MARY EVANS
PICTURE LIBRARY
Issue 7, Spring 2012
Published by the Mary Evans Picture Library 59 Tranquil Vale, London SE3 0BS T: 020 8318 0034 www.maryevans.com E: pictures@maryevans.com
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The Meaning of Clean
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A Snapshot in Time
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London in 1842
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Titanic Tales
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Bonzomania
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Face to Face
Nameplate image ClassicStock/Mary Evans
stablished in 1927 to promote good hygiene, the British Health and Cleanliness Council commissioned a series of charming posters designed to emphasise the importance of cleanliness and bathing. In them, the symbolic fortress of good health is portrayed as protected by careful personal hygiene, and children all over the world are depicted enjoying happiness and health, thanks to the 'magic' of soap and water.
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Aside from the cosmetic effect of getting rid of dirt, promoting cleanliness and bathing for hygiene reasons seems obvious from a 21st-century viewpoint, where the link between good hygiene and health is well recognised, and washing is a standard measure in preventing the spread of disease. Today, signs encourage us to 'now wash your hands' after using public toilets, while government hygiene poster campaigns are brought out at times when
colds and 'flu are common. With the growing realisation in the 19th century of the health benef its of cleanliness came ambitious Victorian sanitation reform, which aimed to improve drainage and access to clean water in overcrowded cities. Public works, such as the construction of London's labyrinth of sewers, and Joseph Bazalgette's creation of the cathedral-like Crossness Pumping Station in 1865, were practical ways in which cleanliness, and so public health, was improved by the government. Bodily cleanliness as a way to religious or spiritual purity could also be motivated by divine command. Ritual washing, such as the performance of wudu by Muslims before prayer, is commanded by the Qur'an, and similarly, the use of a laver in Jewish ceremonies promotes both ritual
Health and Cleanliness Council posters. Top: The Castle of Cleanliness (image 10511589); Above left: The Magic of Soap and Water, c.1940 (image 10511588); Above right: Clean and Fit and Happy Too! 1939 (image 10511587) Onslows Auctions Ltd/Mary Evans
By the end of the 19th century, advances in technology, such as the advent of running hot water and the introduction of the draining bath tub, made bathing more pleasant and effective. abomination. However, the environment and context need to be considered in such different eras, and in the case of the desert fathers, their attitude may be a pragmatic response to environmental pressures, rather than a following of divine laws: in a desert environment where drinking water is precious, using it to wash with could be seen as decadent and sinful.
Pears’ soap advertisement using Millais’ famous painting Bubbles (image 10090870)
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Washing didn't need to be purely for health or for religious reasons: it could also be for pleasure. By the end of the 19th century, advances in technology, such as the advent of running hot water and the introduction of the draining bath tub, made bathing more pleasant and effective. Bathers, no longer having to heat a tub in front of a f ire, or rinse in a shallow dish with a jug, could enjoy with greater frequency the warmth and privacy of a hot bath. Such pleasant and easily prepared bathing conditions may have encouraged more frequent washing: rather than arduous, lukewarm and infrequent, a bath could now be easy to run and deliciously
hot. Images from adverts in the 20th century show women enjoying a soak in the tub, sometimes with a cocktail in hand, or enjoying a good book. The bath could be a place of leisure and relaxation, a far cry from cold monastic ablutions. As the opportunity to bathe increased and the experience became more enjoyable, the bathing culture changed. Marketing of personal cleaning products must have raised awareness of cleanliness in the 19th century. Advertisements for Pears' soap, established in 1789 and still going strong, is an example of the relentless and highly effective way in which cleanliness and bathing was promoted for f inancial gain. Notable for adding a cake of soap to John Everett Millais' painting to create their 'Bubbles' advertisement, Pears also used celebrity endorsement, media saturation and memorable slogans to promote their product. The Greek goddess of good health, Hygeia, was hijacked for her symbolic value by other soap manufacturers too, with classical Greek images employed to promote a sense of virtuous cleanliness. The moral value of cleanliness was heavily played upon. Civilisation by soap was directly implied by Pears in their adverts of the 1890s-the 'white man's burden' of civilising darkest Africa was lightened by distributing soap (Pears', of course) to natives. Adverts that seem astonishingly racist today show Pears' soap, 'matchless for the complexion', washing off the skin colour of black children. The Victorians weren't the f irst to employ cleanliness and bathing as a colonial tool: the Romans also used it as an instrument of imperial domination. Roman historian Tacitus noted in the 1st century AD how the public bath house was an indication that civilisation had come to occupied Roman provinces, such as Britain. Tacitus recognised that such luxuries were used to further enslave the people of Britain-an early example of the propaganda of cleanliness, here being employed to reinforce Roman attitudes and practices in a potentially hostile territory, far from Rome. Not so much brain washing as body washing, too. Cleanliness and bathing has been promoted (as well as discouraged) throughout history for a variety of reasons, not all of them squeaky clean. Images, such
Grosvenor Prints/Mary Evans; Mary Evans Picture Library; Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans; Interfoto/Mary Evans
Above: Crossness Pumping Station, 1865 (image 10184145) Right: Baby’s morning bath, 1905 postcard (image 10127369) Centre: Welsh miner washing in a tub, C.1870 engraving in The Graphic (image 10127255) Background: Goddess Hygeia, Greek and Roman goddess of health and cleanliness, 1828, after a Roman ivory relief (image 10542156)
and physical cleanliness, again inspired by divine instruction. Long before the Victorians f igured out the connection between cleanliness and health, medieval monks who dwelt in monasteries were privileged with good plumbing and washing facilities-one factor, as well as their piety of course, which spared them from infection during plagues. Sometimes washing could be actively discouraged in the quest for s p i r i t u a l cleanliness though. The desert fathers of the early Christian monastic tradition, far from considering cleanliness as being next to godliness, saw washing as an
Lucinda Moore 2012 Above: luxurious bathtime, illustration in Good Housekeeping, December 1946 (image 10536989) Right: lathering up in the bath, C.1933 (image 10268006)
Ros Fraser Collection/Mary Evans
as the delightful ones produced by the British Health and Cleanliness Council, are highly effective in conveying messages designed to influence behaviour and attitudes to washing, and we're just as susceptible to them today. Next time you take a wash, stop and think about why you're doing it, and about who's encouraging you to wash. Is it the Government? Divine direction? Mother? Are you simply washing to get clean, or seeking relaxation, or acting as an unconscious pawn responding to cleanliness propaganda? Or all of the above? Whatever your reason, why we bathe reflects more than simply a need for a good wash.
A Snapshot in Time
n 1946, photographer Jean Straker formed a short-lived photographic firm known as Photo Union at 12, Soho Square in London. It specialised in the photo-essay, a form of pictorial journalism undertaken mainly with miniature cameras with lots of detailed images and bridging shots. Four years later, in 1951, the agency went into receivership when Straker sank capital into colour photography, which was to prove too costly. The archive, now at Mary Evans, consequently documents a particularly brief period of time but in many ways, it is all the more fascinating for it.
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Jean Straker was born in London in 1913 to an émigré Russian father and English ballerina mother. He began his career in journalism during the 1930s, specialising in film and launching 'The Talkie' magazine. A conscientious objector during the War, he combined duties as an ARP warden with working as a surgical photographer in London's hospitals. But it was in the 1950s, that fame—or perhaps infamy—finally found a foothold. With the failure of Photo Union, Straker abandoned commercial photography to pursue personally satisfying projects. He set up the Visual Arts Club and as part of this, organised nude photography sessions for members. In 1959, 'The Nudes of Jean Straker' was published by Charles Skilton Publications, one of the first art photography books of its kind. Despite his activities being pretty similar in practice to life drawing classes, sensibilities
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were shocked and he was prosecuted in 1962 under the Obscene Publications Act. Arguing that there was nothing depraved or corrupt about the naked human body, Straker spent the rest of the decade refusing to curtail his activities or compromise his artistic integrity leading to a continuous cycle of prosecutions and appeals. By the late 1960s, Straker had given up photography but continued to campaign and lecture on censorship until his death in 1984. Though Straker's Photo Union collective was a commercial venture, whose subjects were, through necessity, more conservative, some of the images seem to hint at Straker's background and personal interests. There are backstage shots of showgirls and candid shots of jobbing musicians, evocative images of Soho streets and long-gone West End restaurants while guileful London girls are pictured on dates with American GIs. They hint of freedom and a certain type of seedy glamour in an age of rationing and austerity. There are other pictures too, which project a more innocent nostalgia-apprentice carpenters, Kentish apple pickers and the 1947 Royal Wedding. But occasionally, the odd, artistic nude reveals the agency founder's true, fleshy metier. The Photo Union collection is an eclectic and evocative picture of postwar Britain, and particularly London. Type %JST into the keyword search box at www.maryevans.com to see more of this collection. Luci Gosling 2012
Opposite page: people boating on a lake in a London park, c.1945 (image 10513281) This page, clockwise from top left: entertaining an American GI in a London bar, c.1945 (image 10513309); workmen by Tower Bridge, c.1948 (image 10513311); nude study, c.1958, inspired by the painting Danae by Rembrandt, which appeared in the book ‘The Nudes of Jean Straker’ (image 10513356); girls dancing with American GIs, in an unidentified London bar, c.1945 (image 10513308); apple pickers in the English countryside, c.1947 (image 10513458) All images Photo Union Collection/Mary Evans
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n 2012, as the eyes of the world turn to London with the arrival of the Olympic Games, we present a panoramic view of London 170 years ago that was the largest wood block engraving ever made. To promote his new publishing venture, an illustrated weekly newspaper going by the name of the Illustrated London News, Herbert Ingram employed a canny piece of marketing: he offered to all subscribers of six months and more a gift of the Colosseum Print of London, a four-foot by three-foot giant of a picture presenting north and south views of the capital.
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The invention of the daguerreotype process of photography in 1839 had f ired Ingram's imagination. Antoine Claudet had been given permission to ascend the 168 steps of the Duke of York Column in Waterloo
Place at the southern end of Regent Street, and expose two sequences of photographs of the views to the north and south. Ingram's plan was to turn these images into a magnif icent give-away. The Illustrated London News, along with most other popular journals and books of the mid-19th century, employed the technique of wood engraving to reproduce images. Although printed woodcuts had been around for centuries, it wasn't until the late 18th century that wood engraving gained a foothold, its full potential exploited beautifully by master
PRINTING matters
Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans
engraver Thomas Bewick. While woodcuts were made by carving from the softer plank side of the wood, with the grain, wood blocks for engraving were cut so that the harder endgrain was used. Very hard wood such as box provided a f ine and dense surface on which the metal engraver's tool, the burin, could be used to produce incredibly detailed and subtle work. The process of turning Claudet's photographs into the Colosseum Print was a lengthy one. Artist C.F. Sargent, using the daguerreotype plates to work from, copied the image
onto the surface of the vast wood block, composed of sixty pieces of box fastened together. Ebenezer Landells, an engraver who worked for the ILN and who had once been a pupil of Thomas Bewick, was given the task, along with his 18 assistants, of cutting away the inf inite white spaces between the lines of the drawing to leave the picture in relief. The blocks were dismantled so that engravers could work on individual pieces, and then reassembled, after two months' solid work, to be sent to printers Palmer and Clayton in time for the Colosseum Print to be issued with the 7th January 1843 Illustrated London News. A great success, the print did much to establish the ILN's popularity early on, and is today a splendid record of London in 1842 as well as a f ine example of the engraver's art. Jessica Talmage 2012
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First class steward’s badge from the Titanic (image 10213803)
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RMS Titanic featured on a White Star Line postcard, 1912 (image 10009496)
Royal Mail Ship Titanic began its maiden voyage from Southampton on the 10th April 1912, bound for New York. It was the last word in luxury with sumptuous staterooms, private promenade decks, a gymnasium, Turkish baths, a racquets court, splendid dining rooms and a lavish Grand Staircase. Amongst the moneyed upper echelons of Anglo-American society on board were John Jacob Astor; Benjamin Guggenheim; Isidor Straus and his wife, who owned Macy's department store; and Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon. There were also second class passengers, and steerage or third class, hoping for a better life abroad. On the morning of the 14th April, the wireless telegraphy room started to receive warnings of ice, but these were either not passed on to Captain Edward 8
The subsequent inquiries by the US Senate and the British Board of Trade investigated every aspect of the disaster and made recommendations to change maritime law to secure safety of life at sea, including the provision of lifeboat spaces to match the full capacity of the ship, and the regulation of radiotelegraphy to ensure continued and uninterrupted operation of this vital service. For the Titanic, it was too late. Fuelled by ill fortune and poor judgement, events had unfolded with tragic consequences that show no sign of losing their magnetic pull. Jessica Talmage 2012
All images Onslows Auctions Ltd/Mary Evans, except 10216543 and 10223984 Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans; 10009496 and 10027182 Mary Evans Picture Library
ne hundred years on from the sinking of the Titanic and the story has lost none of its potency. It is hard to pinpoint exactly why it has such endurance, but several themes play their part: the element of hubris associated with proclaiming the monumental ship, the largest ocean-going vessel of its time, unsinkable; the added pathos of Titanic being lost on its maiden voyage, a journey that had been anticipated with much fanfare and promise of greatness; the huge loss of life: it remains one of the world's worst maritime disasters; the roll call of passengers rich and famous which ensured coverage of the disaster remained high. And f inally, not least, the way the tragedy played out over 2 hours and 40 minutes from the f irst moments of alarm, then incredulity and complacency to panic, desperation and resignation.
Smith or went unheeded. At 11.40pm, while the ship steamed at full speed through a glassy ocean, an "iceberg, right ahead" was spotted from the crow's nest. The engines were reversed and the ship turned to port as far as it would go but it was too late to avoid collision, and the ice ripped a 300 foot gash in the starboard side. The boiler rooms began to flood, too many to keep the ship afloat. Chief designer Thomas Andrews, also on board, who thought he had devised safety features for all eventualities, estimated the ship would last no more than an hour and a half. The distress signal 'CQD'—Come Quickly, Danger—was sent from the wireless room, later supplemented with new code 'SOS', one of the f irst occasions of its use. The lifeboat capacity, although exceeding British Board of Trade regulations at the time, was enough for less than half the passengers, yet most of the boats, when the crew could persuade people to abandon the comforts of the ship without causing panic, were lowered into the icy waters of the Atlantic and rowed away far short of full. By 2.05am the last lifeboat had gone with more than 1500 people, from all classes, still on board, and the ship, already badly listing, began to see her stern with its giant propellers lift clear of the water. At 2.20am on the morning of the 15th April, the colossus sank with roaring and wrenching beneath the surface.
Titanic propeller shaft fitted at Harland and Wolff shipyard, Belfast, 1911 (image 10418202)
RMS Titanic (image 10419309)
Letter dated 11th April 1912 written on board the Titanic (image 10213876)
Second class promenade deck, White Star Line brochure 1912 (image 10213831)
Titanic’s first contact with the iceberg, The Sphere, 27th April 1912 (image 10223984)
Edward John Smith, captain of RMS Titanic; he perished with the ship (image 10213819)
Announcing the Titanic disaster, illustration by Fortunino Matania in The Sphere, 27th April 1912 (image 10216543)
Watch fob belonging to Fifth Officer, Harold Lowe, who survived (image 10214014)
Lifeboats row away from the sinking ship, illustration by Andre Devambez in L’Illustration, 27th April 1912 (image 10027182)
his year, it will be the 90th birthday of a small, portly, cartoon dog known to the world as Bonzo. Inf initely scrape-prone, of indeterminate breeding and with saucerlike eyes, Bonzo was the creation of artist George Studdy and featured each week in illustrated magazine, The Sketch, part of the Illustrated London News archive held here at Mary Evans.
All images Estate of George Studdy/Gresham Marketing Ltd/ILN/Mary Evans
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Bonzo's genesis was a gradual process. Studdy (1878 - 1948) had been a successful commercial illustrator since the early 1900s, contributing to numerous Fleet Street publications including Comic Cuts and The Big Budget Boys Weekly. From there, his work was published in several high quality papers such as The Tatler, The Bystander, The Graphic and The Illustrated London News. From 1912 and throughout World War I (in which he was unable to serve due to a pitchfork injury suffered in his youth) he contributed humorous drawings on a weekly basis to The Sketch, an association that was to elevate Studdy's career far beyond the modestly successful. While the Great War had inevitably dominated Studdy's (and other artists') work, peacetime required a lighter touch and so he suggested a series of cartoons featuring, 'The Studdy Dog'. Studdy's art training had included a term spent at Frank Calderon's School of Animal Painting, where he had learned about animal anatomy, so it seemed natural that the character Studdy should develop was canine. By the 1920s, The Studdy Dog had
not only developed into a recognisable cartoon character but had grown hugely in popularity. Sketch readers bombarded the off ice with letters clamouring for him to be given a name and so, on 8th November 1922, Bonzo was off icially christened. A footnote to the latest cartoon, 'Taking the Count', showing Bonzo rather the worse for wear after a scrap with a wasp, announced, "A large number of readers have shown themselves curious as to the name of the famous Studdy dog. To satisfy them we announce that his name is 'Bonzo'." From this moment on, Bonzo's fame grew at a rapid rate. Studdy found himself pestered by the press who persistently
‘Taking the Count’ appeared in The Sketch, 8th November 1922, and The Studdy Dog was finally christened Bonzo (image 10217242)
Ninety years on, it is difficult to fully appreciate the global superstar status which Bonzo achieved. asked how he thought up Bonzo, and what particular breed he was. One dog breeder, a Major J. E. Power attempted to breed a Bonzo terrier with, it has to be said, limited success. The Studdy family did in fact own dogs, though none of them resembled Bonzo. Studdy favoured a succession of Cocker Spaniels, all named Ben while his French wife, Blanche, preferred Pekingese dogs, each called Chee-Kee. Unsurprisingly, a Pekingese often appeared in the doggy cast of Bonzo's adventures as his girlfriend!
Left and top: illustrations from The Bonzo Chase game (images 10252783 and 10252782)
Ninety years on, it is diff icult to fully appreciate the global superstar status which Bonzo achieved. No commercial stone was left unturned when it came to licensing his image. Alongside the expected books and annuals featuring Bonzo, portfolios issued by The Sketch and a seemingly inf inite number of picture postcards, Bonzo appeared in a multitude of guises. He graced calendars, jigsaws, paper plates, chocolate moulds, inkwells, Royal Doulton f igures, scent bottles, character soap, ashtrays, egg cups, bottle stoppers, letter openers, tape measures, badges, money boxes, trivets, car mascots, sweet tins, clocks and even a bridge scoring card and Trump indicator. In 1924, Harrods lined the shelves of its toy department with velveteen Bonzos, one of them even posed for a publicity photograph with actress Louise Brooks. In the same year, the f irst animated f ilm featuring Bonzo, 'A Sausage Snatching Sensation' was screened at the premiere of 'Zeebrugge' at Marble Arch Pavilion, a f ilm event attended by King George V and Advertisement for Omne Tempus Queen Mary. rubberless raincoats featuring Bonzo also Bonzo holding a guarantee, appeared in several The Sketch, 25th April 1923 (image 10499660) pantomimes and revues from 1923 onwards, and among the many products endorsed by him in advertisements were Eclipse razors, Woollvena quilts, Omne Tempus rubberless raincoats and Pan Yan pickles. In 1924, he took up a prime position on the famous, neon-lit advertising hoarding of Piccadilly Circus, advertising Pinnace cigarettes. From a gigantic likeness to a tiny one, Studdy even submitted a miniature painting of Bonzo as part of the decoration of Queen Mary's Dolls' House, displayed at the British Empire Exhibition of 1924. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Bonzo's popularity did not falter, and Studdy felt conf ident enough in 1927 to send him 'on holiday' while he pursued other projects. The artist's return to The Sketch in early 1929 was not with Bonzo, but with a mischievous cat called Ooloo, certainly as cute as Bonzo, but never quite as wellloved.
‘I’m dropping in soon’ from The Sketch, 1920s (image 10223229)
Bonzo brought his creator considerable fame and wealth, but Studdy remained a down-to-earth and essentially shy man whose generosity with money meant that, when he eventually died in 1948, he had very little left in terms of personal wealth. But the legacy of Bonzo has endured with memorabilia still collected today by fans around the world. He may be 90 but we defy you not to fall in love with this endearing and evergreen pup. Happy Birthday Bonzo!
Below: ‘Just a happy little letter to you!’ Bonzo and Chee-Kee snoring in bed, postcard, c.1940 (image 10512414) Below left: ‘I’m behind with that letter. Hope this’ll make amends.’ Ooloo patches Bonzo’s trousers, postcard, 1928 (image 10514237)
Luci Gosling 2012
Louise Brooks wtih toy dogs Dismal Desmond and Bonzo (image 10086349)
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Face to Face
Issue 6 Truck On competition answers a. Baker's double rack; b. Wallpaper; c. Sliding cover dust; d. Sewing machine; e. Railway refreshment; f. Useful box; g. Chemist's; h. Champagne trolley. Congratulations to our winner, Matthew Jones of Conway Publishing.
All images National Magazine Company/Mary Evans
n Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee year, it seems appropriate to bring a magazine Clockwise from top Mia Farrow to your attention with a particularly regal title. The Queen, named for the left: (image 10542833); reigning monarch when it was launched in 1861, was the brainchild of Samuel Ursula Andress 10543317); Beeton, husband of the more-famous Mrs (Isabella) Beeton who wrote features on (image Veruschka (image fashion and needlework for the publication. Financial woes sadly led to its sale 10542866); H.M. after only six months, but the fact that the magazine went on into the 20th century Elizabeth II (image 10542836); Twiggy (before merging with Harpers to become Harpers & Queen) is testament to the (image 10542831); winning formula achieved by its founders. Its aim was to supply society news, Jean Shrimpton fashion and cultural goings-on, alongside emerging concerns such as the (image 10542903) employment of women and social issues. A century later and The Queen was bought by Jocelyn Stevens, who dropped the 'the' from the title, and with the help of editor Beatrix Miller and art editor Willy Landel, transformed it from a polite and well-meaning society magazine into a hip, happening title, oozing style and modernity. A beacon of the swinging sixties, Queen was THE magazine to be seen in or to be seen reading, with cutting edge fashion and photography, bold page layouts and iconic cover shots. The notorious pirate radio station Radio Caroline was even launched by Stevens with the f irst on-air broadcast from a ship called Caroline, administered from the Queen off ices.
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This coterie of cover girls, some of the most famous faces of the sixties (apart from Her Majesty who is, of course, a famous face in any decade) inspired this issue's competition and this time, your brain cells will be barely taxed. From one face to another, all you have to do is visit the Mary Evans Picture Library page on Facebook at www.maryevans.com/facebook and 'like' us before 23rd March 2012 to be automatically entered into a draw to win £100 worth of Amazon vouchers. Let’s face it, it couldn't be easier. Good luck!
Readers may be interested to learn that the Cartoon Museum in Bloomsbury is staging a retrospective of the work of H. M. Bateman, the satirical cartoonist who shot to fame in The Tatler with his 'The Man Who' series. Mary Evans Picture Library represents Bateman's body of work from The Tatler, which pokes fun at polite society through a hilarious cast of imperious matrons, blustering colonels and other 'types'. Search for his images online using the keyword Bateman. H.M. Bateman—The Man Who Went Mad on Paper runs from 11th April to 22nd July 2012.
The Man Who ...
We would be happy to receive your comments about ME & You. Please email us at me&you@maryevans.com.