The Chartists Live twitter feed continues to grow on a daily basis. In the last week, the second Devizes riot has just occurred, leaving some of the more prominent Chartists physically battered, and literally chased out of the town. Meanwhile, a new article has just gone live on the Journal of Victorian Culture Online, which introduces the Chartists Live project, and provides some historical contextualization for the live historical tweets that are being posted on a daily basis. The paragraph below contains the introduction to the article, with the rest of the text available at the Journal of Victorian Culture Online: 'Politics is boring, we are often told. Every party, apart from the colour of their rosettes, seems to offer pretty much the same thing when it comes to policy and personality. So disconnected are voters with the modern breed of candidates, that in recent decades, some 30 percent of the electorate have seemingly disenfranchised themselves by just not bothering to vote at all, and that’s on a good day. Yet, 175 years ago, on November 4th, people fought and died for that very opportunity. The candidates may have been disliked no less than they are today, perhaps more so, but the right to have a say was something that thousands would knowingly risk their lives for. Debate over the relative success of the Chartist movement continues, but success or failure, it retains a striking legacy that remains a potent symbol for political reformers today.'
0 Comments
This week has seen the launch of our new project – Chartist Live 2014. As projects go, the inception of this one was perhaps a touch unusual. Walking, on route to the National Museum, a couple of weeks ago, I bumped into Les James, pioneer of many of the very good things to have been developed of late which explore Chartist heritage. A sprawling conversation, which touched at length once more on the sad demise of archaeology in the National Museum Wales organisation, eventually – perhaps inevitably if you know Les – got onto the subject of the Chartist anniversary celebrations. It was from there that we discussed the range of promotional possibilities for the celebrations, and I was surprised to learn that nothing had been developed for twitter. From that point, there was no looking back. Having mentioned twitter, Les asked if I would be happy developing something on this front and, with my partners in Cyfarwydd (more on that next month), @ChartistsLive was born. There is no shortage of excellent examples of the use of twitter in association with heritage themed events, and I have no shame in saying that this concept very much follows on the back of the tremendously successful @RealTimeWWII feed. With some 300k followers, the World War II themed feed has really highlighted the way in which these ‘as live’ period specific feeds can engage audiences. The scope for @ChartistsLive is of course somewhat narrower in comparison, but we should not forget that the Chartist story has a very wide reach. Followers are already being attracted from Australia, which has some obvious Chartist connections, while core followers in Canada highlight the reach of a Welsh story to expat communities. Covering the events building up to that fateful day in November 1839, @ChartistsLive develops a day by day narrative, following the main players in the Chartist campaign. Henry Vincent and John Frost will feature prominently, largely because their actions are so well documented, in the case of Vincent, by himself. However the Chartist story was a headline grabber in its day, so we can make liberal use of print media from 1839 as well. All of this will help create, what I hope will be, quite a holistic overview of 1839 – connecting media commentary, personal reflections and wider social insights on the conditions of the working classes in this tempestuous political period. I’m also developing what might amount to an unhealthy interest in this period as a result, with morning research on the topic having become a steady part of my daily routine. Still, it is all proving to be exceptionally interesting, and early feedback seems pretty positive too. So, here’s looking forward to this project’s development over the coming months – I imagine November is going to be exceptionally busy when it comes to tweeting! I finally managed to get down to the Wallace: The Forgotten Evolutionist? exhibition in the National Museum Wales a couple of weeks ago, the temporary display having been in Cardiff since October (and due to close in the second week of March). Alfred Russel Wallace has always been a fascinating individual, certainly for his work on evolution theory, but also, from a personal perspective, for his treatment as a Welshman. On this topic, the exhibition in Cardiff is a brilliant exercise in claiming an individual for Wales, or at least selling a particularly Welsh narrative, on fairly flimsy foundations. The exhibition in general is an engaging but brief work, shuffled back to the very deepest part of the Natural History galleries. Built around four to five central themes, the exhibition explores the activities of Wallace in Wales in some detail, before focusing in on his time spent travelling overseas, finally looping around to the publication of his works, and the reception of his and Darwin’s theories (with very brief mention of spiritualism included). This is a text heavy display, and frustratingly repetitive on occasion. A wonderful gallery of cartoons interpreting the major stages of Wallace’s life split the exhibition, are certainly amusing (and arguably far more engaging than the reams of text), but rehash much of that which is covered elsewhere. What seems oddly lacking though are the physical testaments of Wallace’s work, the natural history collections. Where animals collected by Wallace are on display, they are on occasion respective of the way in which Wallace may have collected and stored his samples. A central display case makes no attempt at sentiment, with birds laid out flat with identification tags, as if part of a scientific collection, rather than staged in posed positions. Yet such displays are infrequent. Where the exhibition boasts of Wallace having collected some 125,000 species, and over 1000 species new to science, there is only a small handful of these examples for visitors to engage with. Whether this was for issues of sensitivity, or simple practicality is unclear, but it does seem a missed opportunity given the overall tone of the exhibition. In terms of the Welsh question, the first third of the gallery is important. There is no doubt that Wallace spent time in Wales, having been born and then spending the first few years of his life near Usk in south east Wales. However, the bulk of his youth was spent on the other side of the border (albeit close to Wales) and then later in London. It would not be until Wallace neared his twenties that he would return to Wales to work, and the period in which he was surveying sites in Wales amounted to little more than five years in total. The first third of the gallery however is devoted almost exclusively to these (so called) formative years. At various points, the exhibition alludes to the Welsh connection, with the opening text panel gambit citing ‘Welsh Beginnings’. Charting his movements around Wales, working in Neath and surveying the surrounding landscapes, this section of the exhibition ends by stating that: ‘There is no doubt that Wallace’s time working and living in Wales played a pivotal role in his development as a leading naturalist and social thinker.’ Before the exhibition ends, the museum proudly states that Wallace’s achievements were ‘not bad for a self-educated man from Usk in Wales’. While the museum does not make the final leap of claiming Wallace as a Welshman (which interesting the Independent did in 2013), it is not far off it. Now, the one thing I suppose I should make clear, is that this is not really supposed to be critical of the museum. We have a long standing tradition in Wales of making the most of any Welsh connection we can find when it comes to individuals of repute and events of significance. What this does serve to illustrate though, is the ease with which a museum can spin and weave an interpretive narrative to serve its own purposes. In embracing the work of Wallace in a Welsh context, Wales suddenly has a ‘pivotal role’ to play in the theory of evolution. This may not be entirely inaccurate, but equally it is not entirely accurate either. What it is, is a narrative choice, one designed to justify the Welsh connection, and, presumably, attract visitors on these grounds. Wallace becomes a Welshman in this exhibition, not through such a status being explicitly stated, but certainly through its implicit telling. That is not to say that Wallace can’t or should not be presented as a Welshman, simply to say that there are a very many other ways in which the story could have been spun. The Natural History Museum’s treatment of Wallace certainly does not dwell on the Welsh connection for very long, but then Welsh connections are no priority for a London museum. In this respect, the National Museum Wales does a very good job indeed of almost telling us that Wallace was a Welshman. It's that blissful time of year, when teaching goes into hibernation, and a research window suddenly opens up. I'm being ambitious this summer, with final editing on the PhD thesis still to do, I want to try and turn around three articles in three months - optimistic perhaps, but a worthy challenge. As time is at a premium, one of these research projects is making greedy use of the wonderful National Library Welsh Newspapers Online digital archive - far less time consuming than trekking back and forth to Aberystwyth. The only danger with such a resource is the near infinite scope for distraction. How is one supposed to ignore a headline like 'The Great Robbery at Llanfihangel'?! Published in 1882, Mr Evans had been relieved of a small fortune, no wonder then that he was 'agreeably surprised' at the overnight return of the bulk sum stolen. I'll be posting little snippets like this here over the coming weeks - otherwise my research will be heading in completely the wrong direction! This was first published on the wonderful
Journal of Victorian Culture Online: http://myblogs.informa.com/jvc/2013/02/25/fighting-for-the-victorian-toilets/ The campaign to save the Hayes Island Victorian toilets is ongoing, and anyone wishing to support the campaign is encouraged to add their names to the petition at:https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/cardiff-council-to-save-the-hayes-victorian-toilets The historic landscape is a finite resource. While the British conservation and restoration community has become particularly adept at adapting the built landscape for contemporary needs and demands, once an element of the historic landscape is changed, or lost entirely, it cannot return (or be replaced). While structures can be rebuilt, they are no longer the original or authentic structure that was first attributed a sense of historic value. In a period of economic decline, the pressures faced by the historic environment have shifted somewhat dramatically. Whereas in times of fiscal stability the museums and heritage sector have seen relatively positive levels of support, in the days of the triple dip recession, it is arguable that it is the museums and heritage sites that are amongst those to be first in the firing line. Monitor the news feed from organisations such as the @MuseumsAssociation and daily accounts of cuts and closures among museums across the United Kingdom can be found. For British heritage, these are precarious times. This has been clearly illustrated over the last few weeks in two of Wales’ most prominent cities, Cardiff and Newport. For Newport, threatened closure of the city’s temporary art exhibition programme has largely been interpreted as a move to close the entire museum and art gallery site, the popular and historic Chartist mural is threatened with destruction, while local councillors have discussed the ‘disposal’ of the city’s remarkably well preserved medieval ship. For Cardiff, while the museum sector has been one to actually benefit financially in recent years with the establishment and continued support for the excellent Cardiff Story Museum, recentspending cuts announced by the city council illustrate real threats to the wider historic environment and character of the city. Flat Holm Island for instance, popular for both its natural landscape and its significant nineteenth-century military defences, faces a withdrawal of council support and ultimate closure. Furthermore, in the heart of the city centre (an area to have witnessed sweeping development-led changes in the last decade), a unique reminder of Cardiff’s Victorian era is earmarked for closure. The site in question is the last of Cardiff’s Victorian toilets. Established in 1898, the Victorian toilets, located in the middle of the Hayes Island in the centre of Cardiff, stand as an indication of the growth and investment that came into the city during this period. The latter half of the nineteenth century saw communities across the South Wales region benefit substantially from the wealth derived from industrial exploitation in the country. Fiscal and population growth created both opportunity and demand in a burgeoning city, and the Hayes Island toilets remain as a legacy of this crucial period in the city’s development. Over a century later, and these historic yet functional public facilities are facing their end. As Cardiff City Council looks to implement £22million worth of spending cuts, the Victorian toilets, now in their 125th year of existence, are one of a number of public services due to close. In an era of social media led campaigns, many of the proposals put forward by the council for savings have been met with vocal opposition. Cuts to Cardiff’s riding school, the Splott swimming pool and a Welsh language festival have all seen campaigns develop around them in order to fight for their survival. The Victorian toilets were not overlooked. Started by local enthusiast John Jenkins, the Victorian toilets found an unlikely promotional platform in the form of the personified twitter account @Victorianloo. Tweeting in a first person capacity, the ‘Victorianloo’ tapped into the audience potential of ‘celebrity’ users, with historians Mary Beard and Tom Holland among those to put their names forward in support of a campaign to save the site. Coupled with two online petitions and a flurry of local media coverage, these historic toilets soon attracted widespread support from across Cardiff, while also garnering attention from afar afield as Canada and Australia. At the heart of the rational for saving the toilets were three main themes, those of historic significance, the character of the city and the functional importance of the toilets. The latter issue probably proved to be the most contentious during the campaign, with disability rights campaigners asking the valid question, why should a site that is not accessible to all be publically funded? It is difficult to contest the problem that the Hayes Island Victorian toilets are indeed inaccessible to many, with wheelchair access to the toilets seemingly inconceivable regardless of how the site is maintained or developed in future years. Yet this factor is significant for a different reason. The needs and perceptions of practicality have seen to the gradual demise of such historic sites. Whereas once the underground Victorian toilet would have been a comparatively common feature, the example left in Cardiff is now unique; there are no more to save once this one has gone. In general terms, the significance and quality of the complex has not been overlooked. The Welsh historic environment service, Cadw, designated the public conveniences as a Grade 2 listed building due to the rare level of preservation quality at the site, exceptional in part due to the removal of so many other such sites. With a strong sense of irony, the level of importance placed on the toilets had been reinforced by the previous city council with a full restoration of the toilet interiors having only been completed in 2009 at a cost of £148,000. While the restoration was celebrated by local council representatives at the time, it seems that in the space of only four years, the same toilets are no longer worthy of continued support. As stressed in the opening of this article, these are difficult financial times, and spending cuts are a seeming necessity for everyone to cope with. However, the closure of the Hayes Island Victorian toilets would remove from Cardiff a unique legacy of its growth. Granted there are probably few among the many people who visit and make use of the toilets on a daily basis who stop to think of what these conveniences represent. Were they to, they might begin to realise that these toilets are one of the very last examples of Victorian enhancement left in the city to still function as intended by its designers. Practical, historic and an objet d’art of the toilet world, the Victorian toilets in Cardiff must be safeguarded. What they add to the character and history of Cardiff is difficult to value, while their loss would only further add to the gradual homogenisation of the city centre. It is therefore hoped that with the support of those who value what remains of the Victorian architectural legacy in the city, Cardiff City Council may yet be persuaded to review their plans, and allow for this little underground corner of Victorian Cardiff to live on for another 125 years. |
Archives
January 2018
Categories
All
|