Tagged with Objects
Resource : Drawer handle with abolitionist plaque
In the late 1700s, the image of a kneeling, enslaved African man, accompanied by the words ‘Am I not a man and a brother’ became the most prominent emblem for those wishing to abolish the Transatlantic slave trade, in both Britain and America. As well as appearing in books, prints and pamphlets, it was also reproduced on an extraordinary variety of everyday and household items – from crockery and soft furnishings, to jewellery and hairpins.
Resource : A pair of ‘Wellington boots’
These are the original ‘Wellington boots’, designed for the Duke of Wellington to be both practical and fashionable. They were adapted from the ‘Hessian’ boots previously worn by British officers to allow the wearing of new lightweight linen trousers rather than traditional woollen ones. They were cut lower to make riding more comfortable, and no longer had a tassel. After the Duke’s victory at Waterloo, this style of boot became extremely fashionable and spread through London society, eventually inspiring the modern ‘welly’.
Resource : Laennec stethoscope
Today, the stethoscope is a fundamental and indispensable part of a doctor’s kit, often providing the first clues to the nature of a variety of chest complaints. But in the early 1800s, simple diagnostic tools like this had yet to be developed. The invention of the stethoscope by René Laënnec (1781 – 1826) revolutionised the capacity of the physician (doctor) to diagnose chest, heart and lung complaints.
Resource : Newcomen Beam Engine
The atmospheric engine was invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712. It was the first machine to be powered by steam and was largely used to pump water out of mines. Hundreds of these engines were made and used all over Britain and Europe in the 1700s. They became known simply as the Newcomen Engine and helped pave the way for the Industrial revolution.
Resource : Train ticket: Liverpool to Warrington
The advent of steam hauled railways in the 1820s quickly revolutionised passenger travel and the transport of goods across Britain and the wider world. This is an early train ticket for a journey from Liverpool to Warrington.
Resource : John McAdam’s snuff box
John McAdam revolutionised road travel in the 1800s, through his ‘Macadamisation’ method. The greatest advance in road construction since Roman times, his principles are still applied to road building today.
Resource : Skelmanthorpe Flag
The 1800s saw a series of protests and uprisings in Britain, as people campaigned against slavery, unjust taxes and laws imposed by the government and in support of fair wages, the right to vote and to have their voices heard in parliament. Protest flags, posters and banners carrying radical slogans were a popular way for campaigners to get their message across at marches and rallies, and to cooperate without endangering individuals. The Skelmanthorpe flag was created in secret, in Huddersfield, initially to honour the victims of what became known as the Peterloo Massacre, in 1819.
Resource : Jeremiah Brandreth pot
The Pentrich Rising was a small armed rebellion initiated by political radicals in the Midlands in 1817, which they hoped would spread far and wide and bring about revolutionary changes to the structure of government and society.
Resource : Thomas Clarkson’s campaign chest
Between the 1500s and early 1800s, millions of Africans were kidnapped, sold and transported to the Americas to work as slaves, in unimaginably cruel conditions, on hugely profitable plantations, producing sugar, tobacco and other commodities. These plantations were largely owned by Europeans and Euro-Americans. Britain grew rich on the profits from this transatlantic slave trade, which were reinvested into other economic sectors. Only in the late eighteenth century did public opinion slowly begin to turn against the trade in Africans, and campaigners for abolition used every way they could to bring the issue to people’s attention in Europe.
Resource : Textile sample books
Cotton was one of the latest textile fibres to be introduced to Britain as a raw material within a manufacturing system, but between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it rose to prominence as a cornerstone of the British economy. Cotton manufacture stimulated industrialisation, global commercial influence, and new communities of labour. This is one of five early sample books illustrating the cotton and calico designs produced by the textile industry in Salford between 1769 and 1851.
