Bethnal Green Research Articles

The Closing of Museums

ACCORDING to the Secretary to the Treasury, “His Majesty's Government are of opinion that the following museum's and galleries should be closed to the public: British Museum, Natural History Museum, Science Museum, Geological Museum, Bethnal Green Museum, Tate Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Wallace Collection, London Museum.” The precise sense of the word “should” will appear from events. At any rate, the decision has been made definite in the case of all departments of the British Museum except the reading-room, but the National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum are not to be closed.

Richborough remains in Bethnal green

Richborough remains in Bethnal green

What Happened to the English Parish

THE examples of Bethnal Green and Manchester-to which many others might be added-will suffice to give the reader an impression of the disjointed and confused state of local government, brought about by the uncertainty of the law and the divided jurisdiction of rival authorities. We have now to trace the development, out of this chaos, of a local government at once practicable, authoritative and moderately democratic. The most notable examples of this type or stage that we have as yet discovered are the ancient seaport of Liverpool, which at this time was rapidly growing in population and wealth, and certain of the urban districts adjacent to London, such as Woolwich, Greenwich, Chelsea and Kensington. One condition common to all these cases was the practical withdrawal whether by abstention or absence of any hostile interference by such authorities as the justices of the peace or the courtleet. The extra-legal constitutions thus developed varied in detail from parish to parish, but resembled each other in certain main features. They all systematized the franchise and procedure of their constituent public meetings; they all created a representative body, to which the actual administration was confided; they all developed a salaried executive staff, effectively controlled by the representative body; and this representative body itself remained intimately connected with, and genuinely dependent on, the whole body of constituents, by the medium either of authoritative public meetings or the referendum. We can best describe this later evolution of the vestry, not by taking the history of any one parish or by confining ourselves to any one decade, but by dealing separately

Visit To the Artizans' Dwellings in the Boundary Street Area, Bethnal Green

Visit To the Artizans' Dwellings in the Boundary Street Area, Bethnal Green

The Plea of Insanity

It is worthy of notice that just as inquisitions de lunatico inquirendo are steadily receding before the advance in public and judicial favour of the summary powers of management and administration created by Section 116 of the Lunacy Act, 1890, so the question whether a prisoner is fit to take his trial is coming more and more to be determined by the Home Secretary on the advice of his experts, under the wide powers of the Criminal Lunatics Act, 1884, without waiting for arraignment. This was the course taken by Mr. Asquith both in the Bethnal Green murder case (“Reg. v. Matthews”) and in the case of Covington, who threatened to murder Cardinal Vaughan, and it is a humane and a wise one. On the other hand it has to be kept in view that this summary procedure deprives a prisoner of his right to have the fact of his sanity tried by a jury. There are, however, ample safeguards both in the Criminal Lunatics Acts and in the pressure of public opinion against any abuse in the exercise of the summary powers with which the Secretary of State is invested.

Samuel Morland, of Bethnal Green

Samuel Morland, of Bethnal Green

Samuel Morland, of Bethnal Green

Samuel Morland, of Bethnal Green

Bethnal Green Museum, London

Bethnal Green Museum, London

General Pitt Rivers' (Lane Fox) Anthropological Collection

THE collection which General Pitt Rivers, F.R.S., commenced to form in the year 1851 became well known to all immediately interested in the science of anthropology during the series of years in which it was exhibited at the Bethnal Green branch of the South Kensington Museum as Col. Lane Fox's collection, and no one visited it without picking up a great deal of interesting and curious information. To those who studied it with care it opened up a new field of exploration, and invested all objects of art and manufacture, from the simplest ornaments, weapons, or implements of savages, to works the product of the highest modern culture, with a certain peculiar interest over and above the gratification derived from the objects themselves without reference to the history of their origin. It is needless to say that the moving power of this peculiar interest was the evolution theory, for the object which General Pitt Rivers set before him was, as he explained, “so to arrange his collection of ethnological and prehistoric specimens as to demonstrate, either actually or hypothetical!y, the development and continuity of the material arts from the simpler to the more complex forms. To explain the conservatism of savage and barbarous races and the pertinacity with which they retain their ancient types of art. To show the variations by means of which progress has been effected and the application of varieties to distinct uses. To exhibit survivals or the vestiges of ancient forms which have been retained through natural selection in the more advanced stages of the arts, and reversion to ancient types. To illustrate the arts of prehistoric times as far as practicable by those of existing savages in corresponding stages of civilisation. To assist the question of the mono-genesis or poly genesis of certain arts; whether they are exotic or indigenous in the countries in which they are found. To this end objects of the same class from different countries have been brought together in the collection, but in each class the varieties from the same localities have been placed side by side, and the geographical distribution of each class has been shown in distribution maps.” The gradual growth of the arts has of course been the theme of many writers. But General Pitt Rivers was the first, and up till now has, we believe, remained the only, collector who has investigated the development of arts and manufactures, and brought home their history to students by means of series of the objects themselves arranged in groups so as to illustrate their actual pedigrees.

On the Principles of Classification Adopted in the Arrangement of His Anthropological Collection, Now Exhibited in the Bethnal Green Museum.

On the Principles of Classification Adopted in the Arrangement of His Anthropological Collection, Now Exhibited in the Bethnal Green Museum.