MUSEUM FRIEND

Newsletter for the Friends of Lyme Regis Philpot Museum

Issue no. 30

July 2017

CHAIRMAN’S LETTER

Dear Friends Mission accomplished! By the time you read this we hope that our Mary Anning Wing museum extension will have been completed, a cause for great celebration. Our museum Director, David Tucker, was recruited by the Trustees to oversee the planning, grant raising and building of the extension and we give him credit and our thanks for accomplishing this task. We understand that navigating the multitudinous requirements of the Heritage Lottery Fund is no mean achievement. Details of the official opening and related activities will be published on the museum’s website. It is all change on the Friends committee. I have been elected as Acting Chairman following the resignation of Margaret Rose after many years of dedicated service. My main task is to work with the committee with the aim of getting us into a position which will be sustainable for the next five years or so. We have made a great start following the recruitment of Angela Main and Valerie Hayward; the influx of new energy and ideas is already apparent. To complete our transformation we need three more committee members, hopefully including a potential chairman. We are a very affable bunch of people who enjoy working together to support our museum. Please contact me if you are interested in joining us. Angela will take over from me as Treasurer and Val has plunged in, all guns blazing, as Newsletter Editor, Secretary and Publicity Coordinator. Other positions and duties remain unchanged; namely: Sylvia Oliver continues as Membership Secretary; Alison Mitchell as Database Manager and general computer guru; Richard Wells as digital presentations expert and eBay sales specialist; finally but by no means least, Joe Tesoriere, our all-seasons Eminence Grise and all-purpose helper. I would like to thank the small army of helpers on the Friends’ volunteer roster who help us with our various activities, such as the book sales. More hands definitely make less work but more than that, these activities are enjoyable and present an opportunity for us to interact socially, particularly with new members. There is a very 1 noticeable buzz and atmosphere of enthusiasm surrounding the Friends activities which is great to see. Please contact me if you wish to be added to our volunteer list. We hope that you will enjoy reading this ‘bumper’ edition of our Newsletter, Val’s first as editor, which celebrates the completed Mary Anning Wing. Our aim for the future is to continue to include items of general interest to members. The contribution of articles, comments, letters to the editor etc. will be most welcome. Please send your comments and contributions to Valerie Hayward via her email address [email protected] or at 25a Mill Green, Lyme Regis, DT7 3PH. With best wishes David Cox MARGARET ROSE

With Margaret’s retirement as Chairman of the Friends Committee, we have reached the end of an era. Margaret was co-opted on to the committee 15 years ago, in 2002, under the chairmanship of John Lello, with the specific brief of introducing a Newsletter for the Friends. The first edition appeared in January 2003 and has been published twice a year since then. Margaret’s final production, the January 2017 issue, No. 29, took Margaret into her 15th year of editorship and production; a formidable record! Our new editor, Valerie Hayward, has a tough act to follow. Following the retirement of John Lello in April 2009, Margaret was elected to be our new Chairman, a post that she has held for the past eight years. This has been a period of stability and achievement under Margaret's direction. When I look back for significant milestones there is no doubt that the raising of £68,000 towards the

2 Mary Anning Wing extension of our museum takes pride of place, especially given that the museum Trustees set us a target of £50,000. We have our loyal membership to thank for their generous donations and our hard working fund raisers. Margaret quite rightly takes great pride in having recruited Sir David Attenborough as our first Patron; he has since been a most generous, charming and consistent supporter of the Friends. Shortly afterwards she recruited Tracy Chevalier, author of ‘Remarkable Creatures’, based on the life and discoveries of Lyme’s Mary Anning. Tracy has also been an active and generous supporter. Most recently, Margaret made a superb job of organizing the black tie Literary Dinner, an event that became part of the Arts Festival 2016 in Lyme Regis. With Tracy Chevalier as guest speaker, the event raised more than £1,100. Margaret also initiated our involvement with Local Giving, a government inspired movement designed to encourage year-round charitable giving by the public. Each autumn a set sum of money is provided whereby a £10 donation from Friends and supporters is doubled. We, the Friends, have benefitted significantly since the introduction of the scheme. A further significant event was our highly successful hosting of the annual regional (SW) BAfM conference in October 2011. We organized lectures, events and a magnificent lunch at the Royal Lion. Delegates could choose two of the following: Tour of the Museum; Tour of the Town; Know Your Fossils, with our resident geologists. Naturally I am biased but, having attended a number of BAfM regional conferences, I know that ours was up there with the best (actually it was the best!). As you can see, Margaret has a record that she can be proud of and we wish her well in her many remaining charitable endeavours. David Cox 3 TREASURER’S REPORT

As you will have already read, the Friends has donated a total of £68,000 towards the cost of the Mary Anning Wing museum extension and we look forward with eager anticipation to the museum opening. Completion of the building work will hopefully coincide with the publication of this Newsletter. The Trustees have given the go-ahead for building work on Phase 2 of the museum’s redevelopment. This work has planning permission, is on a much smaller scale than the Mary Anning Wing and affects only the eastern side of the museum. It will provide more space, including working and storage areas for the curatorial staff and the Research Team. Completion is planned for 2020, at which point our museum will be viable and sustainable for decades. Thus, it will be business as usual for our fund-raising activities! Our financial objective for the next 2-3 years will be raising money towards the Phase 2 building work. A copy of the examined accounts for 2016 is included in this Newsletter. This is my 11th year as treasurer and I now hand over to Angela Main who has my full confidence and best wishes. SUBSCRIPTION REMINDER • Single membership: £8.00 pa / Family membership: £12.00 pa • Subscriptions are due in January each year. Cheques, payable to ‘Friends of Lyme Regis Museum’, should be sent to Sylvia Oliver, 3 Barnes Meadow, Uplyme, DT7 3TD. If you wish to pay by bank transfer, our bank details are: ‘Friends of Lyme Regis Museum’; NatWest; Sort Code 60-13-57; Account Number 73484172. • Most members pay by standing order, which is simple and really helpful. If you wish to do this, please contact Sylvia on 01297 445537 or by email at [email protected] • Before paying your subscription by cash or cheque, please check that you do not already pay by Standing Order. Double payments are not infrequent! David Cox 4 STATEMENT OF ACCOUNTS (2016)

5 YOUR COMMITTEE IS RECRUITING

With the retirement of Margaret Rose the committee underwent an overhaul, but there is still a need for more volunteers to ensure its continued smooth running. Being a committee member is not onerous. It meets no more than ten times a year and, in between, it organises numerous fundraising activities and the production of the Newsletter. Some committee members obviously have specific roles, but others take on ad hoc tasks as and when the need arises. Possibly the only constraint to becoming a committee member is that you would, ideally, be local to Lyme Regis. Please give it some thought. And if you’d like to give it a try, please contact David Cox on 01297 443156. Thank you.

Some committee members saying farewell to Margaret (seated). From left to right Richard Wells, Valerie Hayward, Joe Tesoriere, David Cox and Sylvia Oliver. Valerie Hayward

6 DIRECTOR’S REPORT

On behalf of the Trustees of the museum, I would like to thank the Friends for the £68,000 that has been contributed to the Mary Anning Wing. I would also like to thank all the volunteers, be they Friends or not, for all their hard work this year. Most especially I would like to thank Margaret, as retiring Chair, for all her endeavours and wish David Cox well for his period as Chairman. The last year has been a momentous one in the museum’s history. We had our busiest first half year in recent times. But by September the museum had suffered its quietest summer in recent years – purely as a result of less than a millimetre of rain falling in August. Meanwhile, the museum was preparing for the start of the build process that would see the creation of the Mary Anning Wing, the new gallery and more. Whilst it has been a momentous year, it has also been a difficult year. The rate of change at the museum has been difficult for everyone to cope with and this, I feel, needs to be acknowledged - it would be the same for any organisation. But we should remember what will be delivered. Our museum will fundamentally change. Not only will it be significantly larger, it will also be an organisation that will need to deliver more things to a wider group of people. We will need to build on our strengths to ensure that the museum succeeds in achieving our goals. Here again more change, but change of a very positive nature that will see our museum reach out and influence more and more people. Finally, the construction of the Mary Anning Wing and the opportunities this will offer, will enable our museum to thrive for many years in a period of time that will very likely see other cultural institutions struggle. In just over two years the generous public support from West Dorset District Council will vanish and at that time the work we are doing now will make us masters of our own destiny – and guarantee many decades more life for the museum. David Tucker

7 A MUSEUM TRUSTEE’S VIEW

Lyme Regis museum is operated under a very clear formal constitution which ensures all it does is lawful, accountable and transparent. The two most important principles are that it is a charity and a trust. As a charity, all that it does must promote a charitable purpose. In our case, this is education and we advance this aim through the creation of museum collections and their display and interpretation. The primary location of this work is the museum itself but we can extend our activities to other premises, or indeed no premises at all, unless you count the beaches where we conduct our ever-popular fossil walks as premises! The key thing is that whatever activity we promote, it must have education at its heart. Education for all people without discrimination; education in the very broadest sense, and often, and usually most successfully, when it is entertaining and fun. The second fundamental attribute is that we are a trust - not all charities are trusts and not all trusts are charities - but we are a charitable trust. Trust in our sense is about safekeeping and safeguarding. We must always protect our fundamental assets - the collection and the building – and, of these, the collection is foremost. So the governing body of Lyme Regis museum is made up of Trustees. It may be that for some, the term trustee evokes a rather distant and remote being who exists to act as a last resort when something has gone wrong. Such may have been the case in the past, but is far from the truth for organisations such as ours, which are registered with, guided by and accountable to the Charity Commission. They require us, as we do ourselves, to be active managing Trustees and take responsibility for all that happens in the affairs of the trust. Our trust has currently 12 Trustees and some of you will have noticed they are being profiled in the museum newsletter Museum Matters. All our Trustees have an equal and personal responsibility to act always and only to protect and enhance our assets and so 8 none of them has any specifically defined role or office (with one exception). Of course, it is essential that the Trustees include the range of skills, knowledge and experience needed for the good governance of the museum. So our Trustees include those with special knowledge of our main collections areas - geology, literature, social history and decorative art; practical skills - business, financial, personnel and buildings management; and, of course, our fundamentally important roles of running and improving our museum, furthering its educational potential, and doing this within the framework of good management of a charity at the heart of Lyme Regis. The Trustees meet formally at least quarterly, to set policy, review all activity, determine priorities and make decisions that arise from that. In this we are strongly supported by our Director, the one trustee who does have a specific role - to act as the chief executive of the trust. With his small staff, the Director is responsible for leading the development of the museum, implementing the decisions of the trust and reporting back on progress. As a highly experienced professional museum officer, he is well equipped to do so, but would doubtless be the first to point out that he is very well aware that three other Trustees are ‘semi-retired’ (so-called!) museum directors or curators. Being polite, he will describe this and the formidable range of experience of all the Trustees as valuable support! This brief account leaves unsaid much of importance, including our status as a Limited Company (so that we can trade legally and properly for the benefit of the charity), but more importantly the role and relationship of volunteers and a Friends organisation within a charitable trust such as ours. Matters for a future Newsletter perhaps! Alongside me (the Chairman), the Trustees are John Dover, Val Doney, Sam Hunt, Alan Kennard, John Marriage, Professor Chris Paul, Margaret Rose, Tom Sharpe, Professor Jane Spencer, Richard Stratton and David Tucker (Museum Director). Stephen Locke

9 NEWS FROM THE RESEARCH TEAM

My name is Graham Davies and I lead the museum’s volunteer Research Team. Our remit is to research the social history of Lyme Regis and its environs. We leave the study of fossils to the palaeontologists. In the picture below some members of the team can be seen in the Mayor’s Parlour of the Guildhall, sifting through 17 boxes of archives. What could be more appropriate; historical research in an old building. This article describes what it is like leading and being involved in such a team.

When archivist Jo Draper left the museum in 2009, the then curator (Mary Godwin) asked me to form and lead a team of volunteers in her place. The museum has an enviable record of research in the past led by such eminent historians as former museum curators, Cyril Wanklyn and John Fowles. The Philpot museum is small. It has always been a problem finding space for the team to meet regularly. The full complement of the team (15+) has only been able to meet in the past on some Tuesdays, when the museum is closed, from November to the following Easter. We set up camp for a few hours in the museum’s galleries. Only a handful of volunteers continue the research during the rest of the 10 year, meeting at one’s homes, the museum out of hours and on location. From September 2016, I have been able to add the Mayor’s Parlour as an additional venue for seven of us to meet regularly on a Tuesday morning. The opening of the Mary Anning wing will be an exciting time for the research team. We have been promised the use of the new educational room every Monday, outside school holidays. This allows us a more accessible, user friendly space for the whole team to meet on a regular basis, with far less of our former logistical problems. For a detailed example of the work we do, I refer you to the Friends Newsletter of July 2015 (issue no 26) which contains my report, or part thereof, to the Trustees of the Research Team’s work in 2014. For those interested readers, contact me for the full report if you do not have access to the Newsletter. As I write this, I look up at my bookcase and see the books, written by my trusted researchers, George Roberts, Cyril Wanklyn and John Fowles, always at hand. A Short History of Lyme Regis by John Fowles, published by Dovecote Press 1991, since reprinted. This is an excellent introduction to the history of Lyme Regis by the famous writer and former curator of Lyme Regis museum. For a more detailed study, I refer you to: Lyme Regis, A Retrospect by Cyril Wanklyn (published by Hatchards, 1927.) History and Antiquities of the Borough of Lyme Regis and Charmouth by George Roberts (published by Samuel Bagster, 1834. Facsimile published by Lymelight Press & Philpot Museum, 1996.) For enquiries on the history of Lyme Regis, email: [email protected] For enquiries relating to this article email: [email protected] Graham Davies

11 FUNDRAISING

Much of this Newsletter is given over to the subject of fundraising as that is a key objective of the Friends charity. Traditionally the focus has been on delivering a programme of talks in Lyme Regis, along with an annual coach trip and a miscellany of other social activities. A few years ago second-hand book sales were added to the repertoire – more about that on page 13. In 2015, following the creation of a small fundraising team, several new activities were introduced. Children’s craft sessions proved extremely popular during school holidays. In the first session, dinosaurs were made from playdoh and then decorated with all sorts of odds and ends! With the addition of Lucky Dips, Touchy Feely trays, painting plaster of Paris ammonites and colouring there has been something for every age group. On one very memorable occasion, a young boy made a fabulous clay dinosaur that he left to dry on a wall – only to see, a few minutes later, a huge seagull swoop down, steal it and then swallow it whole. After many tears were shed, the boy was consoled when he was given a plastic dinosaur from the museum shop. For adults, the Friends have run evening quizzes in the function room of a Lyme Regis pub. About 450 people have participated, with over £1500 raised through entry money and raffles. Valerie Hayward

12 FUNDRAISING PROGRAMME

Monday 31st July, The Shelters, Children’s Craft Activity 11am to 3pm Lyme Regis Wednesday 2nd August, Pilot Boat Inn, Family Quiz at 5pm Lyme Regis Tuesday 15th August, The Shelters, Children’s Craft Activity 11am to 3pm Lyme Regis Monday 28th August, The Shelters, Secondhand Book Sale from 11am Lyme Regis Tuesday 29th August, The Shelters, Secondhand Book Sale from 11am Lyme Regis Wednesday 30th August, Pilot Boat Inn, Quiz Night at 7.30pm Lyme Regis Talk : ‘Living in the South-West: Our Weather & Climate Explored’ Thursday 5th October, Woodmead Hall, by Dr Felicity Liggins (Senior at 2.30pm Lyme Regis Applied Climate Scientist, Met Office). Dr Felicity Liggins Tuesday 24th October, Children’s Craft Activity Lyme Regis Museum 11am to 3pm Talk : ‘Dr Erasmus Darwin and the Lunar Men’ by David Croman. Grandfather of Charles; physician, Thursday 2nd November, Woodmead Hall, inventor and, with Josiah at 2.30pm Lyme Regis Wedgwood and James Watt, a pioneer of the Industrial Revolution.

For information on Talks - contact David Cox on 01297 443156 For information on other events - contact Valerie Hayward on 01297 443128

13 A POTTED HISTORY OF OUR SECOND-HAND BOOK SALES

It started in Broad Street. A chance encounter between Thea Hawksworth and Margaret Rose led to Thea suggesting a book sale as a fund raiser. Thea is a long standing museum volunteer and generous member of the Museum Friends. Thea approached Bill Wiscombe, landlord of the Pilot Boat Inn at that time, who generously offered us the use of the Inn Plaice, his skittle alley, free of charge. Our first book sale was duly organised in April 2010, with an entrance charge of £1, to include coffee and biscuits, plus a raffle! Tables were set out for coffee with books along the side. We were delighted to make £295 on books, £57.30 on the door and £30 on the raffle, a total of £382.30. Flushed with success, a few more book sales were held at the Pilot Boat but ferrying heavy boxes of books from the museum cellar was not a task for the faint hearted! At around this time we started selling good quality books in the museum, with Felicity Cox and Richard Wells responsible for pricing and re-stocking. Our next experiment was to wait for a good weather forecast and hold sales in the open, behind the museum where the Mary Anning Wing now stands. This was a glorious spot with a view to die for and less work transporting our books. The obvious problem was trying to match good weather with public holidays and a plentiful supply of holiday makers as potential purchasers. You will see from the picture of me looking very wet that we didn’t always get it right!!!

14 Following a year spent in the book sale doldrums salvation was at hand; the sea-front shelters were constructed and we were able to rent a prime selling position, with a roof over our heads and direct access by car in the early morning and late evening.

The logistics of getting the books and volunteers on site for a two- day sale have been organised with superb efficiency and military precision by Val Hayward. Overall it has been great fun but we have yet to experience two consecutive days of rain, heaven forbid! Since January 2010 the Friends have raised something in the region of £14,000 from the sale of donated books. About half of this sum, around £1,000 per year, has come from the sale of our good quality books within the museum; from a trolley in the museum shop and a small set of shelves sited between two of the museum galleries. We never cease to be astonished by just how lucrative this small-scale activity is. Customer feedback indicates that a book browse adds to the enjoyment of museum visitors, just as it does at our great National Trust houses. At the moment we have as many books as we can reasonably store but, having said that, we always welcome donations of good quality books. Books of significant value are sold on eBay by Richard Wells. Please contact Richard (01297 442627) or me (01297 443156) concerning book donations. Books should not be left in our refurbished museum due to lack of suitable storage space. Many thanks to all of our donors and helpers; here’s to our next sale! David Cox

15 DONATIONS VIA SALES ON EBAY

Did you know that when you sell items on eBay you can donate money to the Friends of the Museum? Read on to find out how. (The article assumes that you are already registered on eBay and PayPal.)  Sign in on eBay as normal, select sell from the information bar at the top left.  The sell page will open, select advance sell (top right of page) if you are on the quick listing page.  List your item as normal.  About half way down the page, under selling details there is a button by ‘make a donation’. Click this box. A list of charities will appear. If the museum is not already shown, click on ‘select another charity’. A separate search page will appear. Type in ‘Lyme Regis Museum’ and ‘search’ and the Friends information will appear. Click ‘select’ and that will re-direct you back to the sell page and the museum will be selected. If it is not selected automatically then select it.  Now decide what percentage of the sale you will donate. Click on the box and select the percentage from the drop down menu.  That’s it!  Complete your listing as usual and a donation logo will appear on the listing page of your advert page. A couple of points to bear in mind:- Payments to the Friends are made via PayPal so you need to be registered, and don’t forget to complete the Gift Aid section on PayPal Giving so that the museum can claim another 25% on the sale. The money will be donated to the Friends directly after a couple of weeks have elapsed. You cannot adjust the donation once the item has sold, so unless you wish to donate the postage costs as well it is best to list the item with postage as a separate cost otherwise, if post is ‘free’ (i.e. included in the sale price), you cannot retrieve the postage element after the sale has completed. 16 eBay waives the final value fees for a charitable donation so the listing costs you nothing if you give 100% and pro-rata reduction as the contribution is less. eBay has a comprehensive information page on charitable donations - click on ‘help and contact’ at the top of the home page and search ‘selling for charity’ and all the information will be displayed.

The Museum Friends has benefitted by a substantial sum over the past few years, and any donation achieved in this manner is most welcome. Richard Wells

17 BRIGHT GEMS AND A FEW SPARKLERS (A NEW LOOK AT THE LITERARY GALLERY)

The museum’s Literary Gallery tells us about some of the impressive array of writers who have an association with Lyme Regis. To be honest, that association can be somewhat nebulous or even apocryphal (such as the visit by Oscar Wilde (pictured right) to the Monmouth Hotel where he reputably inscribed his name on a window using a diamond cufflink!). But many stories can be verified Of course, the most famous writers are Jane Austen (left) (who visited the town and set part of “Persuasion” here) and John Fowles (who based “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” in Lyme, resided here himself and became an honorary curator of our museum). And we can’t forget the inestimable value of Tracy Chevalier’s novel “Remarkable Creatures” which has brought countless visitors through our doors. Headed by the famous Anon, who wrote the long poem “The Lymiad”, other writers in our gallery include GK Chesterton, Ivy Compton Burnett, Henry Fielding, Thomas Hardy, Ann Jellico, FT Palgrave, Beatrix Potter, Henry Handel Richardson and George Roberts. We know about our “bright gems”, but what about the “sparklers”? Here are some who feature in the gallery whose stories are both interesting and entertaining (and I don’t always mean their writing!). AYOT RECTORY Carola Oman is probably unknown to most people but she published “Ayot Rectory : A Family Memoir 1780 - 1858” in 1965. It contains a fascinating record of the Brown family’s visits to Lyme in the 1820s and ‘30s. On arrival in autumn 1825, they wrote “the little town was

18 full. We procured with difficulty a lodging.in Church Street, a Grocer’s, name of Poole, near the Church and the Cliffs”. They settled in for the winter and returned in 1827, 1830 and 1831. In 1832 they stayed at Stile House. As frequent visitors, they got to know local people, including the Misses Philpot in 1827 – “Aunt was very happy here talking mineralogy with Elizabeth Philpot”. In 1830 “the Miss Philpots are much aged”. They found Lyme society “primitive with (its) habits but a very cordial feel”. They enjoyed promenading on the esplanade, having picnics on the cliffs, the weekly assemblies, the band, and agreeable tea and music parties. After the storm of 1824 they watched the Cobb being repaired “principally at night by torch lights”. PUBLISH AND BE DAMNED Harriette Wilson, 1789-1824, is another of our less well known writers. She was a courtesan who had lots of aristocratic lovers. She retired to Charmouth in 1806 to have a baby, discreetly, but stayed on until 1808 managing to produce a second one! In 1825 she wrote a sketch of Lyme “a sort of Brighton in miniature...all bustle and confusion. Assembly rooms, donkey rides, smart old maids tripping down the streets in turbans and artificial flowers twined around their wigs, on the light fantastic toe, to the sixpenny Assembly Rooms at five in the evening a society chiefly composed of very small independent fortunes who, for economy, had settled at Lyme…”. While living in seclusion at Charmouth, Harriette published her “Memoirs” (what we now call “kiss and tell”), gaining cash from influential lovers who were anxious to keep their names from being revealed in print. However, when she approached the Duke of Wellington, he scrawled “Publish and be damned!” across her demand for money.

19 PLEASURES AND POLITICS And what about our old friend Anon? He, or she, wrote “The Lymiad”, a long, mock-heroic poem taking the form of letters from the unknown author (a young woman) to some cousins in Bath. She describes Lyme, its pleasures for visitors, its romantic beauties, its history, the Rooms, balls, card games, sailing in the bay, picnics, fossils, lodgings and politics. Who needs Jane Austen! Well, we all do, of course, so she will end this piece with her words from “Persuasion” about our lovely little town – “..the remarkable situation of the town, the principal street almost hurrying into the water, the walk to the Cobb, skirting round the pleasant little bay, which, in the season, is animated with bathing machines and company; the Cobb itself, its old wonders and new improvements, with the very beautiful line of cliffs stretching out to the east of the town…..who does not see charms in the environs of Lyme, to make him wish to know it better.” Jane Newby

FROM OUR OWN………..KATE ADIE

Whilst on the subject of authors, in April we were very fortunate to have the BBC broadcaster and journalist Kate Adie deliver an extremely entertaining talk to around a hundred Friends and guests. She captivated her audience with tales from her years as a war correspondent. And what a genuinely lovely lady she proved to be – chatting to people after the talk and signing copies of her book “The Kindness of Strangers”. Here’s Kate, pictured with David Cox.

Valerie Hayward

20 HISTORY AND ART OF DORSET BUTTONS

In the first of a two part article, museum volunteer Lizzie Wiscombe gives an account of the fascinating subject of ‘Buttony’. As a proud woman of Dorsetshire I have always had a great interest in anything uniquely Dorset. The exquisite craft of Dorset buttons, or to give it its local name of 'Buttony' is one that involved many women and children, in mainly the East of Dorset. I was first introduced to the Dorset button at the age of 12 on the occasion of the Queen's Silver Jubilee, in 1977. The Girl Guides of Dorset were to take the ferry from Weymouth and visit Guernsey for the day. Groups of Guides, from each town, were to make their own coloured button. Lyme's group made a wonderful lilac 'Blandford Cartwheel', proudly worn on our uniform lapel. I wanted to know more. THE HISTORY Buttons before the middle of the 19th century, prior to the industrial revolution, were made by hand. The earliest ones were hewn from bone, wood, stones, berries, shell, clay and thread (1). Why in Dorset? The home industry began in 1622, when Abraham Case married a girl from a military family and settled in Shaftesbury. During his time as a soldier he had become interested in the work of the Northern French and Belgian button makers, who provided the metal buttons for military uniforms. A different pattern for each regiment. The county of Dorset was the perfect place to begin the production of handmade buttons. At that time it was mainly a sheep farming community, with spinning and weaving crafts as a by- product. The raw materials and incentive were there for the production of buttons (2). HIGH TOP BUTTON Case's first design was the High Top button, a conical shape made by shaping a piece of sheep horn, covered by cloth and then covered by tiny linen thread stitches.

21 Makers were paid per button made. The higher the quality, the higher the payment. The women and children of a family were usually involved, working by the poor light of tallow tapers and a glass sphere, to try to magnify the light (2). Sometimes the men helped if the deadline of 'Button Day' was fast approaching and the number of buttons produced had not been met. The author Tracy Chevalier, in her book Burning Bright (2007), has the protagonist's sister, Maisie, making money from 'Buttony'. She claimed to have 'once made fifty-four Blandford Cartwheels in one day, a record from the Piddle Valley - though a girl to the east in Whitchurch was known to make a gross [144] of buttons a day, as Mr. Case, the button agent who came monthly to Piddletrenthide, often reminded the women’. Although Maisie says later that the girl must have made simpler designs than her Cartwheels to be able to produce such a number! In 1656 Case had to move to bigger premises, in Shaftesbury, as the popularity of his buttons grew. There were other depots in Bere Regis, Milborne St Andrew, Sherborne, Poole, Langdon Maltravers and Tarrant Keyston. All depots were visited by an agent on a particular day each week, when out-workers would bring their products for determination of quality and payment. They would then take new supplies of raw materials and return again the following week. The workers may have walked more than ten miles to attend 'Button Day'. This was rather like an open air market (3) where local women could gather and buy locally produced products, such as butter and cream and catch up on gossip! By 1793 Shaftesbury had 4,000 women and children in the trade. Until 1800 the firm paid their workers in goods instead of cash (4). Buttony was better paid than farm labouring. At harvest time there was often conflict within the family. Women and children were needed for the harvest, so Buttony had to be done in the early morning or late into the evening, when all the farm work was completed (4). During the first three or four weeks the children were not paid, for they 'spoilt much thread', there afterwards they were paid a penny a day for two months and then one shilling a week. Expert workers could make up to 144 (a gross) a day and, if properly done, the sum of 3/6 a gross was paid. 22 Prices in the 19th century ranged from 8d to 3/- a dozen for cloth covered buttons, wire ranged from 1/6 to 4/- per gross (5d for seconds) (3). Children were also employed at the depots at Shaftesbury and Bere Regis to prepare the raw materials ready for collection. The wires or rings were made from rustproof wire, brought from Birmingham by bullock and cart (3). The wire was burned and twisted on a spindle, the nipped ends put together and soldered by expert children called 'Winders and Dippers' (2). 'Stringers' counted the rings and threaded them in lots of 144. The rings were used for the wheel type buttons (the 'cross wheel', 'Blandford Cartwheel' and 'Honeycomb'). Many other children prepared the thread in skeins for collection (3). Other women at the depot cleaned the finished buttons. Soiled buttons were placed in linen bags and boiled (1). They were then sorted and mounted on coloured card, denoting the quality of work. Yellow card for what we would know as 'seconds', blue card for standard quality and finally pink for only the highest quality buttons. Only the buttons on pink and blue cards were exported and the yellow 'seconds' would be sold locally (1). Standard buttons not exported were taken to London, once a month, by cart for sale around warehouses and clothing manufacturers (3). The buttons’ fame of quality spread to London, where the High Tops were used to adorn the waist coats of the rich men at court. It is said that King Charles I wore three waist coats on the morning of his execution, in 1649, to stave off the cold. He did not want the gathering crowd to mistake his shivering from the cold for shaking in fear (2). One of those waist coats had buttons provided by Abraham Case, now preserved at Longleat House, in Hampshire (3). SINGLETON BUTTON AND DORSET KNOB BUTTON The Singleton button was either invented by, or named from, the Singleton family. These were flat buttons made by fabric covering a metal ring (2). There is a rare black Singleton Button, made exclusively by Abraham Case's widow (between 1658 and her death in 1682) - the only coloured buttons made by the firm (1).

23 The flattened version of the High Top Button, called the Dorset Knob, was a further design originating in the 1850's. It is not known if it was named due to the button shape being similar to the famous Dorset biscuit or whether the button’s name changed with the innovation of the biscuit (2). Queen Victoria was known to own a dress lavishly trimmed with Dorset Knob Buttons. She also had a gown completely covered by High Top Buttons (3). Bibliography & Sources (1). Worth, R., 2002. Dress & Textiles. The Dovecote Press (2). Howitt, M., (no date) The History of Handmade Buttons in Dorset. Buttons Buttons Pamphlet available from The Shaftesbury & District Society, Gold Hill Museum (All photos have been taken from this pamphlet.) (3). Johns, T., 2012. Dorset Buttons - Hand Stitched in Dorset for over 300 Years. Natula Publications (4). Powell, A., 2005. Facts About Shaftesbury - Dorset Buttons. Pamphlet available from The Shaftesbury & District Society, Gold Hill Museum Lizzie Wiscombe

This article will be concluded in the January 2018 Newsletter.

24 MUSEUM NEWS FROM 1984

A recent attack on accumulated 'stuff' in the Cox household revealed a 1984 Curator's Report for the museum, written by John Fowles, our museum's most distinguished curator. This 27 page report makes fascinating reading and highlights problems familiar with us today. The following snippets may be of interest to today's readers. In his introduction, John Fowles (left) tells us 'Alas, the old trouble struck in the winter: that is, the age of the building and the need for considerable repairs. It is not easy to run a museum properly when it is in total disarray'. It was decided that 'something must be done about the growing irregularities on the ground floor caused by subsidence in the underlying girders'. Before work could commence five or six able-bodied men had to carry the fossil collection upstairs to safety (sounds familiar?). Fowles sees this as 'a sort of ichthyosaur's revenge on man's impertinence in ever daring to disinter them from their graves'. He further muses that 'despite the Museum's architectural charm and excellent commercial site, we should in an ideal world be looking for a transfer to a less bedevilled and problematic building'. He concludes that, at least for the foreseeable future, we must live with what we have! This work was generously paid for by West Dorset District Council, who also relined and resealed the cellar, which was then arguably the warmest and driest room in the museum! In 1984, Dr Michael Taylor advised and reported on the museum's fossil collection. Whilst doing so, he discovered a series of old cores from an attempted coal mine boring near Middle Mill in 1901, which had been lying in a museum drawer. The cores clearly showed that what lies beneath Lyme is the Triassic. 'The worthy gentlemen who bored fruitlessly for coal were advised by geologists in 1901 that they were wasting their time', but they went ahead anyway and unwittingly provided us with these valuable cores. Mike Taylor is a valued Friend of the museum to this day.

25 In a short piece from the Museum Friends, Tom Gilbert tells us that when the Friends became a registered charity at the end of 1979 there were 49 Life Members and that 5 years later (1984) the total was 199, the cost of Life Membership being £15. I suspect that we still have some of those early Life Members in our membership! Tom tells us that the Annual Membership had decreased by 11, due to 'enlightened sympathisers having moved from the transitory subscription phase into the eternal'. A wonderful turn of phrase! Tom finishes by saying that 'Only those involved in the Museum can realise the dedication of Dr John Fowles as a keeper of our very ancient and richly historied town's memory. John Fowles is full of learning and scholarship which he puts so tirelessly at our disposal'. There is much more to say but I shall leave you with a statistic. In 1984 the museum had 21,998 visitors, comprising 14,935 adults and 7,063 children; an increase of more than 2,000 over the previous year. As a comparison, the visitor figures for our most recent full year, 2015, were 17,114 adults and 7,004 children, making a total of 24,118. Clearly our museum was just as popular in 1984 as it is today. David Cox NEW MEMBERS

We would like to extend a very warm welcome to the following people who have recently joined the Friends. Mr J. & Mrs P. Attree London Mr M. & Mrs L. Gillams Lyme Regis Mr R.G. Critchard & Miss K.J. Shattock Chard Mrs G. Cottrill Lyme Regis Mrs L. Green Chardstock Diane Reilly Axminster Mrs H. Jaggard Charmouth Mr G. Davies Lyme Regis Mr G. Cattell & Mrs L. Cattell Lyme Regis Dr M. & Mrs K. Goodfellow Guildford

26 NEWS FROM BAfM (BRITISH ASSOCIATION OF FRIENDS OF MUSEUMS)

ANNUAL CONFERENCE The BAfM One Day Conference and AGM will be held on Saturday 30th September 2017 at the London Transport Museum, Covent Garden, London. The theme is Museums, Members and Friends: A harmonious relationship? The day will explore the relationships between museums and their Friends’ organisations, against a background of a trend for museums to set up their own membership schemes.

For details see www.bafm.co.uk REPORT ON THE STATE OF UK MUSEUMS The Museums Association has published Museums in the UK: 2017. Research found that funding cuts are having serious consequences for the museum sector. Almost a quarter of museums in the UK experienced a decrease in public funding in 2015-16 with the devolved nations being the hardest hit. At least 64 museums have closed across the UK since 2010. The MA’s report, based on a survey of 453 museums, also highlighted that many museums are losing key curatorial and outreach staff, raising fears about the long-term ability of museums to care for key cultural and scientific collections and to deliver public programmes. The MA’s report comes ahead of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s Museums Review, which is expected to set out recommendations for the future sustainability of the museums in England. But the MA is concerned that the review will stop short of addressing the critical issue of funding.

For the full report see www.museumsassociation.org

27 MUSEUM FRIEND is published by The Friends of Lyme Regis Philpot Museum

Acting Chairman: David Cox (01297 443156) Vice-Chairman: Vacant Treasurer: Angela Main (01297 442116) Secretary: Valerie Hayward (01297 443128) Membership Secretary: Sylvia Oliver (01297 445537) Publicity Officer: Valerie Hayward Newsletter Editors: Valerie Hayward / Alison Mitchell

Database Manager: Alison Mitchell

Members: Richard Wells, Joe Tesoriere

The objectives of The Friends are to promote, support and assist the Museum in its educational and other aims; and to raise funds to help care for and improve the Museum.

Contributions/comments from Friends at home or overseas are always most welcome.

[email protected]

Registered charity number 278774

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