Cromer Museum Teachers Pack Cromer in Victorian Times

Transcription

1 CROMER MUSEUM Cromer Museum Teachers Pack Cromer in Victorian Times A Key Stage 2 Resource

2 CONTENTS Page 2 Contents 1. Teachers Notes Background information on the Victorian rooms and displays at Cromer Museum 2. Pre-visit activities Activity ideas for classroom based work prior to a visit to the museum 3. Museum activities Activity ideas and resources to use during your visit 4. Follow-up ideas Some suggestions for activities to do back in the classroom, with accompanying resources

3 TEACHERS NOTES Page 3 THE VICTORIAN COTTAGE: The Kitchen The kitchen is set out as it might have been at the turn of the century. The range was the most important object in the room. It would not only heat the room but also make hot water and, of course, was used for cooking. It would have to be lit everyday (after it had been cleaned out from the night before) and it would take a while before it was hot enough to provide water for washing or cooking the breakfast. In a fisherman's cottage like this wet clothes would be draped round the range throughout the autumn, winter and spring months and on wet summer days. Note the size of the cooking pots, no doubt reflecting the size of meals a fisherman's wife would have to prepare. It was not unknown for families of 8 or more children to be brought up in two-up, two-down cottages like this one. Much of the food would have been heated up on top of the range. Fisherfolk were not rich and relied heavily on vegetable stews with a few bones and dumplings. A fisherman's wife would not necessarily know when her husband would return from crabbing or other fishing activities. If he had gone out before breakfast to lay down the crab pots she could expect him home any time between 7 and 10 am. Likewise lunch could be anytime between 12 and 4. Consequently most fishermen's wives cooked meals such as stews and soups, which could be kept hot for hours. The range also provided heat for irons (washing was done in the outhouse). The kitchen illustrates several important aspects of a late Victorian working class home. By this time mass factory production had put several non-essential articles such as ornaments within the buying power of the working classes. Pictures, a clock, even a piano, indicate that this family was not poor compared with many. The harmonium might have been bought in a bountiful year or from the profits of a salvage job. Nevertheless the furnishings remain relatively simple. Floor coverings, for example, were hand made (rag rugs) or cheap matting. Partly this reflects the hard wear and tear such a floor would receive. The fisherman and his sons would walk straight into this room with all their dripping wet clothes and dirty boots. In early times it was not uncommon to spread fresh sand on some floors. One fisherman, known as Dirty George Kirby, who lived in this cottage round about this time, is known to have spread a sail across the inside of the door to keep the drafts out.

4 TEACHERS NOTES Page 4 Some food preparation was done directly in front of the range, with consequent spillages. There was a small scullery in this cottage (now used as a geology store) where some food preparation could take place. Note the lack of mass produced foodstuffs. Flour and other basics were bought loose. Meat would have been bought on the day it was to be eaten, as there was no refrigeration. If the cottage had no range or oven, joints of meat were taken to the baker's. Cooking utensils were basic. Gas lighting was a labour-saving development in late Victorian homes. It was probably introduced here in the 1890s or early 1900s. It supplemented the candle, rush lights and oil lamps previously used and certainly reduced the amount of time spent cleaning lamps, trimming wicks and so on. Victorian homes were not all hard work. There is evidence here of leisure pursuits. The ship model in the window and the miniature crab pot were probably made during the winter months. Books in the corner hint at a fairly high level of literacy and some spare reading time. (There was a Fisherman's Reading Room in Cromer.) The kitchen was the living room and thus housed the piano, which would provide entertainment in the evenings. However, the small size of the house generally, and the large sized families which tended to inhabit such cottages, meant that many of the menfolk would spend a considerable amount of their leisure time outside. In the winter they would sometimes go to the local public house, which would act as a club. In the summer, when they were not busy net and crab pot mending, overhauling boats and working generally, they would sit outside and gossip. They would gather everyday just to watch the sea. Women had less leisure time. Whenever they were not working they would visit neighbours and usually knit as they talked. Children often had to help around the house or their fathers with jobs such as net mending. There is no sign in this room of the types of leisure pursuits available to children today.

5 TEACHERS NOTES Page 5 THE VICTORIAN COTTAGE: The Bedroom The bedroom illustrates several important aspects of a late Victorian working class home. The metal bedstead with its brass fittings was another product of the factory age and was designed to be `bug proof``. Alas the feather mattress was not and constant checks would have to be made to ensure that the little creatures had not established themselves there. Floor coverings once again are homemade, as is the `crazy` patchwork bedspread. This is an unusual type of patchwork to be found in a fisherman's cottage as it has been made up of rich materials. Nevertheless it serves to remind us that materials were hard to come by, and recycling was an everyday working class Victorian practice. Note the small fireplace and the lamps and candlestick, along with the gas light. The fire was only ever lit if someone was ill and bed-ridden. The slop pail, jug and basin would have been emptied and cleaned everyday. With no inside running water and sanitation this was yet another inconvenience that was taken for granted. The sheds in the yard opposite the line of cottages included dry closets (toilets) emptied at night by the dry soil man. Clothes were kept in a cupboard at the top of the stairs and coal was stored under the stairs. (Note: there was a smaller bedroom at the top of the stairs, which is now used as a museum store.) Many seaside families let their cottages to visitors in the summer months and the trunks are reminders of this. The original inhabitants of the cottage would go and stay with friends or with other family members during the season. Some took a chest bed out to the shed and lived there in the summer. All this was no doubt inconvenient, but to the fisher folk whose livelihood was so uncertain, this extra income was welcome. Indeed revenue from such sources may help to explain why there are one or two luxury items in the cottage.

6 PRE-VISIT ACTIVITIES Page 6 The Coming of the Railways: 1 The poster below was produced by a railway company to advertise Cromer as a destination for seaside holidays. It dates from the 1910s but shows how the coming of the railway to Cromer in 1877 led to the increasing popularity of the town as a holiday destination for Victorians and Edwardians. Look carefully at the poster: what sort of messages do you think it gives about Cromer? Note your thoughts around the picture below.

7 PRE-VISIT ACTIVITIES Page 7 The Coming of the Railways: 2 Right: High Station, Cromer Below: Beach Station, Cromer 1887 What do you think were the advantages and disadvantages for the people of Cromer of the coming of the railways? Advantages Disadvantages

8 MUSEUM ACTIVITIES Page 8 Life for a fisherman s family: The Victorian Kitchen & Washhouse Look around the Victorian Kitchen and Washhouse and then fill in the table below to show how people have done each of these tasks in Victorian times and in the present day. Victorian Times Present Day Cooking Lighting the room Washing the clothes Ironing Keeping warm Entertainment & leisure activities

9 MUSEUM ACTIVITIES Page 9 Life for a fisherman s family: The Victorian Bedroom Look around the Victorian Bedroom and then fill in the table below to show how people have done each of the tasks in Victorian times and in the present day. Victorian Times Present Day Lighting the room Keeping warm Keeping clean Going to the toilet Decorating the room Entertainment & leisure activities

10 MUSEUM ACTIVITIES Page 10 Objects and Materials Find the following objects in the Victorian Kitchen and Washhouse. Identify what material they are made of and then explain why you think this material has been chosen Object Material Why has this material been chosen? Fisherman s protective clothes (on the back of the door) Fisherman s boots Pots and pans Rug Bread crock or pancheon (on the table) Large jugs (under the table) Washboard Mangle

11 MUSEUM ACTIVITIES Page 11 Object Investigation We can learn about life in the past from investigating closely the objects people used. Choose an object that interests you in the Victorian Kitchen, Bedroom or Washhouse. (You might want to read the questions below before you choose!) Now fill in this sheet to see what your object tells you. What does the object look like? (E.g. colour, what it s made of, whether it s complete or broken, whether it s been mended or is worn). How do you think it has been made? (E.g. machine or handmade, made in a mould or from pieces and how it has been fixed together). What was it used for and has the use changed at any time? How well designed is it? (E.g. does it do the job it was made for well? Were the most suitable materials used? Is it decorated and do you like the way it looks?) What value do you think it has? (Think not only about monetary value but also about it s value to the person who owned it, it s value to a historian and it s value to you).

12 FOLLOW-UP IDEAS Page 12 Back in the classroom After a visit to the museum, these follow-up ideas will help the children to cement the knowledge they have gained from their trip and enable you to build on what they have learnt. Using the Victorian Bedroom and Victorian Kitchen sheets, ask the children to produce a poster or class display showing how home life has changed since Victorian times. This could be done in groups with each group taking a different aspect of home-life, as categorized on the activity sheets e.g. lighting, washing clothes, keeping clean. Using their individual Object Investigation sheets, ask each child to write a paragraph about what their object tells them about the life of the person who owned it and/or about life in Victorian times in general. Give them some hints if necessary, such as: What does the object tell us about: the materials that were available? the wealth of the owner? how food was prepared/cooked? the technology available to make things? how people entertained themselves? Ask the pupils to imagine themselves as the child of a fishing family growing up in a cottage like the one they ve visited. Using the information they have gathered, ask them to write a diary account of a typical day, including preparing food/mealtimes, chores around the home and washing yourself. Ask the class to investigate the differences between the life of a fisherman s family and a wealthy Victorian family the sort of family that might have visited Cromer on holiday. Use the photographs on the Photo Resource Sheet to start their investigation.

13 PHOTO RESOURCE SHEET Page 13 Photo resource sheet Left: c.1900 Right: c.1890 Right: c.1890 Far right: c.1890 Below left: c.1900 Below right: 1900