Global Derbyshire in 10 Objects Being Human Derby: New Worlds

Derbyshire Record have a rather curious collection of little objects that relate to the life of Lady Jane Franklin, who the second wife of a famous Polar explorer but was an important woman in her own right. In this episode we talk to Ruth Larsen (University of Derby) about Lady Jane's Museum and women as collectors and curators of family history.

You can see a wonderful online exhibition of Lady Jane's Museum on Derbyshire Record Office's Google Arts and Culture pages.

Lady Franklin's Lament' (trad) instrumental and vocals by Ewan D. Rodgers and Clare Mosley.

Did you know that the people of Derby paid for some of the scientific instruments that accompanied Captain Scott on his doomed voyage to the South Pole? In today’s programme, we are looking at a remarkable scrapbook which not only charts the progress of the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910, but also tells us about the role that Derby played in funding it. As well newspaper cuttings, this scrapbook has objects in it including a piece of rope from Captain Scott’s ship itself. It also tells us about the remarkable woman, Ethel Crowther, who compiled it and who was the assistant librarian at Derby Public Library, where the scrapbook eventually became part of the collection, and how she was curating her own town and family history at the same time as tracing the progress and tragic demise of Captain Scott.

You can this scrapbook digitised at Derby Libraries 'Derby's History' webpages here. This episode was recorded at Derby Local Studies and Family History Library.

Over the last three years, thousands of people have worked with Derby Museums to co-produce ‘Objects of Love, Hope and Fear: A World Collection’. People on the streets of Derby, co-production volunteers and new friends across the globe have cleaned, photographed, researched, interpreted and displayed this important collection of objects.

However, a gallery like this can never be considered finished and interpreting these objects makes us have honest, open and sometimes uncomfortable conversations about how these objects came to be in the museum’s collection, how they have been labelled and how they represent Derby today.

In this last episode, a conversation in the World Cultures Gallery at Derby Museums, jewellery designer Anisha Parmar talks to Rachel Atherton (Derby Museums) about she has been inspired by some objects and how her own journey has led her to add her own intricate object to the gallery.

Over the last three years, thousands of people have worked with Derby Museums to co-produce ‘Objects of Love, Hope and Fear: A World Collection’. People on the streets of Derby, co-production volunteers and new friends across the globe have cleaned, photographed, researched, interpreted and displayed this important collection of objects.

However, a gallery like this can never be considered finished and interpreting these objects makes us have honest, open and sometimes uncomfortable conversations about how these objects came to be in the museum’s collection, how they have been labelled and how they represent Derby today.

In this the first of two conversation between curators and artists, Alison Solomon discusses her relationship with two particular objects: an intricate wooden toy theatre depicting a Shakespearean scene and an ordinary throwaway tin.

Recorded at Derby Museum and Art Gallery with Alison Solomon and Laura Phillips.

Addendum

Please could the listener note two areas of clarification in relation to the recording of this podcast.

The first at 5 minutes, 38 seconds. The listener should hear: “Some of these Balts and Ukrainians were highly nationalistic, and some were even former collaborators in the Nazi genocidal assault on the Jews.”

The second at 15 minutes, 25 seconds. Rather than Anglo-Jewish servicemen, the listener should hear: “the presence at the congregation of American Jewish servicemen from army units based at Egginton, Weston-on-Trent and Sudbury.”

In this episode we talk to Dr Larissa Allwork from the University of Derby, through the medium of video conferencing, about the history of the Derby Hebrew Congregation and their attempts to provide relief and refuge for European Jews who faced the threat of extermination from the Nazis during the Second World War.

This conversation is based on a collection of letters held at the Derbyshire Record Office. 

In this episode, we piece together the half-forgotten history of Derby’s participation in the British Empire exhibition at Wembley in 1924, and how and why Derby presented itself as an ancient but progressive town that the world should be doing business with.

From the collection of the Derby Local Studies and Family History Library and featuring Dr Cath Feely (Senior Lecturer in History, University of Derby).