Books And Learning

Besides the objects in the collection there is also a wonderful collection of children’s books.  Some of these were on display at Heaton Hall, certainly during the mid 1930’s.  Batho writes to Mary in July that year saying

…Darlington showed me some very nice wall cases that had been made to hold the large-sized children’s books.  He turns the pages over daily so that the children from the summer camp in the park have an opportunity of reading something new everyday.

The educational remit of the collection was a strong driving factor in it’s initial assembling.  I have amassed further evidence of this which I am currently trying to unravel and will post more at a later date.  Sharon

Box tray of miniature books

Bertie's Indestructible Horn Books

Inside Bertie's Horn Book

Pages from the children's book collection

Alphabet Fan Book

Mary The Maker

As well as being a passionate collector, Mary was also passionate about making things (including drawings as her nature diaries reveal).  This she saw as a way of making a noble contribution to education and learning.  There are numerous references throughout the letters of her making activity and a number of objects made by her hand are evidenced in the collection.  Many of these came to light through information contained in the letters (further proof of how valuable these letters have been to our understanding of Mary and her bygones).  On November 6th, 1934 in her letter to William Batho she mentions a firescreen

….with embroidery which I worked on one side and a sampler on the other…

After reading of this in the letters we searched for the firescreen in the collection.  And there it is, sitting on a shelf wrapped in bubble wrap. Peeking beneath the plastic, we could just make out her embroidered initials making claim to her handiwork!  For a moment it was as if Mary was there in the room with us!  The real value of the hand crafted object is that it stands just one degree separation from it’s maker.

Further proof of her making activity is shown in a letter dated April 27th, 1925 she writes

….then there are three shops!  Which I am responsible for and which with help from 2 or 3 have been very much my work during the dark, dull days

She would readily involve others in the making of things too!

Mrs Greg…is getting on with the furniture of the dolls house and the bed in particular.  She wanted to know if you could get four tops made for the posts of the bed like the one I am sending.

She was particularly keen that her collection would inspire others to make things.  In a letter dated May 3rd, 1934 she writes

I should like to think that some of those who enjoy the models would make things which in the future would be equally interesting, while at the same time would give them happy enjoyment and work!  This applies to the women too!

How delighted she would be at the emerging and growing number of artist responses to her collection today.  These contemporary responses provide not only new interpretation and meaning for this historic collection but at the same time contribute a new collection of objects for future generations to interpret and respond to.  Sharon

Snippets From Mary’s letters (No.2)

Object from 1937 "Litbadge"

Reading through a few more of the letters from 1936 and 1937, and there is a strong emphasis on both Mary and Mr Batho’s health (Mr Batho sadly died in 1937). Mary was in her eighties.

November 23rd 1936 to Mr Batho, giving him advice on his sick wife…

How I wish all invalids could throw off all doctors and try the simplest way of eating!! You will perhaps have heard of the wonderful new discovery by an American doctor Hay by name – he says we eat wrong mixtures and though we may still eat the same food to a certain extent – we must not mix them – The results are wonderful he explains all in a small book called BUILDING BETTER BODIES price 5/- ……………..you would be surprised and pleased if you saw the difference it has made here where I and Miss James are trying it we are both years younger!

It can’t have done her any harm…she lived until 1949.

Another letter to Mr Batho from Mary Greg written on June 14th 1937, also shows her approach to doctors (again talking about Mr Batho’s wifes illness)

But I hope that the new doctor may find out how to help her – medicines so often do harm -unless the wonderful wise ones given by the homeopath…………………………..they have saved my life many times and kept me jogging along all these 87 years.

Hazel

Mary The Second

I was wondering why there has been some confusion over Mary’s birth date.  I know in my own research I have come across reference to her birth date being in both 1849 and in 1850.  This has puzzled me, so I revisited and cross referenced the various versions we have of her family tree.  I noticed on one that there are two Mary’s marked, one born in 1849 and another born in 1850.  There were two Mary Hope Greg’s!  The first Mary Hope Greg died before the age of one, our Mary Hope Greg being born the following year. I have added my working document of Mary’s family tree so you can see my notes so far on her genealogy (I’ll draw up a better version and repost when I can).

Hope Family Tree (draft)

How tragic for her parents. Even though infant mortality rates were much higher then and the loss of a child more commonplace, it must still have been a terrible event for the family (you’ll see from the family tree that there are other infant deaths in both the preceding and following generations). How curious that they should give their next daughter the same name.  Was this a common occurrence in those days?  And, I wonder if our Mary knew about her namesake.  How did it feel for her to be named after a deceased sibling? Was this naming in remembrance and commemoration or mourning and loss?  Any genealogists out there with any knowledge of these matters?  Sharon

Mary’s Eye

From reading Mary’s letters to the Art Gallery in the archive I knew she lost the sight in one eye in her later years.  I thought this may have been down to old age but when researching the Guild of St George link in the Sheffield Archive I came across another reference to this.  In a letter to the Guild dated 22nd November 1939, she writes

I have had a bad accident to one of my eyes from the handle of a lift door…..it had to be taken out to save the other….  I have to be thankful that I still have one good eye.

She was in her 90th year.  Her optimistic tone under such difficult circumstances is a reflection of both her physical and mental resilience and determination (nothing was ever going to beat her!) and I think helps further build the picture of her indomitable character.  At the time of writing she is living near Holcombe, Bath, I think with her niece and clerical husband (there is reference to this in a subsequent letter dated 20th June, 1945).

Mary carried on writing and latterly, dictating correspondence right to the end of her life.  Too frail to write herself, the last letter in the Art Gallery archive which bears her name (written on her behalf by Elizabeth Tranter) is dated June 26th 1949, a mere three months before her death on September 15th in the same year.  Sharon

Mary’s Hospital Ark

Mary's Hospital Ark

“I’ve made a few collages using Noah’s Ark as a theme in the past and delighted to see the wooden toy ark and animals in the Mary Greg collection. This gave me the idea of the hospital ark and the bandaged animals being taken by Mary in her own ark to a place of safety and refuge. Some of the animals in her collection had become rather battered and distressed over the years  – some missing hoofs, legs and even heads. Possible scenarios for the future could be shops that sold spare animal parts for those that were unfortunate enough to have bits missing.  Tail Rack, Hoofs R US,  Mary’s Head Swap Shop etc.”

By Michael Leigh.

A Snippet from Mary Greg’s letters.

Lead Fishing Weight from the A1 Scrap Metal Collection

June 16th 1927

from Mary Greg to Mr Batho

I am writing in the garden and the wind blows my paper now and then so I hope you will be able to read my writing which is worse than usual

I can feel a set of letter weights for writing outdoor correspondance being produced very soon…..another object  for the chatelaine.

Hazel

Samuel Crompton’s Threads

Found in the letters from Mary Greg to Mr Batho

This project has taken me down lots of  fantastic  new avenues of exploration, but when it comes down to it I still find myself  inspired by the small, banal  looking objects in the collection, which on the surface look unimportant and yet hold so much history. The Samuel Crompton threads being the most excting for me, especially as it was Sharon and I who discovered them nestled in the pile of letters sent from Mary Greg to Mr Batho. How can such a small piece of thread have such a strong presence? It makes you feel as if you are touching the beginings of the industrial revoloution (or am I being too romantic!).My favourite exhibit at the War Museum North is the small piece of wire from a zeppelin which was sold attached to a crude pin and sold to raise money for the war effort..owning a small piece of something so immense is owning a small piece of history. My love of string isn’t a secret..I think it all dates back to being a Brownie and having to have a piece of string in your pocket for emergencies (I never did have a suitable emergency to use it)..I still collect party popper string from significant events too.

I read in a book about Russian cosmonauts that they tied their cutlery to the hull of the space ship with string to stop it floating around..now that is one piece of string I would like to own.  There are many items in the Mary Greg Bygones Collection that have a real sense of history of everday life too, used spoons ,small keys, matches and padlocks, and much more to discover according to the records. So I sum up….that is what I love about being allowed to spend time exploring this collection, the hidden gems, keys that on the surface look like clock keys but turn out to be from the Weeks Museum and might have wound a diamond encrusted elephant for an emperor of China. (now my imagination is running riot.).

It can be seen on the BBC History of the World in 100 Objects

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/5mtwLXKHSi-vx6-rENLiFA

Hazel

New Kiln

Not quite what I hoped for.

…I chose the hottest day this year to switch on my new kiln for the first time, and the workshop became VERY hot. I wanted to show you all my first awful attempt at enamelling as it can only get better..I really hope it doesn’t get worse.  I hope to add dashes of colour to my work. Although I am unsure how I can do this, you can not enamel work once it is soldered..or solder work once it has been enamelled…so I need to find ways to get around that…but first I need to learn how to get the coating even…and work out how hot the kiln needs to be..and how long it should be in there..this is harder than cake making.

Hazel

The elusive Greg family

I am at the gallery today trying to hunt down some relations of the Greg family. They seem to have gone all quiet after 1938, when the mill and Norcliffe House were given to the National Trust. However I have made some enquiries with Norcliffe Chapel in Styal, a unitarian chapel that the Greg’s founded in 1823  so hopefully they should get back to me.

I think the strongest link is Alexander Carlton Greg who died in 1990, hopefully he had some children. Another possibility is Henry Gair Greg who was in charge of the Reddish Mill near Stockport that the Greg family also controlled. He died in 1978. Whilst looking for him I came across another mill in the area which had been owned by William Henry Houldsworth. Perhaps the same one that wrote the letter containing Samuel Crompton’s threads?

William Henry Houldsworth

So I shall be getting in touch with the National Trust at Styal Mill and Wilmslow’s Record Office and hopefully we can track down some descendents. It’s nice to be back in the Mary Greg -sphere!

Melanie