Coram Boys

We had some tickets for the British premiere of Korngold's Die Tote Stadt at the Royal Opera House this weekend, which was hugely exciting, but while we were in London we also had time to take in a couple of 18th-century museums: The Foundling Museum and Benjamin Franklin's House. They were totally different from one another; I'll post on Franklin shortly, but first, let me show you some snaps of The Foundling Museum in Bloomsbury.


Above is a statue of founder Captain Thomas Coram (you might recognise it from the Hogarth painting) and below is the exterior, with a bust of Coram over the door. Coram was a philanthropic sea captain who campaigned to create a 'hospital for the maintenance and education of exposed and deserted young children'. Hogarth was an early governor (he designed the uniforms for the children and the charity's coat of arms) and later, Handel gave the proceeds of a performance of Messiah to the foundation, as well as leaving a fair copy of the score to the hospital in his will.


I'm not sure why the original building was demolished in 1926, but today's museum (above, which stands adjacent to the original site of the Hospital) has some really impressive artefacts. On the ground floor we saw a fantastic exhibition on the Hospital's history, including some of the little tokens that were pinned to the children's clothing by parents for identification purposes, and original petitions from the mothers, some of which were very moving (a typical one states: 'I am sorry to be thus unfortunate an particular as it is intirely out of my power to suport [the child] as the father is absent. To had to my misfortune I have been deprived of parents ever since I have been five years old and have not a friend to apply to and no not in wat manner to support the enfant an I have thus been so unfortunate an only been a servent sence I was fourteen').


One thing I didn't know about the Hospital was that, because of the huge demand for charity, if a petitioner were successful she had to return with her child the following Saturday and take part in a ballot (pictured above), whereby she was given a bag and drew either a white ball (success) or a black ball (rejection). Incredibly, this took place in the Hospital chapel, with spectators positioned in the gallery above - it's difficult to imagine how distressing this must have been!


Coram, despite his ordinary background, managed to elicit an extraordinary amount of support for The Foundling Hospital, and it became to all intents and purposes, Britain’s first public exhibition space. Unfortunately I couldn't photograph them, but the museum includes several galleries, painstakingly reconstructed from the originals, and studded with works by Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Wilson, Hayman, Highmore, Roubiliac and Rysbrack. The picture above is of the staircase, but even here we have a famous painting of Handel's librettist, the outspoken Charles Jennens (far left).


We found a temporary exhibition called Handel the Philanthropist on the top floor, stuffed full of gems from the Museum's own Gerald Coke Handel Collection. In the glass case above was a portrait of Susannah Cibber, a china figure of Kitty Clive and various Handel scores, though perhaps one of the most fascinating exhibits was Handel's last will and testament on a special stand alongside; you could see evidence of the deterioration in his eyesight as he amended his will over a period of years, and his signature became shakier.

This is a must-see for anyone interested in the 18th century - the shop alone has enough to occupy Handel fans for quite some (not least a copy of Christopher Hogwood's 2007 Handel biography). As you can see from the picture below, we did buy the tea towel :)



Photographs © Memoirs of the Celebrated Mrs Woffington.

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To Winter by William Blake

To Winter by William Blake (1757-1827).

O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:
The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark
Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs,
Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.

He hears me not, but o'er the yawning deep
Rides heavy; his storms are unchain'd, sheathèd
In ribbèd steel; I dare not lift mine eyes,
For he hath rear'd his sceptre o'er the world.

Lo! now the direful monster, whose skin clings
To his strong bones, strides o'er the groaning rocks:
He withers all in silence, and in his hand
Unclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life.

He takes his seat upon the cliffs,--the mariner
Cries in vain. Poor little wretch, that deal'st
With storms!--till heaven smiles, and the monster
Is driv'n yelling to his caves beneath mount Hecla.
Illustration: From Old Books

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Adieu for now

I won’t be blogging again until Monday but while I'm away you might be interested in this news item about a rare 18th-century guide to amputations and operations from 1712, recently discovered in Lichfield by Hansons Auctioneers. Hansons seems to be enjoying an extraordinary run of luck at the moment, having also turned up a guide to dentistry from 1770.

And if that's isn't enough medical reading material, The Doctor is always ready with his scalpel. Ouch!

Above: William Hogarth, The Country Inn Yard; or, The Stage Coach (June 1747).

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Word of the Week: Finger Post

A parson: so called, because he points out a way to others which he never goes himself. Like the finger post, he points out a way he has never been, and probably will never go, i.e. the way to heaven.

From: Captain Grose's 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

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Georgian Liverpool: Part 5

Having enjoyed our detour down Rodney Street, we thought we'd take a look at the Gothic Anglican Cathedral, which is futuristic by Dr Moss's guide book's standards, having been built between 1904 and 1978. You can see from what an imposing edifice it is (it was freezing cold and getting towards dusk when I took the photograph above, and the steam issuing out looked especially eerie).

What we particularly wanted to see was The Oratory (below), which stands at the front of the cathedral, beside the descending pathway into St James's Cemetary. This is the cemetary's former chapel; its purpose was to accommodate funeral services prior to actual burial, and it also housed monuments to the dead.


It was designed by John Foster (1786-1846) in the Greek Revival style, though sadly, the burial ground has since been abandoned, as you can see from the undergrowth. We couldn't get near it because it's fenced off, but you can view the interior on appointment.

After a look around the graveyard, we emerged up the other side of what's known as St James's Mount, a ridge overlooking the city. We were just about to leave when my boyfriend spotted a little grassy area which caused him to pause and flick through Dr Moss's guide (below).


We'd come across St James' Walk: an area developed in 1779 as a place of fashionable amusement. It was half-covered in undergrowth (not to mention the cathedral itself, which, as you can see from the picture below, was built partially on top of it), but the pathways were unmistakeable.

Here we are standing at the entrance to the walk, which Dr Moss describes as: 'a gravelled terrace, 400 yards long. It has been compared to the terrace at Windsor. From hence we have a very extensive prospect, across the Mersey, of the north part of Cheshire'. The view is still pretty splendid today, though clearly not as extensive. Moss adds that you were obliged to enter on foot because a horse-block was placed near the entrance.


Below is the view looking back at the 'entrance' from the terrace. Moss's modern author/editor, David Brazendale, adds that: 'Some visitors came in search of the mineral spring which had been discovered in the rock wall of the quarry [i.e., St James's Cemetary] and which was reputed to be beneficial in the treatment of eye infections.'


A glimpse through a gap in the hedge (below) revealed tree-lined walks reminiscent of the pleasure gardens of the 18th century. We were pretty excited by the discovery of this 'engaging spot' and the knowledge that this is probably the closest we'll get to visiting Vauxhall or Ranelagh, though of course, St James's Walk wouldn't have quite been on the same scale!


This is the end of our formal tour, but as some of the buildings were so interesting (I haven't even mentioned the Lyceum and the Catholic Church, which is now the Alma de Cuba nightclub) I plan to do a couple of isolated posts on them. Hope you enjoyed our guide to Georgian Liverpool in the year 1797.

Photographs © Memoirs of the Celebrated Mrs Woffington.

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Dictionary Disaster

We knew that the exterior of the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum in Lichfield was due for a spruce-up to celebrate the great lexicographer's tercentenary year, but what we weren't prepared for was the big, slightly illiterate sign erected on the side of his house. Don't even get me started on the practice of omitting apostrophes because you don't know how to use them properly. What would Dr Johnson have thought of this? No wonder he looks fed up (below).



Photographs © Memoirs of the Celebrated Mrs Woffington.

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Staggering Posterity

I was totally fascinated by Lydia Syson's review in Saturday's Guardian about Wendy Moore's new book Wedlock: The True Story of the Disastrous Marriage and Remarkable Divorce of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore. It tells of Bowes' abusive marriage to Andrew Robinson Stoney: an extraordinarily calculating and brutal man who, in 1777, tricked her into marriage after apparently fighting a duel to defend her honour. Years of abuse followed, but she finally escaped Bowes with the help of one of her own female servants. As Syson says:

Riches, beauty, wit, and an excellent education bought Mary Eleanor Bowes anything but liberty. As Moore shows, nothing could save her from the fate of legal nonentity that she shared with every other married woman of her time. Neither could anything spare her the merciless scrutiny of a celebrity-obsessed press that flourished on scandal, and judged the countess author of her own woes. Years later Mary wrote a prototype misery memoir, recalling the tortures she endured, including a horrific abduction. It was a counterpoint to the Confessions her husband had bullied out of her and then published. She rightly imagined her cathartic Narrative would "stagger the belief of Posterity".

The book isn't released until March in the US, but it's worth looking out for.

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