Ferrara - what a cultured city

The first official document on Ferrara in Nth Italy was published by Lombard King Astolfo in 753 AD. Late in their era, Ferrara was ruled by the Church in 774 & became a fief of the Canossa family; under the Grand Countess Matilda of Canossa it reached its peak. The city was successively occupied by Tedaldo di Canossa (988), Countess Matilda of Tuscany (1101) and Frederick I Barbarossa (1158), while its internal C12th history was that of the conflict between rival families. The Cathedral of San Giorgio was consecrated in 1185, after the independent commune emerged.

 

Cathedral

The Este family didn’t assume absolute power until 1242 when the city was becoming a growing medieval centre with its own laws and its own mint. It was only under the Estes was it to become an internationally known capital with great value for arts, economics, ideology & religion. The court flourished and for 2 centuries equalled Florence and Venice, or great European courts in France or Spain.

Estense Castle

Estense Castle & moat, built 1385 by the Estes, remained their bastion until 1598. Urban planning schemes were created in 14th-C16th, making Ferrara the first Renaissance city to be developed using a complex urban plan. Thus the network of streets and walls were linked with palaces, churches and gardens, a scheme that gave precedence to a united urban layout. Ferrara, an archbishopric, gained other impressive churches: San Francesco, Corpus Domini, Santa Maria in Vado and San Cristoforo

City walls

In Ferrara

The last Duke had no legitimate descendants, so the dynasty became extinct in 1597 and the Church took over. Ferrara became the seat of a powerful princip-ality and cultural centre but declined both commercially and politically under the Papacy. Revolutionary uprisings came much later.

Palazzo del Comune/Town Hall 1245 and Palazzo della Ragione/Court 1325 are medieval structures, safe once medieval walls could hold growth. Plans were extensively restored, and the uni founded in 1391 is now housed in a later building whose library holds valuable manuscripts, including works by the poets L Ariosto & T Tasso.

From 1400-1600 Ferrara was home to prominent people in literature and the arts. Its historic centre is the perfect example of the ideal city from a humanist view. Each step offers the magic air of a glorious, preserved past: the Este dynasty for 3 centuries, transformed a rural centre into a masterpiece. This town was hospitable, environmentally aware and sustainable present. Artists Michelangelo, Piero della Francesca, Mantegna attended the Este Court and worked there. With great support from artists, the Estes created the first studiolo, their art collection becoming a model for both the Medici family and Papacy. 

The major treasure is the series of palaces of the later 15th-C16th. These palazzi include Diamanti, housing a municipal art gallery; Schifanoia Civic Museum; and Ludovico il Moro National Archaeological Museum with objects from an ancient Etruscan port. Piero della Francesca, Jacopo Bellini and Andrea Mantegna decorated the palaces of the House of Este. Neighbourhoods were built from 1492 by Biagio Rossetti. This project’s completion marked modern town-planning and influenced its development.

 Archaeological Museum

 Trip Advisor

National Museum of Ferrara School, 

amazing art donated by the Estes

Trip Advisor

Emilia-Romagna comprises Ferrara’s urban centre and agricultural lands into the large, ancient Po River Valley. The city extended to defensive walls that had enclosed the historic urban centre of C12th Ferrara. From 14th-C16th, the ruling Estes did extensive land recovery & building projects. Distinctive Renaissance changes made included: drainage of huge swamplands, establishment of estates, creation of new waterways and streets a la the urban development plans and building noble residences. Ducal residences were the political sign of glory, designed to widely mirror the image of the Court. In the key Renaissance years, the Este’s brilliant court drew star artists, poets and scholars of humanism.

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narrow cobbled streets and artisan workshops

Winalist

In time the encircling medieval walls were extended to accommodate urban growth, and today the walls still encircle the city. The Municipality has identified the whole of the historic city inside the walls as an area of cultural interest and protection that’s been there since 1975.

The creation of coordinated management between urban & rural spaces led to effective control of the area and infrastructure development, more awareness of heritage values and the definition of policies for the adaptive re-use of historic properties that were damaged. Note the cooperation of public institutions at different levels of government: national, regional, provincial and municipal. It’s protected under national cultural heritage legislation: Legislative Decree.

One end of Piazza Trento e Trieste

Wiki

The Medieval built piazza is the perfect spot for sunset cocktails. With grand historic buildings behind, an impressive cathedral and one of Italy’s oldest universities, it’s long been the central city’s heart. Linked by rail with Bologna, Padua, Venice, Ravenna and Comacchio, Ferrara is the centre of a flourishing agricultural area.

Ferrara was involved in WWI with many workers, motivated by the promise of new arable land at the end of the conflict. Massive losses prevented this and the betrayal led to a wide adherence to Fascism. After WW2 there was a great expansion of industrial activity and the creation of a large industrial zone. The city’s principal products are chemicals, sugar, alcohol, shoes and hemp.

Ferrara’s cultural treasures were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1995 and expanded in 1999 beyond the walls. There was damage from the 2012 earth quakes to the city walls, Estense Castle, medieval cathedral and other historic buildings. 

Ferrara is a vibrant city (pop:131,200) rich in art exhibitions & a top concert season. Thanks to World Heritage Convention

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Honours to Helen Suzman, South Africa

                                               

In Parliament, late 1950s

Wiki

Helen Gavronsky (1917-2009) was born in South Africa, her Lithuanian parents having arrived with thousands of Jewish migrants from the Baltic states, desperate for peace. My hero in 1966 was by then called Helen Suzman, the bravest person on whom I might have aimed to model myself. 

Helen studied economics & statistics at Witwatersrand Uni. At 20 she married Dr Moses Suzman and had 2 children, before returning to university as a lecturer in 1944. She gave up academia for politics, being elected to Parliament in 1953 as a member of United Party. She moved to the liberal Progressive Party in 1959 and represented her district as her party's sole member, the sole parliament­arian clearly opposed to Apartheid, from 1961-74.

Progressive Party's House caucus in 1960, prior 1961 election that left Suzman

as the sole parliamentarian opposed to apartheid for 13 years. Wiki

The ruling white government sent the police to watch her every action, whether work-related or private. Her mail was examined and her phones were bugged, largely because she was Jewish, a woman, middle class, liberal and a very vocal opponent of Apartheid. So the National Party put every conceivable hurdle in her way. I am amazed she survived assassins' bullets. The most obnoxious bit of legislation in her time was the Black Homeland Cit­iz­enship Act 1970 which changed the status of the blacks. They would no longer be citizens of South Africa, but would become citizens of one of the 10 autonomous territories.

Freed Nelson Mandela thanking Helen Suzman
1990, NY Times

Robben Island, located off South Africa’s coast, had a long history of being a penal colony but only from the mid 1960s-91 was it was the brutal home to the nation’s maximum security gaol. Nelson Man-dela was imprisoned there from 1964-82 and Suzman visited the island on a regular basis; she reported on the gross indignities of prison life and to get the prison system to reduce the worst suffering of Mandela and other political prisoners.
                              

Dame Helen was the first woman to be awarded the Honorary Freedom of Hull in 1987, but I cannot find her connection to that city. Yet correspondence with Helen Suzman is definitely still held at Hull Uni History Archives.

Later, as parliamentary white opposition to Apartheid grew, her Party merged with the Reform Party and became the Progressive Reform Party. Eventually Suzman was joined in Parliament by equally committed re­pr­esentatives. Altogether her parliamentary career lasted 36 years, leaving parliament in 1989, just in time for the inevitable emer­g­ence of a new South Africa. Very shortly after, in 1991, the government formally repealed all Apartheid laws.

Suzman became Pres. of South African Institute of Race Relations from 1991-3, not bad for a women in her mid 70s. In 1993 the Helen Suzman Foundation was founded as a non-partisan think-tank in Sth Africa, dedicated to liberal democratic values and human rights post-Apartheid via its research, journals, litigation & submissions to Parliament. I knew Mandela rightfully won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, but although Suzman was named twice, she sadly never won a Nobel. Luckily she had the time and energy in 1993 to publish her autobiography, In No Uncertain Terms: A South African Memoir, helping her country and the world to recognise the previous injustices of Apartheid.

For some years Suzman was a member of the statutory Human Rights Commission, excited to be at Mandela’s side when he signed the new constitution in 1996. She remained a much-favoured speaker and newspaper author.

The Liberal International is a global federation based in UK. The Liberal International Prize for Freedom is given to a well-known person of liberal conviction who had made outstanding efforts for the defence of freedom and human rights. In 2002 it was awarded to Suzman, the courageous champion of human rights, who in the dark days of Apartheid did more than any other person to keep liberal values alive in South Africa. They noted that as many African countries were moving to political systems based on democracy, human rights and rule of law, the pioneering work that Suzman did in South Africa could not be underrated. 

Blue Plaque unveiled by Helen's daughters

2017

Conclusion
The anti-Apartheid struggle had many heroes, all of whom rightly deserved commemoration and remembrance; all of their contributions helped in some important way to the ending of Apartheid and the dawn of democracy in 1994. Helen Suzman was one such a hero, and she was honoured late in her lifetime but since she died in 2009, she has been honoured in South Africa and globally. I suppose she was very fortunate to survive the hatred she faced in Parliament and lived long enough to see some of the honours with her own eyes. But most of the honours were greatly appreciated by her two daughters, Frances (b1939) and Patricia (b1943).

In Nov 2017  Johannesburg citizens and family members gathered to pay tribute to her with the unveiling of a blue plaque on the Eton Rd Parktown footpath. The plaque was unveiled by Helen’s daughters, 2017 being the centenary of the birth of South Africa’s amazing Helen Suzman. 

Many thanks to Democratic Alliance, South African History on-line, The Heritage Portal  and Liberal International.

Woman war artists: Evelyn Dunbar

Evelyn Dunbar was born in Reading (1906-1960), daughter of tailor William and amateur artist Florence. Evelyn had been employed since April 1940 as an artist working for the Ministry of Information; Roger was already serving with the Royal Air Force Voluntary Reserve. Throughout the war years it had been Evelyn's intention to paint her husband's portrait, but as with many marriages in wartime, their union was more marked by separation than by being together. In Jan 1943 she arrived in Usk Wales to record the work of the Women’s Land Army. This civilian organisation mobilised women to work in agriculture & other jobs, filling labour gaps left by men gone to the military.

women workers busy knitting on the train.

Stand-by Train 21, by Dunbar, 1941

Imperial War Museum

 

Milking Practice with Artificial Udders, 1940, 

Liss Llewellyn Fine Art 

Evelyn was the only salaried woman war artist, appointed to record Land Girls working on the home front. The women may not have been driving tanks into battle fields or shooting enemy soldiers, but they were giving up family life to work for the nation while their husbands were away. In Dunbar’s artworks, there was a recurring theme of women adapting to unfamiliar work and environs as both the war and technology shaped lives: ambulance drivers were assisted into anti-gas protective clothing as their bodies became cumbersome and strange; women learnt to milk cows using mechanical dummy machines; and tailors prepared war garments. Baling Hay 1940 showed a crucial role of women in WW2; the WLA ensured continued food production for the British population at a time when imported supplies were severely compromised.

Baling Hay, 1940 

Museum Wales

The management of food supplies and consumption, particularly via rationing of essentials, was introduced as soon as WW2 started. Fish supplies were affected as the Royal Navy requisitioned much of the fishing fleet; the German navy in the North Sea restricted the remaining east coast fleets. The shopping queue was a symbol of this change and also part of the difficult process of adapting to the new, daily rituals. Although fresh fish was under-supplied and very expensive, being perishable it was never rationed. So The Queue at the Fish Bar 1944 was always long; even air raids didn’t deter them. Dunbar’s canvas size emphasised the length of the queue and her details showed the shoppers’ determination as they carried their empty baskets and the fishmonger ran the stall. Social conventions (eg chats) held the queue together.

The Queue at the Fish Bar, 1944
Imperial War Museum, London

Dunbar contrasted the duties of the population at war. The sign of abundance on the shop was read against the reality of the queue. She made clear who was expected to queue, women and older men, and who will have their meals served to them. The serviceman riding past and the service women facing outward had to attend more urgent business. But civilians weren’t rushing; just queueing.

A final war painting was A Land Girl and the Bail Bull, 1945, painted when husband Roger was away serving with the RAF. It was a Land Girl's at work with an outdoor dairy herd on the Hampshire Downs. The bail was the movable shed where the milking was done. Soon after dawn in the early summer the girl had to catch and tether the bull, entice him with a bucket of fodder and hide the chain behind her, ready to snap on his nose-ring, a delicate, dangerous job. The model for the land girl was her Evelyn’s sister Jessie, who posed for her several times but with her wounded eye averted.

A Land Girl and the Bail Bull , 1945 

Tate

Post-war Evelyn settled into rural Kent and painted a great deal until her death. But didn’t exhibit much and only sold one or two commissions. The final version of the painting was on an easel in her Kent studio when she died. After its appearance on Antiques Roadshow, its owner donated the painting to Dunbar’s local gallery, Maidstone Museum, which in turn loaned the picture to Pallant House in Chichester.

Not all Evelyn Dunbar’s works have been rediscovered; some wartime paintings remain lost. Still, there has been enough newly rediscovered work to be going on with. What will happen to her work when the 2026 show finishes?

Her war works had hung in Tate Britain and Imperial War Museum. In 2015 Pallant House Gallery staged a show called Evelyn Dunbar: The Lost Works, featuring much of Ro’s hoard. It is the first big retrospective of an artist who has certainly been neglected and perhaps misunderstood since her death. The exhibition includes the paintings for which she is best known: her WW2 commissions of the Women’s Land Army at work, such as Men Stooking and Girls Learning to Stook. She was a war artist but she didn’t paint horror like some other war artists eg Doris Zinkeisen painted Human Laundry, an image of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp’s starving bodies. 

Accidentally seeing Aunt Evelyn Dunbar’s art on a 2013 TV Antique programme fascinated her niece Ro Dunbar. Ro remembered her farmhouse attic in Kent had a tightly bound collection of artworks Evelyn’s husband Roger Folley left after his wife’s death. “I had no idea what was there. I thought it might all be paintings by Evelyn’s mother, Florence.” But when Ro looked, there was a whole hoard of works by Evelyn, the woman described as a genius by Sir William Rothenstein, Principal of Royal College of Art where she’d studied.

Another cousin, Christopher Campbell-Howes, was compiling a record of her paintings. So when Ro told him about some art in her attic, he flew over from France where he lived. When he saw them, he was shocked. What had been languishing in Ro’s attic for 50 years were 500+ art works, and overnight it doubled Dunbar’s known oeuvre. For 20 years, Campbell-Howes had been tracking the contents of Evelyn’s Lost Studio, dismantled after her 1960 death, its contents sold or given to family, collecting dust in Ro’s loft.

history of British public telephone boxes

Before 1876, communication over distance was often by telegraphy. The General Post Office/GPO, governmental till 1969, had the monopoly on UK’s telegraphic communication. The telephone was a marvellous technical innovation but very costly; use was limited to wealthy homeowners and businesses. And there wasn’t a single unified system; it was owned and operated by private companies operating local exchanges to which homes and businesses subscribed. In 1884 the GPO relaxed the rules that limited exchanges, meaning that the first public telephone network began with only 13,000 phones nationwide.

As technology improved, more services emerged. The GPO started with Jubilee Concession, installing a kiosk in all c8,000 towns with a Post Office. Acts of Parliament unified National Telephone Company/NTC and GPO services.

A UK telephone network division came pre-WW1 when NTC assets were acquired by the GPO, effectively nationalising the telephone network. With the combined staff and assets of two separate organisations, the GPO looked at equipment regulation, but WW1 put kiosk development on hold.

London’s First Telephone Box K1, 1921 
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In 1921 Britain's standard kiosk K1 was introduced by Post Office. Its design was conservative so many of the phone box designs were protected by trademark registrations, held by British Telecommunications. K1, made of concrete, was not initially well-received. 14 K1 boxes remain, 7 registered by Historic England.

In 1923, two independent schemes were established to test design alternatives to K1. The Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Committee ran a competition to design a new national kiosk. And Birmingham Civic Society produced independent proposals for a new national kiosk, which they submitted to the GPO. This caused the newly established Parliamentary Royal Fine Art Commission (1924) to examine questions of public service and art value. The red telephone box emerged from a design competition.

 

K6

The public telephone box was designed by noted architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott was in cast iron. Their distinctive red colour made them easily recognisable. From 1926, the kiosks displayed a prominent crown symbolising the government.

8 kiosk types were introduced by the GPO between 1926-83. The K6 was designed by Scott to mark the Silver Jubilee of King George V coronation in 1935. c60,000 examples were installed across Britain, explaining why the K6 became THE red Telephone Box. 11,000+ K6s remain. More stream-lined than the K2, the K6 was deployed widely by 1940, despite initial resistance to its red colour.

Scott’s design was like the K2, but smaller and cheaper to produce. The K6 was made of cast-iron sections, bolted together, standing on a concrete base. Its general design was a 4-sided rectangular box with a domed roof. The door was of teak, with a metal cup handle. Set into the slot was an illuminated telephone sign, with serif capital lettering on opaque glass. The pediments had a moulded Royal crown. 

Motoring organisations, Automobile Association/AA and Royal Automobile Club/RAC, enjoyed the benefits of a telephone network for members in a network of sentry boxes. Because cars were expensive and were prone to breakdowns, the motoring clubs employed patrolmen men to shelter in the boxes and to provide motorists with roadside aid. The Police Service also grew a network of kiosks, allowing officers to keep contact with their station. Metropolitan Police Service introduced Police boxes in 1929.

Scott’s winning design, chosen by the Royal Fine Art Commission, featured a classical style with a dome like John Soane’s. Scott was Director of the Sir John Soane Museum at the same time he was working on the telephone box design. The kiosk was ideally to be constructed from cast-iron with a per-unit price c£40. Three kiosks were installed behind London’s National Gallery in 1925.

Without a cost-effective kiosk used nationwide, GPO reverted to K1 with larger windows and revised signage. This was an interim solution, and by 1928 the GPO commissioned Scott to produce a cheaper kiosk made of pre-cast concrete. The GPO was not content with the K2 they had been working on, so they planned a new kiosk which could incorporate a stamp machine and post box; a mini-Post Office. 

Telephone and post office facilities

Atlas Obscura

In 1929 Scott introduced K3, a similar design to the K2 but made from reinforced concrete for nation-wide use. The K3 was cheaper than the K2 but still more expensive than the K1. See a rare surviving K3 kiosk at the London Zoo.

The K4 was an enlarged version of K2, designed by GPO’s Engineering Dept. In 1927 the K4 model included a post box and stamp vending machines. But only 50 K4 kiosks were produced. The GPO planned for a low cost kiosk. Introduced in 1934, K5 was a metal-faced plywood work, designed to be portable and used at exhibitions, but never completed.

In 1937 the Tercentenary Concession celebrated GPO's 300th anniversary and 1,000 more kiosks were installed for local authorities paying low subscriptions. In 1939 a tougher version was introduced. In 1949 Royal Fine Arts Commission got re-involved, allowing rural examples in different colours. Post-war c60,000 examples lived, and of the 8 kiosk types introduced by the GPO, the K6 heritage legacy remains best.

Post-war, the 1951 Festival of Britain was held on London’s South Bank. The Festival was a tonic to Britain then, showing the recovery from austerity. It demonstrated skills in the arts, architecture, industrial design, science and technology. And a crown motif with Queen Elizabeth II.

Lending library in unused kiosk

In 1959 the GPO invited submissions for a new kiosk from leading architects. After considering 6 experimental designs, K7 kiosks were designed by Neville Conder and installed in 1962. Ahead of its time, the K7’s use of aluminium was only adopted much later. So the GPO opted for a design by Bruce Martin; he proposed aluminium, not the trusted cast-iron. K8 kiosk arrived July 1968. 1969 predicted the end of GPOs kiosks. Since its inception, the GPO was nationalised, but as a Government Dept. By 1981 the Post Office was split into two businesses, privatising telecommunications Ap 1984.

In a year British Telecom announced a £160 mill modernisation scheme: installing modern kiosks in the public network. But historical groups & progressive London boroughs highlighted the kiosks’ plight. Statutory protection was given to 2,000 key kiosks by English Heritage.

AA and RAC kiosks also worsened. Reliable vehicles allowed patrolmen to travel in their own vans and telephone equipment could be housed in smaller pedestals. And the Police kept in touch via personal radios. As British Telecom was left with unprofitable kiosks to maintain, the company created an Adopt a Kiosk Scheme, demonstrated the strength of local communities in preserving and maintaining their heritage. Local authorities adopted unused kiosks for £1, with the community accepting responsibility for maintenance. Organisations took these boxes for other uses eg some counties’ K6s became a community libraries after their mobile library services discontinued. Or a defibrillator.

Defibrillator in unused kiosk

The iconic design of the red telephone box found a place in parts of the world, eg U.S, Australia, New Zealand, where they have been preserved in historic sites. But the red telephone box is a beloved symbol of British heritage and their cultural significance endures. The red telephone box is an artwork, history and national identity, one of UK's favourite design icons in 2006!

Thank you to The Historic England Blog which you may enjoy reading.