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ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17933 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
 Posted: 24-09-2013 14:21 Post subject: |
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My previous knowledge about this portrayed it solely as Indian democracy crushing feudalism.
| Quote: | Hyderabad 1948: India's hidden massacre
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24159594
By Mike Thomson
Presenter, Document, Radio 4
The Jewel of The Nizams 'Falaknuma Palace' which was the former residence of Nizam Mehaboob Ali Khan in the old city area of Hyderabad
When India was partitioned in 1947, about 500,000 people died in communal rioting, mainly along the borders with Pakistan. But a year later another massacre occurred in central India, which until now has remained clouded in secrecy.
In September and October 1948, soon after independence from the British Empire, tens of thousands of people were brutally slaughtered in central India.
Some were lined up and shot by Indian Army soldiers. Yet a government-commissioned report into what happened was never published and few in India know about the massacre. Critics have accused successive Indian governments of continuing a cover-up.
The massacres took place a year after the violence of partition in what was then Hyderabad state, in the heart of India. It was one of 500 princely states that had enjoyed autonomy under British colonial rule.
When independence came in 1947 nearly all of these states agreed to become part of India.
Old map of India
But Hyderabad's Muslim Nizam, or prince, insisted on remaining independent. This outraged the new country's mainly Hindu leaders in New Delhi.
After an acrimonious stand-off between Delhi and Hyderabad, the government finally lost patience.
Continue reading the main story
Find out more
The Charminar in central Hyderabad
Listen to Mike Thomson's report on Document, The Hyderabad Massacre, on BBC Radio 4 at 16:00 BST on Tuesday 24 September or catch it later on the BBC iPlayer.
Document, The Hyderabad Massacre
In addition, their desire to prevent an independent Muslim-led state taking root in the heart of predominantly Hindu India was another worry.
Members of the powerful Razakar militia, the armed wing of Hyderabad's most powerful Muslim political party, were terrorising many Hindu villagers.
This gave the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, the pretext he needed. In September 1948 the Indian Army invaded Hyderabad.
In what was rather misleadingly known as a "police action", the Nizam's forces were defeated after just a few days without any significant loss of civilian lives. But word then reached Delhi that arson, looting and the mass murder and rape of Muslims had followed the invasion.
Determined to get to the bottom of what was happening, an alarmed Nehru commissioned a small mixed-faith team to go to Hyderabad to investigate.
It was led by a Hindu congressman, Pandit Sunderlal. But the resulting report that bore his name was never published.
A copy of the Sunderlal report
Pandit Sunderlal's team concluded that between 27,000 and 40,000 died
The Sunderlal team visited dozens of villages throughout the state.
Continue reading the main story
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Start Quote
At a number of places members of the armed forces brought out Muslim adult males... and massacred them”
Sunderlal report
At each one they carefully chronicled the accounts of Muslims who had survived the appalling violence: "We had absolutely unimpeachable evidence to the effect that there were instances in which men belonging to the Indian Army and also to the local police took part in looting and even other crimes.
"During our tour we gathered, at not a few places, that soldiers encouraged, persuaded and in a few cases even compelled the Hindu mob to loot Muslim shops and houses."
The team reported that while Muslims villagers were disarmed by the Indian Army, Hindus were often left with their weapons.
In some cases, it said, Indian soldiers themselves took an active hand in the butchery: "At a number of places members of the armed forces brought out Muslim adult males from villages and towns and massacred them in cold blood."
The investigation team also reported, however, that in many other instances the Indian Army had behaved well and protected Muslims.
The Nizam Mahbub Ali Khan and Party Posed with Tiger Skins at Shikar Camp, April–May 1899
The Nizam of Hyderabad was a powerful prince. In this picture taken in 1899, the Nizam, Mahbub Ali Khan, and his party pose with tiger skins.
The backlash was said to have been in response to many years of intimidation and violence against Hindus by the Razakars.
In confidential notes attached to the Sunderlal report, its authors detailed the gruesome nature of the Hindu revenge: "In many places we were shown wells still full of corpses that were rotting. In one such we counted 11 bodies, which included that of a woman with a small child sticking to her breast. "
And it went on: "We saw remnants of corpses lying in ditches. At several places the bodies had been burnt and we would see the charred bones and skulls still lying there."
The Sunderlal report estimated that between 27,000 to 40,000 people lost their lives.
Indian Shiite Muslims take part in religious prayers at 'Ashoorkhana' in the Aza Khana Zehara in Hyderabad, on January 5, 2009. The structure, built by the seventh Nizam Mir Osman Ali Kahan to perpetuate the memory of his mother Amtul Zehra Begum
A Shiite shrine built by the seventh Nizam to perpetuate his mother's memory
No official explanation was given for Nehru's decision not to publish the contents of the Sunderlal report, though it is likely that, in the powder-keg years that followed independence, news of what happened might have sparked more Muslim reprisals against Hindus.
It is also unclear why, all these decades later, there is still no reference to what happened in the nation's schoolbooks. Even today few Indians have any idea what happened.
The Sunderlal report, although unknown to many, is now open for viewing at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi.
There has been a call recently in the Indian press for it to be made more widely available, so the entire nation can learn what happened.
It could be argued this might risk igniting continuing tensions between Muslims and Hindus.
"Living as we are in this country with all our conflicts and problems, I wouldn't make a big fuss over it," says Burgula Narasingh Rao, a Hindu who lived through those times in Hyderabad and is now in his 80s.
"What happens, reaction and counter-reaction and various things will go on and on, but at the academic level, at the research level, at your broadcasting level, let these things come out. I have no problem with that." |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17933 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 28-09-2013 00:22 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | 'Forgotten explorer' Dr John Rae being celebrated in Orkney
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-24296781
Dr John Rae charted huge areas of unmapped territory
One of Scotland's great forgotten explorers is to be celebrated in Orkney this weekend.
The islands are marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of Dr John Rae.
He was born in 1813, and later signed up with the Hudson's Bay Company - with the fur trade in Canada at its peak - and charted huge areas of unmapped territory using his surveying skills.
The Franklin expedition, in a painting by W Turner Smith
Capt Sir John Franklin and his entire crew perished in the frozen Arctic
A statue of Dr Rae will be unveiled on the Stromness harbour front.
It was in his search for traces of Capt Sir John Franklin's ill-fated expedition of 1845 - he and his entire crew perished - that Dr Rae condemned himself to obscurity.
In 1854, he recorded accounts from local Inuits, who said that some of Franklin's crew had resorted to cannibalism in a last desperate effort to stay alive.
He reported his findings in confidence to the British admiralty, but was horrified when they appeared in a newspaper article.
Franklin's widow - and much of Victorian society - was horrified at some of Dr Rae's finding, and his reputation never recovered.
The controversy overshadowed the fact that, during his searches for the Franklin expedition, Dr Rae had mapped out a navigable shipping route linking the north Atlantic to the Pacific.
He died in 1893 in relative obscurity.
Canada's native Cree called him 'Aglooka' - meaning 'he who takes long strides'.
His memorial lies in Orkney's St Magnus Cathedral. |
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| rynner2 What a Cad!
Great Old One Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Total posts: 21365 Location: Under the moon Gender: Male |
| Posted: 28-09-2013 10:20 Post subject: |
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Cornish brewery funds HMS Charybdis trip for landlady's daughter
By Lynne French, BBC News, Cornwall
A 75-year-old woman is preparing to pay her respects to her father for the first - and almost certainly the last time, thanks to the chance discovery of a landlady's letter to a Cornish brewery.
Valerie (Val) Gill was just five years old when her father was lost at sea during World War II.
Leslie Wilfred Hearn was one of nearly 500 men who died when HMS Charybdis was torpedoed on 23 October 1943 as Royal Navy ships attempted to intercept a German convoy in the Bay of St Malo.
"Sadly I have very few memories of my father, because he was mainly away at sea," she told BBC News.
"He was a big, gentle man, but he wasn't around much so I don't remember too much about him."
Shortly after the sinking, the bodies of 21 Royal Navy sailors and Royal Marines washed up on Guernsey, at the time occupied by German forces.
When the German High Command agreed to bury the dead with full military honours, 5,000 islanders seized the opportunity to pay their respects, while at the same time showing their loyalty to Britain and their opposition to their occupiers.
The Germans subsequently banned civilians from any further military funerals, but every year since 1947, a commemoration service in honour of those who perished at sea.
On learning of her husband's death Petty Officer Hearn's widow Edna, who was the first tenant landlady of the Unicorn Inn in Camborne, wrote to the St Austell Brewery to say that her husband had been lost at sea.
"That was a really tough time - particularly for my mother, but running the pub kept her busy," Mrs Gill said.
"For me the Unicorn was big old rambling place and on the whole I was very happy.
"There were a lot of good times and I'd say it's not a bad place for a child to grow up in - because pub life widens your horizons."
The correspondence between the landlady and brewery from nearly 70 years ago was recently discovered by St Austell Brewery's archivist Chris Knight.
"As part of our new archive project I have about 19 cabinets full of correspondence which will take about three years to go through," Mr Knight said.
"But I was randomly sifting through some letters when I came across Edna's letters and they just touched a chord."
Edna Fine - who subsequently remarried and had another daughter - died in 1982, but after "a little detective work and two or three attempts" Mr Knight tracked Mrs Gill down in Redruth, where she lives with her husband David.
"To say it was a surprise is an understatement - my flabber was totally ghasted," Mrs Gill said.
She said her and her mother had never been able to attend the Charybdis memorial in Guernsey.
"Mother had the business, she'd married again - I was working and had children and quite plainly it was just not financially viable," she said.
Because 2013 will be the final time the sinking of the Charybdis is to be fully commemorated - and because it "just seems the right thing to do", St Austell Brewery has organised and funded a two-day trip to Guernsey for Mr and Mrs Gill. 
"I'm a creature who likes to plans things well ahead, so I feel like I'm on a rollercoaster," she said.
The Gills will attend an evening event on Saturday and the memorial service will take place at 15:00 BST on Sunday at Foulon Cemetery, where the 21 bodies which were recovered were buried.
"I'm feeling quite emotional about it... but I'm sure my mother would be thrilled," she added.
The wreck of Charybdis was finally located in 1993 in 83 metres of water and although Mr Hearn's body was never recovered, Mrs Gill says she is proud of his posthumous medals.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-24253910 |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17933 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 29-09-2013 13:38 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Benjamin Leigh Smith: The forgotten explorer of the frozen north
By Vanessa Barford and Alison Feeney-Hart
BBC News Magazine
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24281727
Franz Josef Land; Benjamin Leigh Smith
Where the size of your motorcade matters
He was one of the most intrepid explorers of the 19th Century, leading five expeditions to the Arctic and surviving for 10 months after his ship was crushed between two ice floes. But 100 years after his death, Benjamin Leigh Smith is now largely forgotten.
Somewhere in the Arctic Ocean, about halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, there's an archipelago where Benjamin Leigh Smith's name marks its easternmost point.
The likes of Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Sir Ernest Shackleton and Sir Henry Morton Stanley were superstar explorers, men who earned great renown and who had sought great renown.
On the other hand, Leigh Smith was a modest man. The cape and adjacent glacier bearing his name (Kapp Leigh Smith and Leighbreen) are some of the few lasting tokens of his historic expeditions.
Unlike so many of his contemporaries, even unlike today's explorers, he never sought fame for discovering new places. He didn't publish any detailed account of his explorations and he shunned public appearances, often sending someone else in his place.
Born in 1828, the Briton was one of the first explorers to take ships to the high Arctic, where extensive sea ice - the thin frozen surface of the ocean, a few metres in thickness - made conditions very hostile.
Crew of the Eira (photo copyright Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge)
The crew of the Eira (Benjamin Leigh Smith, second left)
"He saw and mapped areas and islands that were being observed for the first time," says Prof Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge University.
"The high Arctic had much more sea ice a century ago than it does now, which made navigating through it difficult.
"He received the Patron Gold Medal - one of the two highest awards the Royal Geographical Society gives - for his achievements, so was hugely eminent," he says.
As well as his advances in scientific exploration, Leigh Smith was at the centre of a survival feat that is arguably a match for the later exploits of the much more famous Shackleton.
Continue reading the main story
Ernest Shackleton 1874-1922
HMS Endurance
Anglo-Irish explorer, made three expeditions to Antarctic
Third attempt to cross continent via South Pole (1914/1915) ran into trouble after his ship Endurance (pictured) became trapped in ice and sank
Shackleton and five crew members sailed 800 miles to raise help; despite camping out for several months on ice floe, all crew members survived
The race to the Antarctica
Discover more about Ernest Shackleton
In 1881, Leigh Smith's purpose-built research vessel Eira was crushed between two ice floes and sank off another Arctic archipelago, Russian Franz Josef Land, north of Siberia.
The crew survived for 10 months in makeshift huts, living off provisions salvaged from the ship and hunting walrus and polar bear. Leigh Smith then led a voyage of escape in boats with sails made from table cloths, before they were ultimately rescued.
Every single man survived.
"This remarkable Arctic journey was executed with as much grace as that of Shackleton 40 years later," says Peter Capelotti, author of Shipwreck at Cape Flora: The Expeditions of Benjamin Leigh Smith, England's Forgotten Arctic Explorer.
"His leadership was so successful that the veteran Arctic whaling captain David Gray was moved to call him the very model of 'quiet, cool, thoroughbred English pluck'," he says.
When it came to accepting medals for his achievements, however, Capelotti says Leigh Smith "always begged off".
"Explorers as a rule are self-obsessed people who love to talk about themselves, but not this one. He once told his brother-in-law that if Queen Victoria herself asked to see his Arctic photographs, he would send his expedition photographer around to the palace with them."
Capelotti puts part of Leigh Smith's low profile down to his family background. While he came from a wealthy family, his father, who was an MP, never married his mother, an unusual and potentially scandalous situation.
The Eira in Franz Josef Land (photo copyright Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge)
The Eira in Franz Josef Land
And although he studied law at Jesus College, Cambridge, he couldn't get a degree immediately because it was difficult for anyone but practising members of the Church of England to gain degrees at the time.
Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
Benjamin Leigh Smith
Leigh Smith was called the very model of 'quiet, cool, thoroughbred English pluck'”
"He was always at odds with upper society," says Capelotti. "He didn't fit in."
Leigh Smith's great-great-great niece Charlotte Moore, who lives in Sussex, agrees.
"He was both establishment but also separate because he was illegitimate and from a dissenting family, so he never received a knighthood or got that kind of honour, which is probably a factor in why his story is not better known," she says.
In fact, it was only after Leigh Smith's father died, and another man left him money, that he embarked on his first expedition to the Arctic, according to Moore.
"The first one was a sporting cruise really. All polar expeditions were from the Royal Navy, but Ben wanted to do a private non-naval expedition, so he hired a ship.
"Then he realised he was interested in the scientific side of Arctic exploration and brought back specimens for the British Museum and Kew. He even brought back live polar bears for London Zoo," she says.
By his fourth expedition, Leigh Smith's enthusiasm for Arctic exploration was so advanced that he had his own vessel - Eira - specially built. He also named a lot of the places he mapped after friends and family.
Continue reading the main story
The Magazine in the frozen north
Franz Josef Land
Stephen Sackur visits the Alaskan village which may be under water within a decade (30 July 2013)
Galya Morrell recalls a life in the Arctic, from Red Army officer to ice artist (14 January)
Arctic Canada caught on film in one of world's first documentaries (January 2012)
How different explorers tackled the Antarctic
Discover more about Scott of the Antarctic
"Mabel Island is named after a niece, Amabel. And the hut the 25 shipwrecked crew made out of driftwood, rocks and masts of ships on his last expedition was named Flora Cottage after his cousin Florence Nightingale," says Moore.
With the famous nursing pioneer for a first cousin and a father active in the campaign against the slave trade, Leigh Smith came from an outspoken family.
He was also overshadowed by his sister Barbara, a leading feminist and activist for women's rights, which may be part of the reason why he didn't like to talk about his accomplishments, according to Capelotti.
But Moore says although Leigh Smith was a private man of few words when it came to his expeditions, with his log books a "bare record - simple, factual and unemotional", he was seen as a forceful character in the family home.
"In my family he's seen as both a hero and a villain. His Arctic stuff is heroic, but he tried to prevent the marriage of one of his nieces and laid down rules over that.
"They did marry after they were 21, but the same forceful character that led people to safety at sea could apparently be uncomfortable within the family and the feud with Ben went on for many years. At the same time, people were in awe of him." |
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| rynner2 What a Cad!
Great Old One Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Total posts: 21365 Location: Under the moon Gender: Male |
| Posted: 30-09-2013 07:42 Post subject: |
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Mystery as location of Falmouth Docks granite foundation stone remains unknown
7:00am Monday 30th September 2013 in Falmouth/Penryn .
The mystery surrounding the exact location of the Falmouth Docks granite foundation stone laid by Lord Falmouth in 1860 remains unsolved.
The stone weighing 5 tons and 15cwts came from Carnsew quarry, near Mabe. The location of the foundation stone is believed to be near the southern end of the Eastern breakwater.
Now Pendennis Shipyard directors Jill Carr and her husband Mike Carr have told the Packet's In Port writer David Barnicoat that during excavation work for the new complex being built at the yard an effort was made to locate the stone.
Jill said: “Using some photographs and an old engraving of the ceremony our team tried to find the stone. Unfortunately, we failed to find any trace of it.”
Penryn-based stone masons Freemans inscribed the foundation stone “Falmouth Docks, Feb 28, 1860” whereupon “six fine horses” pulled the stone through the town.
At the ceremony on February 28th 1860 Lord Falmouth was invited by Falmouth Docks chairman Mr. Alfred Fox to lay the granite foundation stone, which was suspended from large sheer legs.
Amid much pomp and Masonic ceremony, Lord Falmouth deposited a glass bottle containing a parchment document and coins of the reign into a cavity, which was then filled with cement and sealed with a lead plate. A silver trowel used during the ceremony was later presented to Lord Falmouth. The Deputy Provincial Grand Master of Cornwall lowered the foundation stone into place. Wheat from a cornucopia was scattered over the stone, with wine and oil also poured over it.
http://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/fpfalmouth/10700288.Mystery_as_location_of_Falmouth_Docks_granite_foundation_stone_remains_unknown/ |
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| rynner2 What a Cad!
Great Old One Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Total posts: 21365 Location: Under the moon Gender: Male |
| Posted: 03-10-2013 09:36 Post subject: |
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Titanic burial at sea photo to be auctioned in Devizes
A rare photograph showing Titanic victims being buried at sea is to be auctioned in Wiltshire.
The image was taken days after the tragedy of 15 April 1912, on board the recovery ship the CS Mackay-Bennett.
Devizes-based auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said the photo gave a "unique insight" into the burials.
Records show that 166 out of 306 bodies collected by the Mackay-Bennett were buried at sea but until now no image has been seen publicly.
The photograph was found by the family of one of the crew members of the recovery ship who had the image in a collection of his possessions.
The Mackay-Bennett was involved in the operation to recover the bodies of the victims from the North Atlantic.
Mr Aldridge, of Henry Aldridge & Son, said: "When we were looking through the archive, the picture jumped from the rafters. It is a chapter very little is known about.
"It has always been said that the process was dignified and organised but piles of bodies are neither of those. The bodies are piled up waist-high.
"This picture shows the dirty side of the business."
The photograph shows the ship's priest conducting the burial service.
Two crewman are shown consigning a body into the ocean, and a canvas bag containing the possessions of body number 177 - William Peter Mayo - can be seen.
The archive originally belonged to RD "Westy" Legate, 4th officer of the Mackay-Bennett.
It is expected to reach between £3,000 and £5,000 when it goes under the hammer on 19 October.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-24338749 |
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Great Old One Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Total posts: 21365 Location: Under the moon Gender: Male |
| Posted: 06-10-2013 09:07 Post subject: |
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A historical mystery:
Mystery of the Cheapside Hoard
In 1912 a trove of Elizabethan and Jacobean gold and precious stones was discovered beneath the City of London. It is still unclear who buried it, and why. Vivienne Becker explores the murky past of the capital’s jewellery trade
By Vivienne Becker
October 04, 2013 22:30
June 18 1912. Midsummer in the city, and a normal, dusty, dirty working day for the labourers demolishing three dilapidated tenement buildings on the corner of Cheapside and Friday Street, in the heart of the City of London. But at some time that day the routine drudgery took an unexpected turn: the navvies literally struck gold. Some six feet below the brickwork, in a dank cellar, they unearthed a stash of tangled treasure including gold, jewels, rock-crystal dishes, carved gem figures, cameos, enamelled chains, clasps, bodkins, badges, buttons, beads, an exquisite perfume bottle and an emerald watch. They could not know it at the time, but this was the stock-in-trade of a 17th-century jeweller and had been lying undisturbed for 300 years. The circumstances under which it was buried are still unknown.
The Cheapside Hoard, as it is now known, was – and is – the largest and most important treasure of its kind ever to be found, a captivating collection of Elizabethan and Jacobean jewellery, and a true time capsule. This week it will for the first time be the subject of a dedicated exhibition. The Cheapside Hoard: London’s Lost Jewels at the Museum of London will mark the 100th anniversary of the first public showing of the treasure, in 1914. Although part of the Hoard has been on display in the museum, its permanent home, this is also the first time it has been brought together in its entirety. Placing it alongside rarely seen portraits, historical objects and multi-media installations, the exhibition will take steps towards unravelling the mystery of when, why and by whom the Hoard was buried.
The navvies may not have known what they had stumbled on, but they knew a man who would. They took their discovery to George F Lawrence, known as Stony Jack, an antique dealer, collector, pawn-broker and museum librarian. Over the years he had befriended London’s labourers, encouraging them to bring him any finds.
The navvies turned up at Lawrence’s shop with a sack and emptied on to his floor great lumps of caked earth glinting with promise. Once he had sorted and washed everything, revealing its full splendour, he realised he was looking at a treasure of extraordinary beauty and monumental historical importance, one of the most significant finds to come from London soil and rubble. Lawrence knew this collection belonged in a museum, and he thought at once of the newly established London Museum.
Two days after the discovery a hushed, hasty meeting with the trustees was organised, after which Lawrence was appointed as an inspector of excavations for the London Museum. This set in motion a complex train of secret meetings and bureaucratic processes that resulted in the Hoard being officially acquired by the London Museum, with a few pieces presented to the British Museum. The navvies were paid off, presumably handsomely since some were not seen for several months.
The astonishing find had been kept secret, so when the Hoard was exhibited two years later at the London Museum, next to St James’s Palace, it caused a sensation. King George V and Queen Mary visited and the press went wild, but the display also sparked controversy over the rules of treasure trove, kindling intense rivalry among museums and academics. Questions were asked at the highest levels about the issue of ownership, yet the ruling by the Treasury (on behalf of the Crown) that had granted the Hoard to the London Museum stood. The Hoard had found its home, and in 1976 it moved with what was by now the Museum of London to a location steps from where the treasure was found.
Organised by Hazel Forsyth, the Museum of London’s senior curator of medieval and post-medieval collections, London’s Lost Jewels not only shines new light on the Hoard and its story, but also sets the cache in its social context of life in Tudor and early-Stuart London and offers a rare glimpse into London’s early jewellery and gem trade.
There is something captivating in realising that life, and in particular London’s jewellery world, was much the same then as it is now. 'It is tempting to think that we are radically different,’ Forsyth says. 'Nothing changes under the sun.’
etc...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/jewellery/8981/mystery-of-the-cheapside-hoard.html
Pictures, etc. on page. |
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| Spookdaddy Cuckoo Joined: 24 May 2006 Total posts: 3924 Location: Midwich Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 06-10-2013 09:20 Post subject: |
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I knew it rang a bell.
Read this a couple of weeks ago on Mike Dash's site:
| Quote: | Stoney Jack and the Cheapside Hoard
It was only a small shop in an unfashionable part of London, but it had a most peculiar clientele. From Mondays to Fridays the place stayed locked, and its only visitors were schoolboys who came to gaze through the windows at the marvels crammed inside. But on Saturday afternoons the shop was opened by its owner—a “genial frog” of a man, as one acquaintance called him, small, pouched, wheezy, permanently smiling and with the habit of puffing out his cheeks when he talked. Settling himself behind the counter, the shopkeeper would light a cheap cigar and then wait patiently for laborers to bring him treasure. He waited at the counter many years—from roughly 1895 until his death in 1939—and in that time accumulated such a hoard of valuables that he supplied the museums of London with more than 15,000 ancient artifacts and still had plenty left to stock his premises at 7 West Hill, Wandsworth.
“It is,” the journalist H.V. Morton assured his readers in 1928,
perhaps the strangest shop in London. The shop sign over the door is a weather-worn Ka-figure from an Egyptian tomb, now split and worn by the winds of nearly forty winters. The windows are full of an astonishing jumble of objects. Every historic period rubs shoulders in them. Ancient Egyptian bowls lie next to Japanese sword guards and Elizabethan pots contain Saxon brooches, flint arrowheads or Roman coins… |
The rest here - well, here, actually. |
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| rynner2 What a Cad!
Great Old One Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Total posts: 21365 Location: Under the moon Gender: Male |
| Posted: 16-10-2013 20:21 Post subject: |
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And now it's on telly!
Secret Knowledge - 9. The Hidden Jewels of the Cheapside Hoard
In 1912, workmen demolishing a building in London's Cheapside district made an extraordinary discovery - a dazzling hoard of nearly 500 Elizabethan and Jacobean jewels. For the first time since its discovery, all the pieces from this priceless treasure trove will be on display at the Museum of London in a new exhibition opening on October 11th 2013.
With exclusive close-up access to the fabulous collection, award-winning jewellery designer Shaun Leane goes behind the scenes during the run-up to the exhibition to uncover some of the secrets of the hoard. Who did the jewels belong to? Why were they buried? And why were they never retrieved? As Shaun uncovers a world of astonishing skill and glittering beauty, he also reveals a darker story of forgery, intrigue and even murder.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03d6b1j/Secret_Knowledge_The_Hidden_Jewels_of_the_Cheapside_Hoard/
Available until
8:59PM Tue, 22 Oct 2013 |
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