Happy Christmas (and a Victorian moral tale)

I have always been aware in our Christmas card collection that there were a pair of Raphael Tuck cards illustrating a sad tale of wonton vandalism and its aftermath which always seemed to be rather down-beat and against the spirit of the season. However, this morning I have spotted that we have a third card which completes the story.

ear ear

I'm afraid I couldn't resist posting this lovely Bamforth postcard which combines the to last two blog themes (ears and birds!). It features a cartoon by the artist D. Tempest showing a deaf old man with an ear trumpet talking to his parrot: "What do you say?" I said "Why don't you fill the ruddy thing with seed!"

It was posted to an address in Leeds in 1948. Bamforth postcards were of course published nearby in Holmfirth. This is a fairly unusual example as I haven't yet managed to spot any sexual inuendo in the cartoon (maybe I'm just innocent!).

An archaic earache

This strange terracotta ear may look like it is missing from a statue; however it is likely to have been a practical item rather than being used for decoration. The ear is thought to have been a votive offering, possibly as a medicinal aid.

By depositing the perfect model of an ear, probably in a holy place or on an altar, the owner was probably asking the Gods to help heal the ear in real life – quite literally meaning that they wanted their ear to be just like the perfect model. This practice is known as a form of sympathetic magic and was commonplace in the ancient world.

The ear was unearthed in Lanuvium, Italy during Lord Savile’s excavations carried out in the 1800s and is likely to have been found near a temple complex. It is about the size of an adult human ear.

LEEDM.D.1964.0733

Barn doors in Barnsley

This magnificent bird was shot in Barnsley on 8th December 1898. It is an immature White-tailed Eagle Haliaeetus albicilla.

Standing at just under a metre tall, and with a wingspan of over two metres, they have sometimes been referred to as 'flying barn doors'.

People are often amazed that we have one from Barnsley but a hundred years ago they would have been a common sight. White-tailed Eagles used to call Yorkshire home but decades of persecution have left them extinct in England. I really hope one day we'll see them back but in the meantime this specimen is living (OK, not quite) proof of these birds' existence in Yorkshire.

LEEDM.C.1960.70.2683

Mok the Gorilla - unexpected link to Leonora Cohen..

One of the wonders of working in an institution with such diverse collections as we have at Leeds is the way that unexpected links can be made between the unlikeliest parts of our collection. Amongst some papers we recently collected relating to Leeds' famous Suffragette heroine Leonora Cohen was a small newspaper cutting titled: ""MOK" A Vegetarian the Only Male Gorilla left" This is a letter from Frank Wyatt of the London Vegetarian Society about the death of "Mok" the Gorilla in London Zoo from chronic kidney disease after being fed on "a weekly ration of beef steak and chicken" whilst the vegetarian gorilla, Alfred, at Bristol Zoo was still doing well. There is a note on back from Leonora Cohen which notes "My visit to the London Zoo to see Mok and Maria and read the diet sheet on the side of their cage". Leonora was a passionate vegetarian and lived to be 105 (the photograph on the left is from her 100th birthday)! Poor Mok lived to a less ripe age but has achieved imortality of a kind as one of the museum's favourite objects, studied by many generations of Leeds schoolchildren.

Projector Obscura

Not quite a camera obscura, in fact more of a projector, but with an interesting story of its own. its actually a fairly standard Business Kodak compact model with a plastic opaque screen at the back so you can project your 8mm film from within the box. it wasn't accessioned on arrival in the collections but the sticker on the side reveals its story, A Cunard label gives the passenger details as John Alcock, travelling on the Queen Mary to Canada in the 1950s, date unclear.

what we do know of Mr Alcock however is that he was head of the Hunslet Engine Company at the time, and in the 1950s they were trying to break into the American market with their underground diesel locomotives. probably armed with this projector and films we now have in store at Yorkshire Film Archive, John headed for the American Mining Exhibition at the Cleveland Show in May 1953. Sadly he made no sales as the americans were convinced that underground diesel locomotives were not safe, opting instead for battery powered models, but i do wonder if he persuaded the ships purser to show some of his films on the ship......