Czarina Catherine the Great (1729-96) in Edinburgh

Russia in the 18th century is a fascinating place to study because I am filled with admiration for their patronage, collecting and con­noisseurship. And because after Peter The Great died in 1725, Russia was led by intelligent and learned women almost cont­in­uous­ly until 1796. So the arrival of the “Catherine the Great: an Enlightened Empress” exhibition in the National Museum of Scotland could not have come at a better time. 

Sop­hia Aug­usta of Zerbst was an impoverished German princess, brought to Rus­sia by the Empress Elizabeth to be the very young bride of her nep­h­ew, Grand Duke Peter, grand­son of Peter the Great. Sophia had to change her name to Cather­ine, learn the Rus­sian lan­guage, give up Lutheranism and convert to Russian Orthodox religion, and absorb Russian court culture. The girl’s golden wedding gown and her golden coronation gown are both preserved in the Krem­lin. As is the carriage in which they drove from their wedding. But there was a great price to pay; young Catherine had to live with her moronic, drunkard and impotent husband for 18 years. 

Her marriage to Grand Duke Peter (later Czar Peter III) was never consummated; instead she had many love affairs within the arist­ocracy. Her son and heir, the fu­ture Czar Paul I, was born in 1754; the father may have been Orlov, Potemkin or perhaps the king of Po­land. 

portrait of an older Catherine the Great, 

painted by the French portraitist, Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun 

in St Petersburg 

Empress Elizabeth died in 1762. To the displeasure of the Rus­s­ian nobility, the new Czar Peter III signed a treaty with Fred­er­ick of Prussia. Then he became really stupid - in 1763, only a year after Peter III was crown­ed, he had his wife ar­r­ested. But with her court sup­p­orters, she had him arrested inst­ead; arrested and strang­led. After the coup, Catherine was clever; she never got married again. Luck­ily for her and for Russia, Cather­ine was allowed to rule in his place, despite having no claim to the throne of her own. And she ruled alone from 1763-96!

What a woman! This very German, cultured Czarina Catherine II spoke Lithu­an­ian, Russ­ian, French and German fluently, and was a great read­er of Fr­ench en­lightenment writers Rousseau, Did­erot and Volt­aire. At one stage she actually persuaded Diderot to come to the Rus­sian Court! She favourite topics were history, politics and phil­osophy, and learned a great deal about the theory of government and of comparative politics. 

Catherine the Great was an active ruler like Peter the Great, her grand-father in law. She took resp­on­­­sibility for modern­ising the armed forces. She trav­el­led all over Russia, gath­ering intelligence and learning about her subjects. She made French the court lan­guage and pr­omoted Enlight­enment ideas. She established local responsibility for hosp­itals and almshouses, and opened a national network of free primary and secondary schools for boys and girls. The judicial system was also remodelled with a new network of local courts being set up. 

Snuff box showing the monument to Peter the Great, by Falconet, 1780s

Hermitage

But for this exhibition in Scotland, it was Catherine’s patronage that was most interesting; she very much want­ed collect­ing works of art to be a national priority. Her court absorbed up to 50% of state income as ship loads of art work arr­iv­ed from her agents all over Europe. Iain Gale described how Old Master paintings, porcelain dinner services, sil­ver, gold and jewellery were delivered to the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. Libraries were filled with precious books. Rel­ig­ious icons and vestments were welcomed with passion. 

I wondered why Edinburgh, in particular, was so keen to have the Catherine exhibition. The museum made the point  that Catherine sought to surround herself with men of great ability who could help her create a modern and acculturated Russia, based on European learning. Catherine the Great was a pioneer in her approach to medicine and health care. Not only did she found Russia’s College of Medicine in 1763, but she also created the first teaching hospitals. Among the Scottish physicians at her court in Russia were Doctors John Rog­er­son, Thomas Dimsdale and Matthew Guthrie. Dr Dimsdale went on to in­oculate many members of the nobility, and ran vaccination hosp­itals set up by Catherine in Moscow and St Petersburg. Catherine also invited several foreign architects and builders to her court, including Scotsman Charles Cameron. Scottish craftsmen Adam Menelaws and William Hastie worked with Cameron in Russia, and also found patronage with the Imperial family. 

egg-shaped gold, diamonds and rock cystal snuff box 
made by by Johann Gottlieb Scharff for Peter the Great 

Hermitage 

Although the exhibition finished this month (Oct 2012), inter­ested readers can still buy the catalogue which contains both images of the objects on display, and a series of essays by Russian and British scholars. 

Portugal's gift to the world - port wine

Port wine was invented in the C17th when British merchants added brandy to the wine of the Douro region of northern Portugal, to prevent it souring and to improve the taste. The wine was called Port, after the port city of Porto.

Since Warre’s established the first British Port House in 1670, much of Portugal’s port trade has been in the hands of the British, even now. The irony of Porto's leading industry being invented, developed and made profitable by another nation was never lost on Porto's citizens.

The Don, symbol of Sandeman port and sherry,

created in 1928 by George Massiot Brown

In 1790, a century after the establishment of Warre’s British Port House, The House of Sandeman was founded by the Scotsman George Sandeman. With a substantial loan from his father, George Sandeman moved down to London and started dealing with Portuguese and Spanish wines. By 1795, he had established an agency in Cadiz (Spain), dealing with sherry wine, and in 1811 he purchased cellars in Gaia (Portugal), dealing with Porto wine.

By the late C19th brand names were quite unusual and a bit scandalous, but Sandeman wanted to give customers a guarantee of quality. So, in 1880, they became the first Porto House to export bottled and labelled wines. The first agent was appointed by 1903 and within two years, the Company began press marketing and more substantial advertising campaigns. In 1914 Sandeman announced a list of their appointed agents in The Times, a list that included Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Stockholm, New York, Montreal, Sydney, Wellington, Johannesburg and Tientsin.

Sandeman’s famous trademark “The Don” was painted by another Scotsman George Massiot Brown in 1928. This artist was working for the Lochend Printing and approached Sandeman for business. Sandeman requested some designs for posters, and voila!.. the Don was born. The mysterious Don, in his black cape, wide-brimmed black hat and glass of port in hand, was based on the typical Portuguese student’s black cape and a Spanish Caballero hat. This trademark has won recognition internationally for the Sandeman brand, a dramatic figure with his glass of ruby coloured Porto.

House of Sandeman, on the Douro riverbank in Gaia, Porto

George Sandeman, current Chairman of the House of Sandeman, is the 7th generation of this wine family. His great-great-grandfather married a Portuguese lady from the Morais Sarmento family, reinforcing the link with Portugal, and his father married a jerezana, from the Valdespino family, consolidating the wine link with Spain.

When in the city of Porto, tourists have three port-related tours available: a] they can travel to the 99 hectares of Quinta do Seixo vineyards in the Demarcated Douro Region, to examine grape growing and first processing; b] they can travel from the vineyards into the centre of Porto on the specialist wine boats; and/or c] they can visit The House of Sandeman in Vila Nova de Gaia, a virtual museum of wine history. And tasting.

Sandeman Port wine, ageing in oak barrels in the Gaia cellars/caves.

All of Porto's wine cellars are located right on the riverbank of Vila Nova de Gaia, with wonderful views of Porto. The 1797 architecture of the Sandeman building was probably designed by architect Joaquim da Costa Lima Sampaio, who also designed the city’s Royal Palace, but the Sandeman Company did not take possession of this lovely building until 1811.

Finish the tour with wine tasting.

The blog Edwardian Promenade has beautiful photos of Porto, in the late Victorian and Edwardian years. Since the city rests by the sea, its population was always very trade oriented, as Joe and I found. Presumably its large bourgeois class, its industrial revolution and perfect location turned the city into a very important hub in the Atlantic.

A safe haven for Jews in Tasmania, 1941-42

Critchley Parker (1911-42) was the son of a Melbourne mining magazine publisher, Frank Parker. Frank had been a very visible and public figure in his day, playing a major part in the conscription debate and election campaign of 1917. A fervent pro-conscriptionist, Frank displayed inflammatory posters in his windows and used his magazine, now the Australian Statesman and Mining Standard, to attack anti-conscriptionists and Irish Catholicism.

Rather unexpectedly Critchley Parker, a young upper middle class Anglo Saxon Christian, became a friend of the Jewish people by seeking to find a Jewish homeland in Australia. This was not as strange as it may seem.

The Kimberleys in the remote, NW corner of Australia had already been seriously considered as a possibility for a Jewish safe haven. In 1933 Dr Isaac Steinberg and his London-based Freeland League selected the Kimberleys as a place to purchase agricultural land; this was where 75,000 Jewish refugees from Europe could be reset­tled, a few years before the Holocaust even emerged. This effort became known as the Kimberley Plan and was based on the Australian governments officially-declared need to populate The North. Alas that possibility faded when the Australian Federal government later decided not to support the idea.

Critchley Parker believed a better alternative could be found in Port Davey, a rugged part of SW Tasmania. If Tasmania is the most isolated part of Australia (and the world), Port Davey is one of the most isolated parts of Tasmania. But perhaps that was the very appeal of the place to Parker.

Port Davey in the wild SW of Tasmania

Why did Critchley Parker get involved in a struggle that was not his own? Helen Light suggested three motives:
1] a genuine concern for the refugees,
2] a keen interest in Tasmania’s economic development and
3] his attachment to Caroline Isaacson, a journalist on Melbourne's most important newspaper and a Jewish activist.

In 1941 Parker finally met Dr Steinberg, the Russian politician who had initially arrived in Australia to discuss the Kimberley Plan. Together Parker and Steinberg set off to explore the area around Port Davey in Tasmania, without detailed plans but with great enthusiasm. On arrival, they approached the state premier, AG Ogilvy Robert Cosgrove (1939-47) who graciously welcomed the proposal; an official visit for Parker, Steinberg, Isaacson and a team of experts got underway.

But 1941 was not a great year for radical proposals. The war with Japan was looking hopeless and Britain, as it turned out, could not even defend Singapore. Worse still, the Americans were not likely to become involved in World War Two at that stage. Any notion of an Australian Jewish Settlement was not given high priority in late 1941.

Critchley Parker (top), Dr Isaac Steinberg (below) 

The issue for Jews was beyond desperate by 1941. The Germans were already well along the path of the total extermination of Jewish communities throughout central and eastern Europe. So in March 1942 Parker set out to survey his proposed homeland site in Tasmania’s remote and rugged south west. The area around Port Davey is some of the bleakest coastline in the world. There are still no roads, no towns, no people - just sheer peaks, gorges, wild rivers and wild weather. It was, and is a vast landscape.

On this journey, staff dropped him at the foot of Mount MacKenzie and told him to light a fire if he needed help. After two days, when the gales rolled in, Critchley returned to his tent and signalled for help. In doing so he used up all his matches. No help came. He retired to his tent, totally alone, and existed for three weeks on water and aspirin. He tragically died, but the notebooks and letters that he had in his tent survived. The documents included his hopes for Jewish settlement in the area, probably to be modelled on Russian collectivism.

Map of SW Tasmania, with Port Davey marked in red 

The only writer I can find who thought Critchley Parker’s dream to save Jewish lives was not valuable was Pip McManus. She said Parker was a wealthy eccentric with an abiding passion for the development of the Tasmanian frontier, a deluded romantic bent on fulfilling his own neo-biblical prophesies of a New Jerusalem. Parker disregarded the advice and aspirations of his colleagues and perished, as the result of his own obsessive failings. She saw Parker’s plans to create a safe homeland for his (McManus’ word) Jewish refugees, devoid of conservationist values, as more suited to a script from a reality TV survivor programme. The plans were doomed, as indeed were contemporary Jewish attempts to peacefully settle the Holy Land. Tasmania and Israel were both Unpromised Lands.

Other Christian Australians, if they know the story of Parker at all, read it as a brave but hopelessly romantic Australian explorer who died tragically a la Burke and Wills eg Wilson’s Blogmanac. Jewish Australians, if they know the story, see Parker as an amazing human being. He was a Christian who went to extraordinary lengths to rescue Jewish lives from the German crematoria during the worst years of WW2. The case is well argued in Philosemitism blog and in The Age's Saturday Review.

In Parker's story, Helen Light teased out all the elements of the Tasmanian story - promise of a haven, wild landscape, dream and vision, conflict between the establishment of a settlement and concomitant industry, and its inevitable impact. A great adventure and a tragic end. I would add desperate and romantic energy in the face of an impending Holocaust on one hand Vs benign neglect on the other.

It is interesting that in these hideous days of pushing asylum-seeker boats back out to sea, Tasmanian politicians proudly champion those seeking asylum in their state.

Joseph Hansom's cabs

York-born Joseph Aloysius Hansom (1803–82) became apprenticed to a local architect as soon as he could. His younger brother, Charles Francis Hansom (1817–88) also became an architect.

I was very impressed with the prolific output of Joseph Hansom. Hansom and Welch were chosen as the architects for Birmingham Town Hall. Construction began in 1832 but sadly Hansom went bankrupt during construction, having tendered too low. It eventually didn’t matter since the building was completed in 1834 and still looks terrific now, especially after its very expensive 1996 refurbishment.

Hansom tended towards the favourite taste of Victorian Catholic designers, Gothic Revival. If I had to select just one of Hansom’s many religious buildings, I would chose Plymouth Cathedral. In 1850, under Catholic emancipation, Plymouth became the centre of the archbishopric covering Cornwall, Devon and Dorset. So land was bought in town for a new cathedral in February 1856, and Joseph Hansom and Charles Hansom were the architects chosen to design the building. This time the work proceeded smoothly and the Cathedral was opened with Mass in March 1858. It served the region well, until the building was bombed in 1941.

Hansom Cab

In all, this architect designed some 200 buildings. Hansom was particularly responsible for designing schools, churches, university buildings, theological centres and libraries.

But until I read Country Life magazine (25th July 2012), it did not occur to me that this was the architect whose name went down in history, not for churches but for taxis. In December 1834 Hansom registered the design of a Patent Safety Cab, soon called the Hansom Cab.

I understand that the Hansom Cab was specifically designed to combine speed with safety, with a low centre of gravity and large wheels, both for turning around city corners with ease. But what happened in 1834 that impelled a busy architect to leave his buildings for a year or so, to focus on a technological problem outside his normal area of expertise?

Hansom's Cathedral of St Mary and St Boniface, Plymouth

His cab replaced the hackney carriage as a hire car. And with the introduction of a mechanical meter to tot up the fares, the name became taxicab. Important safety features included a suspended axle, while the larger wheels and lower position of the cab made travel more comfortable. The Hansom cab was modified, adapted and soon much loved. Being dependent on a single horse was essential, since it made the cab both lighter and cheaper to run. The cab could carry 2-3 passengers, plus a driver who sat on a seat behind the vehicle. The passengers communicated with the driver via a hatch in the hood.

To summon up a cab was simple, as Conan Doyle explained. A shout or whistle would bring one trotting up, if there was not already one at the curb. A hansom was often necessary in Dr. Watson's profession; he liked the fashionable cab-whistle many Londoners carried. One blast from such a whistle would call a four-wheeler, two a hansom. A hansom was even more necessary in Sherlock Holmes' profession, but he favoured vocally hailing cabs, as can be seen in his books. The speed with which it delivered Holmes to the scene of the crime was of course vital. Of the sixty recorded cases of Sherlock Holmes available today, nineteen contain specific references to hansom cabs.

The first Hansom Cab was seen first in London in 1835, then in other British cities, and even cities outside Britain. I love the idea that in elegant cities like St Petersburg, a York-born invention was attracting the crowds and fitting into the local cityscape. But after WW1, horse drawn cabs had had their day. The city streets were instead being used by motor vehicles.

**

Although this blog post was written months ago, its publication coincides beautifully with the filming of The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, a mystery fiction novel by the English author Fergus Hume. The story was set in Melbourne in 1886, telling of a mysterious murder involving a body discovered in a hansom cab. If you consider the title of the novel, the image on the book's front cover and the fact that the author chose my city (Melbourne), this is definitely Life copying Art.

Fergus Hume's novel, first published in 1888.

Louis Vuitton - innovative travel goods

Lovers of Louis Vuitton travel goods will remember that this remarkable man died in 1892. However the company's management passed to his son Georges who didn’t hang around idly watching the business look after itself. Within one year of taking over from dad, Georges Vuitton began a campaign to build the company into a worldwide corporation, exhibiting the company's products at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. To this day, the label is well known for its LV monogram which is featured on most products, starting with luxury trunks and leather goods.

Vuitton shoe trunk c1920, open and shut, Pullman Gallery

If we want to see how innovative and modern Georges Vuitton's designs were, examine an unusual piece of Louis Vuitton luggage that recently came onto the antiques market. A 1920 Malle Chaussures shoe trunk was being offered for sale by London's Pullman Gallery in Country Life magazine 23rd Nov 2011, at $70,000.

Jared Stern noted that the price of this very desirable collectible was high because the trunk embodied the glamour and sophistication of a more elegant era, when such items were de rigeur for wealthy travellers. Featuring the iconic LV monogram on its canvas-upholstered frame, the trunk was fully outfitted for most meticulous fashion plate. It contained compartments for 30 pairs of shoes in individual shoe boxes, with ancillary drawers and trays for a shoe-cleaning kit. Each of the padded drawers featured a leather pull tab and nameplate.

Mabel Normand's trunk with shoe shelf, 1922, Live Auctioneers.

I was wondering if a vertical trunk was a useful piece of equipment since it couldn't easily be stowed in a ship's cabin or hidden away underneath a bed. Then the blog Looking for Mabel Normand displayed Normand’s Louis Vuitton early 1920s steamer trunk that had at least one tier dedicated to shoes. This horizontal trunk was covered in Louis Vuitton’s trademark dark brown leather with gold “LV” pattern, with brass corner trims and lock. The felt-lined compartmental drawers had fabric handles.  Included inside was a pair of Normand’s black slip-on leather slippers with silver shoetrees and shoe horn. The trunk was stamped MN in black on one end, FRH – Shoe Trunk painted in red on the lid and had a White Star Line label on another end. 

Alas I didn't remember who Mabel Normand (1892–1930) was. She was an American silent film comedienne and actress. She was a popular star of Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios, co-starring in dozens of successful films with Charlie Chaplin and Fattie Arbuckle. At the height of her career in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Normand had her own movie studio and production company. In her short but fabulous career, she must have travelled in great comfort. The White Star shipping line, for example, has a record of Mabel sailing first class on the Aquitania in June 1922.

The ship Aquitania was the last-word in luxury with its Egyptian swimming pool, Elizabethan grill room, Louis XVI restaurant, Carolingian smoking room and Greek lounge. Louis Vuitton luggage would have felt right at home amongst all that luxury. But while the Pullman Gallery shoe trunk could hold 30 pairs of shoes, Mabel Normand's trunk seems as if it had dedicated space for only 6 pairs of shoes. Perhaps Hollywood stars couldn't command the same earning power back in the early 20s as they can today. In any case, how many pairs of shoes did a star need to take on a trip across the Atlantic?




 

Jewish Girona - Spain's medieval community

The Catalonian town of Girona is 103km north east of Barcelona, quite close to the French border. Although Girona now has a population of 100,000 people, its medieval antecedent was much smaller (10,000 people in the C15th, of which 1,000 were Jews).

Calle de la Forca was the centre of trade in Roman times and later became the main street of the Jewish Quarter. Today, in or near the Calle de la Forca, are:
the Cathedral,
the Museum of Jewish History,
the Museum of Art and
the Museum of City History. See the map below.

The site of the Girona Cathedral had been used by the Moors as a mosque since 717 AD, so it was only after their final expulsion that the building was entirely remodelled. Although visitors have to walk up c100 steep, hot and sweaty 17th century steps to reach the front, it is worth the climb. The renovated cathedral is an excellent example of Spanish Gothic architecture. Its 22 ms-wide interior is the second widest Gothic nave in the world, after St Peter's in Rome. Girona may have been a smallish city, but money was thrown at amazing stained glass work, and at marble for tombs of saints and church leaders.

 Courtyard of the Jewish Museum, Girona

Among the streets of the Jewish Quarter, the fit visitor can find his way among the narrow, labyrinthine lanes with stone steps. They give access to an old synag­ogue and the splendid Jewish home of the last patriarch of the Girona aljama, the kabbalist Rabbi Moshe Ben Nachman (1194–1270). The home of Rabbi Ben Nachman today is the site of the Bonastruc ça Porta Centre which was renovated and reopened in 1975 as the Museum of Jewish History.

After the appalling massacre of 1391, is not clear to me why a community would have wanted to rebuild. But rebuild they did. In 1415 the king ordered that the synagogue in Calle San Lorenzo, and the adjoining mikveh/Jewish public bath, should be given back to the surviving com­munity. In the long run, it didn’t help. 1442 the area of the Jewish quarter was reduced. In 1486 the Jews were prohibited from owning shops with windows and doors facing the main street. With the final 1492 expulsion order came for the Jews from Spain, the Girona community had dwindled away.

Lanes of the medieval Jewish quarter

The objects and images in the Museum of Jewish History are very well curated. Festivals, traditions and life styles were covered nicely, but I was personally more interested in Spanish cultural history, conversions and co-existence with the Christian majority. One room, for example, examines the hardship inflicted upon those who were persecuted at home or forced into exile. Another room has copies of the documents of expulsion. This part of the museum is all very chilling.

During August concerts are held in the museum courtyard, offering a fine musical treat for visitors. Guided tours are available in the northern summer, but note that the museum is closed every Sunday afternoon. Although I haven’t been there at dusk, the silhouettes of Girona’s Jewish Quarter is said to create a strong sense of mystery, struggle and history.

I would have liked to have seen the scattered sites of Girona’s medieval Jewish homes and community facilities, not just be shown artefacts INSIDE the museum. Of course not much remains since 1492. However on the north side of the old city is the Montjuïc/Hill of the Jews, where the Jews had their religious cemetery. A collection of med­ieval tombstones from the Jewish cemetery survived and was tran­s­fer­red to the Jewish Museum. And in the gardens of the Caserna dels Alemanys in the highest part of the city, the ruins of the Gir­on­ella Tower still stand. This was where those Jews who fled the appalling massacre of 1391 sheltered. Finally clearing away nearly 700 years of construction, one builder discovered the remains of the town’s med­ieval yeshiva/rabbinic college founded by Rabbi Moshe Ben Nachman.

Steps leading up to Girona's cathedral

I believe public baths for the Jewish community still survive, but there were no visible signs. No sign pointed out where the Jewish hospital, library, book binders or meat market had been, nor did I see where the medieval hostel for travelling family members or people on business once stood.

One place well worth seeing is located on the site of a former Capuchin convent. The City History Museum reserves a special corner of the long history of the city of Girona for the Jewish people. A visit to the exhibition rooms shows visitors the Roman Circus Mosaic, amongst other fascinating exhibits. The area was the home, for at least six centuries, to an educated Jewish community.

Map of Girona by Planetware. 
Note how the museums cluster around Calle de la Forca and the cathedral.

Duchess of Norfolk's toilet set: 1708

The Shireburnes were an extremely successful and well connected fam­ily in Lancashire. Richard Shireburne, who fought the Scots and was knighted, married at 15 and was friendly with Henry Vlll, Edward Vl, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. Despite remaining a Catholic after the conversion of the nation to Anglicanism, Shireburne was a Member of Parliament and rebuilt Stonyhurst in Lancashire on a Grand Scale, holding it for an impressive 57 years. He was succeeded by another Richard Shireburne who, amongst his other roles, governed the Isle of Man. 

But later generations of Shireburnes were less fortunate. Re­cusancy was the state of those who refused to attend Anglican ser­vic­es, so although the family was rich, they still faced the possibility of fines and property confiscation. Or worse. The Last of the Shireburnes: the art of death and life in Recusant Lancashire, 1660-1754 tells that, somehow, successive Shireburne lords of Stonyhurst grew in self-confidence and created substantial networks of kinship, power and patronage from their Northern stronghold.

The family dominated the land­scape and local politics of N.E Lanc­ash­ire for more than a century, through their lavish building projects and increasing adher­ence to Catholicism. Defying notions of Catholic reticence and poverty, by the early 1680s the family already achieved an impressive local accumulation of estates in Lancashire, Northum­berland, Yorkshire, Isle of Man, Bloomsbury and Preston. Sir Nicholas Shireburne (1658-1717) imported paintings, furniture and carvings from South and East Asia, and amassed a large personal library.

Tragedy didn’t strike until 1702 when the last male child in the family died and the direct male blood line of the Shireburne family ended. How important was it therefore that Sir Nicholas Shireburne of Stonyhurst succeeded in propelling his family into the top rung of the English aristocracy with the marriage of his now-ONLY child and daughter Maria Shireburne, to the Duke of Norfolk. A dynastic coup!

Duchess of Norfolk’s Toilet Service, by Benjamin Pyne (1648 -1732), London, 1708 

The set comprises a table mirror, bowl, pitcher, caskets, boxes and brushes. 

A full silver toilet service was the perquisite of the lady of every noble household and was as much a reflection of her status as the household’s silver dining service was of her husband's. So a toilet service was commissioned by Sir Nicholas and given to the Duke of Norfolk as part of his 16 year old daughter Maria’s dowry in 1708. Sir Nicholas recorded in his Acc­ounts with Goldsmiths Ledger in Jan 1709: “bill payable to Mr Benjamin Pyne of £702 for his daughters double set of gilt dressing plate”. So expensive was his double set of gilt dressing plate that he had to pay it off in instalments. 

Two of the 34 pieces in detail - pitcher and bowl

But look what he got for his £702: “A toilet of gilt plate consisting of two large comb boxes, one looking glass with a plate frame, one square box with a pincushion on the top, two glass bottles with muzells and bottoms of plate, two oval porringers with covers, two round powder boxes, two round patch boxes, two oval brushes, two comb brushes, two pomatum potts, two little cupps with covers and salvers, pair of large candlesticks, pair of hand candlesticks, pair of snuffers with snuff pan and extinguisher, a bason and ewer, a plummet, a bell.” 34 pieces of Queen Anne silver in stunning, understated English taste!

With the separation of the Duke and Duchess in 1729, it was agreed that the Duchess was to have the use of the said jewels and toilet set for her natural life, and that the set be returned to the Nor­folks on her death. This stipulation was complied with, in 1754. The set remained with the Dukes of Norfolk until sold to Rundell Bridge and Rundell in 1818 who sold the service to Lord Lonsdale. The service was sold by the Lon­sdale family in 1947 at Christie’s in London, and resold in 1982 to another family. 

In 2012 Hawkins and Hawkins of Tasmania and Scotland sold the 32-piece toilet service by Benjamin Pyne for £1.5 million. The service went to a private overseas buyer, and although I think the price was totally insane, I still wish it was me.

Southwark Luck - convicts in early C19th Sydney

I am not a scholar of colonial Australian history, so I did not necessarily expect to enjoy the book Duelling Surgeon, Colonial Patriot: The Remarkable Life of William Bland. However since many of the people in my immediate family are medicos, the topic became very relevant.. in a personal way. Would that be so for another book on Sydney’s colonial era, Southwark Luck (published in South Melbourne in 2012) by Louise Wilson? Yes!

Charles Homer Martin (1795-1886) was born in Southwark, South London. The family lived outside the centre of town, presumably to avoid the expensive licensing fees charged by the City on businesses in their territory. His father chose a busy road as the site for his business, selling food and alcoholic drinks to travellers and to the coaches’ staff.

Charles found plenty of work in the busy rope-making industries of Southwark, both for the navy and for the merchant ships. So why did a reasonably educated, well employed lad, just out of his teens, come to such grief with the Law? He was arr­ested for the highway robbery of Richard Coster, himself a criminal of some note, in March 1818. The book provides evidence from the court case and details of the (capital) punishment, but what we need to know at this point is that Charles Martin found himself on a hulk in June 1818. Justice was swift in those days!

Charles arrived in Australia when Governor Macquarie was making his mark on the colony (Jan 1810–Nov 1821) and was transported to Newcastle. Charles soon returned to Windsor in the Hawkesbury district, via the Hyde Park Barracks, and applied to be married in Feb 1822. When had he had time to make his teenage bride, Annie Forrester, pregnant?

McCubbin, Bush Sawyers, 96 x 153cm, private collection

The work of sawyers, done in pairs, seemed like back braking work.

Delivering lots of babies might have been dangerous for young women, but Annie got stuck right into it. She stayed alive herself and she delivered 12 live babies, 11 of whom survived into adulthood. How did this working class family support and educate their huge, young family? Clearing forests and sawing timber, it would seem. It was a tough life, but they wanted a more educated, more secure life for the next generation.

Since arriving as a convict for life in Dec 1818, it remarkably took until 1834 be­f­ore Charles Martin was given his Ticket of Leave. This represented only partial freedom, presumably because he was involved in some sort of inability to run a business properly. He was back in court again, in 1838. Charles did not receive his Conditional Pardon until mid 1841! That did not protect him from additional insolvency cases, of course, but it did improve the quality of their lives in Wil­­berforce, one of the original settlements established as a town by Macquarie.

St John's Anglican Church and school, Wilberforce. 

The school (top) was originally built in 1819. The church (bottom) was added in 1856

The chapters on the Forrester brothers-in-law, Charles’ children and their spouses, floods, voting and the Law are very interesting, but there is not enough space in this review. Clearly Charles Martin had a tough life, yet he reached the ripe old age of 91. Annie died just two years later, in 1888, and was buried next to her husband. She had been the grandmother of 94 grandchildren!

My interest was piqued in Charles and Annie’s story, and I will follow their experiences in whatever official records I can find. But Wilson’s book is also rich in information about their children and grandchildren. You can follow the careers of Jane and Frederick Nicholls, Elizabeth and Philip Devine, Isabella and William Dolley, Margaret and Alfred Bushell, Lucy and James Graham, Mary and John Daley, Charles Robert Martin and his wife Ann, William John Martin and his wife Mary, Susannah and William Norris, Martha Martin, Emma & George Greentree, and the bachelor brother Henry Martin.

The book’s cover notes this is the third in a series about important pioneers of the Hawkesbury. The three books together create a set, each featuring on their cover a scene of the farm where the families lived - Robert Forrester, Paul Bushell and Charles Homer Martin. In this book, I particularly valued the photos that added a rich commentary to the text. There is nothing quite like “seeing” Rose Cottage as it appeared when the family arrived or Wilberforce’s Church of England church and school house. Only the General Index was tricky to use.

Southwark Luck is an ironic title, very suitable since Australians love irony. Ear­ly Australian life, particularly during the colonial years, was not easy, and Charles may not have liked being sentenced to a convict’s life at the end of the known world. But he really was a fort­unate soul. The early years that he spent in Southwark were no walk in the park.

Australiana Pioneer Village, Wilberforce NSW

Subsequent to reading Louise Wilson's book, I found Australiana Pioneer Village, a NSW Heritage Listed site situated on the Hawkesbury River at Wilberforce. Visitors can examine the 19th century village grounds, see a working blacksmith, listen to bush musicians and eat fresh damper. Charles and Annie Martin's grave can be easily located.

Coaching Inns (1700-1850): a short but colourful history

When did British coach travel start to modernise? Harry Mount found that the Turnpike Act of 1663 was significant, turnpikes being compulsory tollgates on selected roads. Once these tolls paid for road improvements, fast coaches could supplant the old slower modes of travel. And throughout the C18th, the road network continued to expand, once again paying for itself by the tolls.

Hales Bar, Harrogate

A stage company was formed in 1706 to establish a regular coach route between York and London. Inns were a vital part of the coaching tradition as they fed travellers, changed the team of horses and hired post chaises to finish journeys. And they linked the coaching system throughout Britain!

Fresh teams of horses were kept in readiness so the exhausted team that had just run the previous stage of the journey could be rested. These teams could be contracted out to stage lines or to the Royal Mail.

How comfortable were the inns? Inns were generally built around a central cobbled courtyard that gave protection from the weather and made it easy to watch for coaches coming in. Even today, the old coaching inns have a very large entrance, from the open road outside, into the courtyard inside. However the convenience was offset by the difficulty in sleeping in a place where servants and passengers constantly moved, horns were blown to announce coaches, and teams of horses clattered on the cobblestones. Travel guides advised coach passengers who were spending the night to stay at a city inn rather than the coaching inn.

Dolphin, Southampton

Some food was known to be horrible and blankets flea-infested, but a few routes had fine reputations. The Shrewsbury Highflyer was wonderful - it left Shrewsbury at 8AM arriving at its destination 64 ks away, Chester, at 8PM. A delicious dinner took a leisurely 2 hours at Wrexham, or as long as the passengers required.

The Dolphin in Southampton had been a famous coaching inn since the C17th. But it was only during Southampton's Spa-town period, from 1750 on, that it also became a fashionable social centre for travellers taking the waters. This was the same time that the Dolphin was largely rebuilt with its handsome Georgian front, coaching entrance and magnificent bow windows. It might have been just a coaching inn, but it was a classy one.

Hales Bar in Harrogate had a similar history. It started off life as a coaching inn when the spa town of Harrogate was becoming very attractive as a mid 1700s destination. It continued as an inn in the C19th when it was renovated and named The Promenade Inn, after the opening of the fashionable Promenade Room nearby.

The Old Crown Coaching Inn in the market town of Faringdon, Oxfordshire is a former coaching inn that dates back to the C16th. It has retained its original features, including a cobbled courtyard and fountain. A heritage plaque on the front wall notes that this inn provided quarters for Royalist cavalry during the Civil War (1644-6).

Old Crown Coaching Inn, Faringdon Oxfordshire

The Lion Hotel coaching inn in Buckden Cambs was a 16th inn that still has an oak-panelled restaurant and a lounge bar with an original fireplace. Buckden may not have been the biggest or most important village in the world, but it was well located as a resting place for travellers making their way between York and London along the old Great North Road. Apparently the only important consideration in selecting a house or business was: location.

What of the development of coaching inns in Australia, given that our distances were much longer, our weather harsher and our population much smaller than in Britain? They existed in substantial numbers but they looked less elegant, less urban and smaller than their British counterparts.

Old Buangor Cobb and Co changing station, Victoria

Tahmoor House was an old inn built in 1824 in NSW and extended in 1835. It is one of the oldest coaching inns in Australia, at the gateway to the Southern Highlands. The son of the original owners, Ralph Hush, eventually bought several of surrounding farms and owned many inns in local towns. Later in his life Ralph Hush became a magistrate, suggesting that inn-keeping was a perfectly respectable occupation. And a profitable one.

But the coaching inn business in Australia really only got going in a large way once Cobb and Co established itself on the main communication routes in the mid C19th. At the end of the Gold Rush in California, the very entrepreneurial Freemen Cobb joined three other gold seekers in Australia, creating a new partnership in the transportation business, Cobb & Co.

Australian changing stations could only be as far apart as a horse could sensibly travel in one trip, about 25 ks. Changing stations were where the team of horses was replaced.

The Victoria changing station, Penshurst, Victoria

Some changing stations were not in pubs. The Victoria in Penshurst Vic, for example, is the old Cobb and Co changing station, including the manager's cottage which has been fully restored with its mammoth bluestone walls intact. And just west of rural Beaufort in Victoria, the Old Buangor Cobb & Co centre was a free-standing coach and livery station, built from bluestone in the 1860s. The near identical facades with round arched openings were stables, located at an important stopping place on the coach route to Ararat. In Barraba near Tamworth NSW, Cobb & Co stage coaches had a clearly marked changing station in the town’s post office.

But as we saw in the British examples, coaching inns became important for the passengers as well, since they provided a site for food and rest. Many changing stations in Australia adapted and became full blown coaching inns or pubs. An example that I discussed in an earlier post was perfect.  The American Hotel in Creswick (rural Victoria) was described as a 2-storey timber structure. During the gold rush period of the 1850s, the hotel operated as a Cobb and Co station, gaining prominence as one of the leading establishments in the colony. And providing drinks to thirsty travellers!

Nymboida Coaching Station Inn NSW still has its original hand-sawn cedar and red mahogany beams, parallel walls and open log fires. It maintained its historical atmosphere from the time when Cobb & Co. stage coaches, bullock teams, timber cutters, graziers and other pioneers stopped here, on the woolpack road from Armidale to Grafton. The adjoining museum displays the giant Leviathan stage coach, the largest horse-drawn Cobb and Co Coach ever built!

Nymboida Coaching Station Inn, NSW

The Arms of Australia Inn Museum in Emu Plains NSW was a coaching inn. Built in 1823, it was licensed to John Mortimer as the Australia Arms in 1841. The Inn catered for travellers going across the mountains to Bathurst and the gold fields. The Cobb & Co coaches that plied the road day and night stopped at the inn, as did many bullock team drivers taking stock and provisions over the mountains. Built in 1823, the brick section on the right was added in 1840. The Inn now houses the Nepean District Historical Society Museum.

In Britain, the coming of the railroad ended the era of the coach by 1840, except in far-flung regions of the country that reached beyond the railway lines. Presumably by 1840 the coaching inns had developed other essential services; just because the coaches no longer arrived, there was no need for the inns to close.

When did the coaching inns end in Australia? If Carrington Hotel in Bungendore NSW is correct, it was originally built in 1885 as a clay brick coaching inn on the Cobb & Co route to rural Canberra. This suggests that coaching inns were still being built in Australia into the late Victorian era.

Arms of Australia Inn, Emu Plains NSW 

At the recommendation of Parnassus, I want to add just one of many coaching inns in the USA. Joseph Rider opened Rider's Inn in Painesville Ohio in 1812. Over the years, the tavern expanded, providing fine accommodations and food for travellers in northeastern Ohio, travelling to the West. Situated on the rough-and-tumble stagecoach route from Buffalo New York to Cleveland Ohio, Rider's soon became an oasis of hospitality in the Western Reserve. Later the Inn became a stop on the underground railroad and a retreat for returned Civil War soldiers. The Rider Family operated the hostelry until 1902 when it fell on hard times.

I would be very interested to know which other coaching inns were built in the USA and what features they had in common.

Important William Morris stained glass in Adelaide, 1901

The famous British design company, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. of London was a firm that grew from a partnership founded in 1861 by artist and writer William Morris, the man credited with inspiring the Arts and Crafts Movement of the 1880s and 1890s. There was nothing Morris and Co couldn't design for private homes: wallpaper, tapestries, carpets, furniture, textiles, carvings and stained-glass windows. Nor, apparently, for public spaces. But what are the chances of a number of totally unconnected William Morris Co. stained glass windows ending up in Australia?

In Sydney Morris & Co's work may be seen at All Saints' Anglican church at Hunters Hill, which is the proud owner of two stained glass windows made to designs by Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833–98). The window Sydneysiders love most is the portrayal of Christ at the Transfiguration. The Sydney version of the The Transfiguration is very similar to the 1910 Transfiguration that William Morris & Co made for the Egremont Prebyterian Church in Wallasey. Only more pastel and gentle.

Transfiguration window, All Saints Hunters Hill, Sydney

But it is in Adelaide that most of the treasures can be found. The former Adelaide Stock Exchange in Exchange Place Adelaide has a very special, 6-panel stained-glass window; it was commissioned by philanthropist and trustee of the Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery, George Brookman, for the Stock Exchange. The timing was perfect because the grand, red brick building was itself completed in the year that Australia federated as an independent nation (1901). And as Federation was arguably the most important single event in Australian history, the celebrations were momentous.

Federation window, Morris & Co., owned by the South Australian Art Gallery, 301 x 210 cm

The Federation window was designed in 1900 by John Henry Dearle, a man who trained with William Morris and became the company’s chief designer. The three lower panels depict the British Empire, with life-sized figures representing Australia, India Africa and Canada on either side. The three upper panels represent morning, sun and evening, based on designs of the British painter, Edward Burne-Jones; note the central figure representing Britannia holds a wreath framing the word Federation.

By 1902 the window was installed in the Adelaide building, lighting the main staircase. Insured for a million dollars, the Federation window has now been donated to the South Australian Art Gallery by a Spanish businessman who sold the building to the State Government in 2007.

In total there were 10 Morris & Co stained glass windows created for, and shipped to Adelaide, but this is the only one that related to a contemporary and important event in Australia's history. It will remain where it is at the top of the main staircase of the old Stock Exchange, unless the building is sold.

Today the building houses the Science Exchange of the Royal Institution of Australia, so the window can best be viewed during the Royal Institute's business hours.