Fenner, James Lyon (2014) 'British Small Craft': the cultural geographies of mid-twentieth century technology and display. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. Access from the University of Nottingham repository: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/14494/1/Fenner_Thesis_2014_-_FINAL_FINAL.pdf Copyright and reuse: The Nottingham ePrints service makes this work by researchers of the University of Nottingham available open access under the following conditions. · Copyright and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. · To the extent reasonable and practicable the material made available in Nottingham ePrints has been checked for eligibility before being made available. · Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not- for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. · Quotations or similar reproductions must be sufficiently acknowledged. Please see our full end user licence at: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/end_user_agreement.pdf A note on versions: The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher’s version. Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. For more information, please contact [email protected] B “ C mid-twentieth century technology and display James Lyon Fenner BA MA Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2014 Abstract The British Small Craft display, “ M Sailing Ships Gallery, comprised of a sequence of twenty showcases containing models of British boatsincluding fishing boats such as luggers, coracles, and cobles arranged primarily by geographical region. The brainchild of the Keeper William T OD bridge mezzanine central display area. It contained marine engines and navigational equipment in addition to the numerous varieties of international historical ship and boat models. Many of the British Small Craft displays included accessory models and landscape settings, with human figures and painted backdrops. The majority of the models were acquired by the museum during the interwar period, with staff actively pursuing model makers and local experts on information, plans and the miniature recreation of numerous regional boat types. Under the curatorship supervision of Geoffrey Swinford Laird Clowes this culminated in the temporary B F B E H dated back even further with several originating from the Victorian South Kensington Museum collections, appearing in the International Fisheries Exhibition of 1883. 1 With the closure and removal of the Shipping Gallery in late 2012, the aim of this project is to produce a reflective historical and cultural geographical account of these British Small Craft displays held within the Science Museum. In this process it reveals the hidden stories behind the collection and individual boat models. The research therefore considers the former British Small Craft display in terms of its geographical visual and textual presentation of national and local identity, the cultural transference of knowledge from local regional areas to a national/international stage, its evocation of coastal and river landscapes, and its techniques of landscape/seascape miniaturisation in mid twentieth century Britain. 2 Acknowledgements This project would not have been possible without the help, support and collaboration of many people who I would like to thank. Firstly my thanks go to the Arts and Humanities Research Council who funded this joint project with the Science Museum London. Thank you to all the staff at the libraries and archives I visited during my studies including the BBC W A C B L C Library at the National Maritime Museum Greenwich, the National Archives at Kew, the Royal Institute of British Architects and of the Imperial College and UCL University Libraries. I am also incredibly grateful and indebted to my four supervisors Professor David Matless and Professor Mike Heffernan in the School of Geography at Nottingham and Dr. Tim Boon and David Rooney at the Science Museum whose patience, expertise and dedication to supporting me in my studies made the project possible. In particular I would especially like to thank both Davids who went out of their way to make me feel part of both the academic and museum communities at their respective institutions and who saw the importance of the small craft models, the Shipping Gallery and me I am forever grateful. I would also like to express my gratitude for all the staff at the Science Museum who made me feel so welcome during my 11 month period of researching there. Special mention should be made to the collections team and curators who shared their knowledge and many experiences of the collections and the museum. In the Documentation Centre I am indebted to the industrious Rory Cook who tirelessly answered my frequent pestering archival enquiries and brought me countless files. In addition I am exceedingly grateful to the conservation team who gave me the opportunity to help them remove objects and aspects of the Shipping Gallery on its closure in 2012. 3 My gratitude and special thanks also go to fellow collaborative doctoral award students past and present that I have met along the way namely: James Wallis, Dr. Alison Lee (née Hess) and Dr. Hilary Geoghegan. Thank you to everyone in the School of Geography who made my time at Nottingham so memorable, sharing with me the many wonders of human and physical geography. Thank you to my peers in the years above and below you know who you are! I would also like to thank all the fellow PhD researchers in the office A25 who kept me afloat in the three and a half years of ebbs and flows of research and thesis writing. This is especially credible to them while having to put up with my endless oar-ful puns and obsessive museum musings. To name a few Jonathan Dean, Jennifer Rich, Lizzie Ruston, Georgie Wood, Joanna Barnard, Alex Berland and Jake Hodder who I shared many good times with, in and out of the office. I would like to express my thanks to those outside the realms of academia, museums and geography namely friends and family. I will always remember the support, care and generosity shown by my parents, Robert and Jeanette, alongside my brother Alex. Thanks should also to go to my best friends especially Matt Graham, Will Lane, Nick McNeil, Toby Stewart, Tom Halsall and Charley Young who were supportive and were always willing to listen to me ramble on. 4 I dedicate this thesis to my Grandfather Lee who would have been fascinated by this project. He was an avid sailor and ships-in-bottles-maker in his spare time and lover of all things maritime and nautical. 5 Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... 1 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... 3 List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. 8 List of Archives Consulted ............................................................................................................ 14 List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................................... 15 Chapter 1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 16 Chapter 2 Museums, Ships, Science and Geography: a Literature Review .................................... 22 2.1 Museums, Collections, Exhibits, Dioramas and the art of the miniature ......................... 23 2.2 Geographies of the Sea, the ship in geography and the geographies of ships ................. 37 2.3 Geographies of Knowledge, the History of Science .......................................................... 44 2.4 Modernity, landscape, heritage and vernacular cultures in twentieth century Britain ... 48 2.5 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 50 Chapter 3 T M ............ 54 Chapter 4 B : modelled fishing craft in the collections of the South Kensington Museum 1880-1914 ................................................................................................... 73 4.1 The earliest coastal and fishing vessel models of the South Kensington Museum (the later Science Museum)............................................................................................................ 75 4.2 Buckland, the South Kensington Museum and his Museum of Economic Fish Culture ... 80 4.3 The International Fisheries Exhibition of 1883 ................................................................. 84 4.4 The Boat model collections post-1883............................................................................ 112 4.5 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 137 Chapter 5 V