Friends of Reading Museums newsletter March 2015

Photo Gallery by Christopher Widdows
Friends of Reading Museums
The ‘Allen Seaby’ lecture and the Friends ‘Christmas Party’
Spring 2015
Friends of Reading Museums
c/o Reading Museum and Town Hall
Blagrave Street, Reading RG1 1QH
T 0118 939 9800
www.readingmuseum.org.uk/get-involved/friends
In this issue :
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Events Diary
Chair’s Jottings
Making Connections
Photo Gallery
Adopt An Object
Our Patrons:
The Right Worshipful the Mayor of Reading
The Most Honourable the Marquess of Reading
The Right Honourable the Lord Palmer
Registered charity no: 284398
Chair’s Jotting
Events Diary
by Ann Middleton
We hold a Coffee Morning
on the first Tuesday of each
month at the Museum from
10.30 to 11.30 am. An
opportunity for Friends to
meet each other and
members of the Museum’s
Curatorial team.
Adopt an object and become a Super-friend
helping Reading Museum to care for its unique collection by adopting one of
its objects for a year – for yourself, or as an unusual gift
Tuesday, 7th April @ 10.30am
The Mayor, Councillor Tony Jones, was our Guest
of Honour at the Christmas Party and he
announced that he would like to hold a very
special fundraising Coffee Morning in the Mayor’s
Parlour in the new Civic Offices. If you would like
to book a ticket (£20 per person) please contact
FoRM Committee Member – Muriel Parsons T:
0118 942 0056 E: murielparsons@hotmail.com
Wednesday, 6th May at 6 pm:
Annual General Meeting at the Museum.
What you get
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Membership of the Friends for one year and free admission to our Christmas Party
A Certificate. Certificates will be handed to adopters at the Christmas Party, although you can opt to receive
an electronic copy instead.
Your name will appear on the object’s label from December to December the following year (unless you have
opted to remain anonymous).
You can adopt an object for somebody else – give us their name and details on the application form and
tell us what message you would like on the Certificate.
How it works
There are 50 objects available to adopt, chosen from across the Museum’s collection. The Adoption Objects
List and application form is on the Museum website at www.readingmuseum.org.uk/get-involved/friends. Or if
you would like further information please contact Linda Fothergill on 0118 976 0581.
The 2015 BAFM Regional Conference is to be hosted by FoRM on Wednesday, 17th June in the Town Hall Victoria Room. This
one-day annual event is intended to facilitate information-sharing and discussion about current interests in the museum sector,
in particular, as they relate to Friends and Volunteers. The conference theme, 'Working in Partnership and Collaborations' will
reflect recent developments and initiatives. Further information to follow.
Monday, 18th May and Tuesday, 15th
September
Visit to Greys Court (see article overleaf).
Wednesday, 17th June time TBC: British
Association of the Friends of Museums—
Southern Regional Conference. The theme :
‘Working in Partnership and Collaborations’
Sunday, 21st June @ 2-5 pm: Summer Party in
the grounds of Caversham Court Gardens.
Further information about these events will be
circulated nearer the dates.
contact Linda on 0118 976 0581
or email linda.fothergill@reading.gov.uk
The Friends had another good year with a number of successful events. The
Coffee Mornings have been such a success that we have outgrown Palmer’s
Café and the staff at the Town Hall have very kindly allowed us to use the old
3Bs. It was lovely to see Friends at the Christmas Party and at
Martin Andrews’ lecture on the life and work of Allen Seaby.
We
have
been
working hard on a
programme for 2015
and we look forward
to seeing Friends at
the events.
The
Mayor has invited us
to
the
Mayor’s
Friends Christmas Party
Parlour for our April
coffee morning and
for April only this will be a fundraising event to raise funds for a donation
towards the loan of specific paintings by Gilbert Spencer from national
collections for the Retrospective of the work of Gilbert Spencer exhibition
which will open at the Museum in 2016. Plans for the Summer Party are
progressing in partnership with the
Friends of Caversham Court and the
Friends of Reading Abbey and we are
hoping for good weather.
We have been working with the British
Association of Friends of Museums who
are holding their regional conference at
Reading Museum in June. This is
exciting news for us and for the Museum
and we hope many of our own Friends
Martin Andrews on the life and work of Allen Seaby
will be able to come along. We are also
involved as stakeholders in the consultation about the Abbey Gateway
Heritage Lottery Fund application.
We would like to extend our best wishes to Mary Bayliss, who has retired as
Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire and as our Patron. We thank her for her
support and wish her a happy retirement.
MAKING CONNECTIONS
‘Large Vessel’ by Alan Caiger-Smith
Friends’ Spring-Time
Visit to Greys Court
by Audrey Price
When I was asked to write about my
favourite object from all the collections in
our museum, I was very pleasantly
surprised to learn that few people if any
had chosen ceramics as their subject,
despite one whole gallery featuring
beautiful pots from Aldermaston.
The pottery at Aldermaston was started in 1955 by
Alan Caiger-Smith and Geoffrey Eastop. Alan was born in
Buenos Aires in 1930. He had often visited the Reading
Museum as a child and had been inspired by some of the
Roman pottery and the tin glazed earthenware that he saw
there. On leaving school he attended the Camberwell School
of Art and Crafts, from where he went to King's College
Cambridge to read History, then to The Central School of Art,
where he learned about ceramics.
I often visited the pottery, in a delightful old
building in the High Street, which then had a
staff of 6 or 7. Upstairs was a display of
their wares, a great place to buy beautifully
decorated mugs for everyday use or
splendid bowls or jugs for special
occasions, or as wedding and birthday
presents. However special commissions
were the most exciting part of their work;
in 1991 Pearl Assurance built a new
headquarters at Lynch Wood, near
Peterborough, which the architects
decided they needed something special
to furnish the West Atrium, a large space
for relaxation and informal meetings.
They approached Alan, and
photographs of some of the
Aldermaston lustre ware were sent for
approval. The architects then said they
loved the pots, but wanted several dozen, 5 or 6 feet high
– they clearly did not realise just what a challenge that would
be. Eventually it was agreed to make 26 pots, of different
sizes, but the largest 4 feet tall.
The pottery normally used a wood-fired kiln, capacity
180 cu. ft. The wood burned was cricket bat willow from
trees which had grown beside the Kennet. However, for this
project, the door had to be enlarged and a bulk tank for
propane installed so that the pots could be fired very slowly.
The first `biscuit' firing took 50 hours. A new low level electric
wheel had to be bought, and a shed with a paved floor and
heating prepared to receive the pots for drying. The actual
throwing of all the pots was done by three younger potters,
who had not , unlike Alan, suffered from recurrent hernias.
Clay is very heavy!
Julian Bellmont actually threw the largest pots and it is one of
these which you can admire in the Museum. The base was
from 40lbs of clay with walls ¾'' thick, thrown as a wide lowsided bowl; additional sections were thrown from 30 lb balls
of clay, joined rim to rim. The finished pot was wrapped in a
large sheet, and lifted by three men on to a grid, then dried
for two months. Even the dried pots weighed about 200 lbs.
After all that, three of the first four pots cracked in the first
firing; they added more sand, 20%, to the clay to strengthen
it, luckily the next firing three months later was successful.
The pots then had to be sprayed with tin glaze. The spray gun
they had bought for this process did not work because of the
back pressure of the air when they tried to coat the inside, so
the glaze had to be poured into the pot, which was rolled
backward and forward and the excess tipped out, before a
second firing, at 106ᴼ C. The third stage
was to apply the lustre pigment, and
this was done by Caiger-Smith himself.
The lustre is created with a mix of
ochre or china clay with compounds of
silver or copper, applied to the large
pots with brushes and a spray, a sponge
being used to wipe away excess
pigment. The next problem was to get
the pots into the kiln without touching
the pigment, which could very easily
have been wiped off. They solved this by
applying car lacquer over the decorated
pot, this held the pigment in place and
burned off in the kiln, which was heated
to 66ᴼ C for this third and final firing, by
the reduction method, which means that
burning wood is used for the heating, to
use up the oxygen in the kiln and produce
a reducing atmosphere.
Pearl Assurance were delighted when the final pots were
installed. The light from the glass vault of the atrium
apparently brings out the iridescence of the lustre. We are
very lucky to be able to admire one of these large pots here
in Reading, along with other gorgeous plates and bowls of a
more usual size, using different colours characteristic of the
Aldermaston pottery, now very sadly closed. Next time you
visit the museum, do look at this big vessel, and think about
the fantastic effort and expertise that went into the making
of my favourite object, which was donated to the Museum
by the Reading Foundation for Art.
Queen; inevitably, these court connections lead us also to
ponder possible connections between ‘our Reading
Elizabeth I portrait’ and the
Greys Court Knollys’ family
network.
by Audrey Gregory, FoRM Committee Member
Join us on : Monday, 18th May, and due to
considerable interest, a second date is arranged
for Tuesday, 15th September
For many of us, the 2013/14 Reading
Museum ‘Making Faces’ exhibition, and
subsequent installation of Elizabeth I’s
iconic portrait in the ‘People and Place’
Gallery, rekindled a fascination with our
local Tudor history. In this respect,
Greys Court, an historic property located
on the fringe of Reading, in the
Oxfordshire Chilterns, is of particular
interest.
The Friends plan a day visit to
Greys Court to re-visit such
historical connections and reimagine life in the Tudor house
and garden. Whether familiar
with the property, or visiting for
the first time, there will be
opportunities to learn more
about the Knollys connection,
including a rare occasion, granted
by the Trustees, to enter the side
chapel in St Nicholas Church,
Rotherfield Greys, to view the
impressive Knollys monument
tomb. Here, Lady Katherine and
Sir Francis are depicted together
with effigies of their fourteen
children, one of whom,
Lettice Knollys (1540-1634), was
to marry in secret the notorious
Robert Dudley, only to be later
banished from court by their
furious Queen.
Sometime home to Sir Francis Knollys (1511/12- 1596) and
Katherine Carey (1530 -1569), the property and associated
lands were gifted by Henry VIII to the couple, who married
Join the Friends on a visit to
when Katherine, daughter of Mary Boleyn, was sixteen years
Greys Court for a day sure to be
of age. As a much-loved cousin of the Queen and Chief Lady
filled with fascination and
of the Royal Bedchamber, Katherine held an important
interest; and at a time when the
position at court until her death; and Francis, as Privy
Spring garden should be at its
Councillor, Member of Parliament and devout Protestant,
best, with the Wisteria Walk,
was very much at the centre of political life. He was
bluebells, and other bulb flowers
entrusted with guarding Mary Queen of Scots at Bolton
making a good show.
Castle, in Yorkshire; and two years later, in 1572, made
Treasurer of the Royal COST
Household, an office
£7 per person for the FoRM visit, paid at the time of booking.
retained until the end On entry to Greys Court grounds & property : Non-members: of the National Trust:
of his life. It was in this £9.45, group rate, at Reception. Members of the National Trust; no cost, on production
of membership card at Reception
role that Sir Francis
Knollys officially
TRAVEL
entertained Elizabeth I There is ample car parking at Greys Court. Car sharing will be offered to those who prefer
at Abbey House, ’Royal or need to use this option. Please note, at the time of booking, if you would like to travel
with others, and a car space will be reserved for you.
Palace’, at the
dissolved Reading
READING OF INTEREST
Abbey.
Weir, Alison (2012) Mary Boleyn ‘The Great and Infamous Whore’, Vintage Books:
Just as the writer
Alison Weir speculates
over the parentage of
Katherine Carey,
arguing that she may,
in fact, have been the
illegitimate child of
Henry VIII, and thus
half-sister to the Tudor
London. Varlow, Sally (2006) Sir Francis Knollys’s Latin Dictionary: new evidence for
Katherine Carey. Institute of Historical Research: Wiley Online Library, available as a pdf.
BOOKING
To book a place, please telephone or email Muriel Parsons, at the same time telling her
whether you are able to offer a car space or would like to book one.
Email: murielparsons@hotmail.com or telephone : 0118 9420056 m : 07790 036627
Itinerary to be circulated nearer the time.
Join us on 18th May or, due to considerable interest, a second visit arranged
for Tuesday, 15th September
Portrait
of Frances
Knollys (1511/12-1596) c.
English School 1586, copyright
National Trust @ Greys Court.
This panel portrait hangs on
the back stairs of the house,
together with that of his son,
Sir Frances Knollys the
Younger, who became MP for
Oxford and Reading, and in his
early years, served as a RearAdmiral with Sir Francis Drake.
Portrait
of a lady of
distinguished lineage,
relatively rare in its depiction
of a woman in advanced
pregnancy; and now
considered to be Katherine
Carey, Lady Knollys (15301569) c. Steven van Der
Meulen, 1562. This portrait
belongs to the Paul Mellon
Collection, Yale Center for
British Art. Copyright: Paul
Mellon Collection/The
Bridgeman Art Library.