A Kitchen Cabinet of Curiosity

 Pamela Crowe explores the contents of a 1950s kitchen cabinet
and the origins of museum collecting

The wooden space-saving kitchen cabinet at Leeds Discovery Centre (pictured above) dates from the mid-twentieth century and incorporates a fold down enamel worktop, ironing board and a series of green painted cupboards and drawers to store cutlery, table linen, tableware and food. It sits at the far end of the main corridor in the Discovery Centre, just slightly beyond the Store entrance. To find it you must postpone entering the store or remember to double back before you leave. 

Today we display a collection of food packaging from our social history collection within it. I’ve chosen three of my favourites items.



Dried eggs used during 1940s-50s food shortages

Label: 'This can contains 12 Eggs'
This is a small cylindrical gold tin containing 12 pure dried whole eggs in powdered form supplied by the United States and issued by the Ministry of Food for distribution in Great Britain as a response to a wartime shortage of fresh eggs, c.1940-50. 

Users were instructed to store them away from anything with a strong smell and when required, to mix one level tablespoon of dried egg with two tablespoons of water making sure to “work out lumps with a spoon against the side of the bowl”. 

The egg had to be used immediately after mixing and was most suitable for scrambled eggs or omelettes. Uptake of the dried eggs was slow and the Ministry of Food issued posters to promote their use.

Co-op Ground Ginger

Label: 'Co-op Ground Ginger'
Dating from the late 1960s, this small jar of ground ginger features the distinctive ‘cloverleaf’ Co-op logo on the side. In 1968 The Co-operative Working Society (CWS) worked with the co-operative societies around Britain to rebrand under a single Co-op logo in a move to unify branding across all the retail shops. Stores that wished to use the new logo had to undergo refurbishment. In 2016 The Co-operative Group announced that it would return to a refreshed blue version of the cloverleaf logo.

Label: 'For the relief of Asthma, Hayfever & spasmodic affections of the respiratory tract'

Potter's Asthma Remedy

Potters’ inhalation products were well known and widely used throughout the early to mid 20th Century. Users were instructed to inhale a heated teaspoonful of the powdered herbal remedy on a daily basis. 

This product continued to be manufactured until 1988 when the UK’s Department of Health refused to renew the product licence. Recent research has shown that the products may in fact have posed similar health risks to smoking.

The Cabinet of Curiosities
Back in April 2015 I gave my very first tour of the Discovery Centre. Nerves aside, it was great fun but I recall spending too long talking about this 1950s kitchen cabinet. It still draws me in though, I think of it as a Kitchen Cabinet of Curiosities, the Discovery Centre's Küche Wunderkammer (Kitchen Wonder Cabinet).

Wunderkammer (translated, Wonder Chamber or Room) is a German term dating from the sixteenth century to describe a personal collection of extraordinary objects that was amassed by noblemen, men of science and the merchant class, cabinet then being a term for a room rather than a piece of furniture.

Drawers opened enticingly at Leeds Discovery Centre

From Renaissance times through to the late nineteenth century, men and women of stature could exhibit their knowledge and status by assembling all manner of exotic natural wonders, art, treasures and items from distant lands and cultures. 

These collectors believed that by identifying invisible and visible similarities between the objects they could arrive at a better understanding of God's purpose and man's place in the universe. 

Over time the significance of these Wonder Chambers grew, private spaces became public with the larger royal and aristocratic collections developing into grand public museums and institutions. Elias Ashmole (1617-1692) donated his library and collection to the University of Oxford and these formed the foundation of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, founded in 1683. 

Leeds Discovery Centre stores the Leeds Museums and Galleries collections

The awesome and the ordinary

It's not a huge leap to view the entire Discovery Centre as a vast Cabinet of Curiosities, after all we're still trying to make sense of our universe and our place within it. The most common reaction from visitors entering the store for the first time is one of awe and my own brain still emits a little 'wow' each time I enter. Our collections comprise both the familiar and unfamiliar: the pleasure in viewing the bones of a dodo or 4.5 billion year old iron meterorite can be met in equal measure by the sighting of a familiar washing machine from Grandma's house or a gold tin of egg powder.

The breadth and of depth of these collections provide each of us with an opportunity (conscious or otherwise) to evaluate our own very personal past within a greater, complex shared one - just as the Renaissance collectors sought to do with their Wunderkammers.

 

By Pamela Crowe, Volunteer Tour Guide and Blogger, Leeds Discovery Centre

Further Reading/Sources:
Tate.org on Cabinets of Curiosities 
British Library Learning: Cabinets of Curiosity
Cabinet of Curiosities and The Ashmolean Museum



Leeds Discovery Centre Store Tours
Come and explore our collections at the Leeds Discovery Centre every Thursday at 11am and 2pm in our Store Tours. For more information about visiting our store, please visit our website. 

Childhood in the collections: New study days at Abbey House Museum

Next month we will be holding our first ‘Childhood’ study day at Abbey House Museum.

The day itself will be split between talks and presentations, handling sessions from the museum collections, and gallery tours – with an introduction to a variety of topics around the theme of childhood.

Researching for this day has been a lot of fun – with so many different avenues to explore and so many possible topics to consider. That has, however, also made it difficult to decide what we should include. For example, talking about the different types of schools in Leeds over the last 150 years is a massive subject – with so many changes to education over the years.

We will have a closer look at Reformatory schools in the area with a little help from Lucie Wade, PhD student at Leeds Beckett University, who will be coming to talk about some of her research, and there will also be a chance to browse images of a variety of schools in the area from the museum collections, including a few images from Leeds Children's Day.

Discover historical toys and games!

Not everything about childhood revolves around school, so we will also have a little look at toys and games, and how they have and haven’t changed over the years, with a chance to handle a few examples from our collections.

 We’ll also talk about the working life of children, particularly in the nineteenth century, including the factory children and the campaign for improvements to their working conditions by people such as Richard Oastler.

Book a space:

If you fancy joining us on 17 November, there are still a few spaces available. The day runs from 11am - 3pm, and costs £10 per person including lunch in the Gatehouse Café.

To book, either give us a call on 0113 3784079 or email us at abbey.house@leeds.gov.uk. If you can’t make it this time, we will also be running it again on 27 April 2017.

Burn time: Light related objects

Pamela Crowe explores light conditions and objects linked to lighting in the museum store

In-store arm-waving illustrated by the author

The Discovery Centre is a purpose built museum storage facility with regulated temperature and humidity. It is also windowless so that we can control how much light the museum objects are exposed to. 

Any visit to the store usually involves a fair bit of arm-waving at the motion-triggered light sensors located throughout (see photo). These lights are on timers, eventually returning the store to darkness when the humans have left. 

Here, light is rationed, not just to save energy but because light exposure can significantly damage the objects within. In the Store, we have the luxury of choosing how and when we use light, we understand how to control it and can instantly illuminate or choose darkness. 

Searching the store and researching the collections is about giving as many items as possible a small spotlight – even if only briefly. It’s tricky to merely toe-dip into an object’s story and then quickly retreat. You feel you must stay for the duration, ask questions, look closely, ask more and look again. You have to allow it into the light long enough for it to glow a little.

This was the premise for my search today: I return to a particularly ill-lit passageway between the costume and ceramics cabinets in zone 4, scrutinising shelf after shelf in the semi-gloom. I look not so much for oddities but for the unremarkable. 

Shelf 2, Cabinet 12, Zone 4. Semi-gloom

I’m trying to re-train my eyes to see those artefacts that have no ego, the wallflowers that avert their gaze as mine skims past. I half-pretend my errand has an intrepid purpose, like Dorothy in Disney’s Return to Oz, tasked with three guesses for the true object in the room of antiques.

The 'Fairly' Fairy Lamp

Amongst a shelf of colourful glass I fix focus on a small amber cup with a diamond cut design in the glass. In our museum database it is described as a “Fairly lamp” which throws me initially. What is a “Fairly”? This turns out to be a typo, revealed when I go back to the real object and see the words “Prices Fairy Lamp – Glass Empire made” written on its underside. 

Two minutes of googling later and a whole world of Fairy Lamps has opened up. We would call them night lights or tea light holders now. This one (pictured below) dates from around 1900-1910 and was a very ordinary little object, mass-produced in a variety of shades (blue, green, red, amber) and intended to promote sales of Price’s candles.

Price's Fairy Lamp, night light holder c.1900-1910

Price’s Patent Candles Company began trading in 1830 and helped transform candle production away from a small workshop based enterprise with the wax chandlers and their apprentices overseen by the ancient City Livery Companies into production on an industrial scale. They revolutionised candle production by replacing traditional tallow and beeswax candles with a new Stearine candle made from a composite of refined tallow and coconut oil. Tallow candles, made from animal fat, were low-cost but smoked and smelled.

In contrast, beeswax candles were expensive and could only be afforded by the Church and the wealthy. Candles made from Stearine fat burned cleanly and brightly and were much cheaper to produce making them available to far greater numbers. Domestic light could be marketed to the masses, light became considerably more affordable and the impact on non-daylight hours must have been great.

Within twenty years of start-up, Price’s had become a household name and by 1900 were producing over 130 types of candles: candles for pianos, photographic darkrooms, carriages, dining rooms, ballrooms, nurseries, candles to deter intruders, edible candles for desperate explorers on expeditions and the army, candles for bedrooms, double-wick railway signal candles, miner's candles, beeswax candles for the Catholic and Anglican churches and smokeless candles to sit under shades.

The 'Servant's' Candle

Of all these I am most struck by the servant's bedroom candle. Distinct from the standard bedroom candle, it burned for only 30 minutes. It starkly illustrates the place of light as a commodity, the ownership and manipulation of which exposed and reinforced social hierarchies. If light gave liberty then that liberty could be rationed and controlled. Access to brighter light, longer light, cleaner light reflected social status and the opportunity to move more freely and productively, more socially through the darker hours. 

Servants typically received coals, bed and candles as part of their terms of employment but were instructed not to use their 30 minutes of light for reading. Later, when gas and electric lighting began to replace candles, employers could choose to install wiring so that servants' lights could be switched off remotely at their own, not the servants' convenience.

In our huge Store, I contemplate the small candle holder, sat light-less in the Glassware cabinet. Across the floor, high up in cardboard boxes in Zone 3 lie its counterparts, the candles. Most, unburned but held in appreciation, like so much here, of what they once represented. 

By Pamela Crowe, Volunteer Tour Guide and Blogger at Leeds Discovery Centre 

Store Tours
Come and explore our collections at the Leeds Discovery Centre every Thursday at 11am and 2pm in our Store Tours. For more information about visiting our store, please contact us on 0113 378 2100, email discovery.centre@leeds.gov.uk or visit our website. 

Sources/More info:

• Prices Candles - Company History
• Lucy Worsley - Brief History of domestic lighting
• The Museum Association - Shine On event

Thomas Green, Member of the Friends Ambulance Unit - A WW1 Story

Amy, one of our youth curators has researched the story of Thomas Green, who served with the Friends Ambulance Unit in the First World War

Large amounts of our First World War archives are paper, or ephemera. This object is a certificate of wartime employment, given to Corporal Thomas Green. 

Serving with the Friends Ambulance Unit

This certificate states that Thomas, a former grocer's assistant, does not have to come and fight due to his essential war work. Green was part of the volunteer Friends Ambulance Unit. Perhaps he was unable to fight due to a medical condition, yet on the other hand, perhaps he chose not to fight due to moral or religious beliefs. 

Many Quakers, who did not fight due to their religious beliefs, served with the Friend’s Ambulance. This would have prevented social backlash. For instance many women would give men who were not serving white feathers to show that they were cowards.

Choosing a non-combatant role

However, we know that Green did serve as active member of the Territorial Force, part of the reserve army. He also took on a non-combat role here, with the Field Ambulance. Green was probably a conscript, because he took on the role in 1916, after the introduction of conscription. It is unlikely he would have volunteered at this late stage. In 1919, he was demobilised from the army.

This object is more interesting than it may first appear, due to the enormous impact that this simple certificate had upon Thomas Green.

By Amy, Leeds Museums and Galleries youth curator and Preservative Party Member.

Education in Victorian Leeds

Placement student Kaya Firth researched Victorian schools around Leeds

Playtime at Meanwood Road Board School in 1910.

The 1870s-1890s appears to have been a very popular time for schools to be built around Leeds. This relates to the Elementary Education Act of 1870, which enabled all children to have access to education between the ages of 5 and 13. It was also a way of ensuring that local councils had a School Board of Education in order to build and manage schools in areas where they were needed. Leeds School Board was set up in 1870.

Green Lane schoolchildren, pictured in 1906.

One of the schools I managed to find out about was Green Lane School. Using the Triennial Reports of Leeds School Board 1891-1900 I found that it had opened on the 11th November 1874.

The school was enlarged in 1894 for an additional 630 pupils, plus a workshop and cookery room, at a total cost of £11,300 (over £670,000 in modern day currency). Sadly the school closed in 1982 and the building was later demolished.

A great source of information about historic Leeds schools was Leodis, then an online photographic archive run by Leeds Libraries. Users can share memories and information about the images and there are some brilliant reminiscence stories of old school teachers, which helped to shape my own ideas of how many of the schools were run in the mid-20th century in particular.

By Kaya Firth, Placement Student at Abbey House Museum, History Student at Leeds Trinity University

WW1 Leeds timeline

Stephanie Webb reveals an online timeline charting key moments in Leeds' First World War history 

During the centenary of World War One, the Leeds Museums young curators group, the Preservative Party, has been committed to researching and commemorating the sacrifices made by the people of Leeds. We have created WW1 Leeds, an interactive Facebook timeline documenting the story of the city during the war.

Our research has revealed that Leeds and its people made a significant and varied contribution to the war effort both at home and overseas.

The WW1 Leeds timeline covers many different themes. One area is the military, covering recruitment and conscription and the experiences of the Leeds Rifles and Leeds Pals.

The Pals suffered terrible losses in the Battle of the Somme. On 1st July 1916, 24 officers of the Leeds Pals took their men over the tops into No Man's Land. At the end of the first day of the battle, only 17 of 900 men answered a roll call. 750 men had lost their lives and the battalion was all but decimated. Across Leeds, hundreds of grieving families closed their curtains in mourning. It is said that after the Somme, every street in the city had at least one house with its curtains drawn.

Personal War Stories

One of the aims of WW1 Leeds is to reveal the individual war stories of people from Leeds. We want to bring out the personal experiences as well as the overall events and statistics. One of the stories we follow is that of George Sanders of the Leeds Rifles. Sanders received a Victoria across for courage and leadership shown during the Battle of the Somme. Later in the war, he also earned a Military Cross and also spent some time as a prisoner of war.

Leeds and wartime industry

The timeline also covers the contributions and sacrifices that were made on the home front. Leeds was a key industrial centre, manufacturing, for example, munitions, aeroplanes, blankets and uniforms.

One of the most notable factories in Leeds was the Barnbow munitions works. Over 3 years, 36 million cartridges and over 24 million shells were produced at Barnbow. Barnbow's workforce of 16,000 people was 93% female. The so-called 'Barnbow Lasses' were well paid for their vital work, which was highly dangerous. Indeed, many of the women made the ultimate sacrifice.

During the night shift on 5 December 1916, the women in room 42 were filling 4.5 inch shells when a machine malfunctioned. A massive explosion killed 35 women. Such was the secrecy surrounding the work at Barnbow, the incident was covered up and the women were merely listed in the Yorkshire Evening Post as 'killed by accident.' It would be 6 years before the truth was revealed.

Lotherton Hall - convalescent hospital

Leeds also became home to many convalescing soldiers. Several military hospitals opened in the city, including at Beckett's Park teacher training college, which was given over to the War Office and treated 57,200 soldiers between 1914 and 1918. Country houses also became hospitals, including 2 Leeds Museums and Galleries sites. Temple Newsam housed recovering officers, whilst Colonel Gascoigne of Lotherton Hall insisted upon his property providing for other ranks.

Given the city's wide contribution to the war effort and its significant losses, it is little wonder that the announcement of the Armistice prompted mass celebrations. 40,000 people gathered at the Town Hall where fireworks were let off. Over the course of the war, from the 82,000 Leeds soldiers, 10,000 men had lost their lives.

Try out the WW1 Leeds timeline!

You can discover more wartime stories and experiences by visiting the WW1 Leeds timeline. Scroll through the years to explore the different themes. Like and follow the page to receive regular updates about centenary stories and projects on your news feed.

Why not share your own stories on the WW1 Leeds timeline? Please get in touch by posting on the page, sending a private message on Facebook, or emailing ww1.timeline@leeds.gov.uk. You can also connect with us on Twitter @PresParty.

Meanwhile, you'll find 'In Their Footsteps', a major temporary exhibition on WW1 Leeds, curated by the Preservative Party, over at Leeds City Museum until the end of 2016.

If you are aged between 13-24 and would like to become a youth curator, please email preservativeparty@gmail.com.

Quest for Information on a Shoemaker’s Last

The fairytale ending to my brief time at Abbey House Museum

Holly Roberts, work placement student,
pictured at Leeds Discovery Centre

As a placement student I have had a chance to experience a brilliant range of aspects of heritage and curatorial work. But one thing which has consistently impressed me (and no, despite his wow-factor, it is not the striking juvenile Giant Squid, who hangs, impressively from the rafters of the Leeds Discovery Centre store) but it is simply the unfolding of the history of objects through research. 

I particularly like researching very mundane objects (yes, you can sigh) because often, paradoxically, they have the most intriguing and familiar stories to tell.

In line with the upcoming Fairytale exhibition (at Abbey House) I was to work on the Elves and the Shoemaker story, which involved getting hands on with a fairly enormous plethora of shoemaking tools and equipment. It was a fairly rusty, dirty iron shoe last buried amongst many other nondescript lasts and other shoemaking equipment which grabbed my attention. 

This Last, however was branded in enormous letters 'LION'. After a clean-up I thought to investigate, where did this giant hunk of rusty metal come from and what life had it had?

Lion Foundry shoe last
(Photograph by Holly Roberts for Leeds Museums and Galleries )

From Glasgow with love

To find anything at all from the word LION was of course going to be a struggle, but after a while, estimations of manufacturing dates and variation of the name I discovered THE LION IRON FOUNDRY. The Lion Iron Foundry was established in 1880 at Kirkintilloch, near Glasgow, by the firm of Jackson, Brown & Hudson. 

The foundry went from strength to strength, employing one twentieth of the population of the Burgh of Kirkintilloch by 1910 but its earlier works in the late 1800s were less impressive, manufacturing railings, gates and other largely mundane items, most likely when our unassuming last was created. Into the twentieth century The Lion Foundry began to take on more ambitious projects such as bandstands, tram and bus shelters. Developing a fine reputation from 1900-1914 the foundry was involved in large constructional ironwork projects in cities all over the UK.

The Surprise

County Arcade, Leeds, decorated for the Royal Visit 1908

On further investigation, quite poignantly on the final day of my placement, I discovered that the Lion Iron Foundry, with its humble beginnings in the wilds of Scotland had a very impressive Leeds link! What are the chances? The Lion Foundry supplied and erected the highly ornamental roof trusses, domes and balcony railings of the incredibly beautiful and ornate Leeds County Arcade. 

As reported in the Kirkintilloch Herald of 29 November 1899, ‘A BIG ORDER – We are gratified to learn that the Lion Foundry Company have been successful in securing a large English order that will ensure a briskness in certain departments for months to come. It is an arcade for Leeds, in which ornamental castings will play a large part.’ To my utter surprise, my rusty old shoe last had led me to uncover a hidden history!

So on the very last day of my exciting and fulfilling placement with Abbey House Museum the faith in my rusty old iron last had paid off. This hunk of Glaswegian metal, sat on the desk in front of me had a story! A fantastic and very surprising link to a significant part of Leeds heritage. 

Even the most unremarkable of items, lost in the sea of an extraordinary collection, are truly worth exploring.

More information on The Lion Iron Foundry can be found on the East Dunbartonshire Leisure & Culture Trust website 

By Holly Roberts, Work Placement student from Lincoln University 


(All photographs within this blog were taken for Leeds Museums and Galleries and are licensed under Creative Commons BY NC SA)

The Roundhay blacksmith's stone

Leeds History Curator Kitty reveals a newly identified object in the collections!

One of the main challenges of curating a large museum collection is the haphazard documentation left behind by one's predecessors. When I have a spare moment, I try and match up information from old donor correspondence with our collections database.

Often this is frustrating and impossible (letters may refer to vague donations of "various toys" or an "old chair"), but occasionally you stumble across something so accurately described that there can be no doubt and suddenly an unidentified object in store has a story and provenance that justifies its place in the collection. It can also shed new light on an object that you have passed many times in the store and wondered how on earth you might be able to research its history.

Keystone with blacksmith emblems in store at Leeds Discovery Centre
(This photograph was taken by Kitty Ross for Leeds Museums and Galleries and is licenced under Creative Commons BY NC SA.)

In a letter to the museum dated August 1968, Miss Eleanor G. Lupton wrote: 'Our chauffeur here (Frank Buck by name) living in one of our cottages, has a piece of Roundhay antiquity, in which I think you may be interested - It is a keystone of the arched doorway to the blacksmith's forge which stood at Oakwood till nearly the end of the last century, & from which the present "Oakwood Lane" took its name of "Horseshoe Lane" by which it was still known in my childhood.

'The stone is carved with blacksmith's emblems - hammer, tongs, horseshoe - & was presumably the work of the local stone mason of the Nettleton family, a member of which removed it to his home at Ash Bank, Wetherby Road, when the forge was demolished.  Mrs Frank Buck is a member of this family, & she and her husband would willingly present it to the old blacksmith's forge at the Abbey House Museum, Kirkstall if you would care to accept it and fit it in there.'

The keystone was definitely collected but never seems to have been properly accessioned, catalogued or even displayed at Abbey House as was clearly intended.  However, it is now catalogued with its full story and can be seen as part of store tours at the Leeds Discovery Centre.

Find out more about our store tours on the Leeds Discovery Centre website.

Kitty Ross, Curator of Leeds History

Delve into the Leeds Museums and Galleries collections on a study day!

Would you like to come and spend a day exploring an aspect of our collections? Assistant Social History Curator Nicola Pullan reveals how to do just that at one of our study days.

Like most museum services we have large amounts of collections that are not always on display or that are not suitable for being displayed in a traditional museum case. That doesn’t mean that the material isn’t interesting or important – but it does mean that people find it harder to know we have some items or to see them.

As a way to try and open up access to some of these collections some of the curatorial team have been running study days. I have found these to be particularly useful for social history – as people are able to bring their own memories with them to the sessions which they often willingly share with the rest of us. So far I have developed one looking at local suffragette Leonora Cohen, and another looking at the retail history of Leeds. Later this year I will be adding another topic to my list – childhood.

What do study days consist of?

Each curator has their own format, but I like to spend the morning giving an illustrated talk about our subject of the day using images from our collections to illustrate points in the discussion. This gets people thinking so they have lots to talk about when they head to lunch in the café! 

For example, in the retail study day we start with a discussion on how shopping itself has developed in the last 150-200 years through looking at trends and technological changes. Then we look through a range of images from different retail spaces across Leeds from the museum collection – some more familiar than others. 

In the afternoon is an opportunity for people to explore a small selection of museum items related to the subject of the day. Depending on the topic I like to bring out objects including old photographs, postcards and catalogues, packaging or other material from the collections not currently on display for people to look at up close.

Upcoming study days at Abbey House Museum in 2016:

Places are limited so you will need to book before the event by calling us on 0113 3784079 or e-mailing abbey.house@leeds.gov.uk 

Led by myself:

• Shop til you drop: The changing face of retail in Leeds
  – Thursday 7 July and Thursday 22 September 2016, 11am – 3pm
  Tickets are £10, including lunch.
  (See our What's On website for more details)
  
  
• Childhood – Growing up in Leeds
  – Thursday 17th November 2016, 11am – 3pm
  Tickets are £10, including lunch.

Led by my colleague Patrick Bourne:

• Building Victorian Leeds
  - Thursday 8 September 2016, 11am – 3pm
  Tickets are £10, including lunch.
  (See our What's on website for more details)
• Death and Disease in Victorian Leeds
  – Thursday 20th October, 11am – 3pm
  Tickets are £10, including lunch.

The Leeds tailors who dressed the 1966 England football team

Football fever has once again taken over the country (or so the media would have us believe anyway). Three of the home nations have been competing in Euro 2016 and next month we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of arguably one of the greatest moments in English football: winning the 1966 World Cup.

One of the key photo opportunities during any major football championship is the team photo with all the players in their team suits. For the 1966 tournament the team suit was made by the Leeds tailoring company Burtons, who promoted themselves as 'the tailor of taste'.

1966 was an exciting year for Burtons, as not only were Burtons suits worn by sporting royalty but actual royalty came to Leeds! Princess Margaret received a tour of the Burtons Hudson Road factory.

Burtons brown piece dyed Glen check two piece suit, 1966

Leeds has been known for its textile industry since before the Industrial Revolution and, although there was a gradual decrease in the second half of the last century, clothing manufactures still remain in the city today. Burtons began life in 1903 and was named after its founder Montague Burton. Although the company had offices in Sheffield the main hub of the company was its Hudson Road factory in the Burmantofts area of Leeds.

Burton Hudson Road Factory, Burmantofts, Leeds.
(Image: Yorkshire Post Newspaper Ltd.)

Brian Rayner spent 52 years working in the clothing industry. He began his career at Burtons Montague in 1960, when he was 15 years old. In 2012 he gave an oral history interview to Leeds Museums about his time in the textile industry. Brian's history offers an amazing insight into clothing manufacturing and the changes in fashion, manufacturing techniques and the gradual move from bespoke tailoring to more ready to wear suits over the years.

The Cutting Room at Hudson Road - 1960s
(Image: Yorkshire Post Newspaper Ltd.)

What really struck me when I listened to Brian speak was the picture he painted of the social aspects of working for Burtons and the sheer size of the Hudson Road factory. There were 10,000 people working at the factory and the site included a canteen which could seat half the workforce in one siting. 

Brian described how the tea ladies came round with tea and sandwiches at 10 o'clock in the morning and took your lunch order (for which there were 3 choices ranging from 11 pence to one shilling and 3 pence). When you took your meal ticket along at one o'clock your lunch would be waiting for you. 

Inside the huge canteen in a Burtons factory - 1960s
(Image: Yorkshire Post Newspaper Ltd.)

If you needed to burn off that lunch there were on site sporting facilities. Brian remembers two football pitches, a cricket pitch with athletics track round the outside, a rugby pitch, a bowling green, a putting green, tennis courts and snooker tables. Phew...it makes me feel tired writing the list let alone using the facilities!

Burtons workers enjoying the sports facilities at Hudson Road - 1960s
(Image: Yorkshire Post Newspaper Ltd.)

There were not only leisure and catering facilities on site but also free health care. As well as having a fully equipped nurses station, Burtons offered free dentistry, chiropody and free hairdressing for the ladies of the factory, of which there were many! Nearly all the sewing machinists were female compared to the predominantly male hand-tailoring and press room sections. Brian remembers the work force consisting of 1 man for every 10 women.

Burtons workers clocking out of work - 1960s
(Image: Yorkshire Post Newspaper Ltd.)

This was not the only gender imbalance at the factory, as there was also a disparity in the pay – although perhaps not what you might expect! Brian remembers being paid £3 and 15 shillings a week when he first started working as an apprentice. In comparison the women who were fully trained in the sewing room were being paid £8 per week. 

Nevertheless, Brian says, if you took a female colleague out to the pictures the man was expected to pay! Brian also had to hand his wages over to his mother. She would take out what she needed for board before giving the rest back to him. 

Burtons staff outing to Morecambe - 1960s
(Image: Yorkshire Post Newspaper Ltd.)

Walking into the huge Hudson Road factory with its 10,000 staff - 500 employed solely for cutting the fabric – 5000-seater canteen, social opportunities and sports facilities not forgetting a 10:1 female to male ratio must have been an amazing sight for a 15-year-old boy starting his first job.

Sources: Montague Burton: The Tailor of Taste (1990, Manchester University Press).

By Rebecca Fallas, Volunteer Blogger

Discover more:

You can see more on Burtons and the 1966 England suit, including an interview with Brain at the Leeds Discovery Centre on Living in '66 - Suits, Boots and Northern Roots. The programme is available on BBC IPlayer until 1st July 2016.

If you'd like to take a tour around the Discovery Centre store like Kay Mellor in Living in '66, our store tours take place every Thursday at 11am and 2pm. Visit the Leeds Museums and Galleries website for more details.

If you'd like to learn more about the textile industry in Leeds why not visit Leeds Industrial Museum or Thwaite Mills?

Leeds local elections - 1906 style

As we can learn in the Crime and Punishment exhibition currently at Abbey House Museum, in 1890 a major conflict occurred between the Liberal controlled City Council and the gas workers at New Wortley. 

Towards the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, we can begin to see that the existing elected officials weren’t very popular with the working class. The newly formed Labour Party was increasing in popularity across the city.

The 10 Labour candidates for the Leeds local elections in 1906.
This photograph was taken for Leeds Museums and Galleries and is licensed under Creative Commons BY NC SA

A group of postcards relating to this political shift have recently been catalogued into the museum collection. The first of these three postcards (pictured above) depicts ten oval portraits of Municipal Labour Candidates in November 1906: these were John Brotherton, Walt Wood, Owen Connellan J. P., Frank Fountain, W. Morby, I. Brassington, G. Gale, Joseph Knipe, G. Clay and R.M. Lancaster. 

Unfortunately for the party, despite ten Labour contests across various wards only Owen Connellan J. P. won his seat for New Wortley, unsurprising as this had been the location of the gas riots previously!

The second (pictured below) is a single portrait of John Brotherton, the candidate for Holbeck.

John Brotherton, the Labour candidate for Holbeck in the 1906 elections. This photograph was taken for Leeds Museums and Galleries and is licensed under Creative Commons BY NC SA

The third (see below) depicts nine oval portraits of the 1906 elected Leeds Labour councillors: James O’Grady, Arthur Shaw, John Buckle, J. H. Barraclough, T.C. Wilson, George Thaxton, John Badley, George Layton and J.D. Macrae.

Postcard showing the 9 Labour councillors elected in Leeds in 1906.
This photograph was taken for Leeds Museums and Galleries and is licensed under Creative Commons BY NC SA

One of the most famous faces on the postcards is James O’Grady who was elected in the 1906 general election as representative for Leeds East, a seat for which he sat for 12 years (1906-1918) and then Leeds South East for a further 6 years (1918-1924).

Politicians rise and fall!

James O’Grady wasn’t the only famous Labour politician representing Leeds in the turn of the 20th century. John Buckle, initially a councillor for Armley & Wortley, soon became the leader of the Labour Party and was the first Labour leader in history to sit on Leeds City Council. Buckle resigned from his post in 1908.

There is also John Badley who became to Council Group Leader in 1894 and replaced John Buckle as the leader of the Labour Party from 1908-1913. Badley was forced to resign from his position as Labour Leader and Alderman due to his acceptance of a directorate of the Royal Liver Insurance Company and the salary that when with this, which was seen as incompatible with his position as a representative of the working class.

By Becky Cooley, work placement student from Leeds Trinity University

The Sternberg WW1 Postcard Collection

Every postcard can tell a story and give us a glimpse into the past. As we continue to remember the centenary of the First World War and the people of Leeds involved, we would like to focus on the postcards of Vincent William Sternberg. Several years ago, Leeds Museums and Galleries were given a donation of around 100 postcards created during the First World War by this Adel schoolmaster.

Vincent William Sternberg (or V.W.S. as it is written on most of his postcards) moved to Headingley when he was fourteen and began designing postcards in his twenties. After 1920 he appears to have stopped creating postcards. In 1929 he became schoolmaster at the Church School in Adel, Leeds. What make his cards interesting is that many of them were created during the war years.

Designed in France

On seven of these cards Sternberg has written that they were designed in a ‘dugout in Flanders’ or ‘France’.  Interestingly, the cards made on the battlefield are particularly cheery and cheeky. You wouldn’t even know a war was happening if it wasn’t for the word ‘Flanders’ or ‘France’ written on the border. There are a couple of exceptions however. One postcard designed in Flanders has a young girl and a dog covered in red, blue, and white ribbons with a caption reading: ‘Another Blooming Victory!’

Curiously, his cards that were not designed on the battlefield have a much more open connection with the War. One card shows a picture of a young girl holding an umbrella with the caption underneath reading: ‘Here's a card to let you know, while you are in the trenches, that you are still remembered, by one of your old wenches’.

Many of these sorts of cards have a gloomy air and a large portion of his designs focus on the women who are left behind. A particularly moving card has a girl sadly sitting on a tombstone that says the word ‘Miles’. The caption underneath reads: ‘Miles upon miles & miles upon miles, you've gone away from me, and yet I can't forget your smiles for my thoughts are e’er with thee’. 

Propaganda?

The Sternberg collection offers great examples of propaganda postcards. This type of card gives a biased promotion of the war. His cards display the war effort in an idyllic yet melancholy way. The hardships of the war are evident without being openly mentioned, but the main theme centres on faithfully supporting the war effort.

Not all of his postcards focus on daily life. Many of them display simple, rural themes. One postcard currently on display at Abbey House Museum shows a puppy staring playfully at a bee with the caption underneath reading ‘to bee or not to bee’.

This wide variety of designs would have made Sternberg’s postcards accessible to many people. Postcards before and during the First World War were inexpensive ways to send a quick message and they were also popular to collect. The pictures used would not only have been considered visually pleasing, but they would have encompassed the emotions that were felt by the people sending them.  

Messages

When you received a postcard, there was only so much you could say in the space provided, which is why the drawings could be quite powerful. Of course, sometimes people talked about things that were completely unrelated to the picture. 

One card has a picture of a young girl wrapped in ribbons sitting on top of a telephone pole with the caption 'I do not wish to grumble, but, take things as a whole, with you so very far away, I do feel up the pole’. On the back of the card, the writer casually talks about visiting German prisoners in Norton. This postcard was written after the war in August of 1919. It offers a look into the attitude  of British people towards the remaining German prisoners.

Each postcard tells its own story and provides a look into the lives of ordinary people during the First World War. If you would like to find out more, be sure to visit the Leeds City Museum where several of Sternberg’s postcards will be on display.

By Renee Goble, MA placement student