On the mantelpieces of `English cottage homes may be found representations which its inmates or their forefathers admired, revered and trusted in; an evidence of real worship perhaps more accurate than external religious observances and of a truer faith than their lip confessions; a kind of unconscious survial of lares and penates of the ancients’ Henry Willett . Victorian Educator. Introduction to his exhibition in 1879.
The Potteries
I came to this piece of work after reading ‘Theatres of Memory ‘ by Raphael Samuel a series of essays which ‘return again and again to the idea of history as an organic form of knowledge, and one whose sources are promiscuous, drawing not only on real-life experience but also on memory and myth, fantasy and desire; not only the chronological past of the documentary record but also the timeless one of ‘tradition’ As I had spent a a couple of years trying to make a film about a popular beauty spot in on North Stafforshire which is bedecked with myths amd legends but has little ‘proper historical information’ I found this enlightening. It gave me a new way to think about my subject
In the essay ‘Unofficial Knowledge’ Samuel refects on the role of the object and the collector and what leapt ot my eye was the following which took me off on another project.
‘Henry Willett, whose collection of of chimneypiece ornaments, or Staffordshire figures is the pride of Brighton Museum, was a popular educator, aswell as a self-made museologist. He collected biological specimens and chalk fossils with the same enthusiasm as he did industrial art. he seems to have been quite conscious of the sociological significance of his collection of porcelain figures, and when he put them on show to the public for the first time in 1879, offered them as a kind of people’s history: ‘On the mantelpieces of `English cottage homes may be found representations which its inmates or their forefathers admired, revered and trusted in; an evidence of real worship perhaps more accurate than external religious observances and of a truer faith than their lip confessions; a kind of unconscious survial of lares and penates of the ancients’
p 20 Theatres of Memory R Samuel Verso 1996
Growing up in the Potteries I was familiar with Stafforshire figures , mostly cheap versions that either lurked on mantlepieces or were cleared out to the shed for later disposal. I can't say liked them but over the years they were a source of fascination and I took my sisters and mother to the Stoke on Trent museum and dragged them aaround the glass cases crammed with these things. I wasn't sure what they were telling me but they were communicating.