LOWER GALLERY UPPER GALLERY Case 90.A ‘Games and Puzzles’ Case 14.A ‘Baby Carriers’ Case 3.B ‘Shields’ Case 49.A ‘Clubs’ Turn right at you enter the gallery. The You will find this large wall case close by. As you enter the gallery look left to cases At the entrace to the gallery turn right and case is a desktop. covering the wall. look for a desktop case. Here you will find a small club known Here you will find 1911.29.68, as a life preserver, 1911.29.66. The shown above, twelve small wooden shaft is made from baleen (though it pegs, in a cardboard box, used in was originally thought to have been the game ‘merry peg’ from Baldon- made from whale bone) and the two on-the-Green (possibly Marsh This is 1911.29.86, a wooden baby runner from Long Crendon, just over the border ends are weighted with lead. Such Baldon), Oxfordshire. This game bludgeons were used as self defence is more often called ‘nine men’s in Buckinghamshire. This runner was Look for the kite-shaped shield from used to teach children to walk. It consists against attackers’ wrists or heads. The morris’. It has a long history--it England in the nearest corner to the shaft is flexible. is known to have been played in of a wooden ring into which the baby was gallery entrance. An eagle with a halo is popped attached to a wooden upright. Ancient Egypt. Each player has nine painted on the front. This is 1911.29.12. Such life preservers are mentioned pieces which move between the Thomas Carter (a fellow antiquary who It is covered with hide and is similar collected objects for Percy) acquired in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates twenty-four intersections of three in shape to a Norman shield, but is of Penzance, and in several Sherlock interlocking squares. The object of this object in December 1905. The baby most likely to be a nineteenth or early was placed in the ring which supported Holmes stories. Some authors the game is to remove all the enemy twentieth century replica. speculate that it was called a life pieces. Every time a player forms the baby’s first steps. Walking aids for children have existed since medieval preserver because it could stun an a line of three (a mill) on any line This shape of shield was very popular assailant without killing him. drawn on the board, he is entitled to times. The earliest type was like this but in the twelfth century as it covered the remove one enemy piece. did not enclose the child: later, like this warrior’s foreleg as well as his torso. example, the baby was fully enclosed and More efficient armour gradually led to its more protected from falling. being less used. Find out more at http://folkinoxford.co.uk/percy-manning-centenary-events.html Trail created by Alison Petch, Madeleine Ding and Faye Belsey FLOOR Other Exhibition The Man Who Collected Oxfordshire: GROUND Displays Case 107.A ‘Writing and Communication - Percy Manning and the Case 136.A ‘Spinning and winding’ Writing Equipment’ 18 February-23 March Weston Library This is a floor mounted case This case is in the centre of the museum Pitt Rivers Museum ‘Percy Manning: The Man who Collected Oxfordshire’ – Blackwell Hall We invite you to take a tour of the Pitt 4 March-22 April Museum of Oxford Rivers Museum to see some of the objects ‘Mummers and Maypoles, in celebration of collected by the antiquarian and folklorist, Percy Manning’ – Town Hall Percy Manning who died one hundred years ago in 1917. This trail is one of the March-end of 2017 Ashmolean Museum activities at the Oxford University museums Percy Manning: The “keen field antiquary” established to celebrate his centenary. – Medieval gallery Events 12 March 2pm ‘Seasonal Songs and Forgotten Tunes’ workshop Bodleian Libraries & Music Faculty, free, contact [email protected] On the floor of the case you will find 1911.29.16, a lady’s spinning 22 March 1pm ‘What happened to the wheel used and worn attached to a extraordinary collections of Percy Manning’ belt, probably from Shrewsbury in Mike Heaney Weston Library lecture theatre, free Shropshire. The wheel was used to spin thread from fibres. The wheel has 24 March 8pm ‘Percy Manning Centenary fine thread wound around the bobbin This is a small carved ivory pounce Celebration Concert’ Magpie Lane and box, 1911.29.64, it is probably English. Headington Quarry Morris Dancers and two copper alloy flyers and a St Andrew’s Church, Linton Road handle to turn the spindle. Pounce is described by the Oxford Percy Manning was born in 1870 in Headingley, English Dictionary as ‘A fine powder, West Yorkshire. In 1880 his family moved from 6 May 10am and 1pm ‘Bark-horn making made from pulverised sandarac or cuttle the Leeds area to Watford. Percy was educated at There is a birdcage distaff used to workshops’ Pitt Rivers Museum New College, Oxford and he remained in Oxford hold the unspun fibres and keep them shell, used to prevent ink from spreading free, booking essential www.prm.ox.ac.uk/talks (especially when writing on unsized for the rest of his life. untangled. There is also an u-shaped paper) or to prepare the surface of extension to the spinning wheel to Percy had independent means and did not need to parchment to receive writing. support it against the waist. This object Web Resources work to earn a living. He was particularly interested illustrates that Percy also collected in collecting objects and information about popular antiquarian objects from other parts of Like many objects in Percy’s collection www.prm.ox.ac.uk/exhibitions-and-case-displays folk customs. Much of this information is now the box is not very well provenanced, held in the Manning manuscript collections at the the country, not just Oxfordshire and that is to say he has not told the www.oxforddnb.com/index/101057230/Percy- Bodleian Library. Buckinghamshire. museum how he acquired the shaker, or Manning Although the Ashmolean Museum has most of from whom, nor where it was made or www.ashmolean.org/ash/amps/oha/ArchivePages/ Percy’s antiquarian collection, he donated a total used. Manning1.html of 224 objects to this museum. 76 of these objects are now on display in the museum and this trail will web.prm.ox.ac.uk/sma/index.php/articles/article- show you some of these and give an idea of the index/356-percy-manning.html breadth and range of his collection. .