The Orrery, May 2023

THE ORRERY

MAY 2023

£3.50

Cartonnage, Cats and Coffee

Co-production Curator, Rachel Atherton gives an intriguing insight into Derby Museums’ Egyptian collection. Derby Museums Friend, Stephen Marley, reflects on what he learnt.

This edition includes:

An insight into future plans and the changing definition of museums from Director of Programmes, Cathy Putz.

A fascinating article on Derby painter and maker Francis Bassano by Friend Maxwell Craven.

Details on upcoming Friends events.

Image courtesy of the Basi Family for the Alternative Archive project page.11

Front cover image: A painted Egyptian cartonnage, containing the incomplete body of an adult, dating from about 2,300 years ago, on display at Derby Museum and Art Gallery

If you would like to contribute to future editions of The Orrery please get in touch with the Editor, Individual Giving Officer Helena Smith Parucker at helena@derbymuseums.org.

The views expressed in The Orrery are entirely those of individual contributors and not necessarily those of Derby Museums or the Editor.

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FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

In the coming year we’ll be using our sites and collections to look at new perspectives of the history of our city. With funding from DCMS Wolfson we are upgrading the interpretation and access to the museum at Pickford’s House. Whilst the house was a family home there is very little to tell visitors about the experiences of women and servants. This is especially remiss as Mary Pickford the widow of the architect Joseph (after whom the house is named) became a successful businesswoman, political campaigner and charity philanthropist. Following the Hogarth exhibition there will be another iteration of History Makers in the Museum and Art Gallery where we’ll celebrate more stories of women and gender diversity, which have otherwise been missing from the Derby Story.

A nation divided, a royal family at war, difficult relations with continental neighbours and patriotism invoked for political ends. Sound familiar? Museums are at their most relevant when linking past events to today’s concerns and when they contextualise global or big ideas with local events. Informed by the past, they help us understand our present.

As I write, our latest exhibition Hogarth’s Britons is proving a real crowd pleaser. The Museum and Art Gallery is teeming and the top floor gallery is busy with visitors deliberating over the details of the great artist’s satire and symbolism. These works are dense with scorn and mockery but can also be tender and admiring of their subjects. Hogarth was expressing his views on a nascent Britishness in the face of invasion from both Jacobite and French forces.

The Jacobite Rebellion was the last serious attempt to overthrow the government. The year 1745 was a turning point in British history and history turned in Derby. Here Bonnie Prince Charlie, having marched his army into England, made the fateful decision to return North and to ultimate defeat at Culloden. For a week in December 1745 anxiety and fear gripped Derby as several thousand Jacobites, mostly Highlanders, occupied the town. The letters, paintings and personal effects on show in the exhibition highlight the turmoil felt by towns people at the time.

Following a well-received exhibition in the Museum and Art Gallery in 2019, we are planning a more permanent display of the work of Marion Adnams, Derby’s greatest modern painter. Adnams stands alongside early 20th century British surrealists such as Eileen Agar, who was subject of recent retrospective at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Adnams often ‘borrowed’ natural history specimens such as animal skeletons from the Derby Museums collections to be subjects in her paintings.

In this edition, we have a fascinating selection of news and articles from Derby Museums and Friends. This includes a fascinating article on another of Derby’s famous artists, Francis Bassano, by Friend Maxwell Craven; a word from Friend James Curzon on the invaluable contributions of Derby Museums’ Friends to the Hogarth appeal; and an intrguiging glimpse into the history of Pickford’s House Kitchen Hearth by Visitor Experience Assistant, Emily Cowlishaw. Don’t forget to keep up to date with news and offers in our museum report and upcoming events sections. We hope you enjoy the following newsletter.

- Tony Butler, Executive Director

KEY UPCOMING EVENTS

As a Friend you receive exclusive discounts to the following events...

Visit bit.ly/DMBOOK or visit one of our museum sites for further details of all upcoming events.

Windrush Stories: An Exploration of Migration with Dr Panya Bankjoko

Thursday 22 June, 12.30pm

Museum and Art Gallery

Give What You Think / FREE to Derby Museums Friends

Booking essential, limited places

This talk will foreground how Black people negotiated and managed migration during the Windrush phase (1948 to 1972) of immigration to the UK. It will explore how the Black community developed organisations and systems to serve their needs in communities subjected to substandard education, racial profiling, and inadequate social provisions. Through oral history testimonies the stories of the Windrush generation and their impact on the East Midlands will also be explored.

Dr Panya Banjoko is founder of Nottingham Black Archive and has directed it since 2011. The Archive has recovered the stories of World War I soldiers in an AHRC-funded project, documented the experiences of World War II veterans, and the Windrush generation. It has a growing collection of oral history testimonies, books, political literature and photographs. Dr Banjoko is also a UK based writer and multi-award-winning poet. Her work features in numerous anthologies and exhibitions. Her debut collection, Some Things, was published by Burning Eye Books (2018) and her most recent work, (Re)Framing the Archive by the same publisher, launched in 2022.

Ann Featherstone ‘History of Circus’

Friday 15 September, 7.30pm

Museum of Making

£5 / FREE to Derby Museums Friends

Suitable for adults (over 18s only)

The spectacle of the Victorian circus - horses, tumblers, aerial acts, clowns and more! - appealed to young and old, rich and poor, sitting under canvas or inside a grand seaside building, marvelling at the equestrians and ropewalkers. Did you know that the Victorian clown told jokes - known as wheezes? That Derby had its own wooden circus on Exchange Street that was destroyed in a terrible fire? Join Ann Featherstone to discover more about the weird, wonderful and wheezy world of the Victorian circus! Presented as part of the Tiny World of Toy Theatre and Derby Feste’.

Raise Your Voice! – Your chance to sing with Derbyshire Community

Male Voice Choir and Rolls-Royce Ladies Choir

Saturday 1 July, 11am - 12.30pm

Museum and Art Gallery

FREE - Give What You Think

Booking essential, limited places

Join Derbyshire Community Male Voice Choir and Rolls-Royce Ladies Choir for a communal singing workshop. Raise your voice and your spirits in the beautiful surroundings of The Wardwick at Derby Museum and Art Gallery. No experience required, all ages and abilities welcome.

Derbyshire male voice choir

Dr Panya Banjoko Astley’s Ampithetre microcosm

Booking essential unless stated otherwise. To book an event, visit bit.ly/DMBOOK , call 01332 641901 or email info@derbymuseums.org.

Coffee with Friends

Thursday 15 June, 10.30am - 12.30pm Pickford’s House

Join us for refreshments in the garden, followed by an opportunity to learn more about our current project at Pickford’s House to re-imagine the home in an inclusive, digital age with Head of Interpretation and Display Laura Phillips. Coffee, tea and cold drinks will be available on the day. Donations welcome.

Summer Social

Monday 25 September, further details coming soon Pickford’s House

Come together to soak up the last of the summer sun and celebrate the Friend’s achievements at the summer social. Held at Pickford’s House, enjoy some light refreshments as you listen to the Derbyshire Male Voice Choir perform. Keep an eye out in your inbox or post for further information, including how to purchase your ticket.

Derby Museums Friends - Membership price increase

Please note that from 1 September 2023, Derby Museums Friends membership prices will be increasing slightly. We hope you understand this rise is in response to the current economic situation and we thank you for being part of our thriving, supportive and generous community. All memberships renewed before the end of June 2023 will receive pre-July membership prices. For questions regarding your membership, please contact Helena Smith Parucker at: helena@derbymuseums.org

Individual membership - £32

Individual + Guest membership - £36

Family membership - £38

As a registered charity, Derby Museums relies on the generosity of its supporters to help keep its museums and collections fantastic and free for everyone. That’s why every Friend is important to us. With your support, we can continue to create opportunities for lifelong learning and enjoyment. Individual, Family or Lifetime Memberships available.

Become a Friend and enjoy:

• Free entry to our programme of Friends talks

• Discounts of 10% at our museum shops and cafés plus discounted entry to Museum of Making exhibitions

• Invitations to exclusive members’ events and socials

• Updates via a regular newsletter, including articles, news and behind the scenes information

Complete the membership form on page two and return to Laura Dudley at Derby Museum and Art Gallery, The Strand, Derby, DE1 6BS, or purchase your membership online by visiting: bit.ly/BuyDMFriendsMembership.

The River Kitchen at the Museum of Making ©Chris Seddon Photography

Pickford’s House Garden

EXHIBITIONS

With thanks to Derby Museums Friends, whose ongoing support helps us to continue bringing exhibitions like these to Derby.

Hogarth’s Britons: Succession, Patriotism, and the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion

Friday 10 March - Sunday 4 June

Museum and Art Gallery

FREE - Give What You Think

A nation divided. A kingdom at stake. Hogarth’s Britons explores how 18th century artist William Hogarth defined British nationhood and identity at a time of division and rebellion at home and conflict abroad. Major loans include Hogarth’s The March of the Guards to Finchley (Foundling Museum), Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Shrimp Girl (National Gallery) and The Beggar’s Opera (Birmingham Museums), alongside iconic portraits of the Stuarts from the National Portrait Gallery and Allan Ramsay’s newly discovered portrait of Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Scottish National Galleries), which will be returning to Derby for the first time since 1745.

In partnership with:

Supported by:

FORMAT 23: Oliver Frank Chanarin

Thursday 16 March - Sunday 3 September 2023

Museum of Making

FREE - Give What You Think

FORMAT International Photography Festival - organised in partnership between QUAD and the University of Derby - aims to transform the historic city of Derby into a vibrant showcase of the very best photography and lens-based media being produced today. Featuring exhibitions in key Derby cultural organisations, the Museum of Making will be displaying a new body of work by award-winning photographer Oliver Frank Chanarin.

History Makers Reprise (Working Title)

Friday 21 July 2023 - Sunday 3 March 2024

Museum and Art Gallery

FREE - Give What You Think

This exhibition and project lab will continue the conversation that began in 2016 about how we might better represent Derbyshire’s past and present. We asked, you spoke, and we listened. The History Makers Reprise will be a chance to see what we have done as a team since then, how we have done this and who we have worked with so far. We hope as many people as possible will join us again as we pick up the conversation.

Research supported by:

Front Cover: The March of the Guards to Finchley, William Hogarth, 1749-1750, oil on canvas © The Foundling Museum, London

Oliver Frank Chanarin, with Adam, Courtesy and © the artist. Commissioned and produced by Forma, in collaboration with nine UK organisations. Supported by Arts Council England National Project Grant and the Art Fund.

MUSEUM REPORT

From the Director of Programmes

Cathy Putz reflects on the past nine months and shares exciting plans for what comes next

My first nine months in the role have provided an incredible insight into the art of the possible. The opening of the Hogarth exhibition is a stunning achievement and reinforces my impression of an organisation with graft and passionate commitment at its heart. It is not a coincidence that the exhibition resonates with so many contemporary issues. The values underlying programming at Derby Museums mean our work continues to bring our communities new routes to self-expression and agency. As I was reminded recently by author Samantha Clark, we are all so immersed in day-today challenges that we lose sight of our own agency and are inclined to accept received wisdom, losing sight of that intelligence above language, as she puts it. The rapacity of the contemporary attention economy means we need to work even harder to encourage visitors to engage in new ways with our programme. As Clark says:

“Our attention is in scarce supply today. We don’t have less attention than we used to. But there is more vying for it. The demand far outpaces the supply we bring to market.”

The vitality of our programming across Derby Museums’ three sites proves that exploring our talents and interests together offers new ways to creatively transform our world. We draw on the inspiration we can find every day, right where we are. The way we work with communities, whether for example with the Derby West Indian Association, the Creative Sanctuary Group or Virtual Schools, shows how being ‘skills and making’ focused releases a shared sense of possibility.

Through developing partnerships within our public programme, we express the innate knowledge in our hands. We re-assert the importance of pausing to look differently at things. We need our community partners more than ever in order to activate our sites. Expanding our joint practice is the right response to society’s destabilising unknowns. So we are for example looking to expand the range of courses offered in our Workshop at Museum of Making, and planning on working with schools in new ways. Watch this space for a chance to explore different materials and new ideas.

We also continue to connect with civic partners in thinking about tackling the climate crisis and hosting important conversations around how we want our communities to thrive. We will work more widely with socially engaged artists and craft practitioners on co-designed projects. The community creativity we explore can kick start an explosion pattern –connecting us with local networks, dynamically re-defining what we value. When we connect around art and making, we see ourselves as patternmaking creatures, making deeper patterns around our commonalities.

Cathy Putz, Director of Programmes

Internationally, innovative museums with whom I have collaborated around craft and making, like the Boijmansin Rotterdam, have begun to seek new ways of working across the artificial borders of museums and community. In fact, even the word ‘museum’ is passé. The Boijmans call themselves “a house for imagination, inspiration, and creativity”. They value “versatility; excellence; passion; openness; innovation.” They call their new open-access collection, a ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’: an interactive makerspace. I aim to reconnect with my international colleagues at the Boijmans and elsewhere, the Danish Architecture Centre, who develop exciting and disruptive co-produced projects. We can gain greater traction for Derbyproduced creativity through international partnerships, sharing best practice with those who share our values, and who also programme in ways that refine our resourcefulness and celebrate civic energy. In 2023 we’ll bring you new work and ideas produced with local makers and those tackling present day challenges, from the cost-of-living crisis to the urgent drive for social equality.

This new programme will embolden us and give us cause to celebrate the positive. Returning to artist-writer Samantha Clark, Sam reminded me about what is most rewarding: staying engaged, exploring, cultivating our practice of noticing and experimenting; celebrating and sharing what we love – these are powerful acts.

Announcements and ongoing work

Museum of Making wins RIBA awards

The Silk Mill’s major transformation into the Museum of Making caught the attention of judges at the 2023 Royal Institude of British Architects (RIBA) awards. The Museum of Making was incredibly successful, winning the Regional Award, Architect of the Year and Client of the Year Awards. Congratulations to all our partners and especially Bauman Lyons Architects.

River Kitchen shortlisted for Museums + Heritage Awards, Café or Restaurant of the Year

Although the River Kitchen didn’t win the title, it is a huge achievement to have been shortlisted for this award. In 2022, over 45,000 visitors (40% of our total visitors at the Museum of Making) enjoyed The River Kitchen’s offer. From three-course wedding meals to a quick, affordable sandwich after a museum visit, a family-friendly breakfast with Santa or an outdoor summer lunch on the banks of the River Derwent, our team of kitchen creatives cater for everyone without compromising on quality or sustainability. In the calendar year 2022, The River Kitchen alone generated £392,000 of revenue –an incredible achievement.

Coffee House refurbishment at the Museum and Art Gallery

Have you visited the Coffee House recently? It’s been almost ten years now since the decision was made to transform the ceramics gallery at the Museum and Art Gallery, adding in a cosy and high-quality catering offer which responds to the celebrated collections of Royal Crown Derby on display. This decision had a transformative, positive effect on gallery engagement, bringing new footfall into the space and a solid income stream into Derby Museums Enterprises.

After ten years, it was time for a refresh in the Coffee House. Postpandemic, across the city, it has been a particularly difficult time in the catering sector; a number of stalwart Derby cafés and coffee shops have closed as footfall has struggled to return to 2019 levels. While the Museum of Making’s River Kitchen is packed out, we needed to explore an alternative offer in the Coffee House to increase footfall and freshen up the interior and so, in early January, a week was spent painting, installing new furniture, launching a new menu and installing a brand new oven. Now, the Coffee House offers a wider range of hot and cold food within a cosy, community-café environment, and trade has increased significantly as a result.

Later this year, we’ll be working closely with community groups in the city to begin to animate the space. It’s an ideal location for low-cost or free, shared-interest groups; some of the ideas we’re exploring include LEGO Saturdays, lads-and-dads breakfast mornings and weekend board game afternoons. Keep your eyes peeled for our exciting programme of events in the space. If you have any ideas, feel free to get in touch by emailing Director of Commerical and Operations, Alex Rock at: alex@derbymuseums.org.

The Coffee House at Derby Museum and Art Gallery 2023

The Museum of Making © Art Lewry, Culture Communications Collective

The Coffee House at Derby Museum and Art Gallery 2017

Derby Museums takes the lead on city’s history

In recent months, as people prepare for the warmer weather and start to make plans for the months ahead, we’ve seen a significant increase in enquiries for group visits and tours. Publicity for the Hogarth exhibition in particular has been a catalyst for these enquiries. Our three museums are a rich tableaux in the wider tapestry of Derby’s fascinating history and, in addressing the Jacobite Rebellion and the events of 1745 in Derby, it is difficult to ignore the extant built heritage in the city dating from that time. The Jacobite troops were billeted at the Old Bell Hotel and Jorrock’s (as it is now called), and to announce their arrival in the city they climbed the 80 steps halfway up the All Saints’ Tower to ring the bells before celebrating Mass in the 20-year-old nave of what is now Derby Cathedral. The tenor bell that rang out on that day is still there, and the nave has been restored to an approximation of its original colour.

There are very few organisations in the city running accurate walking tours incorporating the city’s rich heritage. The Derby Museums’ brand is a badge of quality and historical robustness, and so we’re delighted to be working with two thorough and celebrated academic historians of 1745 and the Enlightenment –Professors Keith McLay and Paul Elliott, both from the University of Derby – to produce a walking tour of the city’s Jacobite heritage. With a focus on supporting the next generation of cultural ambassadors, we are advertising tour-guide positions to the University’s History undergraduates. As part of this project, the students will be mentored by Profs McLay and Elliott and the Derby Museums’ team, learning how to deliver history in an engaging way to a paying audience without compromising on the accuracy of the story told. The current intention is to launch these tours in May.

This is part of a wider refresh of our tour offer, working with some of our cultural partners across the city. Tours of Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Pickford’s House and the Museum of Making are now all available for the first time in a number of years, priced at £6+VAT per person for groups of between 8 and 12 people. Each tour lasts one hour. We’ve been working closely with Derby Cathedral and the Riverboat to synchronise our offer, particularly with a focus on coach groups. Both the Cathedral and the Riverboat are offering tours of the same duration, capacity and price, and we are working alongside Visit Derby to promote these offers more widely, showing that there’s more to Derbyshire than the Peak District, and that Derby city centre has a wealth of tour activity for groups to enjoy.

If you are part of any groups besides Derby Museums Friends that might be interested in booking a tour, please spread the word that these group tours are now available. If you have any further questions or would like to enquire about booking please contact: info@derbymuseums.org

We are also thankful to the Derby Museums Friends who so generously gave their time to runs tours at the Museum and Art Gallery (and around the city) before we were able to get this wider tour offer off the ground.

Hogarth’s Britons exhibition © Kate Lowe Photography

HOGARTH APPEAL SUCCESS

Friend of Derby Museums, James Curzon reflects on the generosity of the Friends in response to the recent Hogarth appeal

The Friends are delighted that the Hogarth’s Britons exhibition has been delivered so successfully at the Museum and Art Gallery - with much thanks to the museums’ staff and their hard work planning , preparing and fundraising behind the scenes.

It is enormously costly to put on an exhibition of this scale and stature. The calibre of the exhibits coming to Derby from major museums and national collections is truly special for a regional museum like ours. With the museum budget squeezed to such an extent and loans for the exhibition requiring special transport, fundraising from public and private donors has been essential.

The Friends have played a key part in supporting the exhibition by donating generously to the Hogarth exhibition appeal. It is a huge credit to the Friends membership to be able to raise funds for the museum in this way. Often, over the years, Friends have raised funds through subscriptions and events to help with acquisitions that have a particular connection to Derby. Most recently, in 2022, Friends support brought the magnificent Joseph Wright ‘Self-Portrait’ to the museum. Following on from this, the Friends were asked to go one step further by helping to bring works of art to Derby on loan from other collections for Hogarth’s Britons. To see such pictures would usually require a trip to London - as Bonnie Prince Charlie found, there’s no need for that long journey when it’s all here in Derby.

I am so pleased that the Friends have embraced this new way of supporting Derby Museums. The museum has rewarded us with a very special exhibition in which Derbeians and the wider county can enjoy Hogarth’s satirical take on British history.  In 2019, Derby was one of 12 successful regional museums that were lent magnificent Leonardo da Vinci drawings by Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II from the Royal Collection Trust. Visitors came from across Derbyshire to enjoy Leonardo’s mirror writing and anatomical insights. The spotlight was on Derby. The exhibition attracted visitors who hadn’t been since their childhood in the days of the aquarium and the mummified cat. Visitors also came from cities like Bristol and Liverpool to compare the

drawings on loan in their hometowns with those at Derby. Cities like Nottingham who missed out on the loans were surprised to see the refurbished museum and its beautiful drawings. The galleries buzzed as ticket holders awaited their timed entry. Queues formed at the café. Many visitors returned to show family and friends their favourite drawings. The Friends stall ran out of membership forms. Footfall outside in Sadler Gate was up by 10%.

Derbeians were reminded what a fine regional museum we have on our doorstep. They were enthused to visit more regularly, to get involved with the museum by supporting the work of Derby Museums through the Friends and its events programme, and to give time through volunteering, and be creative through making.

I hope the Hogarth exhibition will create a similar draw to Derby Museum and Art Gallery this year. A first-class programme of events has been organised to accompany the exhibition. I’m sure the exhibition will attract a wider audience, bring plenty of new faces to join the Friends and enjoy all that membership has to offer. May it also provide inspiration to young artists in the making.

Hogarth’s ‘The March of the Guards to Finchely’, from the Foundling Museums, London, on display as part of the Hogarth’s Britons exhibition at Derby Museum and Art Gallery © Kate Lowe Photography

- James Curzon, Friend of Derby Museums

ALTERNATIVE ARCHIVE PROJECT

Derby Museums has recently begun a project to digitise photographs, record oral histories and commission new portraits working across Derby’s South Asian diaspora communities. The project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund is a response to research into Derby Museums’ collections where South Asian voices have been found to be under-represented. This is partly because much of the documentation relating to collection objects does not record personal stories, except perhaps having brief information about makers, owners or donors.

The rich collections of family photographs in South Asian homes hold stories almost completely lacking from Derby Museums’ social history collections. Diverse South Asian communities account for approximately 15% of Derby’s population and their lives, particularly over the last 50 years, have shaped the city.

We hope the project will enable us to create a richer, fuller picture of the history of Derby from the 1950s-80s by developing a community-led archive of material which might otherwise never be publicly accessible. The project runs alongside Derby Museums’ work, supporting a heritage project led by Derby West Indian Community Association to document and make more accessible the organisation’s historic archive – a project also funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

During the development process for the Alternative Archive project, a leadership group with lived experience of Derby’s South Asian communities, identified the need to document the stories of their parent’s and grandparent’s generations, amid concern that photographs and contextual information held in personal collections would be lost to historical record or retained without important accompanying information.

The project team is already exploring stories about growing up in Derby, school life, shopping, home life, night life, sports teams, the development of faith centres and work – the latter including stories that connect directly to collections currently on

display at the Museum of Making. South Asian communities have not always engaged with Derby Museums, and we are working hard to reduce barriers and develop relationships. We want to find new methods for shaping archives for the future and supporting new ways of working that are community-led and enriching by contextualising the collections with personal images and histories that are often lacking.

Through the project we will be collaborating with multiple partners and co-delivering with Black Country Visual Arts (BCVA), who have experience of developing a similar archive of images and stories in Wolverhampton (the Apna Heritage Archive). Led by photographers and curators working in socially engaged practice, BCVA has links across the Midlands and a reputation for supporting photographers of colour through the Reframed Network.

Together we will work with a group of volunteers to co-develop and maintain the archive, and we will also be working with students from the University of Derby. Skills sharing will be at the heart of the project, alongside engaging new audiences with heritage. We will collaborate on an exhibition at the Museum of Making during 2024 and we also anticipate connecting with the FORMAT International Photography Festival to share learning from the project across the sector.

Head of Interpretation and Display, Laura Phillips gives an insight into the Alternative Archive project

Image courtesy of the Basi family

FAMILY CORNER

Upcoming family friendly events

Derby Museums has a fantastic range of activities for everyone to get involved. For the full programme and bookable events please visit bit.ly/DMBOOK.

Wet Felting Workshop

Saturday 15 July

10.15am-12.15pm or 1.30-3.30pm

Museum of Making

Textiles Artist, Ursula Rae, will guide you through the process of how to turn soap, water and wool fibres into cloth! In this hands-on session you will learn the process of wet felt making to create pieces of cloth and felt balls. Step by step, you will learn how felt is formed and use this to develop your own design - thinking about colour pattern and texture. This session is perfect for beginners. No prior experience needed.

The workshop lasts 2 hours and there are two slots available: 10.15am-12.15pm or 1.30-3.30pm

Suitable for adults and children aged 7 and over. All children must be accompanied by an adult.

£15 Adult / Child £13.50/ Members and Derby Museums Friends 50% discount.

*If you or your child have any additional requirements please contact us in advance so we can do our best to accommodate you.

A Summer of Making at Derby Museums

23 July – 3 September

Keep an eye out for an exciting summer season of making across Derby Museums, inspired by the Museum of Making, History Makers and the Tiny World of Toy Theatres, including summer holiday trails and making activity. Check out our website for more details.

Supporting local makers and artists in The Hub at the Museum of Making

The Hub at the Museum of Making continues to grow, showcasing and supporting more than 40 artists and makers from the region. The space has become a go-to destination, both for visitors seeking something unique and for makers wanting to be a part of the offer. We have developed great relationships with our maker/artist community and have offered advice and guidance to get them retail ready.

For many makers and artists, The Hub has been the first location where their work has been promoted and sold. Seeing these makers starting out from the beginning of their journey and growing in confidence is what this space is all about. We have also been working closely with our 2022 Maker in Residence, Joel Aspinall, to get his on-site 3D printed range of cups and vases on the shelves, which have proved very popular. We are looking forward to working with future artists who occupy this space and will continue to introduce new makers throughout the year.

Some examples of Joel Aspinall’s ceramic work, available to purchase in The Hub at the Museum of Making

Image© Kate Lowe Photography

TOTES BAGTASTIC!

So how about some sewing? Co-production, Volunteer and Programme Coordinator, Pippa Vidal Davies, invites new volunteers for an upcoming project

As you well know, we are all about making. In the past, volunteers have made bunting, aprons and picnic blankets. Earlier in the year, volunteers and staff contributed towards BBC Radio Derby’s appeal - Make a Blanket, Make a Difference - through the knitting and crocheting of over 300 squares that were then made into four gorgeous blankets for those in need of warmth over winter. A handful of us had never crocheted or knitted before, yet the resulting blankets are charming and full of warmth.

The project concluded with a team of us being awarded the Guinness World Record for the most people crocheting simultaneously - 960 is the new World Record to beat!

We have an appetite for more making and we were delighted when volunteer Jean mentioned the Morsbag project to us. MorsbagSociable Guerilla Bagging is a worldwide initiative to make recycled, reusable fabric bags to combat plastic bags. We have the tags, the materials, and instructions and go ahead to become the Totes Bagtastic pod. We would love for you to join us. How? You can join our ‘Meet and Make’ volunteer days to make bags socially within the Museum of Making; you could donate material to us or make bags from home. Regardless of how you want to support us, please get in touch at volunteer@derbymuseums.org to ensure we can co-ordinate everything. We want to welcome people of all abilities to the ‘Meet and Make’ volunteer events, so please consider doing some Family Volunteering with us too.

The made bags will be showcased in our museum shops to raise awareness of the initiative, and will hopefully raise internal funds for climate action initiatives at the same time. This project will be sew fantastic! Interested in our other volunteering opportunities? Have a look to see what’s on offer here: http://bttr.im/4x0cx.

Volunteering with Derby Museums

If you would like to find out more about the volunteering opportunities we have on offer, from regular, longer-term volunteering to micro-challenges that could take just minutes of your time, please heck out our volunteering page at: bit.ly/DMVolunteeringOpportunities, and sign up to our newsletter to keep up to date.

Image © Oliver Taylor

Ann Eames (long-standing Derby Museums Volunteer and Friend)

Example tote bag

A DERBY PAINTER AND A DERBY MAKER

Friend Maxwell Craven shares a fascinating insight into the lesser known history of Derby painter and maker, Francis Bassano

Francis Bassano was a rather superior Derby painter and a member of an old and fascinating family. In Stephen Glover’s account of the family, he is referred to as a ‘herald painter’ and indeed, thanks to the survival of one of his account books in Local Studies, we can say with confidence that he painted the funeral hatchment to Thomas Chambers and also that of his wife Margaret, painted in 1726 and 1735 respectively. They are well executed and clearly by a more competent hand than that painted for the arriviste Alderman Henry Franceys who died in 1747.

Indeed, it is through Mr. Franceys that we know of a much weightier work by Bassano: the painting of the frescoed ceiling of the saloon on the first floor of Mr. Franceys’s very grand house in Market Head, executed for the good alderman’s father William in about 1710. This showed the Gods on Parnassus and included a cheeky vignette of Mr and Mrs Franceys in one corner. It is said that the work only really came into its own when there was snow freshly fallen on the Market Place after the removal of the buildings opposite in 1877. The reflected light apparently really did the work justice! Unfortunately, the ceiling was destroyed when the room of the 1694 town house was divided in 1936, although the portrait of Mr and Mrs Franceys was rescued for the collections at Derby Museums.

Francis was born at Lichfield on 17th October 1675, the elder brother of Christopher Bassano (16791745), a teacher of music and instrumentalist who, in 1709, had married the daughter and heiress of Derby attorney James Motteram, thereby enabling his son Richard to succeed him in his legal practice.

The family were originally from Bassano de Grappa in the Trentino foothills of northern Italy - an ancestor, Jeronimo, being a Venetian sackbut virtuoso. Two of his equally talented sons were recruited by Henry VIII to join the King’s Band, and a grandson, Arturo, was added to the family in England by Queen Elizabeth I, and it was from him that Francis descended.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, the King’s Musick went into limbo, its members dispersed.

The then head of the family, Richard (they had long since anglicised their names), fled to Stone (Staffordshire), becoming a music teacher. Happier times returned with the Restoration, enabling his son, also Richard, to became a Vicar Choral at Lichfield Cathedral. The younger Richard (16541729) was the father of Christopher and Francis.

Francis was in demand right across the Midlands for the painting of funeral hatchments, carriage door panels and similar, which clearly constituted his bread-and-butter. He is known to have painted portraits and landscapes too (although identifying them today is a challenge), and was also a careful and well-informed antiquary, recording the interiors of Derbyshire churches, especially the arms, monuments and stained glass. Bassano never married and died at his house in Derby in 1746. Nevertheless, the creative talent of his family

survived him. His great-nephew’s wife, known to be a great beauty, modelled for Joseph Wright’s Maria and Her Dog Silvio (from Laurence Sterne’s Sentimental Journey) in 1777, and a 19th century descendant, Louisa, became an internationally famous diva who also performed in Derby in the 1840s.

Yet the neglected Derby ‘maker’ was George Henry Bassano (1840-1913), a Derby manufacturing electrician who designed and perfected the Rolls-Royce of early gramophones, the astonishingly ahead-of-its-time Bassanophone of 1908 (date of patent).

Roundel in the cresting of Robert Bakewell’s Mayor’s pew in Derby Cathedral, showing the Borough’s badge, painted by Francis Bassano, 1724

At the time, taste was moving away from the rather crude Edison Phonograph to the more sophisticated and versatile gramophone, and George Henry believed he could improve considerably on the basic format through better engineering and higher quality. He began manufacturing his machines in modest numbers at his works in Bridge Street until the First World War, despite George Henry having died in 1913. There was an agreement to market them in Canada in 1912, but the war killed that too.

George Henry was truly a Derby maker, but his machines are rare, simply because he charged rather more for them than for an ordinary HMV job, nor did he have the capacity to make them in particularly large numbers, for they were entirely hand-built.

The main difference is that he did away with the cumbersome horn, so familiar to old gramophones today, creating a built-in metal soundbox, which also eliminated surface hiss. He also patented an automatic stopping device, so that as soon as the needle reached the end of the record, the motor stopped, so there was no need for someone to stand over the machine all of the time. The motor also ran long enough even to play the then rare 12-inch records, another refinement! Furthermore, the spring was guaranteed not to break.

One of the aims I set myself when I was Keeper of Antiquities, was to seek one out and acquire one, but it wasn’t until the early 1990s that one

of my spies located an example in private hands in Lancashire. It was a delightful ‘miniature’ machine, set in a mahogany and box-inlaid case of the highest quality. Better still, it was in excellent condition and in full working order. In consequence, I obtained an independent valuation from a friend, James Lewis, then of Neale’s in Becket Street, and managed to complete the acquisition, putting it on display in the gallery which connects the Soldier’s Story Gallery to the Joseph Wrights.

The example we bought (with a V&A grant-in-aid plus match funding from the Friends) was what was advertised as a ‘Miniature Bassanophone No. 1’ (intended for table-top as well as floor use) and originally cost £16 in an inlaid case. The threefoot (91.5cm) tall, free-standing machines cost 50 guineas (£52.50).

After the war killed off the market for high-end domestic equipment, the firm went on to make coils and automatic signalling equipment for the Royal Navy – examples of which the Museum has yet to acquire. George Henry was also a naturalist and a keen cycling pioneer.

There was a Bassano educational connection, too. A great niece of Wright’s sitter, married the pioneer schoolmaster Thomas Swanwick (1754-1814), an educational pioneer and friend of Erasmus Darwin, whose enjoyable memorial stands near the organ console in the Cathedral’s north aisle. She also taught and carried on the St. Mary’s Gate school after his death.

Mrs Bassano, posing as Maria and Her Dog Silvio, from Sterne’s Sentimental Journey by Joseph Wright, 1777 © Derby Museums

The Bassanophone as it was when discovered, pictured in 1993.

THE TIGER WHO CAME TO TEA

...or at least the mummified cat who came to the Friends coffee morning

Derby Museums Friend, Stephen Marley, reflects on the Friends coffee morning on Thursday 2nd March 2023

There is a corner of Derby that is forever Egypt. That corner is where The Strand and Cheapside meet, up a double flight of stairs inside Derby Museum and Art Gallery. A week ago, I walked into the Derby Museums Friends’ coffee morning on the ground floor, greeted at the café entrance by the delightful Laura Dudley, Derby Museums’ Fundraising, Membership and Events Coordinator. It was only my second experience of a Friends’ event but, aside from befriending the Museum, I had already made a couple of friends at the first meeting and was about to make four more at the second. Derby Museums Friends are, indeed, friendly!

After chatting over a cappuccino for an hour, I headed up to the first floor with the merry throng to see the Egyptian collection carefully laid out on an expansive table by Co-production Curator, Rachel Atherton. The first exhibit I noticed was a mummified cat, the star of the show. The cat was of course out of bounds, but we were able to handle other items including scarabs/khepris and shabtis (miniature effigies of servants entombed with their master/mistress). Rachel’s description of the various Egyptian items was comprehensive and illuminating.

Rachel then introduced us to the two Egyptian mummies in Derby Museums’ collection: Pypylw, a Theban priest, and a second, nameless mummy. I first remember seeing Pypylw when I was two years old, many decades ago, and that thought reminded me that the word ‘museum’ means ‘shrine of the Muses’, dating back to the lost Museum and Library of Alexandria. A shrine dedicated to the Nine Muses that inspire men and women to create and explore, as much in modernday Derby as in Ptolemaic Egypt.

Co-production Curator, Rachel Atherton, gives a talk on Derby Museums’ Egyptian collection

Handling objects on display from the Derby Museums’ Egyptian collection

An ancient Egyptian mummified cat, intended to accompany a person on their journey to the afterlife

- Stephen Marley, Friend of Derby Museums

Are you interested in helping to shape the Derby Museums Friends Programme? Find out about the steering group.

The Derby Museums Friends steering group are committed to promoting, growing and shaping the Friends community. They meet three times a year to provide feedback on the programme and help to shape future talks, events and socials by giving the Friends an active voice in conversations with the fundraising team.

We would love to hear from you if you are interested in being part of the steering group!

To register your interest please get in touch with Individual Giving Officer, Helena Smith Parucker on helena@derbymuseums.org

A VIEW FROM THE BOARD

Hello Friends,

The warmer weather and hours of extra daylight always make me feel like you can do so much more with your day - any excuse to spend a couple of hours at one of our museums! What’s been your favourite exhibition so far this year? It’s been wonderful seeing visitors return to see our fabulous Joseph Wright collection, and to see so many people coming to visit Hogarth Britons. It’s fabulous to see scenes from history, led by Bonnie Prince Charlie - and it seems timely to offer a reminder of the statue of the Prince by the Museum of Making and our Bonnie Prince Charlie collection at the Museum and Art Gallery, both well worth a visit.

We continue to provide a wide range of exhibitions, events and workshops for visitors to our museums, and we also have much to explore online, on our website and social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram). Why not make plans to meet family and friends in Derby and visit us in the coming months? There’s plenty to see and do! I’m looking forward to visiting Oliver Frank Chanarin’s solo exhibition, A Perfect Sentence, which was created whilst the country was in lockdown and opened at the Museum of Making as part of the FORMAT International Photography Festival earlier in the year. I’m so grateful that we have many fabulous festivals here in Derby, such as FORMAT and the Derby Book Festival, and I love that Derby Museums is such a welcoming host for so many events. I hope you get to visit something a little bit different, and something very enjoyable.

A reminder that all of our three museums are free to visit and, if you’re able to make a donation, don’t forget to add Gift Aid if you’re eligible. You’re also very welcome to pop in just for a bite to eat or to shop - The Hub on the third floor of the Museum of Making is a favourite of mine when it comes to buying presents, it’s full of wonderful and unique pieces from amazing local makers and just beautiful to visit even if you’re not shopping!

I hope you have a wonderful summer time, that your days are full of creativity and wonder, and that you once again are able to come and spend some time with Derby Museums. My thanks, as always, to all the fantastic museum staff and volunteers, our committed Friends, and our wonderful visitors and supporters.

Jubilee open air drawing event discounted to Friends

Joanna West, Derby Museums Trustee

- Joanna West, Derby Museums Trustee

THE HEARTH OF THE HOME

Visitor Experience Assistant, Emily Cowlishaw, shares her favourite object from Pickford’s House

The kitchen has always been the heart of every home, and at Pickford’s House this is no exception. Throughout the years, the kitchen has been the centre of domestic life at Pickford’s, and its beating heart is the cooking range. The current kitchen at Pickfords was built sometime between 1812 and 1831 by Joseph Pickford’s son, William Percival Pickford. Before this, it is likely that the original house had a separate kitchen block near the back of the property. This was common during the Georgian era to prevent kitchen fires from destroying the whole home. Towards the Victorian Era, the use of coal and the invention of more modern ranges meant that it became less of a risk to build kitchens as part of the main house.

The range at Pickfords House is described as a ‘Harrison’s cooking apparatus’ in a letting advertisement in 1831. Unfortunately, the original was removed at some point during the home’s multiple occupations and and functions, but today, a detailed reproduction sits in its place. This was directly cast from a surviving Harrison range from the Judge’s Lodgings in Nottingham.

The design for this type of cooking range was perfected by John Harrison, who founded Bridge Gate. He was a prolific engineer and architect, having designed the pump house for the gardens at Elvaston Castle.

Throughout the years, all manner of things would be cooked, heated and warmed by this hearthkeeping the whole home well-fed, warm and cosy. All at once, dinner could be cooked; ale would be heated in an ale slipper; plates could be kept warm; and mice-catching cats could snooze by the fire.

It is easy to imagine this evocative scene of life in the 1830s at Pickford’s. The kitchen would be smoky, with the fires in the range and the back kitchen roaring at all hours of the day. Servants would be back and forth clearing ashes and stoking the fires, whilst a cook would be busy at the scrubbed kitchen table, preparing meat and vegetables for the day ahead.

All the while, the servant’s bells would be chiming at regular intervals, causing cups of tea and little ditties to be fetched back and forth to the upstairs household.

As Pickford’s House was in the centre of Derby, bustling with trade and town life, there was no need for a bread oven in the kitchen, as fresh bread would be bought from the bakery daily. The loaves would then be kept high up in baskets, away from opportunistic mice.

The open range at Pickford’s was more than up to the job of cooking for the household. Hot plates on the top of the range allowed for food to be boiled and fried, and for water to be heated. Pots could also be hung from hooks over the range to warmed. A genius contraption above the range used the hot air from the fire to spin blades in the chimney, which in turn spun a turnspit. This allowed meat to be roasted without anyone needing to tend to it.

The kitchen range is still the heart of Pickford’s life today and, as many of you will know, it takes centre stage in our Christmas celebrations, adding a festive glow and helping us to make our delicious (secret recipe) mulled wine!

If you enjoyed Emily’s piece on the Harrison Range and want to share your favourite object from the Museums’ collection, please submit your writing to helena@derbymuseums.org.

The Harrison Range in operation at Pickford’s House

Adopt an Object at Derby Museums

Did you know you can adopt the Harrison Range, along with any other object at Pickford’s House? By adopting one of our objects for a year, either for yourself or for someone else, as an unusual gift for any occasion, you can help Derby Museums to care for its unique collection. In exchange for your adoption you will receive:

1. An old-fashioned luggage tag with a name of your choice on your object.

2. The opportunity to visit your adopted object anytime that Pickford’s House is open.

3. A certificate celebrating your new adoption.

We currently have a selection of objects listed for adoption on our website ranging from a humble game pie dish to a mahogany cheese cradle; from the morning room piano to the Edwardian toilet! However, if you have a favourite object that’s not listed, please email helena@derbymuseums.org to organise your adoption.

Our Adopt an Object scheme is also available at the Museum of Making, where you can choose from 39, fascinating objects. For further details on both schemes and to purchase your adoption, please visit: bit.ly/DMAdoptanObject. Donations towards either scheme are hugely appreciated and enable Derby Museums to continue its work caring for collections and staying fantastic and free for everyone.

IN MEMORIAM

It is with our greatest condolences that we share the news of Ivan Adler’s passing. Ivan was a long time visitor, supporter and Friend of Derby Museum and Art Gallery. His family wish to extend their gratitude to the museum staff and Friends of the museum for making him feel so welcome and developing his love of the culture and history of Derby.

We are also greatly saddended to announce the passing of Evan Nice. Evan’s wife, Brenda Nice, reflects on his life and their time together...

My husband Evan had a long life, dying in February at the age of 92. Born in Belfast in 1930, his father was stationed there. Evan liked to say he was English, born in Ireland with a Welsh name. His childhood was spent wherever his father was posted including Gibraltar, Catterick and York. When his father left the army, the family moved to Essex where they had family connections. Nice is an East Anglian surname.

Following national service in the RAF, Evan started working in London while studying Accountancy and Management.

It was at this time we met and married in 1957. Evan took a post working for the Nigerian Government in northern Nigeria. As a newly independent country it was a very interesting place to live.

On return to England, we moved to Derby with Evan’s work. We ended up settling here and Evan worked for various companies in and around Derby.

Always a keen visitor to museums, Evan soon found his way to Derby Museums and there encountered Joseph Wright who became an obsession for him! He spent many interesting and happy hours in the museums with our children and then grandchildren. I am not sure who enjoyed the log boat, the children’s trails and the Easter egg hunts the most.

After Evan retired, we decided to join the Friends of Derby Museums, and enjoyed the talks and outings in the company of the other members. Sadly, Evan was diagnosed with Vascular Dementia, however he still enjoyed the coffee mornings, loved the glorious self portrait by Joseph Wright and was looking forward to the Hogarth exhibition. Maybe that is a good way to end your days, still looking forward.

The Cole Ale Slipper from Pickford’s House, availble for adoption

A gift that will last a lifetime

Did you know that you can leave us a gift of even 1% in your Will, so that those closest to you inherit 99%. This gift will help to ensure that Derby Museums has a vibrant future and that generations to come can continue to enjoy our wonderful collections and family friendly activities and events.

Making a gift in your Will can help Derby Museums to:

• Continue providing free access to fantastic exhibitions and events across our three museum sites.

• Conserve and celebrate our city’s fantastic cultural assets, including the world’s largest collection of work by Joseph Wright of Derby.

• Continue to engage and inspire the next generation of makers and thinkers.

To discuss leaving a gift in your Will, please contact: Jenny Cuadrado on jennifer@derbymuseums.org or call 01332 641901.

KEY DATES

Coffee with Friends

Talk: Windrush Day

Thursday 15 June, 10.30am

Thursday 22 June, 12.30pm

Pickford’s House

Museum and Art Gallery

Summer Social Monday 25 September Pickford’s House

Talk: Ann Featherstone Friday 15 September, 7.30pm

Museum of Making ‘History of Circus’

EXHIBITIONS DIARY – MAY - SEPTEMBER 2023

Hogarth’s Britons

Format 23: Oliver Franklin Chanarin

History Makers Reprise

Derby Museums Friends Patrons

Helene, Viscountess Scarsdale

Sir Richard FitzHerbert, Bt. DL

Steering Group Members

Pam Helm

Maxwell Craven

Clive Lemmon

Derek Limer

Carole Craven

Patricia Coleman

Stephen Hill

Julie Barlow

Catherine James

James Curzon

Mary Pitt

10 March - 4 June

16 March - 3 September

Museum and Art Gallery

Museum of Making

21 July 2023 - 3 March 2024 Museum and Art Gallery

Contacts for Derby Museums

Laura Dudley 01332 956924

LauraD@derbymuseums.org

Helena Smith Parucker 01332 255011

Helena@derbymuseums.org

If you would like to contribute to the next edition of The Orrery, please get in touch with Helena. Next edition: September 2023.

Derby Museum and Art Gallery

The Strand Derby DE1 1BS

derbymuseums.org

info@derbymuseums.org 01332 641901