I am currently in the first year of a part-time PhD in History
at Lancaster University. The focal point of my research is a lifeboat monument
just along the promenade from the pier at St Anne’s on the Sea, a Lancashire
resort. The work of Scottish sculptor William Birnie Rhind, it commemorates the
thirteen-man crew of the lifeboat Laura Janet who lost
their lives in an attempted rescue of the crew of the German barque Mexico on the night of 9th December 1886.
Fourteen of the sixteen-man crew of the Southport boat Eliza Fernley were also
lost, and the crew of the Lytham vessel Charles Biggs effected the
rescue. The monument was unveiled by John Talbot Clifton, heir to the Clifton
estate, on 23 May 1888.
 |
| The Mexico Monument on the eve of the unveiling, 22 May 1888 Red Rose Collections, Lancashire County Council |
My study examines the disaster and commemoration,
exploring how the monument came to provide an identity for the newly developing
seaside town whilst contributing to its social and economic development. Along
the way I am looking at the design of the monument and how it fits into wider
patterns of memorialization and sculptural design. I will also consider
attitudes to heroism and valour and how such qualities were epitomized across a
variety of media during the late Victorian period. Primary source material in Lancashire Archives, particularly the 'Frank Kilroy Collection', has been invaluable in my research as have been the minute books and other material in the archives at Lytham St Anne's RNLI. Other primary material has included local newspapers and other material from Lancashire Libraries and Sefton's Local Archives and the Atkinson Museum.
When I began my PhD in September 2019 I could not
have thought that some of the research would become so relevant. During the
Covid crisis the notion of heroism has been much to the fore as the work of key
workers was celebrated. The Black Lives Matter movement has also pushed
monuments and memorials back into the public consciousness as we have started
to re-assess our public monuments and the messages they convey.
'Stone Sermons' is an adaption and
recontextualizing of a line from As You Like It, II, i.
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
I would not change it.
The word 'sermon' has mainly religious connotations
but in the context of the play there is a broader suggestion. The OED,
citing Shakespeare’s phrase, gives a definition as 'Something that affords
instruction or example' and uses the phrase to epitomize this explanation.
Memorials can indeed be considered as 'sermons in
stone', embodying not just commemorations of individuals and events but also
the attitudes, ideas and mores of artists, commissioning bodies and, to a large
extent, the dominant influence groups of the time.
Andrew Walmsley, July 2020
https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/history/about/people/andrew-walmsley
Comments
Post a Comment