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Rosary beads, a rocking horse and Banksy’s Paintpot Angel – objects that help tell a history of England and its relationship to the wider world
BBC English Regions has partnered with museums and institutions across the country to help tell a history of the world through objects with both local and global resonances.
The project is part of A History of the World - which includes the landmark British Museum series on BBC Radio 4, A History of the World in 100 Objects.
The BBC’s 45 local websites across England have partnered with their local and regional museums to each produce a list of 10 objects that tell a history of that area and its place in the world. The lists will be live on BBC Local websites from today (Monday 18 January) and there will be extensive coverage on BBC local radio and regional television. The weekly regional current affairs series Inside Out will feature the project across the eleven English Regions to coincide with the launch.
The 450 objects chosen from around the country include:
BBC Wear and Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens - Victorian rocking horse
This children’s toy was given out at the end of Mr Fay’s magic show at the Victoria Hall in Sunderland on what proved to be a fateful day - June 16, 1883. A young girl called Emily Steel was given the toy, but a boy grabbed at it and took the front legs and rocker. This year, the children in the upstairs gallery anxious not to miss out on the presents, ran down the stairs. They found their passage blocked by a door which opened inwards. A few children squeezed through, but those following were crushed against the door. In all, 183 children died. The whole nation was affected by the disaster, including Queen Victoria, who made a donation to the memorial fund. An inquiry followed, as a result of which all emergency exits were required to open outwards as they do to this day.
BBC Hampshire and The Mary Rose Trust – Rosary beads from the Mary Rose
This rosary offers an intriguing insight into a tumultuous period of our history in the reign of Henry VIII. It was a period which saw the break with Rome, the dissolution of the monasteries, and the rise of Protestantism – events that would shape Europe and the world in the centuries ahead. In 1538, Henry VIII’s religious reforms banned recitations using the rosary to pray. Yet in 1545 this rosary was on board the King’s own flagship, the Mary Rose, when it sank at the Battle of the Solent against the French. The ship with its surviving contents was finally raised in 1982.
BBC York and North Yorkshire and The Royal Pump Room Museum Harrogate - Russian Imperial cufflinks
In May and June of 1894 Princess Alix of Hesse, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, visited Harrogate. She stayed at the lodging house of an ordinary couple, Mr and Mrs Allen. On her arrival there she discovered that Mrs Allen had just given birth to twins and seeing the event as a lucky omen she asked if she could stand as their godmother. She also requested that the girl should be called Alix, after her, and the boy Nicholas, after the Czarevitch of Russia to whom she was engaged to be married. The gold cufflinks made by Fabergé, in the shape of the Imperial Russian Eagle set with diamonds and sapphires, were given to Nicholas Allen as a confirmation present in 1910.
Other jewels and objects made by the Russian Imperial Workshops and given to Nicolas and Alix by their godmother, who become the Czarina of Russia, were presented to Harrogate Museums by Mr Allen's son in the 1980s.
BBC Guernsey and Hauteville House - Victor Hugo’s writing table
This humble piece of wood was where the exiled genius Victor Hugo completed Les Miserables and subsequently wrote his Guernsey-based novel Les Travailleurs de la Mer, as well as hundreds of essays, letters and poems. Hugo stood to write, rather than sitting. He installed it in his airy, well-lit Cristal-Room built on the top of Hauteville House in Saint Peter Port in Guernsey so that he could see across the other Channel Islands to his beloved France as he wrote. He was exiled from France after opposing Napoleon III and went initially to Belgium, to Jersey and then to Guernsey. He stayed for 15 years, from 1856-70, influencing writers and artists. His house – just as he left it – is today internationally considered as a significant part of his work and a unique cultural heritage.
BBC Birmingham and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery - Glascote Torc
This superbly crafted object made more than 2,000 years ago, was discovered by a worker in a boatyard on the Coventry canal in 1943 between Glascote and Amington, near Tamworth. The finder thought it was a handle from a coffin and his employers told him to "keep it as a souvenir". For many years it remained unknown to the archaeological world until 1970 when his wife read an article about similar objects discovered in Ipswich. It was found to be a ‘torc’ - a neck ring made out of gold, silver, bronze or, as here, an alloy of all three. They were worn by Celtic chiefs and other important dignitaries of the Iron Age, perhaps as a symbol of their office and power, certainly as a symbol of their wealth and status. After belatedly reporting the find it became the subject of a coroner's inquest, and was declared to be Treasure Trove, subsequently acquired by Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery with the help of money raised by public appeal.
BBC Lancashire and Harris Museum, Preston - Teetotal teapot
In the 19th century tea in Preston represented for some an alternative to alcohol, perceived as one of the greatest social evils of the day, especially among the working classes. Preston is the birthplace of teetotalism where Joseph Livesey in 1832 started his Temperance Movement, requiring followers to pledge total abstinence – hence the term ‘teetotal’. He opened the first temperance hotel in 1833 and in 1834 founded the first temperance magazine The Temperance Advocate. Livesey was instrumental in developing the movement into a worldwide phenomenon. Preston holds internationally important collections of objects and archives relating to the temperance movement.
BBC Bristol and Bristol Museum and Art Gallery - Paintpot Angel installed by Banksy
Banksy’s urban art has a universal and timeless appeal, the bandit and folk hero fighting corporate culture. In summer 2009 Banksy – a native of Bristol - carried out an audacious 'heist' by transforming Bristol Museum and Art Gallery overnight. The collision of urban art with the establishment museum highlighted a new attitude to culture. The exhibition was probably the most publicised art event in living memory and the most popular exhibition ever held in Bristol.
BBC Norfolk and Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery - Happisburgh hand axe
An object of huge international significance, this beautiful flint hand axe was found on a Norfolk beach in 2000 by a local man walking his dog. Norfolk's east coast is subject to rapid erosion and the action of the sea had exposed a very ancient archaeological deposit that was only revealed at low tide. The hand axe was discovered within a thick peaty deposit which was subsequently dated to around 700,000 years old. This single discovery showed that humans had been present in Britain some 700,000 years ago - 200,000 years earlier than had previously been known.
In addition to the objects chosen by BBC Local websites and their partner museums, audiences will be encouraged to upload pictures via the internet of objects they own and explain how these objects can help tell both local and global histories. The ambition is to create a unique digital museum online of objects that tell history through the eyes of collections and audiences throughout the UK.
BBC Project Manager for the Nations and English Regions, Seamus Boyd, said: “A truly fascinating range of objects has been chosen across the English regions. Some of them may have great monetary value, others little or none, but they're priceless in how they bring to life moments from history. This initial selection is just the blueprint to which we hope viewers and listeners will add their own objects and help to create a truly unique and vibrant tapestry of the past.
Craig Henderson, Head of Programming for BBC English Regions, said: "A multitude of stories lie behind these objects. Some of the stories are moving, some uplifting, each one helping to piece together our cultural and social history. Of course, it's by no means definitive, and we'll be encouraging our audiences across BBC Local Radio, regional television and our websites, to contribute their own objects and stories."
Mon 18 Jan
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