V&A Museum of Childhood

[bixaorellana]

Before we plunge into the permanent exhibits, I'd like to highlight the displays on either side of the entry hall.

On the left is the excellently evocative "Searching for Ghosts". The centerpiece is a large model house inhabited by dolls and ghosts representing the people who have lived there over the years. The little figures were made by local children. On the museum walls around three sides of the house are photographs of current residents of Bethnal Green housing. They are fascinating and most affecting. On display until January 21, 2018 -- www.vam.ac.uk/moc/exhibitions/ghosts/.

On the right side of the hall is "Seen But Not Heard", a show of Rachel Molina’s photographs, with accompanying text by the subjects, of children on the verge of entering secondary school. It is beautifully subtle and quite moving. Pairing these two exhibitions was a brilliant choice. On display until November 19, 2017 -- www.vam.ac.uk/moc/exhibitions/seen-not-heard/

The museum is just steps away from the Bethnal Green Underground. You pass through a park to get there ~



It was too glary when I entered and I forgot when I left, so with chagrin I present this photo from Wikipedia --



If you've read reviews of this museum, you may know that it could benefit from some sprucing up and rethinking of lighting and displays.
Some things are in deep gloom, some items require a 20p coin to activate, but apparently have been awaiting repair for some time.
Still, children are made very welcome and love to run in the vast echoing spaces. Let's start looking ~

[bixaorellana]

Moving on now to the other side ~

[bixaorellana]

Before proceeding with this thread, a warning is in order. The V&A Museum of Childhood has a fine and extensive collection of doll houses. Your intrepid reporter Bixa has a deep and abiding love of miniatures. Thus, some of what is to come will induce either rapt attention and joyous scrutiny or eye rolling and speed scrolling, depending on the viewer. If you are in the latter group, stick with me anyway as there are other items of interest to be seen as we go along.

Mrs. Neaves Dollhouse, English, 1840s ~









Queen Mary's doll house
Made in 1887 and acquired unfurnished decades later by the grandmother of the current Queen.
She furnished the house with pieces from Westacre Village Industry, a company in Norfolk. Many of the artisans employed there were children.
Queen Mary donated the house to the Bethnal Green Museum (now the V&A Museum of Childhood) in 1921.

To see the large original of this picture, click here.

[bixaorellana]

Devonshire Villa, English, 1900

[bixaorellana]

The Nuremberg House



















To examine this picture in its larger size, go here.

[bixaorellana]

The Drew House

[bixaorellana]

Educational tools ~





Role playing and creativity ~



I think these were before my time, but they were still around when I was a child ~

[patricklondon]

I've never been inside there, thanks very much. I wonder if the gift of Queen Mary's dolls house inspired the creation of the 1920s one at Windsor?

You might not have noticed the Stairway to Heaven memorial at the tube station, a reminder of Bethnal Green's other (sad) claim to fame.


My blog | My photos | My video clips
"too literate to be spam"

[bixaorellana]

Thank you, Patrick, as you prompted me to look further into Queen Mary's fondness for miniatures and dolls houses. You are correct that the museum's house came before the Windsor castle one. Queen Mary was a collector of all sorts of things, but it was her fondness for furnishing doll houses -- even making things for them herself -- that sparked the idea of creating the famous dolls house now at Windsor.

She visited the Bethnal Green museum numerous times and presented the dolls house shown in reply #2 to the museum in 1921. She also gave the museum other miniature items and miniature furnished rooms. The dolls house was subsequently reproduced and sold by the Tri-ang toy company.
The famous house in Windsor Castle was commissioned in 1921, completed and exhibited at the Empire Exhibition of 1924, and moved to Windsor in 1925.

This is from the museum's website history:
In 1922 the slow process of becoming the Museum of Childhood unwittingly began. Arthur Sabin became head curator and was instructed to reorganise the museum. Noticing that the museum was frequently filled with bored, noisy children he sought to make it more child-friendly. As part of this endeavour, he set up a classroom and employed teachers. He also began to source child-related objects, a project in which Queen Mary (the wife of King George V) joined him, donating many toys of her own.

And no, I did not see, nor was I aware of the memorial until you mentioned it. I would have liked to have seen it!

[bixaorellana]

They didn't seem to be too concerned about choking hazards back then.

[mich64]

Count me as one with joyous scrutiny! My husband would be pushing and pulling me along.

As a child I wanted a doll house and would have cared for each and every tiny piece with tender care. I sort of made one of my own out of a storage bench adding tiny things I came across from toys. I also remember making a room in my school desk (the type where the top lifted up and you stored your books inside) I had a few finger puppets I kept in there that I would play with at recess. I think I was in grade 2.

The coffee table doll house is something that could be an idea for current furniture designers.

[mich64]

I was surprised to see the photograph of the crib with the The Dionne Quints, they were born a few miles down the road from where I live. There is a Museum here in the City (the house they were born in) and this past year there was quite a battle over what to do with it.

[bixaorellana]

Thank you so much, Mich! As a 1950s child, I had the pressed tin kind of doll house, but really yearned for the older, more realistic kind that I could make things for. I love that you turned a storage bench into a doll house and that you kept your puppet friends with you at school.

I remember reading about the Dionne house and finding out, because of the news stories about the battle over the house, what a sad life those girls had.

I really enjoyed visiting this museum, but would love to see it completely revamped. Too many fascinating things are simply stuck in the glass display cases, too far away from the viewer and often hard to see either because of glare or because of insufficient light. The doll houses, for instance, would be wonderful if their fronts were covered with plexiglas or if they could be brought right up to the front of the cabinet. And smaller things such as toy soldiers are an exercise in frustration -- fascinating, but impossible to really study. Once toward the back of the building, it's positively gloomy and that's where some of the really exceptional antique things are.

It is wonderful that children are made so welcome, but from what I saw, the kids were less interested in the collection behind glass, possibly because it's somewhat overwhelming for them. It would be great if the interactive areas for kids could be combined with displays appropriate to a child's attention span and field of reference. Along with that would be areas given over to really showcasing the historical and sociological aspects of the collection in a way that adults and older children could appreciate.

[bixaorellana]

Are items such as the litter bearers and the seated Japanese dolls actually toys, or art for display?











This is an ugly pair!

[bixaorellana]

[bixaorellana]

Time to go, passing about a thousand toys I haven't looked at yet ~



I leave you with a few snaps taken as I waited for the train to arrive ~

                                         

                                                    

                                                               

[mossie]

All I remember of Befnal Green is The Brick Lane Odeon, where we used to go to the pictures. Now it seems to be Bangladesh. I hadn't realised it had that very different museum.

[kerouac2]

Just got around to this excellent report. None of the place looked run down to me, but I think a museum like this needs to be a bit dark and shabby, just like our childhood memories.

The doll house section reminded me very much of my visit to the miniatures museum in Lyon last year.

[bixaorellana]

Mossie, in your Memory Lane Stepney thread, you say that you came to stay in London in July of 1948. I don't know if that was the time period in which you were going to the movies near the site of the museum, but For the duration of the Second World War and until 1950, the museum operated as a British Canteen, for feeding the general public.

Kerouac, the gloom in part of the museum does rather effectively mimic the way memory seems to exist in scraps and shreds. As you wander, you see things that you might remember from your own childhood, but that were actually from an earlier era, along with items stuck in your consciousness from your own time and later.

[patricklondon]

All museums have a conflict between protecting old stuff for future scholars from the ravages of time, people and light, and the need to make it engaging and interesting for the here and now. I believe the V&A feels it particularly.


My blog | My photos | My video clips
"too literate to be spam"

[mossie]

Bixa, Brick Lane is all I remember of Bethnal Green, but the standardised British Canteen could be found in most towns. I am not sure how it worked with the rationing system, but prices were fixed and, my recollection is that there was a very limited menu. It is a pity modern day socialists like Maduro, don't keep their people fed in such a way.

[bixaorellana]

Aug 13, 2017 3:41:11 GMT patricklondon said:

All museums have a conflict between protecting old stuff for future scholars from the ravages of time, people and light, and the need to make it engaging and interesting for the here and now. I believe the V&A feels it particularly.

Do you mean it feels it particularly because of the volume of its collection?

Aug 13, 2017 16:11:14 GMT mossie said:

Bixa, Brick Lane is all I remember of Bethnal Green, but the standardised British Canteen could be found in most towns. I am not sure how it worked with the rationing system, but prices were fixed and, my recollection is that there was a very limited menu. It is a pity modern day socialists like Maduro, don't keep their people fed in such a way.

Most interesting historical note, Mossie. People have told me that rationing lasted for several years after the end of the war. Were the canteens implemented because of loss of farmers, farmland, and people's homes?

[patricklondon]

Bixa,I was thinking more of the V&A's national and international status for expertise in its various subjects. There have been internal tensions between the experts and the "show people" for ages.

And if you'll forgive me for butting in on your other question:

www.1900s.org.uk/1940s-british-restaurants.htm

My blog | My photos | My video clips
"too literate to be spam"

[bixaorellana]

Aug 21, 2017 5:26:01 GMT patricklondon said:

Bixa,I was thinking more of the V&A's national and international status for expertise in its various subjects. There have been internal tensions between the experts and the "show people" for ages.

And if you'll forgive me for butting in on your other question:

www.1900s.org.uk/1940s-british-restaurants.htm

My blog | My photos | My video clips
"too literate to be spam"

Ahhh -- now I see! I didn't know that. Really, never having thought about it, I guess I was supposing that the show people were given the things to display by the experts, who also gave guidance about logical juxtaposition, etc.

And far from "butting in", your information enhances the scope of this thread, especially since it begins with an examination of the area sociologically within the framework of being somewhat economically deprived. Thanks!