I hope those of you who are regular readers don’t mind too much when I wander outside the bounds of the City when I think there is something interesting happening elsewhere, and in the case of the Wellcome Collection it’s only a few Tube stops away.
At the entrance to the Cult of Beauty exhibition …
The guide tells us that the exhibition explores notions of beauty across time and cultures. ‘Around the world, beauty is constantly seen as an ideal worthy of going to great lengths to achieve. But what are the driving forces that lead us to believe in a myth of universal beauty, despite its evolving nature?’
‘Featuring over 200 items, including historical objects, artworks, films and new commissions, the exhibition considers the influence of morality, status, health, age, race and gender on the evolution of ideas about beauty.’
Reproduction of the bust of Nefertiti, originally created circa 1354-1351 BCE …
‘An archytype of African feminine beauty’.
‘Beautiful features have long been seen as a gateway to the spiritual in different belief systems. The print of Krishna challenges Christian associations of beauty with morals such as chastity’ …
‘The Virgin of Guadalupe is a symbol of multicultural and multi-ethnic identities, especially in areas where different religions and cultural traditions meet’ …
The ‘Esquiline Venus’ and the ‘Idolino’ or ‘Little Idol’ – First Century concepts of beauty reproduced in the late 19th century …
‘Husbands bringing their ugly wives to a windmill, to be transformed into beautiful women’ – German chapbook circa 1650 …
Trying to get that figure in shape …
It was not just women enduring torture …
A dandy being laced into a tight corset by two servants (1819).
Cosmetic entrepreneur Helena Rubenstein testing products in her Long Island Factory (1950s) …
The installation ‘Beauty Sensorium’ brings together historical references with reconstructions of Renaissance make-up recipes, inviting visitors to look, smell and touch …
Equipment to enhance appearance and fragrance …
More like a surgeon’s travelling kit …
‘Narcissister’s three-metre-tall hanging sculpture ‘(Almost) all of my dead mother’s beautiful things’ centres on the crushing weight of beauty ideals that are passed from one generation to another’ …
‘Makeupbrutalism’s multimedia installation ‘It makes no sense being beautiful if no one else is ugly’ encourages us to question our beliefs, confront our raw selves beneath social pressure and to peel back the layers of the beauty industry’ …
What represents beauty changes all the time …
This 1970s product made me smile …
And on the Underground going home later, I had to smile again when I looked up and saw this (plus ça change) …
It is a provocative and thoughtful exhibition and I enjoyed it very much.
I take lots of pictures as I stroll around London and not all of them make their way into a blog. As I looked through images from the last six months or so I decided to publish a selection of the ones I liked most and hope you enjoy looking at them too.
I’ll start with one of my strangest encounters, the Golden Confessional Booth in the Bishopsgate Institute …
It was donated to the Institute by the artist Franko B in 2022. You can read more about him and the archive held at the Institute here.
If bollards have to be installed they might as well be pretty …
The Goldsmith’s Company leopard at the entrance to their garden on Gresham Street …
The screen in the crypt of St Pauls Cathedral …
The metalwork screen, 3.50 m high x 8 m wide, spans the Crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral, It stands as a permanent memorial to Sir Winston Churchill, the third great national hero to have a state funeral at the Cathedral, alongside those of the Duke of Wellington and Lord Nelson.
I never get tired of photographing the Cathedral …
A stroke of planning genius putting a water feature here …
Outside St Thomas’ Hospital, Edward VI looks in good shape considering how long he’s been in the open air …
It’s one of two statues of the king at the hospital, both commemorating his re-founding of the institution in 1551. This one was carved by Thomas Cartwright in 1682 and originally formed the centrepiece of a group of figures which adorned a gateway on Borough High Street. It was moved to its current location in the 20th century.
Old gravestones in Postman’s Park …
According to the estimable Percy Rushen, the full inscription on the stone in the middle reads ‘FANNY wife of WILLIAM SNOWLEY of the parish, died 22 November 1847 aged 48’. The one in front is the marker for ‘JOSHUA HOBSON, of the parish, died 5 February 1833 aged 49’.
The Gothic masterpiece that is St Pancras, built 1868 …
Nearby Kings’s Cross. It’s the older of the two buildings (1852) but certainly doesn’t look it …
The mysterious McLaren sports car that’s been parked outside the St Pancras hotel for ages …
You only need to visit the Watts Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice in Postman’s Park to see evidence of the dangers that people were exposed to in Victorian times.
Here is the man we have to thank for this window on the past …
George Frederic Watts was a famous Victorian artist and this picture is a self-portrait. He first suggested the memorials we see today in 1887 but the idea was not taken up until 1898 when the vicar of St Botolph’s church offered him this site in Postman’s Park. There Watts’ ambition to commemorate ‘likely to be forgotten heroes’ came to fruition and when the park was officially opened on 30 July 1900 there were already four tablets in place.
Sixty two people feature on the memorial today which is housed in a wooden loggia …
I find that their stories still evoke a range of emotions, particularly ones of sadness and curiosity, which left me wanting to know more about these people, their lives and the manner of their deaths. There are also clues as to the nature of society and work at that time along with the quality of healthcare.
We are reminded, for example, that horses played a tremendous part in work practices, transport, leisure and, sadly, war. It’s estimated, for example, that there were about 3.3 million horses in late Victorian Britain and in 1900 about a million of these were working horses. Of the 62 people commemorated here, five died as a result of an incident involving horses and I shall write about two of them.
Here is the first mention of horses on the wall …
William Drake earned his living as a carriage driver and on this occasion his passenger was one of the most famous sopranos of her day, a lady called Thérèse Tietjens. The breaking of the carriage pole caused panic among the horses and they reared out of control. In fighting to control them, Drake received a severe kick to his right knee which subsequently resulted in the septicaemia that led to his death on April 8th. A message was passed to the coroner at the inquest that ‘those dependent on the deceased would be amply cared for by Madame Tietjens’. Notwithstanding this, Drake was buried at the expense of the parish in a common grave in Brompton Cemetery, although there is evidence that his widow did receive an annuity from somewhere.
Elizabeth Boxall died after being kicked by a runaway carthorse as she pulled a small child out of its way …
Her brave act actually took place in July 1887 but over the next eleven months poor Elizabeth’s health deteriorated. Part of her leg was amputated in September and a further part (up to her hip) in January 1888, her condition being complicated by a diagnosis of cancer. Her parents were distraught by her death and the way she had been treated by the medical profession – for example, the first amputation was carried out without her or her parents’ permission. ‘They regularly butchered her at that hospital’ her father exclaimed at the inquest and the jury found that shock from the second operation was the cause of death. No one from the hospital attended the inquest but the House Governor at the London Hospital disputed the finding in a letter to the press.
Still on a medical theme, the highly contagious infection known as diptheria features twice on the memorials. Now extremely rare due to vaccination programmes, it was once a frequent killer of small children and also posed a danger to physicians such as Samuel Rabbeth …
I have been able to locate a picture of him thanks to the excellentLondon Walking Toursblog…
Dr Samuel Rabbeth (1858 – 1884) from The Illustrated London News 15th November 1884 Copyright, The British Library Board
On October 10th the doctor was treating a four year old patient who was in danger of asphyxiation as diptheria often resulted in a membrane blocking the airways. The standard treatment of tracheotomy had been performed but to no avail and Rabbeth performed the more risky procedure of sucking on the tracheotomy tube to remove the obstruction. Unfortunately in doing so he contracted the infection himself and died on 20th October (not the 26th as shown on the plaque). There was some (fairly muted) criticism of his actions by doctors who believed he acted recklessly, although from the most honourable of motives.
He has a fine gravestone in Barnes Cemetery which gives details of his personal professional history and the circumstances of his death …
Dr Lucas was infected as a result of an unfortunate accident …
He was in the process of administering an anaesthetic to a child with diptheria in order that a tracheotomy could be carried out. The child coughed or sneezed in his face but, instead of delaying to clean himself up, which may have endangered the child’s life, he continued and as a result became infected. He died within a week.
I haven’t been able to find an image of him or his final resting place but a poem written in his memory was published in a number of newspapers and you can read it in full here.
Thomas Griffin was engaged to be married on 16 April 1899 and on 11 April he had travelled to Northampton to discuss arrangements with his family and then back home to Battersea for work the next day. He expected that by the end of the week he would be married, but that was not to be, and by the end of the following day he was dead …
An inquest on 17 April was told that, after an explosion in the refinery boiler room, the door had been closed and the men told to keep out. Griffin, who had been evacuated to safety, suddenly cried out ‘My mate! My mate!’ and before anyone could stop him had disappeared into the boiler room. Terribly scalded all over his body he died later that day. The coroner lamented that …
… the conduct of a man like him deserves to be recorded. No doubt there are heroes in everyday life, but they do not come to the front and so we do not hear of them.
Unbeknown to the coroner, Watts had been collecting newspaper cuttings of heroic acts for years and added Griffin’s story to the growing archive. So it came to pass that Thomas Griffin was among the first four people to be commemorated upon the newly opened memorial.
And finally …
One might get the impression that this gentleman was particularly worthy of recognition because the person he saved was not only a stranger but also a foreigner. This would be a shame if it detracts from a very brave act and a tragic one also since, according to Cambridge’s brother Royston, John need not have perished. He told the Nottingham Evening Post …
My brother, who was a very good swimmer, saw while bathing an unknown person drowning, and swam out to her assistance. The bathing boat rescued the lady, and the other bather, but the boatmen declined to go out again, although we implored them to do so, and offered them payment, until they were ordered out by officials. It was then, of course, too late.
I have written in great detail about the following four heroes in an earlier blog which you can find (along with pictures of three of them) here …
I am indebted for the background research used in this blog to the historian John Price and his incredibly interesting book Heroes of Postman’s Park – Heroic Self-Sacrifice in Victorian London. You will find details of how to purchase your copy here.
One day in 1936 a young priest officiated at his first funeral – a 14 year old girl who had killed herself because, when her periods started, she thought it was a sign of a sexually transmitted disease. That there seemed to have been no one she could talk to had a profound effect on him, but it was not until 18 years later that, as he put it,
I read somewhere there were three suicides a day in Greater London. What were they supposed to do if they didn’t want a Doctor or Social Worker … ? What sort of a someone might they want?
He looked at his phone, ‘DIAL 999 for Fire, Police or Ambulance’ it said …
There ought to be an emergency number for suicidal people, I thought. Then I said to God, be reasonable! Don’t look at me… I’m possibly the busiest person in the Church of England.
When the priest, Chad Varah, was offered charge of the parish of St Stephen in the summer of 1953 he knew that the time was right for him to launch what he called a ‘999 for the suicidal’. He was, in his own words, ‘a man willing to listen, with a base and an emergency telephone’. The first call to the new service was made on 2nd November 1953 and this date is recognised as Samaritans’ official birthday.
The Reverend Dr Chad Varah at his telephone – you just had to dial MAN 9000.
It soon became obvious that the volunteers, who used to keep people company whilst they were waiting to speak to Chad, were also capable of helping in their own right and in February 1954 he officially handed over the task of supporting the callers to them.
If you visit the church you can see the phone itself …
St Stephen Walbrook (rebuilt 1672-80) was one of Wren’s largest and earliest churches and the meticulous care taken with it might, some suggest, be because Sir Christopher lived next door. Incidentally, Mr Pollixifen, who lived on the other side, bitterly complained about the building taking his light. Maybe he was mollified when the the church’s internal beauty was revealed.
Views towards St Stephen’s have opened up since completion of the new development on Walbrook, which also houses a meticulously restored Temple of Mithras (see my 25th January 2018 blog: The Romans in London – Mithras, Walbrook and the Games).
Looking at the exterior one can see the lovely green Byzantine style dome …
The interior is bright, intimate and stunning, old Victorian stained glass having been removed …
Wren’s dome and Sir Henry Moore’s altar
The dome was the first of its kind in any English church and a forerunner of Wren’s work on St Paul’s Cathedral. After being damaged in the Blitz the church was restored by Godfrey Allen in 1951-52. Controversy broke out when, between 1978 and 1987, the church was re-ordered under the sponsorship of churchwarden Peter (later Lord) Palumbo and a striking ten tonne altar by Sir Henry Moore was placed at its centre.
Sometimes I look at church memorial plaques and, if they are entirely in Latin, just rather lazily move on. In this case it was a big mistake since I was ignoring a tribute to a very brave man …
Dr Nathaniel Hodges’ memorial on the north wall. Photograph: Bob Speel.
The Great Plague of 1665-1666 was the worst outbreak in England for over 300 years and London probably lost getting on for 20% of its population. While 68,596 deaths were recorded in the city, the true number was most likely to be over 100,000. Those who could, usually the professionals and the wealthy, fled the city and this included four-fifths of the College of Physicians. Charles II and his courtiers left in July for Hampton Court and then Oxford where Parliament also relocated in October,
Nathaniel Hodges was a 36-year-old doctor practising in London when the pestilence reached the City. London was awash, he said later, with ‘Chymists’ and ‘Quacks’ dispensing, as he put it: ‘… medicines that were more fatal than the plague and added to the numbers of the dead.’
Dr Hodges decided to stay and minister to the sick and dying.
First thing every morning before breakfast he spent two or three hours with his patients. He wrote later …
Some (had) ulcers yet uncured and others … under the first symptoms of seizure all of which I endeavoured to dispatch with all possible care …
hardly any children escaped; and it was not uncommon to see an Inheritance pass successively to three or four Heirs in as many Days.
After hours of visiting victims where they lived he walked home and, after dinner, saw more patients until nine at night and sometimes later.
He survived the epidemic and wrote two learned works on the plague. The first, in 1666, he called An Account of the first Rise, Progress, Symptoms and Cure of the Plague being a Letter from Dr Hodges to a Person of Quality. The second was Loimologia, published six years later …
The above is a later edition of Dr Hodges’ work, translated from the original Latin and published when the plague had broken out in France.
It seems particularly sad to report that his life ended in personal tragedy when, in his early fifties, his practice dwindled and fell away. Finally he was arrested as a debtor, committed to Ludgate Prison, and died there, a broken man, in 1688.
Translated from the Latin, his memorial reads as follows:
Learn to number thy days, for age advances with furtive step, the shadow never truly rests. Seeking mortals, born that they might succumb, the executioner comes from behind. While you breathe you are a victim of death; you know not the hour in which your fate will call you. While you look at monuments, time passes irrevocably. In this tomb is laid the physician Nathaniel Hodges in the hope of heaven; now a son of earth, who was once a son of Oxford. May you survive the plague by his writings. Born 13 September AD 1629 Died 10 June 1688.
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