Welcome

Jonny Hannah is the lead artist on Museums Northumberland's Northumberland Folk project. 

I was commissioned by Museums Northumberland in July 2019 to create four exhibitions inspired by folklore in the fair county of Northumberland. I’d made many artworks in the past inspired by folk heroes, folk devils, folk songs & ballads. It’s an area I’ve loved for a long time. In our google-saturated world of the 21st century, Folk has always been an antidote to this. So many of the stories & tales are unanswered, inconclusive. Does Nessie exist? Of course she does, but the delicious uncertainty is every bit as exciting as the question.

One of the key parts of Northumberland Folk, as it quickly became known, was community participation. I didn’t really want a hundred of versions of the Bamburgh worm tale, great story that it is. So I began working out how to gather tales that for me, come under the category of ‘Urban Folklore’. Folk, is often perceived as something that happened a long time ago, in a deep, dark wood, as the peasants milled around, clueless. But I knew even growing up in Fife in Scotland, how folk was ever changing, growing & being added to. Mike Wilkie, known as Moog, lived a few streets away from me, then one day, he was gone. As far as I know he’s never turned up. What happened to him? This, I firmly believe is folk. The scary big house, just near our secondary school had all sorts of tales attached to it. There was talk of orgies. But we’d go there to play the collection of broken pianos housed in one of its outbuildings. And Dunfermline was a prominent place for folk music, with a legendary club called the Howf, where a young Billy Connolly & Gerry Rafferty would perform. But then when punk cam along, our town gave birth to the Skids, which I would happily also call Folk; the music of the people, played by them.

So I began trying to get the ‘urban folk’ stories from the good folks of Northumberland. I devised story cards for them to fill out, went busking in the streets with my special, customised guitar & started to hand them out. And the tales I got back were great. From stolen & resold milk bottles to make a few pence on the side, to a recipe for a cocktail celebrating a (fairly) local football hero (the slice of lime pulled all the other ingredients, like cheap cider & old whisky, together brilliantly). One story told of a certain public phone box (remember them?) in Bamburgh, where a call from a failing marriage gave birth to another successful one. So, romance, intrigue, the odd ghost, and a man called ‘Sticky’, & much more besides.

These stories are not in the books, until I make the book, or in my case… newspaper. So, as well as having many of these stories in my exhibitions, alongside more obvious tales such as the brave hero Lizzie Storey, & the amazing muscles of Jimmy Strength, a new newspaper (title undecided, possibly The Northumberland Folk Courier), will be published to mark the public start of the project next spring. Who knows, there may have to be two editions of the paper, as the stories keep coming. During the bleakness of lockdown, a true folk hero, Jack Charlton passed away. I know almost nothing about football, but I know Big Jack is well worth featuring. There will also be a separate publication celebrating the women from the area. As can often happen, the history books cut the women out. So, I’m going to do the opposite. From historical characters like the strong Josephine Butler, to women I’ve met along the way. I sat down with Marjorie Mountain, at the The Old School gallery in Alnmouth, one afternoon, at a time when I was having doubts about the project, & the way I was gathering information. But that conversation, by the ex-school mistress, sorted me out. Marjorie described the folks of Northumberland, having gone through more than their fair share of industrial upheaval, as ‘stoic & brave’. And then in an equally poetic manner, saw the landscape of this part of England, as ‘handsome, wild & free’. And there I had it, almost a sub-title for my entire project; Northumberland Folk; stoic, brave, handsome wild & free.

And more recently, I’ve gone right back to the start, & been obsessively drawing the dragon & brave knight from the ancient tale of the Bamborough Worm. But it’ll sit well with stories of found WWII Luftwaffe mascots & a giant ringworm… I hope. Even if it is all incongruous, & more akin to a car-boot sale, that’s what Folk can often be. Try as we might to control & curate it, it’s by the people, for them, & I’m delighted to say there’s no telling where that’ll end up. But four museums in Northumberland is a good place to start…

https://www.northumberlandfolk.info/

https://museumsnorthumberland.org.uk/project/northumberland-folk/exhibitions/

The Peacocks were a distinguished family of scholars who lived at Bottesford Manor and worked in North Lincolnshire during the later 19th and early 20thcentury. They were Edward Peacock (above left), and his seven children: Adrian, Edith, Florence, Julian, Mabel (above right), Maximillian and Ralf. Although a farmer, Edward was primarily an historian, who published numerous works from serious academic studies to popular novels.  He educated and passed on his enthusiasm to his children. 

Although based on studies of this area, most of the Peacocks’ work is of national importance. Edward’s two dictionaries of local dialect terms were ground breaking. A third volume compiled by Mabel and Maximilian, was eventually pieced together by Eileen Elder. Adrian wrote widely on agriculture and natural history, Florence was an historian and poet, Julian a genealogist, and Mabel the most widely recognised writer in Lincolnshire dialect. Maximilian was a collector of dialect and natural history observations.

The Peacock Family Archive is now part of the North Lincolnshire Museums collections. It consists of agricultural records, domestic records, common-place books, lesson books, drawings, photographs, diaries, personal correspondence and Lincolnshire dialect cards. An incredibly rich resource, it shines a light on the views and lives of people who lived in the local area from the early 18th century to the early 20th century. 

The photographs here show Edward and his daughter Mabel, two of the people we have to thank for recording the local dialect.

This object was created in India to protect the wearer in combat. The attendant stories about the item, gleaned from contemporary newspaper accounts, family tradition, and the museum accession register illustrate, with bloody immediacy, the circumstances in which many objects in UK museums were collected during the British occupation in India.  

On April 3, 1834, Captain Robert Gordon from Kirkcudbright marched with a division of British and Indian troops into Coorg, southern India. Their objective was to depose Chikka Veera Rajendra, the ruler of that kingdom, who had ceased – according to the British – to be ‘a dependent ally of the East India Company’. 

6000 men armed with rifles and Howitzers marched on Coorg. The Coorg resistance was brave but in vain. With minimal casualties the British forces routed the Rajah’s strongholds. Hundreds of Coorgs were killed. One of the dead carried this talisman with a Persian charm inscribed into the bronze:

‘He [the wearer of the talisman] is the Victorious, O Holy and Almighty God, the confirmation of Thy glorious command hath sent this wretched and insignificant person to make war against the enemy, but apart from the aid and favour of the Holiest and Most High I have no father. Therefore my sustenance depends wholly upon Him.’

This talisman or kavacha was probably bought from a sadhu or holy man. When carried into war the proper way to wear a protective talisman was over the heart or over the buttocks. The talisman addresses Madheva or Shiva. Robert Gordon picked it off the corpse of the soldier and later donated it to the Stewartry Museum in his home town.

Chikka Veera Rajendra was defeated, but he marched out of Coorg alive and very wealthy. His lands were forfeit but he received a monthly pension of £6000. In 1852 he and his daughter sailed to England. He pursued a case in the English courts to recover his fortune, but in vain. His daughter, Gowramma, was baptized by the Archbishop of Canterbury with Queen Victoria as her godmother.