The Geffrye Museum, Hoxton

http://www.geffrye-museum.org.uk/

So I visited the Geffrye Museum in Hoxton for the second time last week and again I was struck with how much I didn’t like it as a museum. Don’t get me wrong, the concept I really like. The whole idea that it ‘is devoted to the history of the home, showing how homes and gardens reflect changes in society, behaviour, style and taste over the past 400 years’. And ordinarily it would be somewhere I’d love and probably visit time and time again but something about the Geffrye left me feeling completely underwhelmed.

http://www.geffrye-museum.org.uk/

The museum space is an old converted alms house and is steeped in history, but in my opinion the space, or lack of it, works against it in terms of visitor experience. You progress chronologically as you move along a corridor, being immersed in different period rooms from the ‘17^th century oak furniture and panelling... to 20^th century modernity and contemporary living’. But that’s where I have issue, because the long thin corridor which you follow through the majority of the museum, I found to be claustrophobic and inhibiting. If you’re on your own fine, but if there is a group of you, you have a problem. If the stewards are around, you have a problem. And worst of all, if you have a group of school children sat sketching or handling artefacts, perform a U-turn. I’m being flippant, but I just didn’t feel comfortable or able to take my time to absorb what I was seeing.

That said I do genuinely love the concept, especially the museums emphasis on education. I can see and appreciate the opportunities it offers children to engage with history, in quite a hands-on and immersive way. On this visit, I was particularly interested to hear about Molly Harrison and ‘her pioneering work in expanding the potential of museums as centres for learning and education,’ and it wasn’t difficult to see their philosophy in action. There were a number of schools groups around and all the kids were listening attentively and engaging with the activities before them.

The online resources on the Geffrye website (the virtual tour and Kids' Zone for example) are also particularly good and extend this educational message. They would certainly make useful teaching tools. You may not be standing in the room itself but you get a good a feel for what it would have looked like and it is much easier to access the information panels by clicking around the screen. We had a moment in one of the rooms where we struggled to find any information, it was only when we went to move out of someone’s way and looked behind us, that we saw the information paddles on the window sill. I particularly like the online feature for being able to look around the authentic alms house rooms from both the 18^th and 19^th centuries. They’ve never been open when we’ve visited and given that this was the original purpose of the build it’s nice to be able to take advantage of the online resources and view these unique rooms.

I just really struggled with the cramped nature of it and feel it could benefit from having a larger space in which to exhibit the rooms, somewhat like those at the far end in the ‘new build’. I appreciate space isn’t easy to come by and the space they do have has been utilised to good effect, it’s just a bit narrow for my liking! We also visited the Museum of London on the same day (don’t worry that’s a blog for another day) and while it follows a similar chronological approach there was just more space to move around and take in what you were seeing. Perhaps I became slightly fixated on this element and it has narrowed (excuse the pun) my perception of the Geffrye, I just didn’t find it an enjoyable experience. Third time lucky perhaps?

A Very British Murder with Lucy Worsley

BBC4 series aired 23^rd, 30^th September and 7^th October 2013

www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/culture/.

It was thanks to a fellow bloggist and their enthusiastic response that I began to watch A Very British Murder with Lucy Worsley. I was a tad sceptical at the beginning, for experience has taught me that historians don’t always find the transition into ‘presenter’ that easy, hence we have the likes of Jeremy Paxman fronting the BBC’s World War One centenary season. I digress – back to Worsley!

The programme picks a topic that has become a part of popular culture. As Worsley states, the ‘preoccupation with murder has a long history’ and thanks to successful literary works and television programmes, the murder mystery is a well-received genre in contemporary society. A Very British Murder taps into this fascination and through the use of primary evidence unravels the historical origin of society’s fascination with murder.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01ftzlq

However unlike a typical documentary A Very British Murder uses a number of different techniques to engage its audience. Perhaps the most notable is the incorporation of dramatized scenes to illustrate specific case studies. For example Worsley adopts the role of the servant character in the Marr murder (Ratcliffe Highway in 1811) in order to narrate the story. What I particularly liked in this segment was how the viewer was invited further into the story through the use of camera shots. The style of filming replicated the techniques used in modern crime dramas where the viewer is given a first-hand perspective; the camera becoming the characters eyes and gradually revealing to the audience details of the scene as if they were actually in that situation.

I was however, a little more uncertain of the re-enactment of The Murder in the Red Barn when Worsley donned the role of Maria Marten. I love that she was really enthusiastic and welcomed the opportunity to get that involved in the story, there is just part of me that couldn’t help feeling it lowered the tone a little. It was the only part in the whole series where I thought “oh no”. But that was just my response, I know from having spoken with others that they responded well to that fact that Worsley didn’t see herself above getting that involved and yes I commend her for that. She clearly has huge enthusiasm for what’s she’s doing and that really does come across on screen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01ftzlq

I also enjoyed the incorporation of visual sources, material artefacts and the direct references to primary source material. As a historian watching this sort of thing I like to know where the information has come from and while the incorporation of other ‘experts’ goes some way towards this, it’s nice to see a piece of archival material once in a while. Just to pick up on the role of the experts, I would also say that this was really well done. When Worsley spoke to contributors there was equal participation. Worsley’s questions were well pitched; you know they were coming from someone with knowledge and so the conversation was able to progress naturally. You see some presenters asking questions they clearly don’t understand and receiving responses they get even less, and that wasn’t the case here and I found that really refreshing. 

I would definitely recommend this programme as one to watch if you get chance. It plays to contemporary interests, is fronted by a female historian and uses an inviting range of techniques to really engage its audience. I hope more history documentaries follow this example!

Just quickly, I also want to respond to a comment made about how Worsley didn’t maintain a continuity of dress throughout the programme. It is often the case that a presenter will wear the same clothes throughout a series, so when my fellow bloggist commented on how nice it was to see that Worsley hadn’t stuck to this ‘rule’ I was intrigued. However, when later watching the programme I found myself putting together a filming schedule in my head and enquiring about locations and their relation to one another. Now I don’t know if this was just me, but I found it very distracting – anyone else?

‘Ace cafe with quite a nice ancient monument attached?’

‘Ace cafe with quite a nice ancient monument attached?’ Original article by Alison Feeney-Hart

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24335517

We were emailed the link to this article by Alison Feeney-Hart earlier in the week, by one of our lecturers and it immediately reminded me of a discussion we once had in our a-level archaeology class. Pete was a fantastic teacher, the Mick Aston of the Archaeology department, but he voiced some strong concerns about these proposals when they were first discussed. Part of the appeal and intrigue that surrounds Stonehenge hinges on the fact that this prehistoric monument stands alone on the Salisbury Plain. As you drive along the A303 your attention is immediately grabbed by this enigmatic site that dominates the landscape. Why then would you want to put a £27 million visitor centre near the site? Surely it will detract from its ancient beauty.

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/stonehenge/

It’s one of those situations where you can appreciate both sides of the argument. You can hardly deny that shops and cafés are both an added bonus to the visitor but also a lucrative source of revenue for historic places. Talking from personal experience, I know family fridges that have been covered in fridge magnets from places they’ve visited – Hampton Court and Carisbrooke Castle for example. I also know people who collect silver spoons and postcards as mementos. It’s almost part of the experience now, engrained on us that we must take something away to remind us of our visit.

Cafés also add an important facility to a site and improve visitor experience – especially in the case of somewhere like Stonehenge. It’s an unwritten rule that whenever you go on an archaeology trip it’s going to rain and the chances are it will probably be torrential. This is what happened when I last went. I’ll never forget being stood on Salisbury plain and feeling totally exposed to the intensity of the monument, but also to the elements. Rather than having our umbrellas over our heads, we were using them like shields, preventing the horizontal onslaught of torrential rain. We got absolutely soaked as there was nowhere to find shelter. We got back on the coach dripping from head to toe and it wasn’t until I got home that night I was dry again. We stopped off at Avebury and West Kennet Longbarrow where I dried a bit, but my seat on the coach was so wet I was soon damp again. The point of that ramble was to say that yes, Stonehenge is a magnificent ancient monument but it isn’t very visitor friendly. Providing basic amenities, even if just toilets and a place to hide from the rain, is beneficial to the visitor experience; but combined with a visitor centre, makes for a more fulfilling day out.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1054544/

Not long ago we were also talking about the lack of a visitor centre at Runnymede, where the 2015 Magna Carta celebrations will be centred. Without it, it is almost just a field and in that situation, how is a visitor supposed to plan their day. We all expect to learn something from information about the site but we also all need to eat, drink and take a rest stop and places that don’t provide facilities for that are hindering their attraction. At present its unlikely you’d spend more than half a day at Stonehenge, but with the new ‘immersive experience’[1] that is proposed, I can see that changing and a café and shop are likely to assist in this process.

It will be hard to integrate any construction into the surrounding landscape without disturbing the scene we all know so well and I am intrigued as to how they plan to do that. I really don’t think cafes and shops detract attention from the museum, gallery or site that you’re visiting; instead I’d argue that they add something to the experience and for the organisation, provide a welcome source of revenue.

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[1] http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/content/news/2013/stonehenge-exhibition-and-visitor-centre-opens-on-18-december

Letters from the Titanic

Titanic Letters broadcast on Radio Ulster.

First transmission 9^th April 2012, currently available on BBC Iplayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01fm59q/Titanic_Letters_Episode_1/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284933

Commemorating the 100^th Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, Radio Ulster aired a series of short programmes that paid tribute to the men and women who sailed aboard the ship in 1912. Over the course of two weeks, 42 letters written by passengers of the Titanic, were read by 42 famous voices, including the likes of Amanda Burton and Eamon Holmes, who bought to life the voices of those once aboard the ill-fated ship. Each segment was narrated by Ciarán Hinds who provided context for each letter, informing you about the individual, their life, job, family and perhaps most poignantly, their fate.

Listeners were introduced to Ida Strauss; a woman deemed a symbol of female strength and loyalty for choosing to go back to her cabin and die beside her husband, as well as the letters of Albert George Irvine an engineer, and Harry Bristow a saloon steward, who both wrote of life aboard the ship.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120338/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

I came across this series purely by accident, but immediately fell in love with the concept. The story of the Titanic is a familiar one to modern society. James Cameron’s 1997 film and Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On have immortalised it in popular culture, but I what I love about this series, is that it allowed the audience a direct channel into the past. As a listener you heard the voice of the passengers and their amazement at the ship they were aboard. Listening to the words that passengers had written offered an intimate and personal view point, which demonstrated their innocence. They didn’t know what awaited them; they were purely enjoying being part of this magnificent ship’s first journey. These letters offer an untold story that tears away the Hollywood glamour that encases most modern accounts.

Screen Shot of
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/titanic/

The anniversary didn’t really register with me at the time but coming across this series I thought I’d see what else was done to mark the centenary. A quick Google search revealed that a memorial service was held at St. Mary’s Church, Southampton and at a number of other churches across the UK, as well as in Canada and the USA. There were also various television and radio programmes, the most well remembered probably being the Downton-esque drama written by Julian Fellowes. However, it’s the website launched by the National Archives that I really want to draw attention to (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/titanic/). If offers a vast range of sources and builds on the ideas and themes raised by the Radio Ulster series. It has biographical accounts, images, videos and podcasts where people can engage with the true story of the Titanic.

Image - Titanic in Numbers from
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/titanic/

While dramatizations help to popularise history and encourage engagement with it, they can all too often pollute the truth and I think the story of the Titanic is a classic example. The resources produced in the wake of the centenary take it back to a grass-roots level and reintroduce the first-hand experience. The events of the Titanic happened to real people and this radio series and the resources on the National Archive website remind us of this. They have also left me with the desire to visit the museum in Ireland! Surely that’s an indication of successful public engagement with the past?



The Iconic Staircase from aboard HMS Titanic
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284933

Welcome!

So here we are!

Imperial War Museum, London

Having finally overcome technical and design issues here is my first blog entry for ispyhistory. As a current Public History MA student at Royal Holloway University, it was recommended to us all to start a blog where we could discuss our views on public history and to demonstrate our enthusiasm for this vibrant subject. Having been a regular diarist in the past, the idea of keeping this going doesn’t daunt me and with a topic as broad and captivating as history, the material should never run dry.

History is so well loved in our society and its everywhere we look. A common reaction when you explain to someone that you’re studying history is for them to pull a face as if to say “how dull!” And indeed some bits are - I find economic history that way, but others find it absolutely fascinating. We’re not all cut from the same cloth and I think that is one of the great advantages of studying history; you can pursue what you personally are interested in.

Test Pit from an Arch Dig

I firmly believe that everyone can find a part of history with which they are willing to engage and the opportunities to do so are ever increasing. Whether it is visiting museums, conducting genealogical research, participating in an archaeological dig or watching a documentary on television, we all engage with history, both consciously and unconsciously. 

Where it all began - A Family Photo

The aim of this blog then is to comment and review my experiences of history over the coming months and I invite discussion. Here’s my opinion, but we all see and think about things differently and it would be great to hear yours!

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I’ll write soon, Elle.