Death or Glory in Whitworth Park

Death or Glory pipe from the Whitworth Park excavations

The photograph above shows an example of the ‘Death or Glory’ Pipe that was found during the Community Archaeology and History Project excavations in Whitworth Park last year. The design shows the emblem of the 17^th Lancers, whose motto is “Death or Glory” and commemorates the Charge of the Light Brigade.

An article in the Telegraph last Easter drew attention to recently-revealed accounts written by survivors of the infamous military action which took place on 25th October 1854 during the Crimean War. The letters were found in a the archives by Anthony Dawson, who is an historian of the Crimean War. They have not been seen for 160 years. They will be published in a book Letter from the Light Brigade that will be published later in the year.

It is not claimed that there is any connection between the Charge of the Light Brigade and Whitworth Park but it does show how the historical event influenced late Victorian material culture. The shift to a globalised economy thanks to mass production and the birth of marketing as an arm of commercial practice in the Victorian period is something that we still live with today.

Pollock clay pipe from the 1950s (image courtesy of Museum of Science and Industry)

After the First World War cigarettes became more popular than clay pipes for the smoking of tobacco, and many clay pipe manufactureres went into decline. In the 1950s the the Pollock clay tobacco pipe business in Manchester revived an earlier marketing initiative by creating a line in glazed pipes in bright colours, featuring more ‘child-friendly’ designs such as the football game and the skull-and-crossbones (see image above). Whether Pollocks were intentionally copying the popular earlier death’s head design I don’t know, but it is so similar they could have come from the same mould. Thanks to the helpful staff at the Museum of Science and Industry you can even see such pipes being used to blow bubbles. The Death or Glory motif shows, as I’ve said previously on this blog, there really isn’t much new under the sun, save perhaps for the cigarette.

The Death or Glory pipe is currently on show in the Whitworth Park: Pleasure, Play and Politics exhibition at Manchester Museum.

The Whitworth Park Community Archaeology and History Project was funded by a Heritage Lottery Fund Your Heritage grant. Additional funding was provided by The Council for British Archaeology, The Council for British Archaeology North West, Manchester City Council, and the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, The University of Manchester. The exhibition is supported financially by The Robert Kiln Charitable Trust and cities@manchester.

Whitworth Park Exhibition Photography Session

Alan Seabright photographing finds from the Whitworth Park excavations

I have spent the greater part of yesterday  in the Moseley Room in the basement of the Museum photographing finds from the excavations that took place in Whitworth Park during the summer. Or rather, helping Alan Seabright, photographer at Manchester Art Gallery, to take pictures of the finds.

Glass bottle from Whitworth Park

Alan’s work has already been featured in this blog. It was Alan who photographed the figurines from Koma Land, Ghana, that are now on display at Manchester Museum. We were joined by Ruth Colton and Melanie Giles from the University’s archaeology department.

Group of children’s toys found during the Whitworth Park excavations

They kindly brought over a selection of the best objects to be photographed, including complete glass bottles, stoneware vessels, children’s toys and games such as marbles, jacks and a knucklebone, lead pencils, including one marked VIENNA, ceramic figurine fragments, miniature plates from a doll’s tea service, a brush handle, a lead soldier… Gosh this is sounding like the conveyor belt voice-over for an Edwardian edition of the Generation Game! Was Bruce Forsythe on the go even then?

Murderous intent? Toy (?)Pistol found during the excvations.

Sam from Conservation brought some of the objects from the excavations that she’s been looking after, including a toy gun (but or maybe it’s a real one), a penknife, a button, leather shoe soles and so on. We worked our way through it all, recording the dimensions as we went, sometimes putting a scale in shot for publication purposes, sometimes leaving it out for marketing and publicity use.

Bottle of perfume or medecine (centre) with intact stopper from the excavations

The preservation of the glass is extraordinary. Only occasionally is there a chip missing. Many of the bottles have writing on them, giving the name of the manufacturer, sometimes an address. One manufacturers at Upper Brook Street is not very far from Whitworth Park. One of the more unusual pieces was a small glass vessel with a corroded top, sealing the contents, which we speculate to be either perfume or medecine.

My thanks to Alan, Ruth and Melanie for supporting this session. Parklife: Pleasure, Play and Politics in Whitworth Park opens in May at Manchester Museum and will run until October 2014.

Whitworth Park Dig

Lead soldier from Whitworth Park

Over the last week I’ve been trotting down Oxford road to see the latest finds from the Whitworth Park dig and to record interviews and take photographs for the Whitworth Park exhibition at the Manchester Museum in May to October 2014. This is a community archaeology project designed to explore the history of the park and to complement the Whitworth Art Gallery development project. Some work was done two years ago to find features like the filled-in boating lake and the bandstand.

Boating Lake trench, Whitworth Park 10th July 2013

It got really exciting when the team  put in a trench across the edge of the boating lake and found a well-stratified layers and surafces that marked the late Victorian transition from boating lake to paddling pool. Having been covered with a layer of concrete the archaeology has survived brilliantly and yesterday the team was pulling out bottles, children’s toys, pieces of leather shoe and bits of clothing. Even though the archaeology is relatively recent it is a fascinating project which opens up the park of a hundred years ago with all its civic amenities. We can touch the objects that visitors lost or threw in the lake that somehow makes it seem more real than if we simply look at postcards of the park. 

Clay pipe bowl from the boating lake trench

It’s also been brilliant seeing just how wide a range of people have been involved, including children from local schools, archaeology students from the university, members of the Young Archaeologists Club,  the Friends of Whitworth Park and volunteers who kindly give up their time to help on the project. There’s even an artist/illustator who, as they say, has been ’embedded’ with the excavation team to capture views of the dig. His work somehow has a Victorian or Edwardian feel.

a view of the dig

You can go and see what’s going on for free and it’s on until the end of the week.

This project is a collaboration between the University of Manchester Department of Archaeology, The Manchester Museum, the Whitworth Art Gallery, Friends of Whitworth Park and the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relation Resource Centre, supported by a generous grant of £39,700 by the Heritage Lottery Fund.