Faces with stories ………..

I am looking at the face of a young woman, and what makes the image very remarkable is that it sat at the bottom of the sea for nearly 160 years amongst the wreckage of S.S. Central America which sank in 1857 off the coast of South Carolina.

But not the Mona Lisa of the Deep, 2023

Now the story of the picture, the ship and the mystery woman are there on the internet, and  as ever I will not presume to lift other people’s research and writing*

Other than to say that the image is an example of a daguerreotype “which was made on a silver-plated copper plate, polished to a mirror finish, then sensitized by exposing the plate to the fumes of iodine or bromine. 

After being exposed to light through a lens, the image was developed by exposing the plate to the fumes of mercury until the direct positive image appeared, then fixed in a bath of sodium thiosulfate or ordinary salt”.**

In all 100 images were recovered but many were too degraded to offer up a face, but there are ten which are very clear.

And of the 10 this one has captured the imagination of many and has gained the name of the “Mona Lisa of the Deep”.  It was found a pile of coal on the sea bed.

Just who she was remains a mystery but my old school friend Richard Woods who sent over the image thinks “there is a possible resemblance to Ellen Lewis Herndon, who was the daughter of the captain of the SS Central America, although the image I have come across was taken at an older age”.

Astarte Syriaca, 1877

Who ever she was there is no escaping the vividness of the image, and that set me thinking of the heaps of photographs and paintings I have come across over the years, and the stories that sit behind the faces staring back at us.

And that in turn prompted me to think about a series of Pre Raphaelite paintings many of which are in the collection of Manchester City Art Gallery.

Of these the paintings Astarte Syriaca** and the Bower Meadow are two of my favourites. 

Both were painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and feature Jane Morris.  She was the wife of William Morris, the socialist and leading figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement.

William Morris remains one of those 19th century figures I am drawn to.  His book News from Nowhere, and his designs have long been part of our house.

But if I am honest I have always also been captivated by images of Jane Morris which might be a bit questionable given that she was born in 1839 and died just 35 years before I was born.

Not that being married stopped her from a romantic entanglement with Rossetti or later with the poet and political activist, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, who despite standing as a Tory and then a Liberal Parliamentary candidate was an anti-Imperialist, who campaigned for Irish independence, and challenged the motives of those who supported the Empire. 

Proserpina, 1876

Now I knew nothing of Jane’s romantic attachments when I first came across her in the City Art Gallery.  Nor that she had been born in what used to be called “humble circumstances”  or that her mother was illiterate and according to one source her own education had been limited, which “probably was destined to go into domestic service like her mother…… [but after her engagement to William Morris] …… she was privately educated to become a gentleman's wife. Her keen intelligence allowed her to recreate herself. 

She was a voracious reader who became proficient in French and Italian, and she became an accomplished pianist with a strong background in classical music. Her manners and speech became refined to an extent that contemporaries referred to her as ‘queenly.’ 

Later in life, she had no trouble moving in upper-class circles. She was the model for the heroine of the 1884 novel Miss Brown by Vernon Lee and may also have influenced George Bernard Shaw in creating the character of Eliza Doolittle in his play Pygmalion (1914) and the later film My Fair Lady (1964). She also became a skilled needlewoman, self-taught in ancient embroidery techniques, and later became renowned for her own embroideries.”**** 

The Meadow Bower, 1872

Although there is a suggestion that her work as an embroider with that of her sister never got the full recognition that it deserved when she worked in the firm of which William Morris was a partner.

And that pretty much is that, other than to say this has been one of those twisty turney stories which started off with a ship wreck and a mystery woman in a picture and by degrees led me to William Morris and heap of things about Jane Morris.

All of which confirms that observation that history is messy and can take you off in all sorts of directions, and along the way highlights the poverty and lost chances of so many in 19th century Britain and the lucky chance that allowed one young woman destined for domestic service to warp off in a totally different direction.

I would like to have included that stunning image of the young woman plucked from the sea, but as yet I do not have permission from the company who who hold the rights to the image to publish it.

Hence the substituted image Not the Mona Lisa

It is a shame but falls into that domain of copyright issues of which I am a staunch supporter.

That said there is perhaps a difference between a work produced by an individual and one acquired by a company even if they went to the cost of preserving it.

But if that permission does finally come through there may be a story about its preservation by the Paul Messier Studio.

We shall see.

And in the meantime there are plenty of images of the young woman out there posted by people who have secured permission or just don't care.

Another not the Mona Lisa of the Deep

Location; the 19th century

Pictures; , Astarte Syriaca, 1877, and Meadow Bower, 1872,Dante Gabriel Rossetti Manchester City Art Gallery, and Proserpina, 1876, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Tate Art Gallery 

* Doomed ship of gold’s ghostly picture gallery is plucked from the seabed, Dalya Alberge, The Guardian, February 27th, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/feb/27/doomed-ship-of-golds-ghostly-picture-gallery-is-plucked-from-the-seabed and Mona Lisa of the Deep, Professional Photographers of America, Sunken treasure, Amanda Arnold • November 2022 Issue, https://www.ppa.com/ppmag/articles/mona-lisa-of-the-deep

**Stuart Williams

***Astarte Syriaca, Manchester City Art Galley, https://manchesterartgallery.org/explore/title/?mag-object-163

****Jane Morris, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Morris

Passing the bridges ………

It will have been in 1979, and I guess it was sometime in the summer and on a whim, I took a trip on the River.

Now if you were born and grew up in southeast London paying to travel the Thames was a rare event, reserved for impressing a girlfriend.

On this day I will have been home from Manchester which had already been my adopted city for a decade, so reckon that pleasure cruise would have been a way of reuniting with my city.

Or it may have just been an excuse to try out a new camera.

Either way I used up two films, and still have the negatives which sat in the cellar for 40 years before I brought them out of the shadows.

 Looking at the direction of some of the images I will have taken the trip upriver from Greenwich past the Tower and on to Westminster.

Back then I didn’t record the exact destinations or who was with me, but it was a rewarding day and I still have heaps of pictures of that grimy London, which the tourists see but never bother “snapping”.

I did and many of those warehouses have now vanished or been converted into swish riverside apartments.

The waterfront has been “cleaned up” and new properties stand where once cranes unloaded diverse cargoes from pretty much everywhere.

Added to which since I sat on the benches of that boat new bridges cross the River and stepping back from the water are shedloads of gleaming glass and steel tower blocks.

All of that said these images instantly bring back that smell of the Thames and the noise of the river traffic.

And now it’s a full 45 years since the journey which has gone in a blink.

Location; The River

Pictures; wot I saw on a trip along the Thames, 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A painting of the meadows, a mystery ……….. and stories yet to be told

This is Hawthorn Lane, which is part of the Old Road, which snaked through Chorlton from Hardy Lane, skirting the parish church before heading off east across the Meadows to Stretford.

We can’t be sure when it was painted, or whether it was an attempt to recreate a much earlier scene.

But what I do know, is that it is the work of Thomas Crowhurst, who was living at no. 15 St Clements Road from 1872 till 1892.

He describes himself variously as a “Teacher of Drawing” and “Artist, teacher and landscape painter”, and he was born in Cornwall in 1835.

His wife Ellen was also a teacher and they employed a Governess who was also a “Teacher of French and German”.

I can track them from 1866 when he was living in Cheetham Hill, but lose them after 1891, although there are hints to where they lived subsequently.

The painting was acquired by a friend about 4 years ago, and is important because it is only one of two dating from the 19th century which I have come come across.

There in the distance is St Clements Church, and I suspect there will be plenty of people who spend a bit of time trying to locate exactly where Mr. Crowhurst stood when he painted the scene.

Walking the lane today, there is one possible bend which might be the one shown, but of course the view across to the church has changed beyond recognition.

In the 19th century this was still meadow land, farmed specifically for the purpose of growing “spring grass”, but during the last century the area was subject to Corporation waste tipping, followed by dramatic landscaping by the wardens of the Mersey Valley which created pretty much what we see today.

So that makes Thomas Crowhurst’s painting so important.

But never one to shy away from a bit of family prying I went looking for the man and his family and there is a story ……….. indeed quite a few.

Back in 1871 he was living with his wife Ellen in Walnut Street, in Cheetham Hill, and gave his occupation as a “Clerk in a Wholesale Drapery House” and Ellen appears not to be employed.
Walnut Street is still there and consists of modest terraced houses, which are a contrast to the property they moved to when they settled in Chorlton.

Just where they worked as teachers is yet to be discovered, but they had a full house in St Clements Road.  Along with the two of them, there was a son, two boarders, two servants and Ms Bertha Rath the Governess.

What is equally intriguing is that one of the two boarders, was their niece, and a decade later she is listed as “adopted daughter”.

She was Dora Helen Cornish and a search of the census records reveals someone of that name, of the right age, and birthplace living with her mother in the south.

All of which betokens more stories.

And in the meantime, perhaps a walk down Hawthorn Lane, armed with his paintings and the task of comparing the scene today with that of when Mr. Crowhurst put paint to canvas.

Location; Hawthorn Lane

Picture; Hawthorn Lane, Thomas Crowhurst, date unknown

The Knitting years .... number 4 getting personal

The new series on the history of what we wore, Knitting Patterns.

Now if this isn't the pattern our Jillian used to knit that jumper for me in 1970 with reindeer's it is as close as you can get.

The original was in brown with with red and yellow and proved such a success that she made a second in blue.

I showed it to our sons who were very envious ........... not bad for a distance of 4 decades

Picture; knitting patterns, 1930-1970 from the collection of Jillian Goldsmith

Chicken bryani in the Plaza on Upper Brook Street on Saturdays in the 70s

For those who were born around the mid 20th century who queued to see the film Spartacus, remembered with profound sadness the death of Ottis Reading and raged at the Vietnam War it is more than likely that if you were in Manchester during the late 60s into the 80s you will have eaten at the Plaza on Upper Brook Street.

I had almost forgotten my beery nights out which always seemed to end at the Plaza until a post about breakfast on my friend’s Lois’s blog brought it all back.*

I have yet to meet anyone who ate there who does not have fond memories of the place, and has their own story. Mine are many.

 I remember the night of the Milk Snatcher’s Ball at UMIST** when we fell into the cafe with our baby doll nightdresses which we had borrowed from two flatmates securely hidden under our jeans and tee shirt or the night of the vivid conversation between a man with a broken hand and his girl friend about the relative merits of an A &E unit in down town Berlin.

I am sure there were many things on the menu but I can only ever remember eating the chicken or meat bryani, half of which cost 3/6d in 1970 and was more than enough for two.

The chicken arrived on a pile of yellow rice and raw onion with a small pot of the curry sauce and after vast quantities of cheap student union beer it went down well.

Now our friend Mike had never taken to curry and so at 3 in the morning on Upper Brook Street he would ask for a roast dinner which he got, with everything including the roast potatoes, chicken, gravy and just possibly Yorkshire puddings too. It was as my friend Lois said that "everything was possible at the Plaza."

Sometime around 1972 I stopped going. I suppose it was a mix of things really. My girlfriend of the time wasn’t over keen and by the end of that year we were living off Grey Mare Lane and soon after that out in Ashton, which meant that Upper Brook Street was a serious trek.

I suspect we were also playing at being grown up and grownups eat sensibly at places like the Bella Napoli off Albert Square and on Sundays in China Town. Looking back it was my loss.

And then it had gone. When exactly I don’t know, although I have friends who still went there in the early 80s for Sunday dinner.

Now I know that with age comes a rosy nostalgia about the past, and no doubt my sons can talk of their own food dives and late night experiences but for my generation the Plaza was special, even if it was hard to remember much of the night the following day.

Picture by kh1234567890 posted on flicker photostream

*http://loiselsden.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/breakfast/

**My friend Marc always referred to it as the Tech but he went there while I and my friends Jack, Greevz, Mike, Lois and John slummed it across the road at the Poly which we always called the College of Commerce which had been its pre amalgamation name. There were other things we called it of which the College of Knowledge was one, but mercifully never Colcom which really put you out with the nerds in the dustbins.

One more lost scene of Chorlton ......... from the winter of 1963-4

 In memory of Ida Bradshaw who died on New Year's Eve and whose funeral service too place on Wednesday in St Clements, here is the first of three stories she inspired.

Ida, 1941-2026

It was taken in the winter of 1963-4 from the back upstairs window of Ida Bradshaw’s house on Neale Road.

Today the view would be obscured by the flats of Lawngreen, but back then it was all that was left of the farm yard, workshops and land of the farm which had fronted the parish graveyard for two hundred years.

To the right in the background is the Bowling Green Hotel, to the left the houses which face Brookburn Road. 

And away in the distance are the meadows.

 What is perhaps remarkable are the buildings on the horizon just left of centre.

 These I think were the homes of the sewage workers and stood just to the left of the little footbridge across Chorlton Brook.

It is still possible to make out a break in the hedge where the garage of the properties was situated. There are those in Chorlton who remember living in one of them.
Nerdy perhaps, but still real living history. If anyone has any pictures of Chorlton I would love to see them.

Picture; from the back upstairs window on Neale Road from the collection of Ida Bradshaw

A family mystery from the Great War

Now this metal notebook holder has been in the family for as long as I can remember.

It is small but quite heavy and  I am ashamed to say has suffered from being in the cellar.

Its metal exterior has been attacked by rust and I am looking at how best to restore it.

It carries the German Imperial Cross with the letter W and the date 1914, and given that my grandmother was German I assumed it belonged to one of her family.

But now I am not so sure.
The name inscribed on the front is not one I recognise.

Of course that doesn’t prove it is not one of our family but allows for some doubt.

Alternatively it could have been picked up on the Western Front by either my grandfather or great uncle Jack.

Both served in the British Army and both were in France.

Whatever its origins I do know that it passed to my uncle who served in the RAF and whose name, serial number and the words RAF were inscribed inside.

Uncle Roger enlisted in 1938 aged 16 and saw action in Greece, and Iraq before being captured by the Japanese in 1942 and died in a prisoner of war camp the following year aged just 21.

And that offers up a second mystery because it remained in our possession.  I very much doubt that had it headed out to the Far East with him it would have returned.

I am of course totally prepared to accept the commonsense explanation that he just left it behind for anyone of a number of reasons.

The German side of our family is the one that we have not explored and when we do we might find the answer to its original owner.

Sadly there is no one left to ask and had we not decided to clear out the middle cellar I suspect it would have been many more years before I came across it.

All of which is a lesson in how to look after family objects.  All too often because we have grown up with them we take the item for granted, and that can lead to neglect and eventually to the loss of the object.

So that is it.  The search has begun.  Leaving me only to reflect on the irony of the fact that it passed to my uncle who was in the RAF but like my mother had been born in Cologne.

Picture; metal notebook holder, circa 1914, from the collection of Andrew Simpson