meaning of the USA's Civil War - in 1861 and in 1961

Richard Cavendish wrote that the American Civil War was fought to preserve the Union. There had long been tensions between the rights of the states and those of the federal government, going back to the issue of tariffs in the 1830s. But it was slavery that brought matters to a breaking point. Slavery had been made illegal in all the northern states by the early 1800s and, with European immigrants supplying cheap labour for the industrialising economy, the North was pleased when the abolitionist movement gained strength. Northerners seemed ashamed that slavery had ever been tolerated in the USA.

But the South regarded slavery as crucial to its plantation economy, to its society and its traditions. It was estimated that c650,000 Africans had been exported to the USA before the British abolition of slavery in 1807. By 1860, slaves accounted for 4 million people, out of a total population of 23 million (17.4%) and a quarter of all white families in the South owned slaves. Southern cotton production was making record profits.

In 1860 Abraham Lincoln became the Republican president, carrying all the northern states bar one. His triumph convinced politicians in the South that slavery would soon be banned by an amendment to the constitution. There were committed unionists in all the southern states, but the prevailing opinion was that the sudden liberation of 4 million Africans would be a nightmare. And, presumably, a financial catastrophe for the South.

Blue areas = Union states, including those admitted during the war.
[Light blue areas = Union states which permitted slavery].
Red areas = Confederate states.
Unshaded areas were not states before or during the Civil War.

In Feb 1861, a congress in Montgomery Al. adopted a constitution for the new Confederate States of America – Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas would together create the new nation. Then Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas and Tennessee joined the Confederacy and both sides organised their armies. The War Between the States eventually killed almost 700,000 young men.

Now let me leap to 1961 when Americans prepared to mark the 100th anniversary of the nation’s worst ever conflict, the Civil War. According to Robert Cook, the centennial had been planned by the USA Civil War Centennial Commission as a means of steeling citizens in the Cold War struggle against communism. High-profile heritage projects were designed to showcase America’s commitment to liberty. The Freedom Train, a travelling collection of the nation’s canonical documents, was a prime example of how public elites sought to use their version of history to build support for the anti-communist crusade.

The anniversary of a bloodthirsty civil war may have seemed an unlikely subject for national unity, Cook noted, particularly as that conflict had left southern whites embittered by defeat. And particularly since the Civil War Commission had assumed in 1961 that the anniversary would be a whites-only affair. The entire project seemed shocking when black delegates to the Commission were banned from racially segregated Charleston hotels.

The Civil War had to be quickly rebranded in the national memory. Once a vessel for myriad internal hatreds, the war was to become the moment when America had been reunited, and a modern superpower was born. Did it work? Celebrating the southern states’ secession from the Union made perfect sense to the 1961 segregationists who dominated the region’s state centennial agencies. What better way to mobilise grass roots opposition to court-ordered desegregation and black civil rights activism than to remind ordinary whites of their ancestors’ vigorous resistance to Federal tyranny!

4th USA Coloured Infantry (Union army), 
Fort Lincoln, Washington DC

In fact there was so much enthusiasm for the Confederacy in the South that advisors were telling President John F Kennedy that the centennial could totally endanger the USA's unity. So it may not be surprising that the combination of neo-Confederate theatre and the exclusion of blacks proved disastrous for the centennial. Blacks and Northern whites were appalled by the ease with which segregationists had co-opted the centennial.

In Sept 1962 a hastily reorganised Civil War Commission hosted an event at the Lincoln Memorial to commemorate the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Although the commission chose to equate emancipation with the anti-communist crusade for human freedom, rather than the fight for racial justice at home, major civil rights campaigns in 1963 and 1964 made them unresponsive to southern fears that the CWCC had become a mouthpiece for integration. Cook concluded that when it ended in April 1965, most Americans simply disregarded the Civil War centennial.

Because I am not an American history scholar, I have tried to quote Cavendish and Cook as closely as possible. However there are still questions that I would like to ask. What proportion of soldiers on both sides were black? I know that in July 1862, Congress passed an Act that freed slaves who had masters in the Confederate Army. Recruitment was slow until black leaders encouraged black men to become soldiers, to ensure eventual full citizenship. At the same time, the National Archives suggest that by the end of the Civil War, 179,000 black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the USA Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy. Nearly 40,000 black soldiers died over the course of the war. Were they not an important part of the Civil War, especially on the Union side?

I really do understand why slaves were an important part of the Southern economy and I can almost understand why southern states would go to war in 1861 to protect either their states’ rights against Federal or northern intervention, or to protect their economies. But why were these powerful symbols of separation still valid by 1961??

Normally after a civil war, the seceding states would use their symbols of separation only in two cases – firstly if they won the civil war or secondly if they were still hoping to secede some time in the future. Robert Cook was right. The anniversary of a miserable and destructive civil war was an unlikely subject for national unity, no matter how it was rebranded.

devastation of war, Navy Yard at Norfolk Va 
Photo from USA National Archives.

Railway workers in New Swindon - utopia?

In 1835 Parliament approved the construction of a railway between London and Bristol, to be designed by the Chief Engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In 1840 Brunel chose Swindon as the site for the railway works he planned for the Great Western Railway. The town was perfectly located, half way between Bristol and London. As a result, the tiny market town of 2,000 residents became a substantial railway town of 50,000 within a few decades.

Swindon railway workshops, now a railway museum and shopping centre 

Swindon’s first facility, the locomotive repair shed, was completed in 1841, then multi-storeyed Swindon Junction station was quickly completed and opened only one year later. Both of these facilities made sense since every train, in either direction, stopped for at least 10 minutes to change locomotives. As a result, Swindon station hosted the first recorded railway refreshment rooms. It must have been a rather fancy railway station since there were refreshment rooms on the ground floor for hasty access, and the more leisurely station hotel and lounge were available upstairs.

The boiler and tender making shops opened in Swindon in 1875, necessary to produce parts for locomotives, and marine engines for the GWR's fleet of ships and barges. These workshops were critically important for the Company, but I am more interested in the workers’ needs.

New Swindon, workers’ cottages

The Great Western Railway built a small village to house some of its workers, 1.5 ks north of Swindon town. These railway workers’ cottages in New Swindon were built in limestone by one firm, based on a single model. The cottages may have been small, but they were considered to be of a good standard.

Later in the 1860s iron rolling mills were established at the works, so a new type of skilled worker was required; this resulted in an influx of men from Wales and its iron industry. Only when hundreds of these new railway workers flooded into Swindon looking for permanent work did overcrowding and poor sanitation become problematic. In 1864 New Swindon saw its first gas street lights installed and in 1868 the workers gained a fresh water supply, piped to the cottages.

This was a remarkable project, set up to look after the needs of workers and their families – partially to be Christian and charitable, but mainly to maximise the workers’ productivity. Since Swindon had few services before the railways arrived, the entire town benefited from the new educational and health facilities.

I suppose that for the workers, the top priority was for education. Firstly they built and staffed a good primary school for the workers’ children. And within a couple of years, in 1843, Swindon College was founded as a technical school for railway families.

Swindon Mechanics’ Institute, opened in 1855 and extended 1892

The Mechanics' Institute, probably started in 1855, was the critical service that helped workers towards self-improvement and created well educated manual workers. And another educative component was even more impressive – Swindon had the nation's first lending library.

Health care was also critical. Important community services within the village were the GWR Medical Fund Clinic at Park House and its hospital. From 1871, GWR workers had a small amount deducted from their weekly pay and put into a healthcare fund. In 1878 the fund began providing artificial limbs made by craftsmen from the carriage and wagon works, and nine years later opened its first fully equipped dental service.

GWR Medical Fund Hospital, Swindon, opened 1872

Even retired railway workers continued to receive medical attention from the doctors of GWR Medical Society Fund, which the Institute had played a role in establishing and funding. This responsive and extensive provision of health care services apparently provided a model for the NHS in the next century. Decades later, in the 1890s, the health centre housing clinics, a pharmacy, laundries, a pool and some baths opened Near Park House.

The Steam Railway Museum and English Heritage, including the National Monuments Record, now occupy part of the old works. They are worth seeing.

A useful book to read is The English Urban Landscape by Philip J. Waller. Waller concluded that New Swindon was not a workers' paradise. Although the health and educational facilities provided excellent services to workers and their families, life in a company town could be difficult. If the GWR was doing badly, and staff were laid off, the entire family would lose its cottage in New Swindon, its income and any ability to argue with the railway authorities. Air pollution was endemic and noise was constant throughout the day and night. Nonetheless New Swindon was altogether rather impressive for workers in the mid Victorian era.

Museum of the Great Western Railway, today

The Brunel Shopping Centre was first built in the old, disused railway workshops in 1978. Later it was revamped and turned into Brunel Arcade and Brunel Plaza (in the 1990s).

Did Napoleon step on British soil or not?

The Battle of Waterloo in June 1815 was the end of the French/English war, when Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by Wellington's army. Napoleon first choice was to call upon the country and renew the conflict. This would not only have perpetuated the foreign war - it would have plunged France into civil war. Clearly a large part of the country had come to the same conclusion as the Allies - that as long as Napoleon was at large, peace was impossible.

So the Frenchman must have been considering his options very carefully. Off the port of Rochefort, north of Bordeaux, only two ships were in harbour – one going to the USA with a completely French crew and one going to Britain with a British crew. Napoleon would have done just about anything to leave Europe for America. But he was terrified of what would happen to him if French sailors got their hands on him. So after brief consideration of an escape to the United States, Napoleon quickly surrendered to the British Captain Frederick Maitland and formally requested political asylum from him, on 15th July 1815.

Captain Maitland took Napoleon aboard the Bellerophon and the ship sailed home to Torbay on the Devon coast; there they were anchored off Brixham by the 24th July. Capt Maitland soon received orders from Admiral Lord Keith who demanded that no-one be allowed on board the ship, except the officers and men who composed her crew.

Napoleon aboard the Bellerophon, painted by Eastlake, 1815.

Displayed at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

In response to his orders, Captain Maitland refused to allow the usual visits of the boats with their fresh food traders. Nonetheless a sailor aboard signalled to the traders that Bonaparte, Europe’s bête noir, was aboard. The news quickly spread.

Soon Bellerophon received orders to proceed to Plymouth harbour where Lord Keith was aboard his flagship HMS Ville de Paris. Why did they choose Plymouth? Perhaps because the city was 310 km away from the excitable London crowds. Perhaps because the Navy's role during war against Napoleon's France had been pivotal; an extremely long breakwater had already been laid, to protect the Plymouth fleet, and a huge naval complex had been not long established.

Napoleon remained on board Bellerophon, and the ship was still kept isolated from the throngs of curious sightseers by two guardships anchored close at hand. But it didn’t help. Even in his short time in Plymouth, Napoleon held court on the ship's deck each evening at 6 PM, waving as adoring British crowds rushed to catch sight of him. This enabled Charles Eastlake to make rapid sketches from life for the portrait (above).

A letter, written by an eye witness in Plymouth, noted admiringly: "Our boat (a very handsome one and filled with Ladies and Officers) having attracted his attention, he came forward and looked at us occasionally with an opera glass, for the space of 5 minutes. He was dressed in a green coat with red collar and cuffs and gold epaulettes and he wore a Star. After staying good naturedly long enough to satisfy the curiosity of the ladies, he sat down to a writing table and we saw no more of him.

He is accompanied by Bertrand and three other superior officers and two ladies with their children and eight servants. Being desirous that the surgeon of the BELLEROPHON should also accompany him, and the surgeon also being willing to go, he was allowed to have him and has promised him 500 a year, in addition to his pay. He has taken with him about 20,000 pounds sterling in French coin. He constantly regretted that he was not allowed to remain in England and domiciliate here, but on taking leave of Lord Keith, he expressed himself satisfied and obliged by his Lordship's civility - and every person who has been near him is pleased with this manner and feels somewhat softened towards him. NORTHUMBERLAND and the squadron bid a final adieu to our coast this morning and sar far as regards Napoleon, Europe may be in peace. But the spirit still exists in France, and I do firmly believe the Bourbons will never reign in quiet."

Napoleon in Plymouth Sound 1815,
painted by Jules Girardet (1856-1938) 
Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery

He seemed to receive the adoration normally reserved for a world class footballer or pop musician. Perhaps Napoleon forgot that he was a prisoner, saved by the reluctant hospitality of the British Navy. Perhaps the English population had forgotten, in just 6 weeks, the endless wars fought against Napoleon’s  command. Girardet's painting made Plymouth Sound look like a celebrity party scene.

The Plymouth Dock newspaper was horrified: "On Sunday, we regret to say, a large proportion of spectators, not only took off their hats, but cheered him; apparently with a view of soothing his fallen fortunes, and treating him with respect and consideration. His linen sent ashore to be washed, has been held in much esteem, that many individuals have temporarily put on his shirts, waistcoats and neckcloths. Blind infatuation! Our correspondent, who was alongside the Bellerophon on Sunday last, says that the sympathy in his favour was astonishing, that he heard no cheering, but that the hats of the men, and the handkerchiefs of the ladies, were waving in every direction".

On 4th August 1815, Lord Keith ordered Bellerophon to go to sea and await the arrival of HMS Northumberland which had been designated to take Napoleon into exile on St Helena. On the 7th August, Napoleon left the Bellerophon where he had spent over three weeks without ever landing on English soil, and boarded Northumberland which then sailed for St Helena. The Northumberland arrived in St Helena on 15th October.

Let me repeat again - the fear of invasion was a constant of government thinking in Britain and had been since 1793. It had been total war! Napoleon Bonaparte’s domination of Europe only ended when he was defeated decisively at Waterloo in June 1815. Years of dictatorial control and resentment against the Emperor came to an end. I am not surprised that he preferred to throw his lot in with the enemy British navy, rather than risk his life with his own French sailors. Nor I am surprised that the anxious British authorities hurried him into exile. Yet the British crowds dressed up and partied while he was in  Devon!! And to this day, Napoleon remains a figure of huge global fascination.

I am delighted that the blog Reflections on A Journey to St Helena has at least a partial explanation.

Chung Ling Soo - magical history and real history

I was watching a tv detective programme called New Tricks where the team reopened an old case involving magic and murder. The detectives spent a session at the Magic Circle Museum in London that included a display of magic and a discussion about the museum's archives:  stage props, posters and theatrical history. The museum guide focused on a famous Edwardian magician called Chung Ling Soo.

Chung Ling Soo was the stage name of the American magician William Ellsworth Robinson (1861–1918). I did try to find details of his early life, but the magician seemed to have secreted his privacy in a smoke screen.  Nothing was known of his life until after he died, and even then the stories were vague. So I recommend readers find the book The Glorious Deception: The Double Life of William Robinson, aka Chung Ling Soo, written by Jim Steinmeyer and published by Carroll & Graf in 2005. The author discovered the New York origins of his protagonist. But Steinmeyer struggled to find the accurate details about Robinson’s wife Olive, his family life and his girlfriend. Apparently William Robinson kept a second family with a mistress in a classy outer suburb of London.

Father James Robinson had himself been  a versatile performer, known for magic, ventriloquism and music. When he was old enough, William Robinson worked on-stage in New York and built props for other magicians like Harry Kellar, Alexander Herrmann and Adelaide Herrmann.

Slowly William developed his own programme of magic tricks, styling himself the Man of Mystery. Only later, to increase his exoticism and Orientalist mystique, did he become a new persona, Chung Ling Soo. The timing was right - the West’s interest in discovering Oriental culture was at its peak.

Poster for Chung's theatrical programme

Chung Ling Soo moved his performance to Europe (in 1905?) where he scrupulously maintained his persona as a Chinese man. Noone ever heard him speak on stage during his act and he was always careful to use an interpreter when he spoke to the press. I'd be interested to know how many people stared at his European face and wondered how it was that he didn’t know a single word of English.

Chung's most famous stage trick occurred when his sidekicks, dressed as Boxers, took a gun on stage and fired it at Chung. The real Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1901 had taken place in China just a few years earlier; perhaps European theatre-goers knew that the Boxers were a secret society of Chinese who had suffered under colonial oppression, and who opposed both imperialism and Christianity. Appropriately for Chung, the real Boxers were very skilled in the martial arts.

I was delighted to read that Chung Ling Soo made his first appearance in Sydney in April 1909. He travelled to Australia accompanied by a multitude of assistants, including his wife and seventy-five tons of luggage. He was paid four hundred pounds a week for his tour of Australia - a larger salary than the Governor General received at the time. And there was no problem with audience numbers. Chung Ling Soo strolled around the streets of Sydney, casually performing miracles as he went by. It astounded the on-lookers and was so successful in advertising his show that the Tivoli was packed out each night.

Anyhow Chung’s magic involved the star catching the bullets from the air and dropping them on a plate he held up in front of his face. In fact fake bullets were loaded into the gun, then there was a loud gun shot sound and a cloud of gunpowder smoke filled the stage. Largely the trick was successful; only once did it fail!

The theatre called Wood Green Empire in North London was built for Oswald Stoll and designed by the well known theatre architect, Frank Matcham. The spacious theatre had opened just before WW1 (1912) with stalls, dress circle and upper circle. Vaudeville, music hall, music, dancing and magic were all exciting entertainments where people immersed themselves in the exotic and the strange. Harry Houdini (1874–1926) comes immediately to mind.

Wood Green Empire theatre, 1918

Towards the end of a truly horrible war in March 1918, Chung was performing in the Wood Green Empire London, to a jam-packed and very appreciative audience. The bullet was fired in the normal way, hitting Chung in the chest. But this time the bullet was real! Chung apparently had not unloaded the gun properly.

Chung was taken to a nearby hospital, but he died the next day, aged 57. Noone could understand how a skilful, experienced magician could have made such an appalling mistake. In the event, the circumstances of the accident were verified by a noted gun expert and despite conspiracy theories, the coroner was confident in his ruling that Chung had met Accidental Death. The magician was buried in the East Sheen Cemetery in Richmond (London).

Jim Steinmeyer’s book showed how real history and William Robinson’s stage-version of history intersected time and time again.

A musical drama called The Original Chinese Conjuror  opened at Southwold Pier in 2006 then went on to the Almeida in London. Created by Raymond Yiu with a libretto by Lee Warren, the story followed Chung Ling Soo from his early career in New York to his tragic death in London.

Chung Ling Soo memorabilia, Magic Circle Museum, London 

Wagner's home: Wahnfried Haus

I knew that King Ludwig II of Bavaria largely bankrolled the Fest-spielhaus in Bayreuth, an opera house dedicated to the performance of Richard Wagner (1813–1883)'s works. But he also paid for the construction of Haus Wahnfried, in the same town, for the Wagner family.

The name of the villa is interesting. Wahnen means endless striving of an artist for the fulfilment of his aspirations and the triumph of his art. So Wahnfried (Wahnen free) was the name chosen and even today we can see Wagner's motto on the front: "Here where my delusions have found peace, let this place be named Wahnfried."

Wahnfried, front entrance, with King Ludwig's bust

Above the door is a giant mural, depicting Wotan, King of the Gods and the philandering wanderer, being welcomed by classical women. We should also note that Wotan was the name of Wagner’s beloved St Bernard dog.

The villa was built in 1872-74, based on architectural plans from Berlin architect Wilhelm Neumann. Once completed, Wagner lived here with his wife, children and step children until his death in 1883. Then several later generations of Wagners continued to live in the house until 1966.

After the house had been seriously damaged in a bombing raid in 1945, grandson Wieland Wagner decided to rebuild the villa in a more modern manner. Fortunately for history, these alterations were later removed when the house was restored to its original appearance.

Wahnfried has been a museum since 1976, displaying with a wide range of Wagner memorabilia, including manuscripts, pianos, furnishings, artefacts and set designs. The Richard Wagner Museum is going to celebrate Wagner’s 200th birthday in 2013 so the timing is perfect for refurbishing Wahnfried Haus in general and for extending the Richard Wagner Museum in particular.

What does the interior look like? The whole house was a place where Wagner could compose, raise his family and entertain guests. The Grand Hall is a two-storey space with a gallery around the second floor and a skylight in the ceiling. Furnishings include two of Wagner's pianos and numerous busts. The specially designed Bechstein piano was the piano Wagner used to compose Meistersinger, part of Siegfried and Parsifal. It was a present from the endlessly patient, endlessly generous King Ludwig II for Wagner's birthday in 1864.

To the right is the dining room and to the left the Purple Drawing Room, where Wagner's wife Cosima Liszt von Bülow Wagner received visitors. Both are exhibition rooms now, the dining room focusing on Wahnfried's history.

Wagner's original study (top photo). 
His study, today a space for small concerts (second photo)

Wagner's richly decorated study was a gathering place for family, as well as a music room and library. The semi-circular bay looks out onto the back garden. Now it is used as a concert space where visitors can hear Wagner’s music.

The mezzanine level was where the family had their dressing rooms. The one to the right showcases Wagner's life in the 1840s, while the one to the left covers the 1850s and early 1860s. Today the dressing rooms have exhibits on the post-war Bayreuth Festivals.

The second floor was where the bedroom of Wagner’s son Siegfried had been, directly over the vestibule. Now it displays artefacts from Richard Wagner's early life. To the east are the three bedrooms of Wagner's two daughters and two step-daughters. They contain exhibitions from Wagner's later life.

Grand Hall with the two pianos

Some of the rooms are dedicated specifically to the Bayreuth Festival. The large room over the study was the nursery; now it focuses on the first thirty years of the Festival. The displays in Cosima's old bedroom cover the Festival from 1908 to 1930, while materials in the master bedroom deal with the 1930s. Wagner's private study concentrates on the post WW2 Festivals. The basement level has displays of Bayreuth Festival stage designs.

Richard Wagner did not die in his home. Rather he died in Venice while visiting in 1883, but his family had his body brought to Bayreuth for burial. In 1886, the composer Franz Liszt died in Bayreuth while visiting his daughter Cosima Liszt, Wagner's widow. So Liszt was also buried in this smallish town.

Visit the garden behind the house. In a shady grove beyond the garden, surrounded with ivy, is the tomb of Richard and Cosima Wagner. The stone is unmarked, because as Wagner insisted, as long as it remained, everyone would know who was buried there. From there, visitors can go on a walk in the remote Hofgarten, the baroque park of Bayreuth's New Castle, via a direct path from the house.

Back of Wahnfried Haus. Ivy-covered tomb of Richard and Cosima

I recommend Paul Doolan's journal article called "Wagner & Mathilde" in History Today, November 2011. The story of their relationship and its impact on Wagner's life started long before Wahnfried Haus was built in 1872-74, but the disruptions and frustrations Wagner suffered in the early decades predicted the man he became in his later decades.

Tasmania's West Coast Wilderness Railway, restored

In this blog, I've been fascinated with the explosion of top quality, long distance public transport systems in the later Victorian era eg Cairns-Kuranda Railway in Queensland.

In Tasmania, the Mt Lyell Mining and Railway Company also knew that a reliable, efficient transport system was crucial for large-scale, economic mining. Without a railway to cart in heavy mining equipment and to get its ore out to the seaboard for access to markets, the fledgling Mt Lyell mine would fail. The company clearly knew about the shortcomings of trails in the rugged landscape that had tested gold prospectors, surveyors and packhorse teams as far back as the early 1880s.

The West Coast Wilderness Railway today

In 1892 the company posted a public notice, flagging its intention to build some sort of railway. But all attempts to secure investors to finance the company seemed to fail. British investors were the most probable investors, but they were wary in the face of the collapse of Australian banks in the mid 1890s and a downturn in the mining industry. And the situation didn’t change until the Company made an unexpected discovery of high grade silver. This seam yielded both sufficient silver and the necessary publicity to spark the revival of the Company's fortunes.

The contractors began recruiting labourers in late 1894. Locals, aware of the conditions and the harsh climate, wouldn’t touch the work with a barge pole. Instead outsiders were hired, but unfortunately the men who surveyed and built the railway risked their health and lives in the difficult, isolated conditions. Earthworks for the many deep cuttings were largely carried out by hand, with labourers moving thousands of cubic metres of rock and soil. The largest cuttings were very deep.

The climb to the summit was far steeper than any railway in Australia had tackled. Considering the impenetrable and unmapped territory, the harsh climate, the remote location and the need for a huge budget, no-one expected the service to get going. And indeed there were construction crises, scandals, rivalry and more financial problems. Yet first locomotive steamed into Queenstown for the railway's official opening in March 1897.

With the final link officially opened at the new Regatta Point station in 1899, the Mt Lyell Mining and Railway Co Ltd went on over the next decade to become Australia's largest mine. The railway, built against the odds, was earning its keep. And the original railway continued to operate for 67 years, despite natural disasters such as bushfires, catastrophic floods, broken bridges and a world flu epidemic. For those who lived in scattered bush settlements along its route and in Queenstown, the railway was a communication lifeline.

The popularity of the railway continued, even with the 1932 opening of the first road out of Queenstown that linked the Lyell community to Hobart. But by 1963 the railway closed and the Mt Lyell Mining and Railway Co. Ltd became a company with a railway in name only.

Queenstown railway station

A private company eventually acquired the railway but when restoration work began in early 2000, supported by $20.45 million from the Federation Fund, little of the original railway remained. In three years the restoration team rebuilt original steam and diesel locomotives, completed 40 reconstructed bridges, made exact replicas of original carriages with hardwood panelling and clerestory roofs, and re-created stations. The West Coast Wilderness Railway's full service between Queenstown and Strahan opened in Dec 2002. They have since bought Strahan Village accommodation and Gordon River Cruises.

From the glassed-in rear doors with balcony, the view is spectacular as the train passes over bridges high above the rivers below, through massive hand-hewed rock cuttings, under the canopies of ancient rain forests and along the edge of plunging gorges. Clearly the West Coast Wilderness Railway continues to memorialise the resourcefulness, endurance and frontier spirit that developed Tasmanian’s west coast. Visitors can see the impact of early pioneers who tamed this very wild country.

Galley Museum, Queenstown

The round trip leaves Strahan at 10.15 am every day, arriving in Queenstown at 2.30pm; at 3.00pm the coach leaves Queenstown, arriving back in Strahan at 4.00pm. A lunch stop in the heart of the dense forest at Dubbil Barril allows passengers to wander along forest paths and discover remote creeks running down to the King River and see first hand the beauty of the majestic Tasmanian wilderness rainforest. At Lower Landing, passengers can taste Tasmania's special leatherwood honey, from the rainforest hives of the Tasmanian Honey Company. Fettlers' lunches and afternoon teas are available on board the train.

The rebuilt Queenstown Station is modelled on the original building with its high, curved roof. It features a café, retail store and information centre resembling a railway carriage. The Eric Thomas Galley Museum in Queenstown features memorabilia and extensive photographic displays of West Coast history and a range of interesting literature about those famous decades.

A very useful book by Lou Rae is called The Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Co, a pictorial history 1893-1993, Ulverstone, 1993. The author concluded that restoring the railway showed long forgotten aspects of our mining and railway heritage, along with the lifestyles of the isolated West Coast mining communities. Australians are now gradually beginning to realise that there is far more to national heritage than convicts and sandstone buildings.

Note Strahan and Queenstown on the west coast of Tasmania

Bristol, Brunel and British Empire history

Bristol Temple Meads railway station was the oldest and largest railway station in Bristol. The neo-Gothic building opened in 1840 as the western terminus of the Great Western Railway from Paddington station in London. The whole railway including Temple Meads was the first one designed by the most loved British engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Soon the station was also used by the Bristol and Exeter Railway, the Bristol and Gloucester Railway, the Bristol Harbour Railway and the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway.

Bristol Temple Meads railway station, built by Brunel in 1840 

The terminus included the passenger shed and the adjoining engine and carriage shed. It was 67 m long with timber and iron roof spans of 22 m. Even so, it had to accommodate an increasing number of trains, so the station was expanded firstly in the 1870s and again in the 1930s.

Sadly Brunel's terminus is no longer part of the operational station, closing in 1965. The architectural and historical significance of the station has been Grade 1 protected. Fortunately The British Empire & Commonwealth Museum opened in the old railway station in 2002, following expensive and extensive renovation (£8 million).

Its role was to explore the history of the British Empire and the effect of British colonial rule on the rest of the world. It aimed at presenting an even-handed version of imperial history, rather than automatically condemning or automatically glorifying the empire. This was probably an impossible goal, but it was always good to see left wing and right wing historians equally offended.

Exhibition space

20 galleries packed with interactive exhibits told the story of the biggest empire the world has ever known. The museum had a good publications department, producing books on colonial life, and a register of titles of the regiments of the Honourable East India Company and East Indian Armies. And there was a collection of artefacts of the Commonwealth Institute; extensive archives for photographs, works on paper and historical films, and a costume collection.

The museum was also the home of an epic tapestry. The New World Tapestry was the largest stitched embroidery in the world, larger than the Bayeux Tapestry. It depicted English colonisation projects in Newfoundland, North America, the Guyanas and Bermuda between 1583-1642, when the English Civil War began. The 24 panels of the tapestry extended for 81.3 m in length and were 1.2 m high. It took from 1980 to 2000 to be completed.

Displays

The exhibition started with John Cabot’s first expedition in 1497 and continued until modern times. My favourite section was, naturally enough for an Australian, The Rise of Victoria's Empire (1800-1900). These galleries focused on the story of the Victorian empire, asking how Britain expanded and controlled its empire, how did Britain's empire work during the 19th century, who benefited from it, who left Britain to live or work abroad, and what did it feel like to live under British rule? Regarding Australia, for example, there were individual accounts of convicts transported to Australian penal settlements. And there was an attempt at measuring the impact of colonisation on Australia’s original inhabitants.

On the day I visited the Bristol Museum, our group included colleagues from Canada, New Zealand and South Africa who enjoyed the quality of the historical material, but we did not have any historians from the sub-continent, Singapore, Hong Kong or the West Indies. I wonder if the two groups would have reacted differently.

The passenger shed, mentioned above as being right next to the railway station, was not wasted. It was one of the largest performance venues in the South West.

Sadly for history minded visitors, the museum announced it would be closing up and moving to London in 2008. What a shame. Bristol was a great site for the museum, given its key role as a major port in centuries past. Bristol was a transit point for international trade, including the transatlantic slave trade which was abolished in 1807.  And the old Brunel railway station provided a perfect exhibition space.

Bristol railways, old passenger shed

But the move did not take place as planned and it has since been announced that the planned move to London will not be completed until 2012. What has happened to all the displays, loaned objects and visitors? Can’t another site be used, until the final installation in London has been completed?

In the meantime, The M Shed is a different Bristol museum that opened in July 2011. Bristol museums seem to be a movable feast. The new project is located in a dockside transit shed that was previously occupied by the Bristol Industrial Museum. It is chockablock full of Bristol artefacts and images, showing Bristol's role in the slave trade and exhibits on transport, the arts and local citizens. And outside the shed, moored in the docks, is a collection of historic vessels. The conversion will eventually cost a cool £27 m.

 The M Shed, Bristol. Opened July 2011

The National Maritime Museum of Cornwall in Falmouth has collections that consist of objects, boats, art, books and archives, all promoting the history of Cornwall, its maritime heritage and small boats. Much of the collection came from the former Cornwall Maritime Museum in Falmouth. The Small Boat Collection, which was orginally developed by the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, is also housed in Cornwall where it has been extended by the addition of other British and international boats. Finally The National Maritime Museum Cornwall is the home to the Royal Society of Marine Artists.

I wouldn’t have added the Cornwall Maritime Museum into a discussion of Bristol, Brunel and and British Empire history, except for one link. The Falmouth museum put on lectures about Brunel the great engineer and the construction of his important ships and their legacy.

Cafe Scheherazade: remembering refugees' stories

I have ranted and raved about asylum seekers and refugees who desperately try to escape the death and destruction in their own countries by coming on small boats to Australia. It strikes me as barbaric to allow the boats to sink, send the refugees back to the hell holes they escaped from or imprison them on small Pacific islands.

Australia’s current policy became even more embarrassing when looking at the play Café Scheherazade, adapted by Therese Radic from the novel by Arnold Zable. The play is showing at fortyfivedownstairs in Melbourne and although there aren’t too many Holocaust survivors still alive, there are plenty of their children and grandchildren who were born from 1946 on. fortyfivedownstairs was packed.

Cafe Scheherazade, Acland St StKilda, 
opened in 1958. 
Photo: Jewish Museum of Australia

After the war, a young couple called Avram and Masha Zeleznikow returned to Poland, found each other, got married and agreed to meet up in Paris. They chose to meet in a Parisian café named after the storyteller Queen Scheherazade who apparently told stories for 1001 nights to save her life. The name seemed appropriate since the Paris café was filled with refugees from Eastern Europe, sharing the stories, looking for any distant cousin who might have survived the Holocaust and eating cheesecake.

When they arrived in Australia in the 1950s, the Zeleznikows opened their own cafe in 1958 and of course they called it Café Scheherazade. They and their Eastern European patrons spent endless hours in Acland Street St.Kilda, recounting their own experiences as hunted enemy aliens in Poland and as refugees in the new country.

The play Café Scheherazade uses the device of Eastern European migrants in Melbourne telling their stories to a young journalist. The journalist wants to get down the details for a book; the café patrons just want to remember their journeys and their experiences of displacement and survival. There is nothing unique about this – I am certain the Afghanastani and Iraqi refugees are in the same position in 2011 that the Jews were in 1951. Refugee lives face universal problems, whether they analyse the issues in Yiddish, Polish, Russian, Arabic or Uzbek.

For people who love klezmer music, the music was evocative of a time well and truly gone. From the moment Ernie Gruner struck up his violin, Arnold Zable noted, the theatre audience was back in the café. Back in Acland Street. Back on the roads of Siberia, the forests of Lithuania, the crowded streets of war-torn Shanghai, the back alleys of Kazakhstan or the streets of Warsaw.

The original Café Scheherazade in St Kilda was indeed an Acland Street icon. Throughout the 1958-70 era, my family joined thousands of others on Sunday afternoons enjoying beetroot borscht with sour cream, potato latkes with sour cream, cheese cake with sour cream, and black tea with lemon slices. Then we would walk to the beach (4 minutes away) for some vigorous exercise.

the play Cafe Scheherazade, remembering stories and drinking lemon tea

But not just an icon - I should call Cafe Scheherazade a haven. The play reminds us to celebrate and embrace those refugees who continue to arrive in Australia, because they are the future of this nation. They provide workers for our industries, chefs, artists and musicians, teachers and historians, as well as contributing to the rich diversity of this culture.

King Ludwig II's castles in Bavaria

From May-Oct 2011, Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte and the Bavarian Department of State-owned Palaces, Gardens and Lakes have established an exhibition that follows in the footsteps of King Ludwig II and his Bavaria. The event marks the 125th anniversary of the death of Bavaria’s most famous monarch. Herrenchiemsee New Palace, open to the public for the first time, will host the exhibition.

Born in Nymphenburg Castle Munich, Ludwig (1845-1886) was a member of the Wittelsbach dynasty. Ludwig’s mother Queen Marie enjoyed taking her two sons on vigorous rural hikes and this was where Ludwig developed his love of the peaceful Schwangau mountains.

He became king of Bavaria in 1864 at 18, but alas for the Bavarians, Ludwig had no interest in politics. Despite being a handsome teenager with a trim body that made women breathe heavily, he became a lonely, isolated man, with no wife and no friends. Ludwig II and his fiancee, Duchess Sophie were engaged throughout most of 1867, but Ludwig cancelled the engagement as soon as he decently could, and never married. Studies of his diaries suggest the King, a devout Roman Catholic, struggled with his sexual orientation throughout his adult life.

Prince Paul von Thurn und Taxis and Ludwig shared a passion for composer Richard Wagner and for the theatre. Paul was gifted with a beautiful voice and sang for the king many times. When Paul and Ludwig visited Wagner’s home, the lads shared a cosy little room. Wagner rehearsed Prince Paul in a portion of his opera Lohengrin, which was performed for the king's 20th birthday in August 1865, at the Alpsee in Hohenschwangau, where Ludwig’s family had a castle. It was magnificently staged with Paul dressed as the hero Lohengrin, wearing silver armour, drawn over the lake by an artificial swan in illuminated scenery. The King sat enraptured as his intimate friend sang his favourite music.

It is safe to say that Ludwig had only two great manias in life: castle building and Richard Wagner's (1813-83) music. He did more than just listen to Wagner's music. He financed almost all the older composer's projects, had Wagner stay in his castles and bailed Wagner out when he was in debt. Wagner was fortunate and he knew it. Especially when Ludwig requested the presence of the conductor and piano virtuoso Hans von Bülow and his wife Cosima, who was in fact Franz Liszt's illegitimate daughter born to the Countess mistress of Liszt. The idea was that the pair would help Wagner in all his musical activities. Both were keen admirers of Wagner's music, but alas Cosima and Wagner fell in love. Wagner and Cosima’s relationship caused much hostility in court circles.

Wagner was soon forced to leave Munich for Switzerland, to a house rented by Ludwig for him. Ludwig retired to the castle Hohenschwangau. The one thing that was giving the king happiness, Wagner’s music, had been taken from him. He was inconsolable.

Neuschwanstein

Note that Ludwig visited Versailles in 1867 and was bowled over. This was before he started his building programme, but the influence remained in Ludwig's mind for 20 years.

Originally Ludwig had intended to surround his kingdom with five castles, although only 3 of them got started. In the south of the country is the castle Neuschwanstein, started in 1869 on top of a craggy, isolated mountain. This was the last castle Ludwig tried to build, but when he died in 1886 all construction stopped with most of the rooms unfinished. This was his fantasy castle, including with white towers, grey turrets and pinnacles.

Inside the bedroom is neo-gothic timber carving, completed by 14 sculptors in four years. Tristan and Isolde scenes dominate the walls. The rooms that were finished had a common theme in their decoration, Wagner’s operas, with scenes in sequence around the walls.

The great Singer's Hall on an upper floor has walls covered with heroic scenes from Lohengrin and Parsifal; internal halls are lined with fine oak timber and added marble. This isolated king arranged private performances in his castles or in Munich at fabulous cost, and appointed an official poet to his household.

The huge Throne Room of Neuschwanstein resembled a Byzantine church. Ludwig’s instructions were that it was to be based on Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Ludwig saw his throne room as a holy of holies, where he could realise his fantasies. The balcony, which is accessible from the Throne Room, has a magnificent view of the surroundings.

Linderhof Castle, just a few ks west of Oberammergau, was one of Ludwig's rococo palaces that was completed. It was built in the early 1870s, and had exquisitely decorated rooms that specifically tried to rival Versailles. As did a number of his buildings.

Built for a king who preferred not to meet people, the palace and its lovely grounds were isolated among the quiet hills and valleys several ks from town. Linderhof palace only contains ten rooms, and of the ten, four of them were waiting-rooms for the servants. Of course because of the King's reclusiveness, most of the amenities were designed to be enjoyed by the King alone. The dining room table is built for only one person and was lowered into the kitchen to be set so no servant had to enter the dining room. The gardens and pavilions were even more amazing.

Schloss Herrenchiemsee Hall of Mirrors, looking remarkably like Versailles

Moving further to the east and set against the Alps is the largest Bavarian lake of all, Chiemsee. Ludwig was clearly besotted with Louis XIV of France, considering him the absolute embodiment of monarchy. So when Ludwig bought the entire island, he had a new Schloss Herrenchiemsee 1878-86 built in direct imitation of Versailles. See the vertical axis of the estate run straight into the fine lake, modelled directly on Versailles. See the fountains and the statues. Nothing is quite as regal and as splendid as these frescoed ceilings, sculpture, chandeliers and gilt decoration.

By 1885, it was clear to the Bavarian Cabinet that Ludwig's building programme was not going to stop. By then the King had 3 building projects well under way, and was spending huge amounts of money. Although Ludwig paid for the castles and private performances out of his own pocket, it was still diverting his focus away from the affairs of state. So his grandiose building scheme, combined with Ludwig's disinterest in the Affairs of State, and his refusing to see his ministers, lead to a fraught situation.

In 1886, Ludwig began investigating the possibility of replacing his Cabinet. Cabinet got wind of his plan, and in order to protect the government, they had to get in first and get rid of their King. Speed and secrecy were important. If Ludwig heard of their scheme, he would have dissolved the Cabinet immediately. As it happened, three eminent psychiatrists (who had never met the king face to face) ruled that the king was permanently insane, so Ludwig could be safely declared unfit to rule.

In June 1886, it was officially announced that Prince Otto was to rule as permanent Regent in place of the ill King. Ludwig was imprisoned in a palace near Munich. Soon after, the body of this devout Catholic was mysteriously found in the lake. He drowned but was it suicide, murder or accident? He was only 41.

King Ludwig II

In this anniversary year, The Munich Residenz will exhibit "Ludwig II’s Conservatory in the Munich Residenz". Ludwig had a conservatory built on the roof of the Residenz where he had created a dream world of plants, animals and oriental buildings. This was his retreat when he visited Munich only once a year, to sign legislation. He did not like leaving his isolated mountain retreat and travelling to the city.

For fantastic photos of Ludwig's Bavaria, including the building and decorating of the castles, go to In Focus with Alan Taylor.