A Victorian Seal

The object was found by EM in the fields behind Brickwick and Coleshill House, about 10 years ago.

AYLESBURY MUSEUM's opinion is that it is a VICTORIAN SEAL with the owner’s portrait etched out in glass.

A Fossilised Sea Urchin

The object, submitted by LT, is a fossilised Sea Urchin found in a nearby field.

It is approx 50mm in diameter, and probably over 55 million years old, but just like the multi-coloured urchins common among the kelp on rocky seabeds round  the UK.

Note the five light coloured decorative lines where prickles would have projected, and the round vent on the underside. It is the same family as the five armed starfish.

Keep an eye open for these when roaming our local fields after ploughing.

A Porcelain Dental Flask

A Victorian 3d Coin, Engraved

 A Trench-Art Lighter

A Roman Coin

A Piece of Westminster Hall Roof

Part of the Oak Roof of Westminster Hall removed during the restoration work 1913-1922.

This roof was constructed in the reign of Richard II circa 1376 on the original walls erected by William Rufus.

The Law Courts were fixed here in 1224.

This piece of oak was in place at the Coronation of Henry IV (Bolingbroke), the trial and condemnation of Lord Cobham, of the Dukes of Somerset, Northumberland and Norfolk, also of Strafford and later of his Royal Master Charles I; all of which courts took place under this historic roof.

A Locomotive Number Plate

This unusual object has been provided by DW. It is a number plate that he retrieved from a steam locomotive. I would love to be able to say that it was from the locomotive that hauled the famous 'Master Cutler' Pullman train that used to pass through Amersham Station every morning on its way from Sheffield to London Marylebone.

But alas, it is from a far humbler engine. DW writes:

An aesthetically-pleasing numberplate from a Great Western 0-6-0 pannier tank engine. I liberated it from the Swindon Works scrapyard in, I think, 1962. The engine had been withdrawn in February that year and I brought the plate home without incident in a duffle bag (remember them?). One of a class of 863 locomotives (the most prolific on the GWR), it was built at Swindon in late 1939 at a cost at the time of £2,850. The number and borders were originally painted yellow on a black background.

Used mostly for light goods work and branch line passenger duties (including the Banbury-Princes Risborough service), 13 were acquired by London Transport from what was by then British Rail, where they operated on permanent way trains until 1971 when steam was finally withdrawn across the country. 16 of the class are preserved, including two at Didcot and one at Quainton.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hugh_llewelyn_3650_(6825277981).jpg#/media/File:Hugh_llewelyn_3650_(6825277981).jpg

An Article about a Coleshill Exhibition

Contributed by EM, this is a newspaper article about Coleshill from 1928. Because it is rather difficult to read in places, there is a transcription below the image. 

A Hunting Horn

A Vintage Pullman Carriage

A Safety Hook

The object was found by AD and he writes,

Another Trench-Art Lighter

An Engraved Sea Shell

'This engraved sea-shell was handed down in the family and dates, I think, from Victorian times. It has one remarkable property: if you hold it to your ear, you can hear the sound of the distant sea!’

An Article about the Coleshill Horticultural Show

Brass Manillas

A Ceramic Head

This Ceramic Head was dug up in the late 1930s in the garden of what is now called Walnut Tree House. This garden existed in land which is named ' brick yard ' in at least one old map of the area and is immediately adjacent to the old brick kiln behind the Bottle Cottages now called Coleshill Cottage.

The old brick kiln, with easy access to water and clay, had the facilities to maintain a hotter oven than required for making bricks and is believed to have enabled the making of the glass bottles in the brick work of Bottle Cottages and could have been used to construct all kinds of ceramic objects.

An Assaying Crucible

It is an assaying crucible used to analyse the quality of an ore after smelting.

 

Made of unglazed stoneware it is stained inside from use and has a spill residue on the side, from copper in this case.

 

Made by Battersea Works c1900. 2 1/2 is impressed on the base, and refers to the diameter of the crucible.

 

It was found at Crotty, a ghost mining town on the rugged West Coast of Tasmania. The town is now submerged under a lake used for hydro electric power generation. In drought years the town ruins are revealed. This last happened in 2016.

 

I trekked in with friends, through the bush, in the late 60s to the ruined town and brought the crucible back.

The Rosary Auction Notices

These 'objects' are newspaper facsimiles submitted by EM. There is a newspaper notice for the Auction at the Rosary in 1887. Also shown is a second notice for the Auction of the associated Farm stock and effects. Finally there is a photograph of the Rosary Farm Dairy c1910.

A Cannon Ball

This cannon ball was found in the Thames mud near Woolwich Arsenal during preparatory surveys for construction of the Thames Barrier.

 

It’s five and three quarter inches in diameter and weighs seventeen and a half pounds.

Almost perfectly spherical, it would have been made by dropping a measured quantity of molten iron from about Eighty feet into a deep vat of cold water, which had the effect of rounding off the natural “drip” shape of the falling metal into the ball shape.

Probably dates to about 1750.

A Steam Pressure Gauge

It’s a steam locomotive’s brass boiler pressure gauge manufactured by Dewrance and Co. – a firm established in 1835 and still operating in Skelmersdale. An important supplier to the early locomotive-manufacturing industry, including George Stephenson, they also provided Lloyds of London with equipment to test ships’ boilers before insuring them.

The page from an 1876 catalogue shows this particular model sold for 22s/6d. It was owned originally by Ewart Smith of Wheatsheaf Cottage and (probably) used in one of his miniature steam locos, occasionally to be seen running on the track in his garden.

Handmade Brass Nails

These objects have been submitted by LT. Here is his description:

These are handmade brass nails from the wreck of an 18th century cargo carrying sailing vessel wrecked off the coast of Northern Ireland. 

Each nail is about 3cm long. Hundreds were used to secure sheets of copper over the whole underside of the ship to protect the timber structure against damage by Teredo worms and other marine boring creatures. 

The shank of every nail was individually filed to a sharp square point with around flattened head.

A Certificate signed by Queen Victoria

An Air Raid Shelter Safety Lamp

Originally painted khaki or drab brown, these cast aluminium alloy lamps were issued to WW2 Air Raid Wardens for providing dim, but safe illumination in public air raid shelters where electric lighting was unavailable.

 

About 8 inches (200mm) high, the lamp is fuelled with paraffin. The sloping sides of the burner compartment are surfaced with fine brass wire mesh,which, just like the Davy lamps developed for use in coal mines, allowed their safe use in areas where bomb damage had resulted in fractured gas mains. Any open flame would have caused the gas to explode.

 

The simple utility design of these lamps generated little interest from collectors of war memorabilia, making them quite a rarity. These simple devices would have helped to save many lives during the blitz.

Woodworking Tools

A Bone Letter Seal

Sarsen Stones

Sarsen Stones

Just before Christmas I was walking in Chorleywood with a friend who was one of the authors of a book on the history of Chorleywood and she pointed out some large interesting stones in Old Shire Lane where it runs through the ancient woodland of Philipshill Wood. They are called Sarsen Stones and are of red sandstone. They are thought to have been boundary stones between the Saxon Kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia or possibly between Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. They appear geologically alien to the area. However they originate from the Paleogene sediments which once covered the chalk in this region. These sediments have long since eroded away, leaving behind these resistant siliceous rocks.

Sarsen Stones are also found in quantity on the Salisbury Plain and the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire. Sarsen is short for Saracen which is a common name for Muslims or by extension for anything non-Christian or Pagan. They were used for the Heelstone and Sarsen Circle Uprights in Stonehenge and Avebury in about 2000BC.

The King Inspecting Troops, WW2

Irish Bond Certificate

This unusual object has been submitted by DW.

Republic of Ireland Bond Certificate

During the Irish War of Independence (Anglo-Irish War if you wish) the Republican side raised funds both at home and in the US. Eamon de Valera, born in New York, went back there on a fund-raising drive in 1919 (having escaped earlier that year from Lincoln prison). He raised over $5 million in all by means of these bond certificates – so named to avoid any accusations of fraud, as they couldn’t be traded like an ordinary bond. It was made quite clear to investors that what they ‘invested’ was by way of a gift. As and when the Republic of Ireland gained international recognition they could be exchanged for so-called Gold Bonds paying 5%. This of course never happened.

The $10 denomination was the commonest, but $25, $50, $100, $1,000 and even $10,000 were also available. This particular example, no. 210877, was never actually sold to a subscriber (if it had been, a name would have been written in after ‘To…’). Once independence was won in 1923, ownership of the funds raised was disputed between the anti-Treaty side in the Civil War (led by de Valera) and the new Free State government. The Irish Supreme Court awarded half to the latter immediately but the other half remained in escrow in New York until that state’s Supreme Court determined in 1927 that the monies should be returned to the original subscribers. The possibility of so doing ended in 1936 with the passing of the relevant Act in Ireland.

Some would say that de Valera was perhaps the long-term winner, becoming Taoiseach in 1932 and, later, President until 1973.  

Plumbing Irons

Pudding Stones

This unusual object has been provided by FN. Here is his description:

Pudding Stones

I don’t know if your readers are familiar with these stones. They common in this area. The only other place in the world where they are found is Michigan USA. There are some at Lee and Cholesbury Common, big ones!! The one in the picture I picked up at Latimer. It shows the bottom and the top (which I cut and polished). If you walk from Latimer up Church Lane the first field on the left has dozens of them all around the field of different sizes.

A Fireless Cooker Handbook

I found this leaflet at the back of my grandmother's recipe book (not the printed kind - her personal collection of recipes, all meticulously written and saying who the recipe came from!). It's for some kind of slow cooker. The frontispiece amused me. The second photo shows the cookers.

 

I don’t know the date she acquired it but somewhere between the two wars. The last page has a letter of appreciation dated 1918.

A Pocket Watch

This battered pocket watch was recently lent to me by a cousin.

 

The inscription inside reveals it belonged to my maternal great grandfather George Rose Burton. It was a gift from his brother, Edmund Charles Burton (E C B) of Daventry, who was twenty years older and head of the family. As the youngest of 16 children George Rose had been sent to Australia to make his way in the world. The hallmark of 1876 suggests that the watch may have been a wedding present, as George Rose married in February 1875, or it marked the birth of his son in December that year (news of both events reaching England reliant on ships).

The watch was intriguing as the hallmarks reveal that the case was made in England in 1876 by Aaron Lufkin Dennison of Handsworth in Birmingham. However the movement  was manufactured by the American Waltham Watch Company (also known as the Waltham Watch Company) just outside Boston. The inscription reads A M Watch Co. Marlyn Sq. Waltham Mass. Fogg’s Patent. and a serial number 101701.

Research revealed that the Waltham Watch Company had been established in the 1850s by Aaron Dennison with two colleagues but he left the company in 1862 and moved in 1871 to England via Switzerland. Given that both the English and Swiss manufactured excellent watch movements he decided to concentrate on producing watch cases. However, he must have also imported movements from his old company in the USA, which had pioneered the use of interchangeable parts to keep cost low.

A Cutlery Set

A Newspaper Article

This 'object' is a newspaper article submitted by EM. The article is from the Bucks Examiner dated February 3rd 1933. Because it is a little illegible in parts, it is transcribed below the image.

COLESHILL
PLAYING FIELD FOR THE VILLAGE
COMMITTEE FORMED
Elaborate Scheme Mentioned at Public Meeting

An elaborate scheme for the conversion of Coleshill Common into a playing field was mentioned at a public meeting at the village hall on Friday evening.

Mr F Stubbings was voted to the chair, and Mr W J Young was asked to be secretary.

There was a decided variation in the views expressed, and the various problems confronting the meeting included:

Did the populace want a playing field?

To whom did the common belong, and had the parishioners any right to interfere with it?

Could the necessary money be raised and if so how?

The matter of upkeep if the playing field became a reality.

It appears that correspondence has passed between the Parish Council (who point out that they have no powers to carry through such a scheme) and certain people who want to see the ground laid out.

After various suggestions had been made (some with a certain amount of heat and a "you'll never do it" attitude), Mr D Payne, a local man, said he would be willing to "make a fair offer"—level as much of the common as would be required, and make: a bathing pool near the spring which would "never be empty as long as any of us live"; "as pretty a football ground as anyone ever saw"; "as fine a cricket pitch as any recognised player would want to play on"; and "as pretty a tennis court as ever was seen". He would do this for £250, and then leave £40 behind for a year's maintenance.

One member, Mr W Lane,(who was subsequently admitted to the committee) surprised everyone present during the discussion as to where the money was to come from by saying he knew of certain people who would subscribe. To use his own words, this was the position: "There are firms and people who have 'bags of money' which they want to give away for such things. Will you let me write to them, and ask each of them for £100. I'll ask for plenty, and perhaps I'll get a little—say £30 or £40. I will not tell you who these people are, but I'll show you their replies when I get them, and I'll guarantee that they will help us."

The necessary permission to write the letters was given to the speaker.

It was recalled during the discussion that several years ago when a scheme was suggested, and money collected, the people were asked which they preferred—to spend the money on the common, or have a dinner?—they had the dinner!

Mr Jerram said he was anxious to see "somewhere for the kiddies to play."

The committee appointed to go thoroughly into the matter and report to a further meeting was: Rev F Urch, Messrs F Stubbings, W J Young, F Eliot Howard, W Sears, W Lane, and H G Muckley.

The committee will hold their first meeting this (Friday) evening.

===end of article===

Mystery Items

The objects shown below were provided by LT. The items were later put on display at the Horticultural Society show in September 2021. Visitors to the show were invited to guess what the objects were used for, with a prize given for the nearest guess.

The competition produced more than 40 entries and, luckily for the organisers, only one person came up with the was correct answer.

Several people guessed that the objects had a range of uses in the textile trade, for making and shaping fabrics, including felt for hats and other fashion articles. Other ideas included something from a ship’s rigging, cookery shaping tools, clock weights and other parts of clock mechanisms, spinning tops and similar toys. It was very interesting to see how well people applied their imagination to assessing possible uses for unfamiliar objects.

The correct answer was ‘Victorian Plumber’s tools for shaping and jointing lead pipework’.

A Silver Tankard

A Ship's Model

A Glove Case

This brass framed, polished leather case has an expanding lower compartment which could hold as many as a dozen, even twenty pairs of light lace gloves.

 

The Ivory tongs are for opening out each finger of the delicate, close fitting gloves.

 

The blue silk lined case is dated at about 1830, but unfortunately bears no maker’s mark.

A Tankard

This tankard has been handed down from my Grandfather. It commemorates him coxing the Clare College Eight to a win in 1872.  It was made by James Dixon and Sons of Sheffield which was founded in 1806 and was noted as silver & pewter manufacturers. 

 

He achieved a second in classics at Cambridge.  He went into the Church and teaching becoming head of Queen Elizabeth Grammar School Kingston on Thames eventually becoming rector of Patrington in Yorkshire. 

 

His last parish was Charlecombe in Somerset where he is photographed, possibly during WW1, standing in the porch with his wife Kate nee Middlemore-Whitard who allegedly was related, though distantly, through her mother to the Duke of Orleans.  The bowler hatted groom is Dexter.

The tankard has a very fine brilliantly coloured and etched glass bottom and is quite weighty even when empty.

It maybe of interest though not very valuable.

A Ginger Beer Bottle

Coleshill Fête Poster/Publicity

A Polo Cup

A Theodolite

A Bottle of 'Princes Brew'

This bottle of "Princes Brew" is a family heirloom that Babs inherited from her mother. The unusual bottle of beer was brewed by the then Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII). The photograph shows him "mashing" the brew (or at least turning the lever that started the mashing process) at Charington's Anchor Brewery in Mile End.

We obtained the accompanying newspaper article in the days before t'Internet. We visited the Colindale Newspaper Library and tracked down the above article from the City and East London Observer dated Saturday March 19th 1932.

The actual bottle had belonged to Babs's great-aunt, Auntie Flo as she was known to the family. Auntie Flo was married to a man called Arthur Boulanger (his real name was Baker but he changed it by deed poll to make himself sound posher!). Arthur worked as a waiter at the Café de Paris where the Prince of Wales and his entourage were regular visitors. On the evening of the 15th March, the prince having performed his official duties of mashing the beer and visiting the East End poor, he attended the Café de Paris with his usual group of friends. With him he brought a couple of cases of his 'Princes Brew' that he distributed to the waiting staff. That, at least, is the family yarn. Babs recounted it to Michael Aspel in a 2007 edition of the Antiques Road Show. 

This wasn't the first occasion that the Prince of Wales had turned his hand to beer mashing. In 1929, he famously performed the same operation at the Bass Brewery in Burton on Trent.

An Original Ordnance Survey Map

A Pair of Binoculars

An Edison Cylinder Record

This is an Amberol Blue wax cylinder, for use on a ‘phonograph’, invented in the USA by Thomas A. Edison, who is better known for having invented the light bulb.

The phonograph — ‘sound writer’ — dates from 1877 and was the forerunner of the gramophone. This was Edison’s first major invention and, being the first device to both record and play back sound, was revolutionary.

The vast majority of wax cylinders that survive today feature musical performances, although Edison’s original intention had been to find a way of recording telegraph communications and to come up with a ‘talking machine’ that could automate speech for the new-fangled telephone, which had been patented by Alexander Graham Bell the previous year.

The wax cylinder’s heyday was the 1890s, and the double-sided flat disc, introduced by Columbia in 1908, heralded its decline. By 1915 the cylinder and the phonograph had all but been superseded by discs and the gramophone.

The cylinder illustrated here features an English music hall song by George Formby, ‘the Lancashire comedian’ and father of the more famous ukulele player. Formby Senior was a very likeable, gentle comedian whose stock-in-trade was self-deprecating humour. He was huge star in the days before radio, and when he died prematurely in 1921 his appointments diary was fully booked for another seven years. He left over £21,000 in his will, the equivalent to over £2,500,000 today.

George Formby Senior made nearly 200 recordings, beginning in 1906, and this one, ‘When Father Said He’d Pay The Rent’, was released in 1911. It was the third to last of his Edison cylinders, almost all which were made from standard black wax. But this rare example is his only known recording on Edison’s trademarked ‘Blue Amberol’ system that promised increased durability and a longer shelf-life. It wasn’t actually made from wax at all, but from a bright blue celluloid (plastic) film over a plaster of Paris core. These days, over a century later, it no longer looks blue, and this example is housed in card box from a few years later (although its lid is original). Needless to say, like all wax cylinders, it is now extremely fragile and even more prone to accidental breakage than the notoriously brittle 78rpm shellac records that replaced them.

And here is George Formby Senior singinging ‘When Father Paid The Rent’:
 

A Violin

This is the violin I was given for my eighth birthday. While other children were given toys as presents, my father always got me something useful, or practical, or educational. And in 1956 it was this violin - which was purchased second-hand through the small ads in the Harrow Observer.

There was a frisson of excitement when we got it home. A family member using a torch and magnifying glass peered through the 'F' slots where the sound comes out. Inside they discovered a yellowing label that read,

      "Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis Faciebat Anno 1713".

But sadly the thrill was short lived because at the bottom of the label in smaller type it said,"Made in Czechoslovakia".The violin had actually been mass-produced in a Czech factory in the twentieth century and the label simply meant that the violin have been manufactured to a Stradivarius design from 1713. Such violins were nevertheless faithful copies of the original and and they are now quite well regarded in their own right.

Having had a few lessons and inspired by my virtuosity, one Sunday afternoon I took myself and my violin to visit Judy Townsend, a girl who lived down our road. And there I treated her to a performance of my entire repertoire. 

Now Judy's father Mr Townsend was normally a mild mannered even-tempered sort of chap. But they say everyone has their breaking point and D's Cacophonic Variations were to be Mr Townsend's. Eventually when he could stand it no longer, he grabbed me by the hand and frogmarched me back home. There he presented me to my own somewhat bemused father with the words, "I believe this is your offspring". I think this was his way of conveying his displeasure whilst maintaining a modicum of politeness! 

 

 

A Champagne Bottle

 

This unusual object has been submitted by PH. His contribution was inspired by a recent 'object' - the bottle of beer 'brewed' by a previous Prince of Wales. PH has in his possession this commemorative bottle of Champagne dedicated to the present Prince of Wales. Here is his amusing description.

 

The  Object is a bottle of 1975 vintage Veuve Cliquot Champagne, the Cuvée having been selected to honour the marriage of H.R.H the Prince of Wales with Lady Diana Spencer (as printed on the bottle)

        such   GREAT  EXPECTATIONS

ultimately tragically delivered the COUP de disGRACE by cunning, greedy, fraudulent, utterly unscrupulous, reckless, mischievous, and possibly unwittingly malign BASHIR and the BBC.

A Cane and Snuff Box

 

This week's unusual objects have been submitted by LH. They are a walking cane and a snuff box believed to have belonged to the Reverend John Scott Porter who was the great-great-grandfather of LH's late husband.

 

John Scott Porter is pictured in the portrait. He was a distinguished Irish Presbyterian minister and academic with a long and interesting entry in the Dictionary of National Biography. Here is a short extract,

 

Personally he was a man of broad and genial nature, of strong feelings easily roused, capable of passion, but incapable of malice; in society a most genial and warm-hearted companion, rich in anecdote, fond of music, and capable of singing a good song. His somewhat gaunt figure was dignified by a striking countenance, mellowed in old age, and graced with a profusion of snow-white hair and beard.

If only he were around today, he would be a welcome guest at one of our history meetings. You can read more about him here:

 

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Porter,_John_Scott

 

A Reel of Film

The Rise and Fall of Kingsbury County Grammar School

This film dates from 1967, the year of my A levels. In the short period between finishing my exams and the end of term, I made this film.

Of course, cinematography was very different in those days compared to now. With current technology, you could record all your scenes on a mobile phone in a day; edit them together on a computer in the evening; and have the whole thing finished and published on YouTube the following day.

But back in 1967 it was all very different. Scenes had to be recorded on film and audio was added later. I used a Kodak ‘Brownie’ 8mm movie camera, very basic and powered by clockwork.

The film had to be sent away to Kodak to be processed and with luck it was returned to you in about a week. Then the film had to be cut up into individual scenes using scissors; and then the scenes were assembled into the correct order using a splicing contraption that scraped the emulsion off the film end before applying glue to make a joint. And then a soundtrack had to be recorded and edited using a similar process with reel to reel audio tape.And there were some other interesting techniques used. For example, to make the title sequences, the background scene was filmed; and then the camera was taken into a darkroom where the film was rewound, and then the film was then exposed a second time to superimpose the titles onto the background. And for the fades between scenes, you could buy a bottle of ‘cine-fade’ in you local photography shop. This was a black dye that slowly diffused into the film. So before you spliced the scenes together, you gradually lowered the film end into the bottle to create the fade effect.

So you can see it was quite a feat of organisation to complete the film in the timescale I had.

The film itself is a gentle comedic portrayal of the transformation of my grammar school into a bog standard comprehensive, as Alistair Campbell might have called it. I don’t quite remember what inspired me to make the film but maybe it was the very occasional mutterings of some teachers who disapproved of what was taking place.

The last day of the grammar school coincided with my own last day at school. So on that final afternoon we all trooped into the school hall for the concluding end of term assembly and sang, ‘Lord dismiss us with thy blessing’; and then I invited everyone to come to a viewing of the film. Despite poking fun at the teachers who appeared in it, it was generally well received and I was even invited back the following December for a second showing.You won't get al the allusions in the film that play on teachers' names and nicknames and  idiosyncrasies. But nonetheless, I hope you will savour this reflection of a bygone age.

So with apologies for the quality, here it is

A Spice Box

This old spice box stood on the mantle-piece over the kitchen stove when I was a child. I think the origins must have gone back to my grandmother, which would take it to the end of Victoria’s reign. It is as cheaply made as could be imagined but, miraculously, it still has the smell of cloves and nutmeg in two of the drawers.

A Milk Bottle

This was found deep in the grass verge beside Tower Road during one of our Village litter picking sessions.

Pusey’s kept their milking cattle in the fields opposite Coleshill House and delivered bottled milk to the Village until the late twentieth century.

Fête Photos

These are images from the Bucks Free Press submitted by EM. Do you recognise any of those present?

A Mother of Pearl Boc

This little box (less then 5 inches wide) was a wedding present to Mary and me from a cousin of my mother’s. I feel sure that it dated back further, but perhaps one of the History Group may know when mother-of-pearl was in vogue. I would be interested to hear.

How much more valued is a present like this, that was owned and given, than something off a list at Harrods!

A WW1 Tea Caddy

This unusual object was submitted by PH. It is a WW1 regulation issue tea caddy. It belonged to PH's Uncle Tom - Tom Wycliffe-Taylor MC. of R.H.A.

A Novelty Ink Well

DANIEL LAMBERT INKWELL

This is a ceramic novelty inkwell from the early 19th century. It is in the likeness of Daniel Lambert (1770-1809), a gaol keeper and animal breeder from Leicester who became renowned during his lifetime as England’s heaviest man. At his death, aged 39, he weighed 52 stone and 11 lbs (335 kg).

He was said to have been extremely strong and athletically active, and claimed not to have drunk alcohol or eaten unusual amounts of food. Nevertheless, by 1806 he had become the heaviest authenticated person in recorded history and was effectively unemployable.

Although shy by nature and sensitive about his obesity, in desperation he saw the only way to avoid abject poverty was to exhibit himself as “a prodigy of nature,” and in the summer of 1806 he rented chambers in London where he charged visitors a shilling a view. Such was his popularity that he retired to Leicester a wealthy, if somewhat humiliated man.

 

Daniel Lambert’s incredible size was commemorated throughout the 19th century and into the 20th. There were pubs and other businesses named after him. There were engravings and paintings, and he inspired memorabilia too, including another inkwell, a large brass one which (unfairly?) depicted him eating a whole roasted pig. There were also Staffordshire pottery figurines, money boxes and even a Daniel-shaped teapot.

 

He remains a popular figure in Leicester, where he has been hailed as “one of the city’s most cherished icons,” and his enormous clothes and armchair are on permanent display in a museum. On the 200th anniversary of his death in 2009, Leicester staged a Daniel Lambert Day at the museum, which was attended by over 800 people.

 

He is also lauded in Stamford, Lincolnshire, where he died unexpectedly while travelling home from London — present day Stamford Football Club is nicknamed ‘The Daniels’.

Buttons Nibs and Sugar

This is the last of the 'Object of the Week series and marks what we hope will be the beginning of the end of the pandemic.  So for this finale, here is a collection of objects from PW; some buttons, some pen nibs and some packets of sugar.

The sugar came from PW's school outing to the Tate and Lyle factory in the London docks, and they were given the boxes at the end of our tour. Probably around 1963? She remembers,

On arrival, the smell of candy floss from the refinery was wonderful. By the time we left, our noses had definitely had enough of it! But it was wonderful to see the mountains of sugar inside the factory and to learn that the “dirty” sugar got refined but then recoloured for Demerara!