History Study 2020
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History Study 2020 January 2020: BLUE PLAQUES This month, once again, we had a diverse offering of short talks under the umbrella of Blue Plaques. We had the brief history of some well-known people – Shackleton, Louis Napoleon (nephew of Bonaparte) and Arthur Mee the author of the children’s encyclopaedias. Known to some, but not to others, was Cosy Powell a drummer who had worked with bands such as Black Sabbath. Scary that one of our contemporaries already has a Blue Plaque! Another talk was of Richard Oastler, the Factory King who was moved by pity at the long hours worked by young children in factories and was a tireless champion of the Ten Hours Factory Bill in the mid 1800s. Baron (name not title) Webster contributed to the successful setting up of the trans-Atlantic cable enabling Queen Victoria and President Buchanan to communicate directly for the first time. The most local plaque was for General Ireton from Attenborough. He was an English general in the Parliamentary army during the English Civil War and the son-in-law of Oliver Cromwell. One plaque, also local, had been put up by the National Chemical Landmark scheme at BioCity to mark the achievements of chemists researching and creating the anti-inflammatory drug Ibuprofen which Boots, for whom they worked, patented in 1962. Eclipsing all of these talks was a presentation about the ISOKON building in Hampstead. There are three plaques posted there, but wider interest is in the community of people living in and visiting the 32 minimalistic flats in the 1930s – a community of Avant-garde artists. Names we know include Agatha Christie, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, but others were architects of buildings we would recognize, furniture such as the Cesca chair and also a number of soviet agents such as Arnold Deutsch who recruited the Cambridge Five. Cesca Chair Thanks to everyone who contributed. Lynne February 2020: BRITISH STREETS OF HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE I was expecting The Fosse Way, The Royal Crescent, Fleet Street or even Carnaby Street, but as always, our members surprised me with the eclectic and unusual choice of subjects to talk about. The Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells – David spoke from personal experience of this beautiful street in the spa town. Brian introduced us to the beginnings of the A5. In 1801 when Ireland and England united, the route from London to Dublin was precarious. Thomas Telford was commissioned to survey the route (from horseback). As a result the road from London to Shropshire (the old Roman Watling Street) was improved, the tracks through Wales straightened and the Menai Bridge built. Pat told us about The Avenue, a 3 km track leading from the River Avon to Stonehenge in the Neolithic – this can still be seen and is classed as a scheduled monument. John gave us Oriental Road – his curiosity had been raised when he worked on this road in Woking. The only clue to the name of the street is the Mosque, built in 1889. It was the first, and sadly last, building intended to be an institute of learning incorporating the Mosque, a Synagogue, a Church and a Temple. The visionary to plan this was a British-Hungarian Jew, Gottlieb Leitner who had spent most of his life in India and had founded the University of Punjab. Pearl told us about her home town of Ludlow and painted a picture of a walk round the town centre incorporating all the historic and picturesque street names – Temeside (River Teme), Friar’s Walk, Tower Street, Narrow Street, Buttercross, Market Street, Castle Square, Broad Street and Silkmill Lane. My own contribution was “The Old Way”, a pilgrimage route from Southampton to Canterbury and shown on the oldest road map of Britain, the Gough Map dated 1360. Finally Coleen used St Peter’s Street/Square in Manchester to recount the 1819 event “the Peterloo massacre” that took place on St Peter’s Field where the square now stands. Lynne The Woking Temple March 2020: HISTORICAL FOODS AND RECIPES “Historical Foods and Recipes and the occasions they were used for” was our March theme and the meeting almost became a Geographical study as well as a History one. Pat and Coleen had both looked at Wedding Cakes over the ages starting with a 17C tradition of “Brides Pie” (Oysters, sweetbreads, dates, bacon, chestnuts and lots more), through to the 300 pound wedding cake of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. There are lots of superstitions around wedding cakes, we learnt, including picking up the crumbs from a cake was considered to bring good luck, and this led to the invention of confetti. Sue told us about Easter food from plaited flat breads (3 plaits = the Holy Trinity) to luxurious Simnel Cakes that should have 11 marzipan balls on top (the missing twelfth ball represents Judas). Sue then gave us Noel’s presentation about the history of cheesecakes – evidence exists from archaeology that these were around as early as 2000 BCE. Kath told us about the Bolludagar (Bun Day) of Iceland every year on the Monday before Ash Wednesday when children “spank” their parents with a stick and are rewarded with choux pastries filled and topped with jam, chocolate and lots of other sugary things. David gave us a very well prepared presentation illustrated with slides of renaissance paintings of The Last Supper, speculating what foods might or might not have been part of the disciples normal meals. John told us about Parmo – a speciality of Teesside (told you were had a geographic lesson) a popular item of take-away food in North East England. It consists of a breaded cutlet of chicken or pork topped with a white béchamel sauce and cheese. The name of the dish is a reference to the Italian dish parmigiana. In 2019 it appears in the UKs top 20 list of favourite take-aways and yet it is only to be found in the one region! Linda gave us the history of Marmalade – its origins from “marmelos” a Portuguese quince paste that existed long before the development of marmalade in the 18C. Lynne told the group about the Tudor use of Marchpane – a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I and whose wealth enabled her to buy in sugar from the West Indies and her sweet tooth led to her blackened teeth! It was a “jammed” (excuse the pun) packed meeting but we still had time for a few u-tube videos of historical foodstuffs. Sadly that will be our last meeting for a while but the group will reconvene at the earliest possible date – we have an exciting 2020 agenda to get through including a “postponed” trip to Creswell Crags hopefully later this year. June 2020: WE ARE IN BUSINESS AGAIN! The history group resumed its meetings again on Monday 1st June, via Zoom. Having discovered that we can not only chat and give verbal presentations, but also show PowerPoint and photo slideshows; it means that we can hold our monthly meetings in almost the same way as always. I was able to demonstrate this feature by giving a talk on the History of Britain’s canals. Around 12 of us were present with emails from others saying they will join us next time, the group were very considerate – not talking over each other which can be a problem with Zoom. It was lovely to have a catch up and we have decided to reinstate our monthly meetings and the topics we had already planned. So the next meeting is Monday 6th July at 2pm, and the topic is “Great trails and their history“, e.g. The Silk Road, the Inca Trail, Camino de Santiago etc. Lynne Jaremczenko July 2020: HISTORIC ROUTES Our second meeting via Zoom was delayed by two weeks when the technology failed us. A few people couldn’t make the new date but nevertheless there were 8 of us to have a good catchup before the presentations. The topic was Historic Routes. There were only two talks so we might revisit this topic next year when lockdown lethargy has faded away. I gave a presentation on the Northwest Passage – an almost mythical target that many explorers had sought – John Cabot, Francisco de Ulloa, Henry Hudson, John Franklin. Much of North American geographic was discovered during the process – that California was not an Island, neither was Manhattan, and that the “Hudson Bay” was enormous. Franklin learned skills from the Inuit that would enable him to later successfully explore the Antartic. It was Roald Amundsen in 1905 who eventually proved there was a Northwest passage by hugging the coast of Canada closely in a small vessel the Gjøa. The passage became entirely ice free in 2007 due to global warming and nowadays about 30 commercial cargo ship traverse it every year as well as research vessels, coastguards, fishing boats and the occasional cruise liner, Grey Whales, native to the Pacific Ocean, can now be found in the Atlantic Ocean probably having discovered the Northwest Passage for themselves. Kath then gave us a potted history of the Indian region #Rajesthan# – an area profoundly influenced by the Indian Maharajas, the Persian Moguls and the British East India Company, It would need a huge amount of time to cover its very colourful history, but Kath gave us a flavour with her photos taken on a trip traveling along the “alternative” Silk Route. This camel-caravan trading route (more southern than the better known route which went north of the Himalayas) carried silk, spices, salt, indigo, precious stones and tapestries from the East into Europe – until it was made redundant when the East India Company moved in.