Victorians on Display – Page 2 – Journal of Victorian Culture Online

Spotting Wildlife in Arts and Crafts Textiles: The Red Squirrels of Morris & Co.

June 3, 2021 Stefanie John Exhibitions, Other, Victorians Beyond the Academy, Victorians on Display

Red squirrels had reason to be wary of the Victorians. Nineteenth-century culture popularised the animals – they were even kept as pets – but the Victorians also unwittingly caused the decline of the red squirrel population by introducing the rival species, the grey squirrel, to Britain.[1] Today, sciurus vulgaris stands at the centre of an emotionally charged debate about the conservation of native habitats. The red squirrel’s persistent appeal most likely has to do with its endearing looks. But in

The Lost Circuses of Victorian Leeds

May 20, 2021 Steve Ward Other, Victorians Beyond the Academy, Victorians on Display

The Victorian era was the golden age of the circus. By the time that Victoria came to the throne, the circus, as we might recognise it today, was barely seventy years old. Founded in London by Philip Astley in 1768 with displays of horsemanship, military, and trick riding, the circus had expanded rapidly in the following years. Astley travelled throughout England giving performances in many northern towns and cities until he eventually made his way to Dublin. Performances were either

Crafting Communities: Rethinking Academic Engagement in Pandemic Times and Beyond

April 29, 2021 Andrea Korda, Mary Elizabeth Leighton, Vanessa Warne Other, Roundtables, Victorians Beyond the Academy, Victorians on Display

This is the first post in the ‘Crafting Communities’ series on JVC Online. See Part Two and Part Three. It is July 2020, the summer of Covid. Libraries are closed. Museums are closed. University courses and conferences have moved online. A small group of Victorianists gathers on Zoom to learn how to make hair art. Led by Vanessa Warne (U of Manitoba), the event is a test run for the upcoming semester, when Vanessa plans to make hair art with

Kitty Lord’s Padded ‘Symmetricals’

April 1, 2021 Veronica Isaac Other, Victorians Beyond the Academy, Victorians on Display

This final post (see Parts One and Two) was inspired by a pair of pale pink knitted tights worn by the music hall singer Kitty Lord (1881-1972) in the early 1900s. Part of a collection of Lord’s costumes held at the Museum of London, these ‘symmetricals’ were carefully padded with wool to ensure that her thighs and calves looked suitably shapely and voluptuous [Figure 1]. As these padded symmetricals reveal, and this post will discuss, in late nineteenth century Burlesque

Hysteria and Victorian Women in Art

March 4, 2021 Joel L. Schiff Victorians Beyond the Academy, Victorians on Display

In ancient Greece there existed the medical concept of a woman’s “wandering womb”; that is, the womb could move about the body, obstruct breathing and press on other organs to cause various symptoms of illness. It was “an animal within an animal”, according to the celebrated ancient Greek physician Aretaeus of Cappadocia. In the late nineteenth century, the notable French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot began his study of unusual physiological symptoms presenting in women, such as nervous anxiety, faintness, irritability, uncontrolled

Nelly Erichsen at the Royal Academy, 1880-1886: One woman’s fight to be accepted as a professional artist

February 19, 2021 Sarah Harkness Victorians on Display

To the President and the Council, we the undersigned students of the Royal Academy do hereby respectfully and earnestly petition that rearranging the schools of this institution you will reconsider the question of granting us a life class for the study of the partially draped figure. We beg to lay it before your notice that almost all of us rely on the profession we have chosen as our future means of livelihood. Therefore a class which is considered so essential

Black Performers in the Nineteenth-Century Circus

February 5, 2021 Steve Ward Other, Victorians Beyond the Academy, Victorians on Display

The circus has always been, and still is, inclusive by nature. The ‘modern’ circus, founded by Philip Astley over 250 years ago, was underpinned by a wealth of talented black performers. Some became famous in their own right, and were very much in the public eye; their names became household words. Some had just a single named reference in an advertisement, and others were just mentioned by their ethnicity. What has to be remembered, applauded, and celebrated is that in

The Tricycle and the Camera: New Technologies for Self-Determination

January 28, 2021 Sara Dominici Other, Victorians Beyond the Academy, Victorians on Display

Starting in the late 1870s, the leisure opportunities of a growing body of affluent middle-class photographers were expanded by the development and mass production of new photography and transport technologies: the dry-plate camera and three- or four-wheeled self-propelled machines (tricycles or quadricycles). While the former had removed the need to attend to the glass-plate immediately before and after exposure, as was the case with the wet collodion process, the latter enabled a new experience of mobility as an alternative to

Wish You Were Here: Victorian women pioneers of travel photography

December 11, 2020 Rose Teanby Other, Victorians on Display

In September 1835, Constance Talbot wrote to her husband asking if he would be taking his small experimental “mousetrap” cameras on a visit to Wales. She remarked, “It would be charming for you to bring home some views.”[1] Four years later, William Henry Fox Talbot announced his invention of Photogenic Drawing at the Royal Society, London, and started the extraordinary creative phenomenon we know now as positive / negative photography. We all take photography for granted: it’s an indispensable, ubiquitous

Credit to any Country: E. H. Bostock and Scotland’s first Zoo & Variety Circus

November 26, 2020 Steve Ward Other, Victorians Beyond the Academy, Victorians on Display

If one thinks of Scotland and zoos, the Edinburgh Zoo automatically springs to mind. This zoological park opened in 1913 and is world-famous for its captive breeding programme and conservation work. However, it was certainly not the first zoo in Scotland. This credit must go to the Scottish Zoo and Variety Circus, established in Glasgow in 1897 by Edward Henry Bostock. Born in 1858 in Buckinghamshire, Bostock came from a family of menagerie owners. Collections of wild and exotic animals