Caught in the Snap: when photographers get framed

If you’ve played around with Murder in the Manor, you will know that it features eight rooms from Preston Manor. Other than the stories that bring them to life, the rooms are empty. But look around the Morning Room, and you may catch a glimpse of a mysterious figure reflected in a mirror.

Still from the Murder in the Manor website

Although Preston Manor has a reputation as a haunted house, and there has been at least one ‘ghost’ accidentally caught on camera, there is nothing supernatural about this image. The figure is Richard Sams of Say Digital, who conducted the panoramic photography that is used on the website. As the mirror was an unavoidable feature of the room, he has captured his own reflection while shooting. Moreover, if you explore the room further you can find a second image of Richard — look behind you when you enter the room.

Of course, Richard is not the first photographer to be caught by a mirror. In early 1915, Brighton photographer AH Fry suffered a similar problem while recording the Royal Pavilion’s use as an Indian Military Hospital during World War One.

Red Drawing Room of the Royal Pavilion Indian Military Hospital, 1915. (BH411228)

Fry wasn’t directly captured on this occasion, but if you look closely at the mirror on the far wall you can see two military figures  who were presumably accompanying the photographer.

Detail of BH411228

What’s striking about these small accidents is how they reveal the context in which a photograph was taken. Photographs often present themselves as objective windows on the world, but for any photograph to be made a whole series of personal decisions and actions needs to be taken. Understanding how a photograph came to be taken can often shift our appreciation of what it tells us.

Fry’s photograph of the Red Drawing Room is a good example of this. Taken as a whole it shows the benevolent care given by the British Empire to its wounded Indian troops: the luxurious decoration of the room, the neat sheets, and the white doctor on hand for his patients. But the reflection in the mirror reminds us that the photographer is accompanied by two military minders, and that this image is produced for strategic ends: principally to maintain Indian loyalty to the British cause.

But the best example we hold of a photographer caught by his own camera is this spirit photograph from 1886. Purporting to show a shrouded ghostly hand that has mysteriously appeared on a portrait of an elderly woman, close examination reveals the arm and neckline of the living person faking the scene. A copy of this photograph is presently on display in a small exhibition on spirit photography at Preston Manor, and I wrote a short piece about it back in 2010.

Spirit photograph, 1886 (HA900406)

As far as I’m aware, the Morning Room is the only area of Murder in the Manor in which Richard can be glimpsed. But if you spot the photographer or any anomalies elsewhere on the site, do let us know in the comments below.

Kevin Bacon, Digital Development Officer

Women’s Fashion in the 1920s

Women’s fashion changed so significantly in the 1920s because of the social and political changes that occured in this exuberant decade.

Social Life and the Arts

After the horrors of the First World War, when thousands of young men died fighting in the trenches, there was a general relaxation of social rules. What followed was a decade of parties, typified by the new dance crazes, such as the Charleston, and a growing interest in jazz music. The arts flourished with Modernism and, after the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris in 1925, the Art Deco movement. Literature included novels such as The Great Gatsby by the American F. Scott Fitzgerald, works from the Bloomsbury group, including Virginia Woolf, plays by Noel Coward, or poetry by T. S. Eliot, including The Waste Land (1922). In Hollywood the film industry continued its steady growth, with influential starlets such as Louise Brooks, and in 1927 the introduction of the ‘Talkies’.

Political and Economic Upheaval

However, the decade also saw much political, economic and social upheaval. Women’s emancipation continued on from the Suffrage Movement of the previous decade. In 1919 women over the age of 30 were granted the right to vote. However, it was not until 1928 that women were granted equal voting rights as men allowing them to vote at 21. There was growing industrialisation, and major investments were made on the stock exchanges. Meanwhile, poorer sections of British society were hit economically and discontent was expressed by the General Strike of 1926. Finally, the bubble of the Jazz Age of the 1920s finally burst on 24 October 1929 when the New York Stock Exchange crashed. The Wall Street Crash led into a period of financial hard times known as the Great Depression.

Clippers, with original box, used to style hair in the 1920s, CT002069

Fashion

In the immediate post-war period the lost youth of Europe were replaced by androgynous looking women who emulated and aspired to the slim, straight figure of an immature boy. This aesthetic replaced the maternal, feminine, hour-glass figure of the Edwardian age and earlier Gibson Girl. Constricting corsets were gradually replaced by lighter foundation garments, such as brassieres, first invented in 1914, and girdles. Flesh coloured silk stockings came into fashion, manufactured with back seams, although cotton lisle stockings were popular for more everyday use and sports.

Many women cropped their hair into a short bob, trimmed at the back with shingling-clippers. The look was dubbed garçonne, meaning ‘boyish’ in French. Often the bob was styled using the ‘Marcel Wave’; a method of waving the hair along natural lines using a pair of tongs, first invented by Marcel Grateau in 1872. The new smart, short hairstyles suited a new style of hat introduced in 1923 known as a cloche. These hats had deep, close-fitting crowns and no brim.

The look for the ‘bright young things’ was thoroughly modern, with clean lines and a feel of ease and comfort in the clothing they wore. Eligible ladies were presented at court Drawing Rooms, subsequently appearing in fashionable London society and were photographed wearing the latest designs from London and Parisian designers for the pages of Vogue and other, increasingly more numerous, varieties of women’s magazines. However, it was still possible to see older or less affluent women dressed in Edwardian clothing.

Dark red silk chiffon evening dress designed by Norman Hartnell,
1929, CT004010

Designers, Dressmakers and Department Stores

Gabrielle Chanel, known as ‘Coco’ to her friends, opened her couture house in 1919 and was one of the leading designers of the 1920s. She was famous for her easy-to-wear knitted garments, including sweaters and twin-set ensembles. Her clothing combined luxury with simplicity and was often teamed with stunning pieces of cosmetic jewellery. On 5 May 1921 she launched her first perfume, Chanel No.5. Other influential designers working during the 1920s included Poiret, Jeanne Lanvin, Vionnet, Schiaparelli, Edward Molyneux and Norman Hartnell, who opened his couture house in 1923.

As the number of designers who produced couture lines increased, so did the number of department stores who offered ready-to-wear trickle-down copies of the most up-to-date designs for the masses. With women’s emancipation, gradually more and more young women were going out to work, and thereby increasing the amount of money they had to spend on the latest fashions. Meanwhile, there still continued to be a large percentage of clothing made at home or by local dressmakers. In response to this market, a growing number of women’s magazines offered patterns and advice on making women’s and children’s clothing for the home dressmaker.

Trends 

Skirts

The beginning of the decade saw ankle length skirts and dresses, with a slightly dropped waistline. Lanvin, in particular, specialised in producing dresses with slightly flared or tiered skirts, with additional width over the hips. However, as the decade progressed, the line became more tubular with the skirt becoming increasingly cut in a straight line with the bodice. Skirts were at their shortest c.1925-1926, coming to just below the knee. Towards the end of the decade the look became more feminine, hemlines became longer, first unevenly with handkerchief skirts or cut longer at the back than the front. By 1929 ankle length skirts were back in fashion.

Egyptmania

The 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings in southern Egypt led to a period of Egyptmania, with Egyptian inspired motifs and hieroglyphics appearing on a variety of decorative art objects as well as clothing

Cosmetics

Also in this decade the use of cosmetics became increasingly popular. Both Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein had begun experimenting with new facial creams and a new variety of more skin friendly products began to emerge on the market. The fashion was for doll-like faces with pale faces, plucked eye brows, rouged cheeks, and red lips with the paint applied to the central lip and Cupid’s bow to produce a “bee-stung” silhouette.

 

This blog post was originally published on the Royal Pavilion and Museum’s website.

Letter to a wartime bus conductress, November 1941

During World War Two, as large numbers of working men took up military service, women became active in jobs that had traditionally been carried out by men. On 26 November 1941, a married woman from Coldean began work as a conductor for Brighton’s  Southdown bus company.

Letter from Southdown Motor Services Limited, 20 November 1941

 

‘Dear Madam,

With reference to your recent interview with me, I beg to inform you that we have decided to engage you as a bus conductress, on a month’s trial, starting on Wednesday 26th November. As I informed you at the interview, the engagement will be of a purely temporary nature.

You will be learning for ten days, and will received 4s.0d per day during that period, plus 2 3/4d an hour War wage. After that your wages will be at the rate of 1s.0 1/2d an hour, plus 2  3/4d an hour War wage. After four months you will receive 1s. 2 1/4d. an hour, plus 2 3/4d. an hour War wage.

Will you please,  therefore, report to me at Steine Street, on Wednesday, 26th November, at 9.0 a.m. Please bring with you your birth certificate, as this has to be shown to our Accounts Department, and also your insurance and unemployment cards.

P.T.O.’

Southdown offices in nearby Pool Valley, 1950

On starting work with Southdown, the lady was issued with Notes to Assist Conductors and Conductresses. This guide outlined good professional practice for those assisting and taking payment from bus passengers, and provided details of local travel connections. It also provided advice on how to deal with difficult customers, and advocated a taciturn approach to customer service:

 ’Conductors.. meet all kinds of people: some are very unreasonable. You will not be wrong if you are always polite, answer questions to the best of your ability, and say as little as possible.’

 

Southdown’s Notes to Bus Conductors and Conductresses. Front cover. Issued 26 November 1941.