Samuel Crompton

Having just looked at Samuel Cromptons history, I wonder if this letter is real. He lived in King Street, Bolton and died in 1827.
Mary has a number of items in her bygones collection that have wonderful stories, they give worthless objects excitement and meaning.
This idea has always been a main part of my work, I like to take the banal and try and show its importance.
Fluff, gravel, string and rusty nails are some of the items I have created “stories” and inventions for
Once an item has a story it is like touching history.
There is the first shovel of earth they dug when the Manchester ship canal was dug in one museum I visited.
Relics abound in religion…there are meant to be so many splinters of the cross.

Putting Mary on the Web

Had a meeting at Manchester Art Gallery yesterday to discuss the Mary Greg Project.
Sharon Blakey and I have been viewing Mary’s bygone collection since 2006, and have been looking through the wonderful archive and reading her correspondence with the Gallery.
The photo is of one of the many finds, and is my personal favorite.
We discovered it whilst reading the stack of letters between her and Mr Bathos at MAG.
They are the first threads from Samuel Cromptons Mule.
They look like bits of cotton, but these small threads are the start of a great change and have real power as objects.

Hazel