Cambridge in 1945

I've just come across this fantastic propaganda film from 1945.  It is a detailed picture of life in Cambridge as the second world war came to a close.  It's fascinating to see what's changed (co-education being the most obvious thing) and what hasn't (just about everything else!).

Readers of this blog might also be interested to see a clip of Sir Lawrence Bragg, then Cavendish Professor, lecturing - it's at 5:52.


Cambridge (1945) from British Council Film on Vimeo.

How do you digitise a mortuary roll?

A few weeks ago I went on a fascinating course: Medieval and Modern Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age, run by the Digital Scholarly Editions Initial Training Network (DiXiT), based at the University of Cologne.  This was a fascinating course that aimed to train early-career scholars like me to work with manuscripts and digital technologies, at a time when so many libraries are putting their collections online.

The course combined palaeographic and codicological training, with classes on writing XML using TEI encoding, and visits to libraries in Cambridge and London to see their treasure-houses of medieval manuscripts.  I hope to write a post with my thoughts on the course as a whole, but for now I want to share a couple of photos from a visit to the library of St John's College, Cambridge.

While at the library we looked at a number of beautiful and important manuscripts, including a gigantic Spanish antiphonal.  But I was particularly struck by the one on the right.  It is the mortuary roll of Amphelisa, the prioress of Lillechurch in Kent.  After she died, sometime between 1208 and 1221, this scroll was sent around the monastic houses of England, so that each house could write something expressing their intention to pray for the deceased.  I suppose it's a bit like those leaving cards people get when they change jobs!

The mortuary roll passed by Dunmow!

Anyway, I was excited to see that near the top of the 378 houses that participated, were some near where I grew up - you can of course track the progress of the messengers and their cargo around the country, as well as the changing handwritting patterns in different places.  But it also raised some practical questions, which I shared on Twitter:

A highlight from #mmsda so far: c1220 mortuary roll of prioress Amphelisa at @stjohnscam. How do you digitise this? pic.twitter.com/pSxlbSHWQv
— Seb Falk (@Seb_Falk) April 30, 2014

That led to a little further discussion:

@Seb_Falk @stjohnscam In the way Google books presents a book ... a bit at a time and use Ajax.
— Roger Pearse (@roger_pearse) May 2, 2014

@respectdesfonds @erik_kwakkel @stjohnscam Then how would you present it online? A single (literal) scrolling image has advantges & disadvs!
— Seb Falk (@Seb_Falk) May 2, 2014

I don't have an easy answer to this issue - really I wanted to share these photos because I thought the roll was fascinating, as well as fun.  But if there is a conclusion to be drawn, perhaps it's to remind us that there are some aspects of manuscripts - their smell, their feel, their physicality - that will never be adequately conveyed in any digital form, however sophisticated.

Pigeons in the Prado

I've blogged before about my preference for museums that tell a clear story.  I just don't have the patience (or the creativity?) to form my own narrative from disconnected, poorly explained objects.  So I was really excited recently to visit two museums in Spain that, in their own very different ways, presented a fully formed idea with originality and panache.  This post is about the first of them: the Prado.

I know what you're thinking: unified vision? in an art gallery?! True, at their worst (let's face it, most of the time) they are just walls of paintings with little explanation - rooms full of canvasses only connected by the fact that the people who painted them came from the same country.  But from November to April the staid corridors of Spain's greatest gallery were subject to an invasion of curiosities.

If it hadn't been for the death of Charles III in 1788 and the subsequent Peninsular War, the Prado building would have housed the royal cabinet of natural history.  That was all the excuse Spanish artist Miguel Ángel Blanco needed to raid Madrid's natural history museum, which conserves what's left of the monarchy's collection of hunting trophies and other curiosities, and scatter 22 items in thought-provoking spots around the massive gallery.  Thus in a simple but startling way he recreated the royal Wunderkammer of the 18th century.

He clearly had a lot of fun doing it.  What would spice up Dürer's Adam and Eve? A serpent skeleton!  What would offset the witches in Goya's Great He-Goat? Two toads, a bat skeleton, a moose (really) hoof, and some brimstone!  And of course he couldn't raid the Spanish royals' hoard of stuffed animals without taking at least one bull - this imposing specimen graced Rubens' Rape of Europa.

But even these obvious juxtapositions, because so unusual in an art gallery, were thought-provoking.  It was perhaps a no-brainer to put a narwhal tusk alongside Varotari's Orpheus and the Animals, but it was still powerful in raising the historic cultural associations of unicorns and the natural material that was traded across the world in support of those myths.

And there were more subtle allusions too.  A glowing review in the Times Higher Education singled out the tiny albino sparrow perched high above the massive Las Meninas. Blanco imagines it outside the window looking in at the royal court - its placement so high up complemented the airy composition of the painting.

Blanco had written explanatory labels for each pairing, explaining why he had chosen the object to accompany the painting and what features of each he was trying to draw out.  These plaques were not intrusive - anyone wanting to construct their own narrative was free to do so - but they provided a starting point for visitors to think through the juxtapositions.

I loved how this exhibition made me look and look again at the paintings, forcing me to consider not only their subject matter but also their cultural connotations, both at the time they were produced and today.  How many still lifes full of meat have we admired, without thinking of the animals that died to fill the larders of the seventeenth century?  Blanco chose a squab to accompany a painting by Juan Sánchez Cotán; his bodegón has been thought austere, but it was opulent compared with the spare skeleton of the pigeon chick alongside it.  What are we to make of the fact that the hanging pheasants are somehow more beautiful in two-dimensional death than the vestiges of the chick that never reached full maturity?

So Blanco still left plenty of questions unanswered.  But by taking a clear premise - putting the natural historical collections of the royal family back alongside their more familiar art collections - he told a simple story very well, making me think much more deeply about the Prado's artworks and their significance.

What about the second museum, I hear you ask!  Come back soon to hear all about a tiny treasure in Burgos!

An evolving gem of Paris

The last couple of times I wrote about museums on this blog (here and here), I was at least somewhat critical.  So I'm pleased to report a really positive museum visit.

The Jardin des Plantes is one of the more popular visitor attractions in Paris, especially on a lovely spring day (like last Sunday, when I was there).  It's been a centre for the study of botany since the 17th century, but it was under the stewardship of the Comte de Buffon (from 1739 until his death in 1788) that it grew into the archetypal complex of Enlightenment science.

Plan of the Jardin des Plantes,
from Baedeker's 1910 guide to Paris

As the pictures on the left show, it's changed little since his time.  Alongside the botanic garden are museums of botany, geology, palaeontology, and of the history of the site, and a growing zoo.  And the Grande Galerie de l'Évolution.

Map board from the Jardin des Plantes

Although the name suggests a museum solely about evolution, it has a much broader scope, closer to London's Natural History Museum.  (Confusingly for someone used to the NHM, the French Muséum national d'histoire naturelle refers to a whole collection of places, including the entire Jardin des Plantes site and all the museums mentioned above, as well as several other museums, gardens and zoos within and without Paris.)

The Grande Galerie was inaugurated in July 1889, just a few weeks after the Eiffel Tower, during the Exposition Universelle.  Originally called the Museum of Zoology, it was designed to provide a more spacious setting for the old Cabinet of Natural History, which itself had replaced the old royal Cabinet of Curiosities after the Revolution, and which occupied the small building now dedicated to the history of the Jardin.  The new building was a strong statement of commitment to the advancing science of zoology, and remains a hugely impressive space today: a gigantic open hall overlooked by three levels of arcaded balconies.

The Grande Galerie (re)opened with its current name in 1994, after a major refurbishment following decades of neglect and closure.  And it is well worth a visit.


It makes great use of that gallery space with a parade of taxidermied animals, as if filing off Noah's ark (though in many cases there are more than two gorgeous examples of a species).  This is surrounded by skeletons of whales, astounding arrays of butterflies, creepy specimens in blue glass jars... You name it.

Animation with some recognisable figures.

But what I like about this museum is that it draws you in with the big spectacle - the amazing richness and diversity of the natural world - and then when it's got your attention, it has the time and space to present many different approaches to the study of that incredible subject matter.

So there's a section dedicated to the history of zoology (slightly tucked away at the top of the building, but never mind) with explanations of the development of scientific theories alongside specimens associated with important figures like Lamarck, Cuvier and Darwin.

Some tools of the taxidermist's trade

There's a case dedicated to explaining taxidermy.  And there are changing displays for children - when we were there, one focused on the biology, history, mythology and conservation of the narwhal.

Zoologists might find something to criticise here: there's little scientific explanation of how animals come to be the way they are, and not too much about the relationships between them (genetic or in terms of diet/habitat).  And if you want fossils, you'll have to go across the Jardin to the Galeries d’Anatomie comparée et de Paléontologie.  In fact, now that I think about it, Grande Galerie de l'Évolution is rather a silly name for what is an old-fashioned museum of zoology.  But for that old-fashioned zoological spectacle, which nonetheless leads you off in various thoughtful and occasionally unexpected directions, I strongly recommend it.

London Marathon in a Gherkin costume

Go Gherkin!

What can you make when you've finished your equatorium?  Easy: a model of a famous building to use as a marathon costume!

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed a reduced frequency of posts, and none at all where I'm making things, during the last few months.  That's because most of my creative energies have gone into making this 8-foot Gherkin costume.

I'll be running the London Marathon in it.  I'm doing this to raise funds for The Cure Parkinson's Trust - a charity which works to support research into this horrible condition.

Confused?  Check out gogherkin.com.  There I've explained why I'm running in aid of Parkinson's research, and why I chose to run as the Gherkin.  You can also see pictures of the costume under construction, and find out more about the marathon challenge (I'm hoping to run it in 3:15-3:30, despite the costume's weight (5 kg) and wind resistance!

If you'd like to sponsor me and support Parkinson's research, please go to www.justgiving.com/gogherkin.  But not before you've watched the video below.  Whether you find it motivational or just plain ridiculous, I hope you enjoy it - and if you do, please share it!

Navigating Aberdeen Maritime Museum

Do you like to be told what a museum's all about, or would you rather make your own links between exhibits and draw your own conclusions?  Do you like to make your own way round a museum, or would you rather be directed on a set course?  And how closely involved should museums be with private companies, and their inevitable PR agendas?  These questions have been on my mind this week, after a visit to the Aberdeen Maritime Museum.

I am a keen sailor and have long been interested in maritime history, so when I visited Aberdeen this week (to examine a manuscript in the sparkling new Sir Duncan Rice Library), the Maritime Museum was #1 on my list of attractions.  Fortunately I had a couple of hours spare before my train home, so I checked it out.

Two-thirds of the Museum: the church and Link Building

The Museum (re-)opened - after a massive expansion - in 1997, and occupies three connected buildings: Provost Ross' House, built in 1593; the 19th-century Trinity Congregational Church; and a purpose-built steel and glass "Link Building" between the two.  It spreads over 4 floors.  There are two entrances (on the ground floor at the front of the building, and on the first floor at the back) and the building has two separate sets of stairs.  So visitors can take hugely varying routes around the museum.

Faced with the impossibility of imposing a single linear visit on museum-goers, the designers clearly decided to make flexibility a feature of the museum.  They couldn't impose a route on visitors, so they didn't.  Neither did they impose any chronology, or any overarching interpretation.  The museum is structured thematically, with different sections on the maritime industries in which Aberdeen has been involved: shipbuilding; trade; fishing; oil.  Although individual objects have descriptive labels, there are none of the boards that one often finds in each room, giving an overall explanation or introduction to the room.

"Introductory display", First Level

The result of all this was that (ironically for a maritime museum) it was very difficult to navigate.  The First Level galleries, which on the Museum map promised "an introduction to Aberdeen's maritime heritage", provided no such thing.  The "Introductory Display" contained a selection of maritime objects, each adequately described by its own label, but with nothing linking them together.  (It didn't help that there was a good deal of reflection on the curved glass of the display, making the labels hard to read.)

What was I looking for?  Well, two things really: clearer chronology, and a stronger narrative.  Of course chronology is coming strongly back into fashion, not only in history teaching (I've blogged about that before), but also in museum design - most famously at Tate Britain, which has rehung all its paintings in strict chronological order, receiving mixed reviews.  So I'm wary of being a fashion victim... but I really think a clearer, chronologically straightforward narrative of Aberdeen's changing relationship with the sea would have improved the museum.  For example, the exhibit of the early history of the port (from pre-history up to its expansion in the 19th century) was hidden away right in the back corner of the top floor, and it took up comparatively little space.

Murchison oil platform model

By contrast, filling the museum were the exhibits dedicated to the oil industry.  These were certainly very striking, particularly the 8-metre model of the Murchison oil platform, but they did make the overall visit experience rather unbalanced.

The museum was quite open about its partnership with oil companies, but I was a little uneasy about this.  One exhibit that certainly didn't lack a clear narrative was the 3D movie about life on an oil platform: it can only be described as a propaganda video.  It was 100% financed by the TAQA Bratani oil company; needless to say, it emphasised the safety and environmental responsibility of the industry, as well as its care for the wellbeing of its workers.  Yet on the floor above was a smaller exhibit dedicated to the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster, in which 167 people (including 165 out of 226 people stationed on that oil platform) died.  Reading about that wholly preventable disaster, and the criticisms made of the platform operator Occidental Petroleum, provided a timely reminder that the assurances of large companies should perhaps not be accepted uncritically.

Of course, there were several parts of the museum I did enjoy.  Perhaps the best parts, in my view, were those about the fishing industry, and how it's changed over the centuries.  It's probably not coincidental that these were the exhibits that provided the clearest narrative.  Should I have grown out of this need to have my hand held?  Maybe, but I guess I just like a good story.

The Scholar as Craftsman: Notes and Records article

Regular readers of this blog (if there are any, I should apologise to them for my long silence) will be familiar with the story of King Arthur's Table.  You won't need me to remind you how I was lucky enough to discover this forgotten object in the stores of the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, and then spent much of 2013 investigating its biography.

You'll already know, I'm sure, that the story takes in Sir Lawrence Bragg, the Cavendish Laboratory and its workshops.  You'll be aware that the hero of this story, Derek de Solla Price, was a complex character who came to Cambridge more or less on a whim, discovered a manuscript (possibly) by Chaucer in the library at Peterhouse, and thereby launched his career as a superstar historian of science.  My research into Price and his work took me from Cambridge to Chicago, visiting many archives and museums in between (and getting lots of help from Price's lovely family).

Why am I reminding you of all this?  Because my article telling this story has just been published by Notes and Records, the Royal Society's journal for the history of science.  It will be printed in the journal in June, but before then it is completely free to read and download online.  Just click here and read all about it!

And of course don't forget to come back here and leave a comment to let me know what you think!