Untold lives blog

Continuing our examination of the many and diverse interests of William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), we look at his 20 year involvement in the field of Assyriology, the study of the history, archaeology and culture of Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq).

In the mid-1840s the archaeological excavation of the ancient cities of Nimrud and Ninevah had unearthed tablets and inscriptions from the Kingdom of Assyria (750-612 BC).  Among other scholars, Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (1810-1895) and Edward Hincks (1792-1866) were instrumental in the decipherment of Assyrian cuneiform script. As Talbot had already published books on etymology and philology and could read almost a dozen languages, including Hebrew, his interest in this new field might have been expected. He published his own translations of inscriptions and exchanged ideas and information with other Assyriologists such as Hincks, Julius Oppert (1825-1905), Edwin Norris (1795-1872) and George Smith (1840-1876).

     
Detail of notes made of an inscription in the British Museum, 12 January 1869. MS 88942/1/375 
 

Talbot’s published translation ‘on an Ancient Eclipse’ (1872). As was his usual practice there are detailed notes accompanying the text.  MS 88942/3/1/13

Because of the difficulty in deciphering Assyrian cuneiform there was a lot of scholarly scepticism regarding the accuracy of translations. To counter this Talbot came up with a plan. He translated a recently discovered text relating to the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser I (c. 1115-1077 BC) and then sent it, sealed, to the Royal Asiatic Society. At his suggestion they invited three other translators, Rawlinson, Hincks and Oppert, to submit their own versions. The four separate translations were then examined by a panel of independent experts who found the texts so similar they concluded that Rawlinson and Hincks’s decipherment was valid and allowed for accurate translations.

The Royal Asiatic Society publication containing the four translations. MS 88942/3/1/7 

Up until his death in 1877, Talbot worked assiduously revising his translations, eventually publishing over 70 separate papers of his own. He also gave assistance to others. In 1870 when the publication of George Smith’s book on the Assyrian king Assurbanipal (668-627 BC) ran into financial difficulties, Talbot supported the project with £150 of his own money as well as checking and correcting the proofs for the author.
 

Detail of a note in Talbot’s hand for ‘G Smith’s Assurbanipal’. MS 88942/1/375 

To further promote interest in Assyriology, Talbot co-founded the Society of Biblical Archaeology in 1871 and published a three volume work 'Contributions towards a Glossary of the Assyrian Language’ between 1868 and 1873. So although Talbot saw his work as primarily collaborative he was still acknowledged as one of the four key individuals in early Assyriological studies nearly 20 years after his death.

Detail of the first page of the manuscript for ‘The inscription of Darius at Nakshi Rustam’. Of interest is Talbot’s recording of the history of the inscription, crediting three individuals, among them, Niels Ludvig Westergaard (1815-1878) and Rawlinson, with the transcription, publishing, decipherment and translation of the inscription prior to Talbot’s own version. MS 88942/3/1/24 

Jonathan Pledge
Cataloguer, Historical Papers 

The 1970s was a momentous decade for the British Library: it’s when we were founded by Act of Parliament and both collections and staff transferred in from institutions such as the British Museum. It was also a momentous decade in terms of changing attitudes towards sex in this country, and this can in part be tracked through the comics that found their way into the library’s collections.

1971 saw the longest obscenity trial in English history. Issue no. 28 of the satirical magazine Oz contained a comic that combined an existing erotic story by the American comics creator Robert Crumb with the British children’s character Rupert Bear. The result horrified many people, and prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 was perhaps inevitable. Courtroom discussions show that the case highlighted a generational gap: young people found the story funny and harmless (the story had in fact been suggested by a teenager), whereas most older people were truly appalled. The magazine’s three editors were found guilty and jailed, but were released on appeal. But prosecutors didn’t let it lie: the next year the underground comic Nasty Tales was in the dock for obscenity, but found not guilty. The documentary comic The Trials of Nasty Tales recounts the court case.

The Trials of Nasty Tales (1973). BL shelfmark: Cup.51/127.

Fast forward a few years and a quick survey of British ‘top shelf’ magazines published in 1977 shows that erotic comics had become widespread. Most of the mainstream erotic titles for straight men contained British or American comics. Penthouse was publishing ‘Oh Wicked Wanda!’ by Frederick Mullally and Ron Embleton; Mayfair had ‘Carrie’ by Mario Capaldi; and Club International  was printing one-off stories such as Pete Davidson’s ‘At Home with Richard Nixoff’ or Jamie Mandelkau’s ‘The Lust League of America’. Fiesta had been publishing comics in the mid-1970s (e.g. ‘Miss Muffin’), but by 1977 these had been largely dropped in favour of erotic cartoons. All these comics are essentially more about humour than eroticism, often based around puns or contrived storylines that place the characters into sexually compromised situations.

Gay men’s magazines in 1977 also contained comics. They were generally much more explicit: unlike their straight equivalents, gay comics often showed fantasy sex acts in full graphic detail. Prime examples are Oliver Frey’s beautifully drawn adventures of ‘Rogue’, which appeared in Him International  under his pseudonym Zack.

The widespread availability of these titles went largely without comment from the police, and publishers felt free to deposit them with the British Library. The obscenity trials of Oz and Nasty Tales in 1971-72 had started a debate. The tacit acceptance of erotic comics that we see by 1977 is perhaps evidence of how much attitudes towards sex in British society were changing.

Adrian Edwards
Co-curator, Comics Unmasked

Many of the titles mentioned above are on display in Comics Unmasked.  Join Oliver Frey alongside Melinda Gebbie (Lost Girls) at the British Library on Thursday 3 July from 18.30 – 20.30. Book now

While putting together the Comics Unmasked exhibition, it became clear that the 1880s were something of a high point in British comics history. The popular magazine Fun was just one of several that were regularly carrying single-page comics at this time. It’s ‘British Workman’ stories, written and drawn by James Francis Sullivan (c. 1852-1936), are particularly enjoyable because they show that the Victorians were as interested in discussing class differences as we are. The jokes are often still funny for us today, as in the case of the clock-watching painter who barely gets any work done at all.

Fun, 18 Jan 1888. [BL shelfmark: P.P.5273.c.] 

Less well known to comics historians are the stories that appeared in the Christmas issues of papers such as the Illustrated London News and The Graphic. My co-curator Paul Gravett had heard about these through the grapevine, but hadn’t had the opportunity to examine any of them. It appears that some libraries in the 19th century didn’t retain the Christmas specials, maybe because they contained stories for family reading rather than the usual news and current affairs. Fortunately, we do have them at the British Library.

The Christmas 1884 number of the Illustrated London News, for example, contains a wonderful colour comic entitled ‘Rouge et noir … from Miss Pettifer’s Diary’, (writer/artist not known) in which we follow the social life of a high-society lady as she attends balls and shooting parties.

Illustrated London News, Christmas Number 1889. [BL shelfmark: HS.74/1099] 

Similarly, The Graphic Christmas 1889 issue contains the ‘The girl with thirty-nine lovers’. This focuses on the experiences of a correspondent (a Miss E.H. Townsend?) who reports that she was pursued by 39 gentlemen while on a sea voyage: an adventure that she turns into a poem with sketches, and which William Ralston (1848-1911), a staff artist at The Graphic, then makes into a comic.

Together, these Victorian comics provide an interesting insight into the lives, values and aspirations of people in Britain in the 1880s. They also show that humour can sometimes work across the decades.

Book now for Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK, at the British Library until 19 August 2014.

Adrian Edwards
Co-curator, Comics Unmasked 

In 1912 the India Office in King Charles Street Whitehall needed to replenish its stock of carpet for general use.  The patterns selected were strikingly different from the bland corporate grey of modern offices.  Carpet samples in the archives show an oak design in shades of brown and a red Persian pattern.

 
 IOR/L/SUR/6/15/13



  IOR/L/SUR/6/15/13

Tenders were invited for the supply of 400 yards each of Brussels carpet in the oak and red patterns.  Three firms submitted quotes: Fox & Co of Bishopsgate, Maple & Co of Tottenham Court Road, and Hampton & Sons of Pall Mall. The order was granted to Hampton & Sons who submitted the lowest tender of a total of £130 0s 0d.

  IOR/L/SUR/6/15/13

Hampton and Sons was established in 1830, becoming one of the largest furnishing stores in London by 1900.  As well as carpets, the store stocked crockery, cutlery, wallpaper, chimney pieces, blinds, curtains, parquet flooring, furniture, mirrors, coal scuttles, kitchen ware, gas brackets and  lamps. The Pall Mall shop flourished until November 1940 when the building was gutted after being hit by an incendiary bomb.

The records of the Surveyor’s Department in the India Office Records contain a wealth of detail on the equipping, maintenance, and repair of the King Charles Street building (now part of the Foreign Office), from the installation of secret telephones to the procurement of lavatory paper holders.  In future posts we'll share more documents which shed light on everyday life in the corridors of Whitehall 100 years ago.

Lynn Osborne and Margaret Makepeace
India Office Records 

Further reading:

IOR/L/SUR/6/15/13 Supply of carpets for the India Office

The Victorian Catalogue of Household Furnishings, with an introduction by Stephen Calloway (1994)

Tonight BBC2 is showing the second and final episode of the series The Birth of Empire: the East India Company.  Dan Snow will discuss the shift from trade to empire, and the increased state control of the Company.  We will see the defeat of Tipu Sultan and the treasures that were looted after his death; the creation of the Indian civil service; the problems caused by religious differences; and how the relationship between the British and Indian peoples changed in the years leading up to the ‘Indian Mutiny’ and the subsequent death of the East India Company.  

Here are more of the interesting stories discovered by Robert Hutchinson, the historical consultant for the series.

Stunning architecture

The British were amazed at what they found in India. One intrepid traveller arrived at the Taj Mahal in 1796 and described his awestruck reaction:

– ‘I was mute with astonishment. We arrived at the tomb and then again I paused, lost in wonder and admiration to see a building as large almost as St Paul’s magnified also with four turrets, nearly the height of The Monument and all of pure white marble was a sight so truly novel, great and magnificent that imagination itself could have painted it…’ [IOPP/ [MSS Eur B284 f.4v]

P395 T. Daniell, A distant view of the Taj Mahal, Agra (London, 1801)    Images Online

Exotic wildlife

The popular guide to life in India, called the East India Vade Mecum warned in the early 19th century: ‘Snakes have been found in the beds wherein gentlemen were about to repose. A lady was called in by her servant to see a snake that lay contentedly between two of her infants while sleeping in a small cot. This perilous situation produced the utmost anxiety’.

  A Saumpareeah or snake catcher exhibiting snakes, from The costume and customs of modern India (London, c.1824)    Images Online

 Religion

In 1808, Maj. Gen Charles Stuart – ‘Hindoo Stuart’ - published a book, Vindication of the Hindoos, in which he attacked the spread of unauthorised evangelical missionaries in India, claiming that: Hinduism little needs the meliorating hand of Christianity to render its votaries a sufficiently correct and moral people for all the useful purposes of a civilized society.

He wrote of the dangers of these ‘obnoxious’ missionaries whose efforts to convert Indians to Christianity was ‘impolitic, inexpedient, dangerous, unwise and insane’.  If a Hindu’s religion is insulted, he warned, ‘what confidence can we repose in the fidelity of our Hindu soldiers?’

 Hindoo temple near the Strand Road, from Views Of Calcutta And Its Environs Images Online

Death of the East India Company

The last Company Governor General seemed to sense impending trouble. The speech made to the farewell banquet given by the EIC Court of Directors by Lord Canning before he sailed out to India, (arriving in Calcutta in February 1856) contained these prophetic words: ‘I wish for a peaceful term of office but… we must not forget that in the story of India, serene as it is, a small cloud may arise at first no bigger than a man’s hand but which, growing larger and larger, may at last threaten to burst and overwhelm us…’

East India Company coat of arms c.1730 originally hung above the chairman's seat in the Directors' Court Room at East India House, Leadenhall Street  Images Online 

Read our previous blogs about the programme and its exploration of the East India Company archives:

The Birth of Empire: the East India Company

Dipping into the archives with Dan Snow

See more about Birth of Empire here

Adult and contentious themes such as sex and violence are a feature of Comics Unmasked at the British Library. If you want to understand how moral and social values have changed, if you want to see how under-represented sections of society have expressed themselves, and if you want to see what political issues have exercised people’s minds, then comics are a source not to be overlooked.

There are three broad categories of content in the exhibition that might be considered ‘difficult’. The first is material that reflects the period in which it was published. Britain has changed considerably since the 1950s, for example, and the treatment of race in Enid Blyton’s Mandy, Mops and Cubby stories makes uncomfortable reading today. But it reflects views that were current at the time and the stories, illustrated by Dorothy M. Wheeler, were published in a leading London newspaper as well as being issued as children’s books: they were therefore considered mainstream and are an example of how the library’s collections can help gain a historical perspective on society and its changing values. 

 
Torrid Erotic Art, 1979 © Erich von Götha (Robin Ray)

Next there are comics that aimed to shock at their time of publication. Skin (1992), written by Peter Milligan with artwork by Brendan McCarthy, uses graphic violence as part of a reaction against the gentrification of comics into respectable graphic novels. It’s part of a bigger picture. The pages from Skin that we have selected to display are upsetting, but they illustrate the power of comics and why writers and artists so often choose to work with this medium.

Finally, there is material that was originally produced for a relatively closed audience of like-minded people, but which we are displaying to the wider public. Much of the erotica falls into this category, such as the comics that appeared in a range of ‘top shelf’ magazines. While some visitors may be bemused by the explicit drawings of a rough sex fantasy in the 1970s gay title Him International, others may be offended. In the section ‘Let’s Talk About Sex’ we consider how erotic comics have developed over time: how they are a reflection of changing attitudes in society, how they altered with arrival of HIV/Aids, and so forth. The curatorial team feel that this is an important topic to address. Nevertheless, the design of the gallery space allows visitors to walk straight past this entire section should they wish.

Adult and contentious they may be, but these comics are an important historical resource. Comics creators have often pushed at the boundaries, and through them, we can all be inspired to think about these boundaries and how they have always changed with time.

Adrian Edwards, Paul Gravett, John Harris Dunning. 

Visit Comics Unmasked

Just a few days to go until the opening of the Comics Unmasked at the British Library, the UK’s largest ever exhibition of mainstream and underground comics. The gallery is almost finished, loans from museums and private lenders are starting to arrive, and exhibits from the Library’s own collection are being placed in their display cases.

It is particularly exciting that we are going to be showing such a wide range of materials from across the Library’s vast collection. There are books, magazines and newspapers from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, plus even older publications that help explain the historical background to British comics. We’ve hardy every exhibited any of these before, and we’re sure that everyone will find something new to discover. And they all say something about people across time:  what makes us laugh, what makes us angry, what we find titillating, how we deal with inequality or personal tragedy, and because the show looks at material on the edge, we can start to see how social and moral values have changed with time.

There are 193 exhibits in all, including published works, scripts from writers such as Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman, and original comic artwork by the likes of Frank Quitely and Kate Charlesworth. Added to these are audio-visual points where you can listen to comics-related recordings from Library’s sound collections, explore web comics, and see clips from the world of film and video.

 It’s all presented in a gallery space designed by Dave McKean: a different look and feel for each of the six exhibition sections reflecting the content (e.g. corridors of power for ‘Politics’), a twisting and turning overhead ribbon that draws the sections together, and a few pieces of new artwork that he has created to enhance the overall experience.

Doors open Friday 2 May at 10.00

Adrian Edwards 
Co-curator Comics Unmasked

A common sight across the length and breadth of Britain are memorials to those who lost their lives in the First World War. In cities, towns and villages, churches and cathedrals, public squares and gardens, and in public buildings of all kinds, these memorials commemorate the sacrifice made by men and women from all walks of life during that terrible conflict. In 1919, the India Office commissioned its own memorial tablet to commemorate the members of the India Office and the India Store Depot who died for their King and country in the Great War.

Quotes for the cost of the work were sought from three companies, J W Singer & Sons Ltd, Farmer & Brindley Ltd, and Ashby & Horner Ltd, and designs were received from each. A file in the India Office Records contains the correspondence and other papers relating to the memorial, along with examples of the different designs. Proposed designs included a bronze centre panel with Sicilian marble frame (by Singer & Sons) for £250, and a white marble panel with an oak frame (by Ashby & Horner Ltd) for £425.

 
IOR/L/SUR/6/20/49 

The contract was subsequently awarded to Farmer & Brindley Ltd for a design in alabaster and statuary marble at a cost of £316. The contract, dated 24 December 1919, and signed by T Herbert Winney, India Office Surveyor, stipulated that the work was to be completed within 20 weeks of that date. However, a number of points remained to be settled. It was decided on chocolate brown for the colour of the lettering in the inscription, and the date of 1914-19 was chosen (although the Military Department insisted that the Great War had not yet officially ended). These issues, along with amendments to the inscription, caused delays, and by October 1920 the India Office was urging Farmer & Brindley to finish the work in time for Armistice Day. The memorial was officially unveiled by the Marquis of Crewe on the 26 February 1921. It lists the names of 30 members of the India Office who died during the war, and is in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office building in Westminster.

IOR/L/SUR/6/20/49  

In the same file are copies of the India Office Roll of Honour, recording all those who served in the Great War in whatever capacity. Listed in alphabetical order, class distinctions were dissolved. Included equally in the list are messengers, such as C D A Simmons, Chief Petty Officer in the Royal Navy, and J Teague, Motor Machine Gun Corps, and a Member of the Council of India, Sir T Morison, K.C.I.E., 2nd Lieutenant in the Cambridgeshire Regiment. Also listed is Miss G F C Arnell, who served in the Voluntary Aid Detachment.

Lynn Osborne and John O’Brien
India Office Records

Further Reading:

War memorial for members of India Office who died 1914-19 [IOR/L/SUR/6/20/49]

War Memorials Archive