Missing the Titanic

There have been a number of events taking place this week to mark the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic. A few days ago we posted a piece about the response from people in Brighton.  News of the tragedy was met with public expressions of shock and grief, but a more muted personal reaction can be seen in this letter found in Preston Manor last year by our Museums Learning Officer, Paula Wrightson.

The letter was written by John Lane, a publisher, and sent to Charles Thomas-Stanford, one of the last owners of the manor. Thomas-Stanford had recently published a novel, The Ace of Hearts, and the letter was a covering note for a review of the book published by the New York Times. Understandably, Lane could not resist the temptation to mention his lucky escape.

Letter from John Lane to Charles Thomas-Stanford, 22 April 1912

Dear Mr Stanford,

I am sending you the last number of the New York Times which I have just received, in which you will find a review of your book and also an advertisement of it, see back.

I was pressed by Mr. Harry Widener to go on the Titanic two weeks ago. Fortunately I elected to sail later and I go on the Lusitania on Saturday next. I shall be away about five weeks, but if anything turns up with regard to your book, I have instructed my people in my absence.

With kind regards,

Yours truly,

John Lane

At Work With… Ellie Newland

If there’s one word that definitely applies to my job then it’s ‘varied’.  One glance through my daily ‘Things to Do’ lists of the last couple of months reveals a whole host of miscellaneous items:  ‘Book Bollywood dancer’, ‘Build giant maze‘, ‘Dinosaur meeting’ ‘and ‘Edit Haunted House script’ being amongst them.

My main responsibility is putting together the events programme for children and families across all our sites: Preston Manor, the Booth Museum of Natural History, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, Hove Museum & Art Gallery and the Royal Pavilion. The programme can include informative talks about the collections, hands on arts and crafts workshops and bespoke theatre performances in our more unusual spaces, alongside countless other activities. As the events are tied into our rich exhibitions programme as far as is possible, it means that I am constantly learning about new things, which I love.

Child-friendly projects

I am also called in to help the exhibitions team ensure that major shows are as child-friendly as possible – whether that’s by writing a gallery trail or devising interactive gallery activities that can be enjoyed by all the family (most recently giant fuzzy felt and magnetic poetry in the Ragamala exhibition). It’s great to walk into the galleries and see them packed out with little ones getting creative!

No two days are the same; one day I might find myself running a children’s animation project, the next I might be sat at my desk ploughing through financial paperwork, or researching Edwardian ghost stories for a storytelling event at the Manor.

Christmas is a particularly busy time of year in the role, and I can’t seem to sit down at my desk for five minutes at the moment without the phone ringing! The reason? Dickensian Christmas at the Royal Pavilion. Now in its fourth year, this sell out event seems to go from strength to strength. This year it was named by The Guardian newspaper as one of the seven best places in the United Kingdom for families to enjoy a Christmas day out.

Father Christmas at the Royal Pavilion

The six day run, starting on 17 December, will see over 1000 children and their families visit the palace to meet Father Christmas himself and receive a present from one of his elves. After this meeting each family are taken on a specially devised Dickensian tour of the building, led by a cast of larger than life Dickensian Christmas characters (including ‘Mr Bah Humbug’ himself – Scrooge!).

Despite the pressure involved in pulling off an event of this scale (risk assessments, staff rotas and day schedules not being amongst my favourite aspects of the job!), it is a great deal of fun to put together something that really shows off the building at its festive best. I am also lucky enough to work with a talented and dedicated team on the project, without whom I would be utterly lost! Particular thanks need to go to the role play team, the Information & Security team and, last but by no means least, the volunteers who painstakingly wrap our hundreds of presents!

Squeezing all this into a three day week can be a tough call, but bringing the buildings to life for the younger generation and seeing the creativity our collections can inspire is a just reward for the hard work (most of the time, anyway!).

…Ellie Newland, Children & Families Learning Officer

At Work With…

…Kevin Bentman, Visitor Services Officer

I have been working for the council for over 10 years now at three local buildings, Preston Manor, the Booth Museum of Natural History and Hove Museum & Art Galleries.

The Visitor Services Officers are a dedicated and very hard working team; we have great local history knowledge of all three buildings.

There is such a diversity of local museums including Preston Manor in Preston drove. It’s a beautiful Victorian home once lived in by Sir Charles and Lady Ellen Thomas-Stanford, shared with their family and dogs. Here we have an upstairs downstairs feel to the family home all left as it once originally was.

Preston Manor

We hold role-play for children all dressed up in Victorian costumes in which they rein act tasks and chores from cleaning, making fire lighters and beating rugs to cooking preparation. All taught by our very own role-play team, acting as Maurice Elphick the Butler and Miss Rose the head housemaid, both equally as friendly and scary at times! The Children learn so much and get a real feel for what it was like back in the day, they have so much fun they don’t ever want to leave us.

We then also hold ghost tours and late night vigils with mediums, behind the scenes tours throughout the year and croquet on the lawns in the summer. All of this is surrounded by stunning gardens swept with scented flowers and colourful plants.

Next to us is our neighbouring church which is opened daily by volunteers. The Church dates back to the 13th century and was modified in 1870.

Preston Manor was lived in by many families over the years – The Elringtons, Shirleys and the last tenants being the Stanford family until 1932. The house was handed to the people of Brighton through the Brighton Corporation and reopened as a museum in 1933. Much later in the 1980s the basement with kitchen and boot hall was launched. This was due to it being fashionable to see how people worked below stairs.

I also work in the Booth Museum of Natural History along Dyke Road, filled to the rafters with birds, insects, bones and fossils.

Owned by Edward Thomas Booth in 1874 to house his rare collection, it was believed he wanted to collect one of every British bird which he very nearly succeeded. On display are plenty of rare and now extinct varieties.

The Booth Museum of Natural History

Glass cases surround this historical museum, including some newly modernised discovery and insect galleries, a hands on area alongside a room for people to work away at, we always welcome groups, students and school groups. Photography is allowed and artists can sketch away.

Curators are often on hand to answer questions and items can be left and later identified, we also hold children and family ticketed events through the year, the most popular is the reptiles were you can touch both spiders and sssssnakes!

And lastly the 3rd building I work in is Hove Museum and Art Gallery set along New Church Road. It is a grand building steeped in character, hosting an array of local arts and crafts, toys and film.

In the Wizards attic upstairs children and adults can gaze at the toys from the 1920s to the present day, a cinema screen projecting three films from local film makers including a lantern show and looking at Brighton from 1920s to 1980s, Brighton was a very different place back then!

Hove Museum & Art Gallery

An exhibition gallery downstairs hosts changes every so often always attracting visitors from all over. At present we have Robot Invasion, choc full of retro sci-fi robots and its collectable memorabilia. And for those of you that need a refreshment we have the Tea Room which I can say is Truly Scrumptious.

The hard working team of staff here are like one big family working to give visitors that Brighton & Hove Museums Experience.

Our daily work as a Visitors Service Officer is like that of a security role. We also man the gift shops, are at hand for any information, carry out day to day cleaning, promote tickets and events among many other things.

I love my job as it’s always different and you deal with a wide variety of peoples needs…oh and of course we have fun doing it. We hope you come and visit us soon!