BBC Radio Solent and museums across the county have today (Monday 18 January) revealed the list of 10 objects they have chosen to tell a history of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight and their place in the world. The list of 10 objects can be seen on the BBC Local site for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, www.bbc.co.uk/hampshire, including two fantastic choices from the Mary Rose Museum and Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, which will be on display at the relevant museums throughout 2010.
Rosary beads - Mary Rose Trust
In 1538, injunctions of Henry VIII’s religious reforms banned recitations using the rosary to pray. Yet in 1545 this rosary was on board the Mary Rose, a ship that belonged to the King. The rosary offers an insight into this tumultuous period of history during Henry VIII’s reign – the break with Rome, the dissolution of the monasteries, and the rise of Protestantism – events that would shape Europe and the world, for better or worse, in the centuries ahead.
Decorated scrimshaw – Royal Naval Museum
This decorated baby elephant’s tusk (or scrimshaw) belonged to an African serving in the Royal Navy and helping in the fight against the transatlantic slave trade in the 1820s. His original name is not known, but the Navy listed and paid him as ‘Jim Freeman, Head Krouman’ and the carving shows it is the name he then took for himself. Kroumen were from the Krou tribe from the coastal areas of Liberia or Sierra Leone and were skilled seamen whose experience and local knowledge were vital to the Navy’s ability to operate in West Africa.
The list of 10 objects for Hampshire is part of the wider A History of the World project formed out of a unique partnership between the BBC, the British Museum and 350 museums and institutions across the country.
Dr Chris Palmer, Head of Collections for Hampshire Museums said: “It’s a fantastic opportunity for people to learn more about where they live through objects connected to its development and its place in the world.”
Listeners and viewers will be asked to suggest further objects and can actively participate by uploading photographs of their own objects that have a local or global appeal. At the end of February 2010 it is hoped that each BBC Local website will have an additional “People’s 10 Objects” telling the history of their region and its global connections.
BBC Project manager for the Nations and English Regions, Seamus Boyd, said: “A truly fascinating range of objects has been chosen for each list across English regions. Some of them may have great monetary value, others little or none, but they''re priceless in how they bring to life moments from history. This initial collection is just the blueprint to which we hope viewers and listeners will add their own objects and help to create a truly unique and vibrant tapestry of the past.”
Also as part of A History of the World, tonight’s BBC Inside Out South (Monday January 18th, BBC One, 7.30pm) will be on the hunt for the best object from six museums across the South, travelling in two of William Morris’s creations.
Presenter Joe Crowley will be visiting the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth using a 1930s yellow soft top Morris 8 car – mass produced by Morris at his factory in Cowley, near Oxford.
Christopher Dobbs from the Mary Rose Trust will also appear on Radio 4’s long-established, interactive history programme, “Making History” on Tuesday January 19th – from 3pm. The Rosary Beads found on the Mary Rose are the first item that the programme have selected for discussion, in order to encourage listeners to upload their own objects to the website. They will also be interviewing Professor Pauline Croft about the wider cultural significance of the Rosary Beads.
The list of 10 objects can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/hampshire
The national website for the project is www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld
Notes to Editors
