Tag Archives: Yorkshire

Art Deco – Building Style of the 1920s and ’30s

Posted on by
Reply

Rachael Unsworth in profile

For my first virtual lecture of 2025 I joined Leeds City Walking Tours, though obviously on this occasion I walked very little.

The presentation was by author and geographer Dr Rachael Unsworth, and it focused on the Art Deco architectural style of the interbellum period.

Art Deco was dubbed some some as the most glamorous style of the 20th century. It stood in stark contrast to the misery and gloom of the First World War. It had its antecendents in both the Beaux Arts and Bauhaus movements – the latter, Unsworth notes, has proven extremely influential on other artistic and architectural movements ever since despite not being very long-lived in its own right.

The Art Deco movement is traditionally traced back to the 1925 Paris Exposition, though the actual term “Art Deco” is a retronym not properly established until the 1960s. It overlapped with Modernism and was notable for sticking to some of the established rules of the preceding Classical period (especially regarding the overall shape of a building) while radically changing its ideas about materials and ornamentation. The decorative flourishes of this fashion focused on bold geometric shapes and the Greek Key symbol (of which Unsworth pointed out a few examples). It also saw the widespread adoption of Portland Stone, steel frames, reinforced concrete, “Crittal windows”, chrome fittings, vitrolite and fluorescent lights.

Dr Unsworth listed some of the “architectural lynchpins” of Art Deco – Charles Reilly, Robert Atkinson, Thomas S. Tait, Howard Morley Robinson – then some rapid-fire examples of the Art Deco buildings themselves. As you would expect from the name of her organisation, these were mostly focused on Leeds.

Particular attention was given to the university, where she brought up the anecdote of the Parkinson Building which was faced with Portland Stone at the front but ordinary brick at the lesser-seen back, because the latter was 4% cheaper. There were also some examples closer to (my) home, such as the Dorothy Perkins building in central Hull.

Unsworth closed out by noting the paradox of Art Deco – it was used as a component of national identity in some countries but stood for internationalism in others. It also stood for peace and democracy at the same time as standing for the power of dictatorships. The League of Nations headquarters in Geneva had the same aesthetics as the Reich Chancellery in Berlin.

She had hinted at the start of the lecture that this topic had particular salience at the moment. I had no idea what she meant.

FURTHER READING

Art Deco style is popular again, a century after its heyday – Associated Press

Heritage Day at Sunk Island

Posted on by
Reply

Every summer the diminutive parish of Sunk Island puts on a heritage event, displaying billboards about the social and environmental history of the place, as well as selling a few mementos. I was invited to attend today’s to help with carrying some of the materials in and out.

The event is hosted at Holy Trinity Church, which ceased to operate as a place of worship in 1983 but remains open as a community centre (especially since the demolition of the village hall nearby). The history of the church itself (including the contest between rival Christian denominations for recruitment of parishioners) was a major theme of the display. The other big theme was the dredging up of the mud banks, followed by the cutting of new drains and the building of the sluice gates.

Some of the displays looked like they had been made many years ago and brought out unedited each time. There is a familiar style common to these kinds of displays by churches, village halls and primary schools in small settlements in rural Britain around the turn of the millennium. In particular I noticed a poster about the Crown Estate, which still referred to it paying for the civil list (as opposed to the sovereign grant).

What particularly piqued my interest was a patchwork quilt entitled “Treasures of Holderness”, each patch made by a member of a local sewing group. That by Sue Daniels showed the shield of arms of Holderness Borough Council. The full achievement was also shown on a wooden plaque affixed to the wall of the entrance hall. The borough itself, along with its governing council,was dissolved in 1996 and merged into the East Riding of Yorkshire unitary authority. Holderness no longer has a heraldic personhood distinct from the rest of the county but the old arms carry on informally by force of cultural inertia. None of the individual parishes seem to have arms individually granted.

EXTERNAL LINKS

The Heraldry of Haiti

Posted on by
Reply

Malcolm Lobley’s lecture tonight for the Yorkshire Heraldry Society concerned the country which has long been a source of cult fascination among armory enthusiasts.

He began with a short history of how the country came to be – which was, by his own admission, a way of padding the event’s length.

Henry Christophe founded the Kingdom of Haiti in 1811. In addition to proclaiming himself as monarch, he established a native nobility on the European model consisting of four princes, eight dukes, twenty-two counts, thirty-seven barons and forty chevaliers. He assumed arms of dominion for his realm, and also created a heraldic authority to assign arms to his appointees.

Lobley noted that as in Britain there was a convention on helmet usage according to rank – nobles used a barred helmet, the most senior affrontee and the rest facing dexter. Some of the titles of the peers, based on contemporary local place names, sounded comical to English speakers, such as the Duc de la Marmelade and the Duc de Limonade. Lobley was especially drawn to the Duc de l’Anse, which he translated to “jug handle”. Hyenas were a common choice as supporters. The contents of the shield tended to a medieval degree of simplicity though incorporating more modern imagery, such as Baron de Beliard with his rake and watering can.

The lecture was also used as an opportunity to advertise the Armorial Général du Royaume d’Hayti, which the College of Arms has been trying to flog for more than a decade.

Off to the Libraries

Posted on by
1

Although the COVID pandemic is not exactly over, lockdown seems unlikely to recur and so it is now practical to visit again those places which had been inaccessible for much of the last two years, including public libraries.

As I have mentioned before, the ceremonial county of East Riding of Yorkshire is divided into two unitary authorities – one for Kingston-upon-Hull and one for everything else. This includes public library systems. I have therefore gone about acquiring a card for each. Applications online were a reasonably simple process of filling in a form on the councils’ websites, though actually visiting a library in person to collect the physical card was rather as neither institution’s opening hours were exactly convenient. Oddly, both sets of online login details suddenly stopped working once I’d taken possession of the cards and I had then to go back to ask for help.

Now that they are working I can search both libraries’ online catalogue before going to pick anything up. There is a delight in finding here the tomes (particularly on heraldry) that had long eluded me on Google Books or the Internet Archive, or even the library at the university. The downside is that these are not all kept at the same location (East Riding’s in particular are scattered across a large area.) and that the reference section of Hull Central Library has been closed for more than a year.

In case one cannot attend the physical libraries at all, both online accounts include the BorrowBox service allowing patrons to take out virtual resources, though the inventory on there is quite small.

EXTERNAL LINKS

Link

Today’s virtual lecture was by the York Festival of Ideas, starring Eleanor Parker.

I asked her at what point in English history the Saxons and Normans were no longer considered different races/nations. She replied that the Normans quickly came to call themselves English, but that twelfth century sources still indicate a cultural and linguistic split, with non-Francophones held back in life.

EXTERNAL LINKS

The Decoy Docks

Posted on by
Reply

Given that so much of my YouTube intake is about history, civic architecture, and trains, it is perhaps surprising that I did not come across the Hull History Nerd sooner. Though the channel claims to date back to 2012 the videos list that I can see begins in 2019, and a large proportion of it focuses on forgotten Yorkshire railways.

This video, however, lays closer to home. The presenter is standing on the banks of the Humber about 1500m from my house. His topic is the construction upon the riverside mud of facsimiles of Hull’s docks to distract German bombers.

I don’t have much to add beyond what is said in the video itself, though it would have been nice if he had walked a little further down the bank to inspect some of the other World War Two relics nearby.

FURTHER READING

Discerning Dukes

Posted on by
Reply

This afternoon I missed a turnoff on the way to my second COVID vaccination. While navigating back to where I should have been I discovered Church Street where there was a pub called the Duke of York. This struck me because the pub’s sign showed an illustration of the duke’s coat of arms which I instantly recognised as Sodacan’s illustration from Wikimedia Commons. Unfortunately I wasn’t in a position to stop and take a photograph and what I can find in the pub’s own galleries or on Google Street View isn’t very clear, so I cannot work out which particular duke is being honoured here.

The Prince Andrew, Duke of York since 1986, uses the royal arms of the United Kingdom differenced by a label of three points Argent, the centre bearing an anchor Azure. This same cadency label was also used by his grandfather George VI from 1920 to 1936, and by his father George V from 1892 to 1901. It plainly cannot be George V represented here since his arms as Duke of York included the inescutcheon of Saxony. The main identifier, therefore, is the harp of Ireland – versions made during the present reign use a plain harp, while those issued in earlier reigns show a woman’s head and chest carved into the side. I think that this pub sign shows the modern version but the image resolution is too low to be sure.

Arms and the Woman

Posted on by
Reply

The heraldic achievements of the Baronesses Hornsby-Smith (left) and Miller of Hendon (right)

This evening I returned to the Yorkshire Heraldry Society for a virtual lecture by Duncan Sutherland, detailing the arms which were sought and borne by Britain’s female parliamentarians since 1958. This is far from the first time that he has made this presentation – in 2019 he performed it in person at the Palace of Westminster. Today, however, was my first time to witness it, thanks to the virtual format.

The majority of these cases were baronesses for life, but there were some others, including the posthumous grant of arms that was made to the late Jo Cox for display in the chamber of the Commons.

In other news, yesterday Ruth Davidson finally took her seat in the Lords, with the title Baroness Davidson of Lundin Links, of Lundin Links in the County of Fife. Also yesterday I made a disappointing excursion to Hull Central Library: some months ago I found in their online catalogue a copy of Debrett’s Peerage 2015 – a much more recent edition than the ones in the university’s library – but of course as the libraries were still under semi-lockdown conditions I could not actually go there to access it. Once the restrictions were lifted I went there hoping to scoop up hundreds of new(er) blazons only to discover that, while the ground floor of the library was open again, the reference section on the first floor was closed for a refurbishment and the staff had no idea when it would open again. Blast!

UPDATE (September 2021)

The Heraldry Society has updated the publication section of its website. Sutherland’s presentation can be read as a PDF.

The Gunpowder Plotters – Gentlemen all

Posted on by
1

Earlier this evening I attended yet another virtual lecture, this time by Martin Goldstraw for the Yorkshire Heraldry Society. As the title implies, the lecture concerned the attempt by a group of Catholic conspirators on 5th November 1605 to thirty-six barrels of gunpowder beneath the Palace of Westminster while James I was performing the state opening of Parliament, then provoke a revolution which would install his daughter Elizabeth (later Queen consort of Bohemia) as a pro-papist successor to the throne.

Goldstraw spoke at length about each conspirator in turn, giving not just the blazon of each man’s armorial bearings but also background details of the lineages through which he acquired them. He had digitally illustrated a great many of their shields himself and for this was lauded by many in attendance, but confessed that there were many other artists of ability far beyond his. I tried to plug my own uploads for Wikimedia Commons though I’m not sure if anyone noticed.

After the presentation had finished there was the usual question & answer session. This included some joking about whether Bridlington (where Goldstraw’s sister lived) was part of Yorkshire or “North Humberside”, which prompted Malcolm Lobley (Honorary Treasurer) to talk about the East Yorkshire signs being put up by residents sick of the Humberside name. That the transition took place twenty-five years ago appeared to have slipped his mind.

The College of Arms usually publishes quarterly newsletters in January, April, July and October. Last year it was just January and October. When they didn’t publish an April edition this year either I asked if if this represented a permanent change, but the York Herald (Peter O’Donoghue) reassured me that the college intended to revert to normal after the COVID setbacks of passed. Now, perhaphs for the first time ever, a May edition has been released. Usually my primary interest when reading these is to find an exemplification and blazon for at least one person who has a Wikipedia page. The star in this latest edition is Sir Ciarán Devane, chief executive of the British Council since 2015. Also mentioned, though frustratingly not elaborated, were grants of arms to the Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston and Lord Justice Leveson.

The head of the college is the Garter Principal King of Arms, an office held since 1st April 2010 by Thomas Woodcock, who must retire upon his seventieth birthday tomorrow. His successor has not yet been named. The two assistant kings of arms have also retired recently, as noted in the newsletter.

EXTERNAL LINKS