exchange in Corio St was constructed in 1927-28, designed by local architects Laird and Buchan. The two storey brick Wool Exchange was and is one of Geelong’s major public buildings from the inter war period and as a late example of the renaissance revival, the facade reflected the generally conservative character of the wool industry. Roofed with a barrel vault, the main sales room had a striking interior decorated with Neo-Greco detail. Sales of wool, sheepskins, hides, tallow and other products were conducted weekly at this site.

This Wool Exchange was the last important element of the wool industry. Alongside Western District properties, railways, gorgeous wool stores, woollen mills, scouring works and port facilities, it illustrated the economic and social history of late 19th and early 20th century Geelong.

The National Trust of Australia (Victorian branch) created a valuable history in the book called Woolstores: Conservation Area, 1980. I recommend it to you. The description of the original architecture in these buildings came from the wonderful blog OnMyDoorstep.

Inside the National Wool Museum

Pubs: Britain's greatest contribution to world peace

The book Licensed to Sell – The History and Heritage of the Public House showed that the great boom in pub building came at the close of the C19th when designers used gas lighting on mirrors and plate glass to develop an inviting and seductive appearance. Furthermore the materials that helped to create the typical image of the Victorian pub were readily available to designers and builders: woodwork, metalwork, ceramics and plaster.

The Falcon, Clapham Junction, built in 1887

The vital task taken on by by Geoff Brandwood, Andrew Davison and Michael Slaughter was to describe the long history of the public house and to examine how changing attitudes were reflected in its design and planning. And the information on Demonising Drink was very welcome. The Drink Question seemed to have a powerful influence on the various political parties and on drink-related legislation in the late Victorian decades. However it seems counter-intuitive that the Liberal Party was associated with temperance and the Conservative Party was seen as the friend of big brewers.

All writing about the visual arts, be they paintings, architecture or the decorative arts, needs to be visual. With lush photos, this book beautifully memorialised and celebrated the various styles of pub building, from rich and gaudy to sleek and modern. My particular favourite was The Salisbury in London, a 1890s pub-hotel that had every known architectural element thrown onto the façade – Flemish gables, mullioned windows, wide arches on the ground floor and red and yellow brick work. What a treat.

Turk's Head, Middlesex, an Edwardian pub

What the authors brought to public attention was that the number of pubs has halved since their late C19th glory days, when there were some 100,000. Alas just 250 have retained all their original Victorian architecture, furniture and decorative elements. And worse still, English Heritage has listed only 20-30 pubs for protection in the last decade. Since World War Two ended, period fittings have been ripped out of the traditional pub by big breweries who wanted up-market bars, with utterly impersonal interiors. The old colourful tiles, painted glass, timber panels and gilded woodwork were modernised! In a section that “England England” readers will admire, the authors noted that genuine features were discarded, only to have mock heritage reintroduced a few years later.

All readers interested in architectural and literary history will acknowledge that this is no mere drinking issue, since pubs have been woven into the fabric of some of Britain’s most loved novels – think of Dickens’ pubs. But I cannot help but wonder if today’s drinkers and socialisers care that under 4% have interiors of any historic value that are still intact.

The Princess Louise, Holborn, built in 1872 

Now I may be generalising from my own experience to that of the entire reading public, but I assume most readers do not read a textbook like a novel i.e from cover to cover. I hop and jump around the chapters, according to interest. Thus the Contents Page needs to signpost the material carefully. Alas in this book I cannot tell the difference between the chapters headed The Emergence of the Pub, Development of the Pub, and Planning of the Pub. The index was excellent, fortunately.

As a devoted pub patron but by no means a scholar of pub architecture, I loved the new material that I had never read before e.g that playing billiards in a licensed house required a separate licence for each table in 1845. Were billiard players a potentially dangerous lot? Then there was other material that I instinctively knew but was pleased to have confirmed e.g that many pubs had a club room, usually situated on the first floor. The pub functioned as the social centre of a community, before WW1. Finally there were familiar paintings, drawing and literary quotes that I was very familiar with e.g Pepys and Hogarth.

Licensed to Sell – The History and Heritage of the Public House by Geoff Brandwood, Andrew Davison and Michael Slaughter. It was published by English Heritage in 2011. Many thanks to Inbooks of Brookvale NSW for the copy.

It would be fascinating to follow this book up with The English Alehouse: A Social History 1200-1830 by Peter Clark. They do not cover the same eras, but drinking is drinking. And for blog readers, a swift one... focuses largely on breweries, pubs, clubs and festivals of Yorkshire. Tired of London, Tired of Life is also excellent. He recommends at the Half Moon Herne Hill, built  in 1896 and designed by architect J. W. Brooker. This beautiful Grade II listed pub still has its attractive interior intact.

Werribee Mansion 1874-77, Victorian elegance near Melbourne

Thomas Chirnside (1815-87) and his brother Andrew (1818-90) were born in East Lothian Scotland, sons of a farming family.

Thomas Chirnside arrived in Australia in 1838, with his Bible and some savings. He bought sheep on the Murrumbidgee, but moved on to Melbourne where he joined Andrew who arrived in 1839. Together they moved between the colonies but by 1842 they had returned to Victoria.

Just before the Gold Rushes started in 1851, the brothers began acquiring land at Werribee in outer Melbourne. There Thomas settled, gaining a freehold of 80,000 acres. Andrew settled on 50,000 acres near Skipton; he also owned a 38,900 acre Mt Elephant station. This family was doing very well! Along the way, Andrew had gained a wife Mary (née Begbie) and six children.

Italianate taste, complete with loggias, balconies with balustrading and a symmetrical pyramidal composition

Andrew wanted his wife and children to live in a very special home. In conjunction with his brother, he set about building an elaborate 60-room Italianate style home at their Werribee Park property, 20 ks outside Melbourne. Using the finest materials and expertise, the home was built in three years.

A number of architects’ names have been associated with the design, including London trained James Henry Fox and Scottish trained James Gall, but no-one seems to know for sure. This is bizarre! Of course I realise that documents can be destroyed over the decades, but surely Werribee Mansion was important enough for researchers to find some original architectural information. Or perhaps the older family members might know.

Completed in 1877, the bluestone house, faced on three sides with sandstone, featured a classical revival style called Italianate. You can easily see the loggias, balconies with Renaissance balustrading and the distinctive symmetrical pyramidal composition. All rather restrained.

The house had 60 rooms in several wings, and the interior was not at all restrained. The drawing room featured a fine cut-glass chandelier, ebony-and-gilt cabinets, an ottoman and attractive carpeting. There is a handsome staircase with rococo statues holding up lamps, a billiard room with a panelled ceiling and carvings, a marble-paved conservatory featuring a fine plastered ceiling and etched-glass windows, a library, bedrooms, dining room and morning room. The main hall has a particularly classical look with mosaic floor, Corinthian columns and gold-leaf.

From 1877 on, this grand landscaped estate was the centre of social life for the family; they hosted sporting events, hunts, balls, vice-regal visits and military displays.

Entrance (left) and stair case (right)

 
Most of the Chirnsides' furniture was made in Edinburgh and shipped in 58 crates. While on holiday London in 1881, Thomas Chirnside also acquired a collection of 73 paintings by contemporary artists and Old Masters. Today many rooms retain the Chirnside's original furnishings and lavish decoration of the Victorian period; in fact a third of the original Chirnside items brought from Scotland are in their rightful place. Thomas continued to live at his nearby property in Point Cook until his last few years, when he joined Andrew and Mary in the Werribee home.

The gardens and impressive views were integral parts of Werribee Mansion. The house was surrounded by 10 hectares of formal gardens which displayed a geometric parterre, pond, grotto, glasshouses and open space parkland. Possibly the garden designer responsible for Werribee was William Guilfoyle (1840–1912), curator of the famous Melbourne Botanic Gardens.

Main hall (left) and upstairs gallery (right)

Thomas died in 1887, Andrew passed away three years later, in 1890 and Mary died in 1908. Andrew and Mary were survived by four sons and two daughters. The sons subsequently divided the estate but kept the core part, the house and surrounds, for themselves. In 1921 son George sold the family’s last holding in Werribee Park.

Corpus Christi College opened in Werribee Park in 1923, and operated there for 50 years. This Catholic seminary was a training ground for young men entering the priesthood in the Dioceses of Melbourne, Ballarat, Bendigo and Hobart. During its time at Werribee Park, the Catholic Church added several wings to the original Chirnsides' home.

The Victorian Government acquired Werribee Park from the Catholic Church in 1973 and started restoring the man­sion and remaining 400 hectares of land to their former glory. The original house and gardens were eventually listed for Heritage protection, but the later seminary additions were excluded from the classification.

a small section of Werribee Mansion gardens

Cathedral Synagogues: the Birmingham example

There has been a Jewish community in Birmingham since at least the late C18th. Small at first, by 1791 there was already a prayer-room set aside in a private house near today's New Street Station. Next there was a small purpose-built synagogue built in Hurst St, but today nothing remains of it.

The community grew during the C19th and by 1851 the population was over 700. The modestly-located Severn St Synagogue was built in the Greek Revival style in 1827; it now serves as a Masonic Tem­ple. By 1900 the population reached 3,200 and a Jewish area developed around Hurst St and Holloway Head where many historic Jewish buildings can still be seen.

*

The original and rather "hidden" Severn St Synagogue

In Britain, according to Sharman Kaddish, life was reasonable for Jews. But land acquired for synagogues or for burial of their dead tended to be leasehold. As foreigners, they could not own freehold land. Synagogues, like non-conformist chapels and Catholic churches, tended to be found off the public thoroughfare, tucked up alleyways. This included the very elegant Bevis Marks Synagogue which was built in London between 1699-1701! Synagogues of the Georgian and Regency periods largely followed this model of modesty. Surviving examples include Exeter (1763-4), Ramsgate (1831-3) and Cheltenham (1837-9), all Grade II Listed buildings.

The so-called cathedral or choral synagogue tended to emerge in the emancipation era of the C19th, when Jews in Europe burst out of the ghetto and moved up the social scale. The development of the cathedral synagogue was thus rooted in a particular historical era. In France, after the Revolution of 1789 and more irregularly in Germany during the C19th, the acquisition of civil and political rights led to the emergence of the Jewish community into the modern world.

Britain was at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution and, by the mid-Victorian period, Jewish entrepreneurs were contributing to the development of Britain's growing industrial cities: London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow. Successful Jewish communities made themselves visible.

Singers Hill Synagogue, out and proud

Their newly acquired confidence found expression in the construction of large-scale synagogues on public streets. These were prestige buildings, conceived in the grand manner, as symbols of the Jewish presence in the city. In 1856, the Birmingham congregation sold Severn St Synagogue, and moved up the hill to the lovely surroundings of Singers Hill Synagogue. The timing was perfect - this Birmingham Synagogue was one of the first cathedral synagogues to be erected in Britain.

The architect was Henry Yeoville Thomason (1826-1901) who was a fan of Italian Renaissance architecture. Externally the architecture featured a portico with a rose window to the entrance gable, flanked by to projecting wings to form the entrance courtyard. Note the confident red and yellow brick surface.

Inside the building combined the Romanesque and Neoclassical styles with Italianate detailing, based on the classic Basilica plan. The mahogany central reading desk and mahogany ark were clearly visible to all the congregants since natural light streamed in over the clerestory. The original cast and gilded gas chandeliers were a delight, hanging between the beautifully gilded capitals of the classical columns. The excellent stained glass, however, was newer (c1922).

women's gallery, Singers Hill Synagogue

In this photo of the women’s gallery, the modern viewer can appreciate the rose window, the stained glass windows along both sides and the gas chandeliers.

Shortly after it was finished in 1856, the synagogue was described in the local press as ‘a glory to the community and an ornament to the town’. A letter written at the time of the opening of the synagogue described the splendid consecration ceremony.

The synagogue itself had seating for 1000. But other facilities were needed since the Jewish population was rising. Schoolrooms were built at the rear of the site in Ellis St for the 350 pupils of the Birmingham Hebrew Schools which operated from 1856 until the 1930s. The school building is now the communal hall. Two houses for the resident ministers were included in the complex, the whole forming three sides of a quadrangle around a courtyard.

In the 1990s, an English Heritage grant helped fund repairs to the major architectural structure and the congregation's own fundraising efforts paid for the smaller repairs to stonework and windows.

Singers Hill Synagogue has recently been awarded the title of 'most improved Place of Worship in the West Midlands' by English Heritage. An English Heritage report, looking at the condition of religious buildings, had found that 200 West Midlands places of worship needed urgent and major repairs. The report highlighted Singers Hill Synagogue as a place that was previously vulnerable but now restored, and definitely not at risk any longer. Nonetheless an architect  has now been made responsible for improvements to the building's structure.

main entrance of Singers Hill Synagogue

Singers Hill Synagogue has played an important part of the life of Birmingham Jewry over the last 150 years. Even when movements of Jewish population within Birmingham resulted in new synagogues and homes for the elderly elsewhere in town, Singers Hill remained an important hub. The community didn't peak until the inter-war years (at 10,000) but then in the post-war era, numbers declined to 3,000. Many locals moved to Bitish cities with larger Jewish communities or emigrated to Israel or Australia.

An excellent read is The 'Cathedral Synagogues' of England by Sharman Kadish, published in Jewish Historical Studies, volume 39, 2004.



Stunning jade art; stunning prices

I know a great deal about European art but I am not at all familiar with Chinese art objects. Nonetheless I was impressed with the report from Woolley and Wallis fine art auctioneers, Salisbury. A Chinese Imperial white jade carving of a recumbent deer sold in Nov 2010 for £3.8 million (USA $6 million or AUS $5.4 million). Created in the 1735-1796 reign of Emperor Qianlong, the deer was part of four Imperial Chinese jade carvings from Crichel House in Dorset. These carvings had been exhibited in a London gallery as part of Asian Art London during the week before the sale.

Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury also auctioned an imperial ghanta/ritual bell that sold for £2.4 million. The Buddhist ghanta, exquisitely crafted in white jade, represented the female aspect of wisdom and ranked among the most important symbols in Tibetan Buddhism. Furthermore jade was believed to ward off evil spirits. So items like this were very welcome as a wedding present, but I wonder how many proud parents could afford such gifts.

white Chinese jade deer, 21 cm long
Qianlong reign

sold for £3.8 million in Nov 2010

Woolley & Wallis, Salisbury

From the Kingdom of Khotan, on the southern leg of the Silk Road, yearly tribute payments consisting of the most precious white jade were made to the Chinese Imperial court, and from there it was worked into art objects by skilled artisans. Clearly jade was more valuable than the precious metals that the West was passionate about (gold and silver), explaining why jade came to be thought of the imperial gem. If that was the case in the 18th century, it is not surprising that jade would have been used the imperial family for the finest objects and cult figures.

And what an imperial family it was. Emperor Qianlong was the sixth ruler of the Qing dynasty and enjoyed the longest reign period in all of Chinese history - 61 years. Even in 1796, at the grand old age of 85, he had to be pushed into abdicating the throne on behalf of his son. Historians seem a bit rude about Emperor Qianlong, but there is general agreement that he was truly an important patron of the arts. More than any other Manchu emperor, Qianlong seemed to spend a great deal of money and time on expanding the imperial collection.

Why was a mythical deer chosen and what, if anything, was the symbolic value of this beautiful creature? The closest I could find is that a mythical horned Chinese deer-like creature is said to arrive only when a sage has appeared. Thus it is a good omen associated with serenity, prosperity and long life.

The auctioneers at Woolley and Wallis explained that prices had risen tenfold over the last four years because of the recent increase in Chinese buying power. So the would-be collector today is advised to examine the jade very carefully for its density and translucency, for its tactile and visual aspects. Quality is clearly more important than colour or size. A world's record for white jade was set in 2010 when an imperial white jade seal from the Qianlong period which sold for USA $15.6 million – it must have been very high quality jade indeed.

A seal personally commissioned and used by Emperor Qianlong sold for £2.7 million at Bonhams Sale of Fine Chinese Art in Nov 2010.  Seals were used to print stamps that were used in lieu of signatures. Often in jade, ivory or precious hardwood, each seal was used on personal or public documents and contracts that required formal acknowledgment. This particular seal, with its inscription Self-Strengthening Never Ceases, has been linked to the Emperor's 80th birthday celebration, so it was extremely imperial. Of even more interest to historians was the fact that the seal had been based at the Yan chunge Pavilion in the Forbidden City during its use by the Qianlong Emperor.

small jade seal, 4cm square
Qianlong reign

sold for £2.7 million

Bonham’s Auction of Fine Chinese Art London,  Nov 2010

Country Life magazine (8th June 2011) noted that during this May, at least nine English salerooms held sales of Far Eastern works of art, often achieving prices well above the estimates. How long, they ask, before the deep well of British Far Eastern material runs dry? 

In the meantime, Country Life was very impressed with a yellow jade ruyi/septre acquired by a British officer in Beijing in 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion. Made in the palace workshops during the Qianlong era, it was sold by Bonhams for £1.3 million inclusive. Carved from a semi-opaque pale greenish stone with a few pale brown inclusions, the upper side of the shaft had two crisp shallow relief cartouches of archaistic C-scrolls. The surface was lustrous, a double red silk thread tassel suspended from the end of the shaft.

jade septre, 37cm long

Qianlong reign

sold for £1.3 million

Bonham’s Auction of Fine Chinese Art London, May 2011

Despite the belief that quality was more important than colour, I wondered if white jade was more treasured than green or yellow jade. Bonhams noted that the popularity of yellow jade was well documented as early as the Ming Dynasty. The number of Imperial vessels and decorative items worked from this sought-after colour in the court collections suggested its popularity within the Qing court, particularly under the Qianlong Emperor.

Readers might like to pursue the topic of imperial jade art objects in a book written by Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy in 2002. The Stone of Heaven: Unearthing the Secret History of Imperial Green Jade’s story began in 1735, when jade-obsessed Chinese emperor Qianlong tried to extend China's reach into present-day Burma, reputed to contain the world's finest jade. Or read Christopher Proudlove's article, "Chinese jade: the collectors' market", in The World of Antiques & Art, Issue 80, Feb-Aug 2011. 

jade bell, 18cm high

18th century

sold for £2.4 million

Woolley & Wallis Auctions, May 2010

Thomas Cook, inventor of the package tour.

We know that during the C18th, only privileged young Europeans could fill their time between university education and career with an extended tour of Italy. Only the upper class had the time and the money to travel, and the classical education to interest them in Italy.

But by the early C19th the industrial revolution created a new market for travel: improved roads dramatically shortened journey times; industrial expansion generated greater wealth in the cities (not for everyone); and a limited working week brought with it the concept of leisure. Steam-driven vessels began to link Dover and Calais in 1821, and by 1840 an estimated 100,000 travellers were using them annually. In the same year the steamship Britannia crossed the Atlantic in 14 days. Steamers started to ply the Rhine in 1828, the Rhone and the Danube a few years later. And the spread of railway systems speeded up, democratised and extended the range of travel.

Cook's Excursionist poster

Thomas Cook (1808–92) was born in Melbourne Derbyshire. Brought up as a strict Baptist, Thomas joined the local Temperance Society at 17. Over the next few years he spent his spare-time preaching, campaigning against the demon alcohol and publishing Baptist and Temperance pamphlets. In 1833 Thomas married Marianne Mason and had a son.

In 1841 while walking to Leicester, Thomas decided to arrange a rail excursion from Leicester to a Temperance Society meeting on the newly extended Midland Railway. So he chartered a special train and charged his 570 customers 1 shilling, to cover the costs of transport and food. They travelled in open tub-type carriages, walked into the town centre, and enjoyed tea and games in the town's park.

Although his profit margins were small, the venture organising cheap train travel for working families was a great success and Cook decided to start his own business running rail excursions. Within 3 years of that historic 1841 temperance trip, Midland Counties Railway Company had a permanent arrangement with Cook who had to find sufficient passengers to fill the train.

In 1846 he took 500 people from Leicester on a tour of Scotland. They each paid a guinea to travel by train & steamer to Glasgow and Edinburgh, where they had vouchers for their hotels and were greeted with brass bands and cannons firing. Cook found many opportunities for people to uplift themselves culturally and morally via excursions to other places. Another of his greatest achievements was to arrange for 165,000+ people to attend the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park.

He soon went up-market and by 1865 was escorting to Italy “clergymen, physicians, bankers, civil engineers and merchants.” So up-market that in 1865 Cook moved his business to London. His son John managed the London office of the company that became known as Thomas Cook & Son. They organised personally conducted tours throughout Europe and procured hotels for tourists making independent trips.

Naturally Cook and his excursionists were attacked by traditionalists as “hurried observers, visible representatives of a modernity that was bringing intrusive crowds into formerly self-sufficient villages, towns and regions.” Times were changing. The new tourists, those “red-nosed people carrying red books [Murrays] in their hands”, were by virtue of travelling in a certain organised way, “incapable of the appropriate aesthetic response to the places they visited. They profaned the very sanctity of the monuments they visited”. Speed was seen as nasty.

Tour books included images of the sites the tourists would visit eg sphinx

International success happened when they arranged tours to Egypt. The Suez canal, which opened in 1869, was the door to the Empire of the East, and became a turning-point for Cook tourism. Egypt became a favoured winter holiday destination for wealthy travellers. This was due to the improvements in transportation AND to the status of Egypt as a British protectorate. During the fashionable winter season, Cairo was the playground of all cosmopolitan Europeans, as well as the new middle class tourists who were eager to participate.

By 1880 the Egyptian Government was so pleased with the Cooks’ operation that they granted them exclusive control over all passenger steamers on the Nile. In return, the Cooks undertook in 1870 to invest large sums of money in rented steamers, owned by the Ottoman sultan’s viceroy, and to manage the service.

By the 1870s Cook's Tours offered hugely successful trips to all parts of the world, opening up the Grand Tour to the middle classes. By 1872 Thomas Cook & Son was able to offer a 212 day Round the World Tour for 200 guineas. The journey included a steamship across the Atlantic, stage coach across the USA to the westcoast, paddle steamer to Japan and an overland trip across China and India. Posters and advertisements depicted the more exciting places that the tour would visit eg Cook’s Excursionist and Home and Foreign Tourist Advertiser. Guide books were sold in their shops, chockablock with details about booking, transport, hotels, tourist sites, health care, diet, dress and financial arrangements. Most travel needs could be found as well.

British tourists visiting Giza

By the time Ottoman power was coming to an end, Turkey was seen as exotic and artistic. Certainly Istanbul was becoming an important destination in the 1860s and 70s, but it boomed once the Oriental Express went on its maiden voyage in 1883. The return trip was of course fearfully expensive, but it was so famous and luxurious that there was always a long waiting list for tickets.

Thomas Cook retired in 1879. While Thomas had maintained the grand view, John was innovative and  understood that no detail was too small in the travel industry. At a time when popular tourism had been frowned upon, Thomas had struggled to make it acceptable, while John (after 1865) strove to make it respectable. They had succeeded in making travel easier, cheaper and safer for millions of people via what we would now call The Package Tour.

There was no problem in changing the management over to John Mason Cook and HIS sons. John had an ability to organise on a large scale, so he set about transforming his father’s business into a global name. Thomas died in 1892, his legacy for travel around the world assured.

Thomas Cook building in Leicester, built in 1894

There are several memorials still standing. Melbourne Derbyshire has the Memorial Cottages which were built in 1890-1 by the Cooks. They include 14 cottages, bake house, laundry and Mission Hall, and still provide accommodation for some of Melbourne's senior citizens. Thomas' birthplace in Quick Close Melbourne was demolished in 1968. In Leicester, Cook’s other house still stands, as does his statute outside Leicester rail station.

Built as a memorial to The Man himself, the 3-storey Thomas Cook Building in Leicester (photo above) was designed by Joseph Goddard with carved archways that are separated by small stone balconies and columns. The four stone friezes depict four of Cook's significant trips between 1841-91.

statue of Thomas Cook, by James Walter Butler, outside Leicester Railway Station

Karl Duldig: Mitteleuropa in Australia

In earlier blogs, I was very impressed with the enormous contribution middle Europeans made to the art scene in Australia, starting in the 1930s and continuing throughout the 1940s and 50s. A few examples will do. Yosl Bergner left Vienna and Warsaw in the late 1930s; Wolfgang Sievers (1913-2007) left Germany in 1938; Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack fled from Berlin to Britain in 1938 but was deported to Australia as an enemy alien in 1940; and Mark Strizic (b1928) left Germany via Croatia in 1950.

In pursuing the story of Karl Duldig, three coincidences occurred. Firstly one of my four grandparents and Slawa Duldig's father were both called Horowitz. Secondly on the very day I started at Mount Scopus College in 1960, I met Eva Duldig who became my teacher. Thirdly this week I heard a symposium paper* on Karl Duldig, as planned, and found the book The Duldig Studio: A History by Helen Kiddell, totally unplanned.

Kunstgewerbeschule/University of Applied Arts taught by Anton Hanak, 1921-5.

Karl Duldig (1902-1986) was born in the Polish part of the old Austrian Empire. In 1914 the family moved to Vienna, where he discovered his interest in sculpture, leading to study at the Kunstgewerbeschule (1921-25) under Anton Hanak. Duldig acknowledged Hanak’s teachings in Crouching Figure 1923, a work carved from soapstone with a knife, rather than the traditional hammer and chisels used for harder materials like marble. Duldig had followed Anton Hanak’s method of carving directly into the stone, without preliminary drawings or models.

Crouching Figure, 1923, sandstone

Later he continued studying at the Akademie der Bildenen Künste (1925-29). In 1931 in Vienna Duldig married fellow student Slawa Horowitz (1902-75), herself an artist. Sigmund Jaray, a distinguished Austrian firm of furniture designers and craftsmen, was commissioned by Slawa to design the furniture for the flat she and Karl had set up in Engzingergasse Vienna.

Their daughter Eva was born shortly before the 1938 anschluss when German troops entered Austria. At that very moment, Duldig was sending his sculptures to a Paris exhibition. Unbelievably Karl's artworks lay hidden throughout the war, in the cellar beneath the Laisnés’ apartment building (Slawa's sister and brother in law). Like others in 1938 and 1939, the very Jewish Duldigs had to hand their surviving assets over to Nazis and flee, as quickly as possible. Karl and Slawa moved to Switzerland, then Singapore in May 1939 and finally Australia. Slawa's sister Aurelie Laisné survived the Holocaust by living in Paris.

Mother and Child, 1942, now in bronze

The move to Australia was not exactly voluntary; in Sep 1940 the family was deported from Singapore as enemy aliens and interned at Tatura camp in rural Victoria. Mother and Child 1942 was carved from potatoes with a pocket knife while Karl Duldig was on kitchen duty in the 2nd AIF 8th Employment Company. He cast them into plaster and they were later cast in bronze at a foundry by The Duldig Studio.

Released in April 1942 to enlist in the Militia, the family eventually settled in their favoured urban environment and formally became Australian citizens after the war. Karl was appointed art master (1945-67) at a prestigious grammar school in Melbourne, while simultaneously establishing a small ceramics business with Slawa. He exhibited regularly with the Victorian Sculptors’ Society and in the all-important Adelaide Festival of Arts (from 1960).

Commissioned glazed ceramic relief murals were a second string to his art bow. Karl made a special contribution to contemporary taste in Melbourne with modernist statements like the Progress of Man mural St Kilda Road 1960, and the Kadimah relief Elsternwick 1972.

Karl Duldig in his Melbourne studio, now a museum

Among the generation of talented European-trained sculptors who found themselves living 12,000 ks from home and speaking little English, Duldig had to help define the place of sculptural practice in Australian culture. He was very supportive of younger artists and became foundation president (1962) of the Ben Uri Society for the Arts, later called the Bezalel Fellowship of Arts. He was president (1977) of the Association of Sculptors of Victoria.

His last and most poignant work was the Raoul Wallenberg monument (1985) at Kew Junction.

In 1977, some of Slawa’s sculptures were included in a retrospective exhibition of her work at the McClelland Gallery in Langwarrin. Her work also appeared in the major exhibition, Vienna and the Early 20th Century, held at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1990.

Before Karl died in 1986, he and his daughter had already discussed what would happen to the house and collection going into the future. In 1996, the The Duldig Studio opened to the public - the residence, sculpture garden and art studio. The house museum in Malvern East holds an extensive collection of sculptures in terracotta, marble and bronze, paintings, drawings and decorative arts presented in the artists` original home setting.

Their custom-designed Viennese furniture, as seen in the photo below, as well as the prototypes of the first foldable umbrella invented by Slawa in 1929, are in the house-museum. Duldig’s work is also represented in the National Gallery of Victoria, and since 1986, the National Gallery of Victoria has held an annual lecture on sculpture in his name.

Sigmund Jaray Furniture, 1930 in the collection of The Duldig Studio

During 2003, a major programme called Karl Duldig Sculptures and Drawings celebrated the centenary of the artist’s birth. The exhibition featured 80 works from the museum’s permanent collection and travelled to the cities of Vienna, Krakow etc. The Viennese-Melbourne sculpture had “gone home”.

*Alison Inglis' paper was called Karl Duldig and Vienna. The Vienna Art and Design symposium was held at the National Gallery of Victoria in August 2011. Inglis showed that Karl's experience as an art student and his work in Vienna before 1939 were replete with Secessionist and Workshop values. Presumably the furniture in the Duldig home in Melbourne also provided a strong link to Viennese cultural history.

modernism at The Festival of Britain 1951-2011

I was too young in 1951 to worry about anything more pressing than jacks and hoola hoops, so I an grateful for the history re-presented in Susan Gilchrist: Festival of Britain 60th Anniversary Exhibition.

The Festival of Britain was a celebration that was held on the South Bank of the River Thames in London from May to Sept 1951. The date was special since the Festival celebrated the centenary of the first ever World Exhibition, held in magnificent Crystal Palace back in 1851.

Transport Pavilion, Festival of Britain

Just a few years after WW2 ended, Britain still laboured under a huge war debt and war-time rationing was still in force. This festival was a concerted attempt to lift the spirits of the nation; it was to be "a tonic for the nation".

But more than that. Much of London was still in ruins from the bombs and redevelopment was badly needed. So the Festival was particularly focused on promoting better-quality design in the post-war rebuilding of British cities.

Construction of the South Bank site opened up a new public space, including a riverside walk, which had been previously been filled with warehouses and pretty tatty housing. I don’t suppose all families were delighted to see their housing go, tatty or otherwise. And opposition to the project came from people who believed that the £8 million should have been spent on housing.

The official opening was in May 1951. The principal exhibition site was on the south bank of the Thames near Waterloo Station. Other exhibitions were held in Poplar East London (Architecture), Battersea Park (Festival Gardens), South Kensington (Science) and Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall (Industrial Power) as well as travelling exhibitions. Outside London, major festival activities took place in widely spread cities like Cardiff, Bournemouth, York and Inverness. The Festival ship HMS Campania took a travelling version of the South Bank exhibition to several ports, including Dundee, Newcastle, Plymouth, Bristol, Belfast and Glasgow. Red double decker buses, filled with festival exhibition spaces, toured Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and France.

So how utopian was The Festival? The layout of the South Bank site was intended by the organisers to showcase the principles of urban design that might predict the post-war rebuilding of London and the creation of the new towns. These included multiple levels of buildings, elevated walkways and avoidance of a street grid. Most of the South Bank buildings were International Modernist in style, rather unusual in pre-1939 Britain.

Dome of Discovery, Festival of Britain

The Dome of Discovery was then the largest dome in the world. It was constructed from concrete and aluminium in a modernist style and housed many of the festival attractions i.e exhibitions on the theme of discovery — the Living World, Polar, the Sea, the Earth, the Physical World, the Land, Sky and Outer Space.

Skylon, Festival of Britain

The Skylon was an unusual steel tower supported by cables that became the centrepiece and lasting symbol of the Festival of Britain; it stood on London's South Bank between Westminster Bridge and Hungerford Bridge. The 90 ms high Skylon was built of a steel lattice work frame, pointed at both ends and supported on cables slung between 3 steel beams. Even better, the aluminium louvres over the frames were lit up from within at night.

Royal Festival Hall had initially been launched by the Prime Minister Clement Attlee in 1949, on the site of the C19th Lion Brewery building. Built for the London County Council by architect Leslie Martin, Royal Festival Hall visitors were awestruck by the separation of the curved auditorium space from the surrounding building. The building was officially opened in May 1951. The inaugural concerts were conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent and Sir Adrian Boult.

The arts were important, especially sculptures from Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Jacob Epstein. And their pieces were spread around, placed on prominent areas around the Southbank. An exhibition of sculptures was specifically organised by the Arts Council in Battersea Park. And there were two exhibitions at the Whitechapel Art Gallery as part of the Festival Programme: a display on the History of East London and a separate display of craft and popular art forms.

How popular was the Festival? 18 million people visited the 2,000 local events that together made up the Festival of Britain. 55 principal events took place all over the UK, mainly exhibitions and arts festivals. In the five months from May to September, people paid millions of pounds to see the events, making very nice profits for the nation. Profits from the Festival were retained by the London County Council and were used to convert the Royal Festival Hall into a concert hall and to establish The South Bank.

As with many world fairs from 1851 on, The Festival of Britain facilities might well have been pulled down. But when Winston Churchill became prime minister once again in October 1951, he expressed his loathing for the Festival in general and the modernist, so-called socialist architecture in particular. He made it the first act of his newly-elected government in Oct 1951 to clear the South Bank site. Skylon was toppled into the Thames and cut into pieces, on Churchill’s specific orders. The Dome of Discover, which had became such an iconic structure for the public, was demolished and its materials sold as scrap.

So apart from the Royal Festival Hall, the built architecture of the South Bank was destroyed immediately after the events. The cleared site is now the location of the Jubilee Gardens, near the London Eye. Luckily in 1988 Festival Hall was designated a Grade I listed building, the first post-war building to become so protected.

The Festival of Britain created a new audience for architectural modernism. The architects did indeed show, by their design and layout of the South Bank Festival, how modern town planning ideas could be implemented. So it was appropriate that a number of modernist buildings on the main South Bank site became iconic symbols of The Festival. One historian noted that the Festival Style of local modernism did have an impact architecture and interior design in the 1950s, especially in the office blocks and cafes of the New Towns.

Right now (April-Sept 2011) the Southbank Centre London is celebrating the 60th anniversary of The 1951 Festival of Britain. The Royal Festival Hall houses the Museum of 1951, a temporary exhibit featuring memorabilia, artworks, personal histories, models, memories and photographs. Taking pride of place at the festival is John Piper’s mural The Englishman’s Home, a 50’ long celebration of English architecture and one of the only surviving artworks from the 1951 nation-wide festivities.

original designs by Robin and Lucienne Day, displayed in Chichester in 2011
 
One decorative arts exhibition was held in Pallant House Gallery, Chichester during the first half of 2011. Robin and Lucienne Day: Design and the Modern Interior, consisted of three rooms of Lucienne’s textiles and Robin’s furniture, arranged chronologically and starting with the 1951 Festival of Britain which launched their careers. Believing in the transformative power of modern design to make the world a better place, Robin had designed furniture for the Royal Festival Hall, and had displayed his steel and plywood furniture in the Homes and Gardens Pavilion, along with Lucienne’s textiles.

Being a post-WW2 baby myself, the 1950s was my least favourite design era ever, but I very glad Pallant House Gallery displayed the Days’ important work.

Vanessa Bell: a Bloomsbury exhibition in Brighton

Bloomsbury foundation member Vanessa Stephen (1879-1961) married Clive Bell (1881-1964) in 1907 and they had two sons, Julian and Quentin. In 1918 Vanessa had a daughter, Angelica, who Clive raised as his own.

Bell's portrait of Virginia Woolf, 1912, Nat Portrait Gall London

Vanessa's work began to appear in exhibits at the New English Art Club during mid 1909 eg Iceland Poppies 1908, full of quiet, restrained naturalism. And see a portrait of her sister Virginia Woolf 1912 (above). The colours were lovely, the brushstrokes were confident and the character of her sister was evident.

As a recognised interior designer, Vanessa exhibited regularly with the London Artist's Association and the London Group. She worked on many decorative schemes, including one project for HMS Queen Mary. Her decorative work was described as simple and colourful. This is evident in many book-jackets that she designed for the Hogarth Press.

Charleston in Sussex

Vanessa and Clive had an open marriage, both taking lovers throughout their lives. Vanessa, Clive, Duncan Grant (1885-1978) and Duncan's lover David Garnett moved to the Sussex countryside shortly before the outbreak of WW1, and settled at Charleston Farmhouse near Lewes in East Sussex. Vanessa’s relationship with her husband Clive remained warm, even when Vanessa fell in love with Duncan Grant in 1913 and decided to live permanently with him. Vanessa and Clive continued to work in the same studios, helping each other out with work.

The Omega Workshops opened in 1913 by fellow Bloomsberry Roger Fry and were established through donations from famous figures of the London arts scene. In addition to offering a wide range of painted furniture, murals, mosaics and stained glass, Omega Workshops Ltd took orders for interior designs. Fry invited Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell to join him as co-directors, and the three of them were the most prolific artists of the Workshops. Omega-designed textiles became very popular.

Photo of the drawing room and its painted decorations

Bell painting, Charleston Drawing Room, c1945, 61 x 51 cm 

If we wanted to see how the Bloomsbury artists rejected the traditional distinction between fine and decorative art, we need look no further than Charleston Farmhouse. Through the years that they lived at Charleston, the home became filled with works of art from Vanessa, Duncan and Clive. Their art was not confined to canvases hanging on walls and was in fact mostly outside the frames; needle-point cushions, decorated lamp shades, books, tables, screens, trays, crockery. They adorned every surface that stood still long enough to be painted. Even the dogs hid, whenever they saw someone walking around with a paintbrush in hand!
*

Vanessa's paintings retained their traditional content eg outdoor scenes, still-lifes and domestic subjects. But with time, the colouring in her paintings became richer and more detailed with tighter brush strokes; perhaps less exotic. Her significant paintings in the inter-war era include a portrait of Aldous Huxley 1929–30 and Interior with Artist’s Daughter 1932. She was one of the major C20th contributors to British portraiture and genre art.

Photo of the studio and its painted decorations

For this post, I have largely focused on Vanessa’s paintings that depicted Charleston House’s interiors or hung on Charleston walls, as well as photos of Charleston’s interiors that included Vanessa’s (and Grant’s) hand painted surfaces. It is difficult to tell the difference. In the painting called Charleston Drawing Room c1945, for example, the chair was bought for Vanessa by her sister Virginia Woolf and the curtains were painted by Duncan Grant.

During WW2, the Charleston house escaped the German bombs. This allowed Vanessa to continue painting until she died in 1961. Eventually Duncan sold the house to the Charleston Trust, who renovated it and opened it to the public. I recommend the following book: Charleston: A Bloomsbury House and Garden, by Quentin Bell and Virginia Nicholson. Better still, visit Charleston in the heart of the South Downs. It is open to visitors for guided and for self-organised tours. Or you could read blogs with fine photos of the decorative arts that are still at Charleston, Thought Patterns and Little Augury.

Bell painting, Daughter Reading Inside, c1938

Although Duncan Grant originally received more recognition for his work, Vanessa Bell's artwork has become increasingly well known with time. A most interesting exhibition now on is called Radical Bloomsbury: The Art of Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, 1905-1925. On display until the 9th October 2011, works from both artists are compared, contrasted and integrated at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, Royal Pavilion Gardens. Otherwise visitors can see Vanessa's paintings in: Manchester City Art Gallery and the three main London galleries, the National Portrait Gallery, Courtauld Institute Art and Tate Gallery.