Cheery and not even slightly suggestive image of Jonathan with David, the latter sporting gorgeous must-have-this-season dead!Goliath accessory. Found in St. Giles's Cathedral, Edinburgh, photo by Lawrence OP.
For me, this is only an interim step – I want to see gay marriage within the Church of England, during my lifetime. That is, gay couples being married to each other using a recognisably Christian marriage service, inside Anglican churches, by current Anglican priests, then signing marriage certificates and having the option to use marital titles (e.g. husband/wife) if they so choose, with the same religious, social and legal standing as heterosexual couples, without
a) it making the blindest bit of difference whether either or both parties are ordained ministers, priests, or Rowan Williams himself,
b) anyone feeling entitled or obliged to question whether the couple are in a sexual relationship, because it is neither a problem nor anyone else‘s business, or
c) the celebrant, assistant, or clergy in the congregation having to worry about the ramifications for their present and future careers.
This is a long way from what the Diocese of London is asking today. However, I truly believe that the success of this petition would be the first step to achieving everything I’ve described. So, if you sympathise, please sign here.
Previous Thursday retrospects can be found below! Some were even published on Thursdays.
Travel plans are afoot; Berlin in June/July, Kent in August and (I so hope) Positano (with Ravello and Sorrento, oh my god) in November. Recommendations for Berlin & Positano extremely welcome!
It was my birthday! I am now 24, which is older than practically every fictional character I’ve ever loved, except for Harriet Vane and several of the Forsytes. I am also the proud owner of MANY SHOES, a dress, MOLESKINES, lovely jewellery, my very own tiny turning-into-John-Simm watch-on-a-necklace, Henry Holland tights with the Eiffel Tower on (from Chloe) and Much Ado tickets (<3!!). Yes.
On that note, if you need to write on .pdf forms electronically, PDFExpress is your friend. One of the most useful things on the internet.
I am tempted to get a Tumblr.
The final articles have been chosen for Issue 4 of Victorian Network, which will have the title Theatricality and Performance. As Submissions Editor, my part in the cycle is largely over… as Editorial Board member, I’m sure there will still be plenty to do.
Fellow dead Victorian things enthusiasts may well enjoy photographer Ingrid Newton’s latest, absolutely beautiful post on London memorials. I am a big fan of Ingrid’s work, but particularly enjoyed this photograph. Ingrid describes the Postman’s Park memorial to those who have died via acts of self-sacrifice. The designer, as the above image shows, was George Frederic Watts (1817-1904), the first husband of Ellen Terry (who, of course, is a major subject of my thesis – though Madge Kendal may usurp the no. 1 spot). Watts had proposed a national monument to unsung heroes to coincide with Queen Victoria’s 1887 jubilee; when he received no response, he decided to go ahead with the idea himself. I suppose the online memorial sites, newspapers, and things like the Pride of Britain awards fulfil a similar function today, but there’s something infinitely more poignant about the little ceramic tributes. They remind me of the tablets offering thanks for answered prayers you find around shrines in French churches.
Notre Dame, 2009. In a shock twist of fate this was taken by my amateur self, notice how the most interesting tablet's in the bottom-right corner and I have OMITTED it.
The emotional impetus in Postman’s Park seems far sadder – but, then again, Watts’s memorial is still about thanksgiving. Several of the tiles commemorate children.
As Ingrid’s post reminds us, the length of time for which someone is remembered is a fraught issue. Who is remembered, how, and by whom? It’s an issue I’ve been grappling with thanks to an unexpected and exciting development in my research. When I started investigating the writings by these actresses, I automatically discounted the possibility of contact with anyone who knew them. Even “discounted” is too strong a word: it didn’t enter my head. And yet, I am now in correspondence with one of my subjects’ granddaughter and great-granddaughter, and hope soon to read some of their family manuscripts. The granddaughter is now 91; the link is there (there are other issues, about biographical vs academic remembrance, and whether some people should be remembered at all, but that’s a different post).
My next London research trip will probably constitute a return to the Garrick Club Library, but one of the many tangential/side project/should-never-see-daylight .docs attached to my DPhil describes an alternate tour. Without particularly knowing why, I started listing places where Victorian actors are buried. My supervisor’s built a fantastic SAA paper out of recording examples of the Early Modern &c, but somehow I doubt my tramp round Brompton Cemetery will have the same result…
These thoughts are rather disconnected, but then I am mid-chapter-edit. Alex is between drafts, in that glorious limbo of “free”/anxiety “time”. I am not. So type type type.
While Europe’s eye is fixed on mighty things the fate of emperors and the fall of kings While guards of state must each produce his plan and even children lisp the rights of man amid the mighty fuss just let me mention The rights of women merit some attention.
Mrs Blandish, Prologue (first played by Mary Anne Stirling, who lived between 1813-1895, performing everything and everywhere. She was Cordelia to Macready’s Lear, and the Nurse to Mary Anderson’s Juliet.)
Last night, I stayed up (too) late reading about family scandals, hatred, illegitimacy and death in the supposedly idyllic domestic life of one of my thesis’s subjects. The actress in question is Madge Kendal (1848-1935), an incredibly successful, powerful Victorian actress – and just about one of the biggest hypocrites I’ve ever (literarily) met.
The past few days have involved a lot of reading about Victorian marriages – the bride, the wedding night, divorce laws and annulments, and rituals surrounding mourning and death. My love of genealogy and my love of scandal are both growing exponentially with my doctoral research! Last night I found exactly what the Kendals’ youngest daughter did, to warrant being disowned, and it shocked me horribly.
Today I’m having to be good and get back to hermeneutics. But then I saw this image, and it was so gloriously, gaudily, bitterly self-indulgent with all its splashy Victorian mourning glitz that I had to include it. It reminded me so much of all the accounts of mourning I’ve been reading – in public, theatrical, self-indulgent form. It’s Gisele Ganne‘s mourning-inspired jewellery collection, and the model is Emmanuel Ray. I love it, Madge Kendal would hate it, and since her sustained vileness to her offspring deprived me of my sleep, that seems an excellent reason to reblog!
The first Columbia Road market was conceived in 1869 as an attempt to wean costermongers from the streets. Today, the Sunday morning flower market in Columbia Road and nearby Ezra Street has become something of an institution. Selling cut flowers, pot plants, herbs, trees and even mature shrubs, the market spills out into back streets with all the charm of Camden, but none of the commercialism and none of the goths. Get up by dawn.
Adapted from The London Encyclopedia (1985), by Hibbert, Weinreb, Keay & Keay.
Columbia Road began its life as a pathway along which sheep were driven to the slaughterhouses at Smithfield.
“I have been trading for 35 years on Columbia Road. I sell herbs including Fern Leaf Dill, Rosemary, Purple sage, Sweet Basil, Coriander, Lemon Thyme. My father worked in the Romford markets and he came from a family of fruit sellers.”
