Tag Archives: victorian architecture

A wonderful museum in Bombay (Mumbai)

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THE DR BHAU Daji Lad Museum in Bombay’s Byculla district is housed in a building with a neo-classical (Palladian) facade. However, within it there architecture is gloriously Victorian. Recently restored   its interior competes with the exhibits for the viewer’s attention.

 

Prince Albert

The museum was opened in 1872 as ‘The Victoria and Albert Museum’. Like its namesake in London, its exhibits are form a display of applied arts, technology, and design. Some of them  are replicas of objects that were sent from India to London as exhibits in the Great Exhibition of 1851.

 

In 1975, the museum was given its present name, which honours Dr Bhau Daji Lad (1822-1874). He was an eminent physician and surgeon,  who researched cures for leprosy.  With a keen interest in archaeology, he did much to raise funds to pay for the establishment of the museum.

 

One of the men who donated money towards the founding of the museum was the Jewish businessman David Sasoon. The museum contains a tall statue of Victoria’s Consort Prince Albert. The base of this includes the words “dedicated by David Sassoon”, and beneath them, there are some words in Hebrew.  The base of the statue also has words in Hindi, Gujarati, and Urdu scripts. In front of the statue, there is a bust of Sassoon.

 

Like the much larger Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum contains a wide variety of beautifully crafted objects: too many to describe here. Some rooms of the museum are dedicated to housing temporary exhibitions. Behind the museum, there is a courtyard,  lined by another exhibition space, a café,  a small Hindu shrine, and a museum shop.

 

Of the many wonderful places that can be seen in Bombay, the Bhau Daji Lad Museum is one of my favourites.

A cultural centre beneath a Victorian clocktower in Croydon

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THE DAVID LEAN cinema, where we watched a superb film called “Coming to America” (made in 1988), is within a complex known as the Croydon Clocktower. In the heart of Croydon, this cultural centre is housed in what was originally constructed as the district’s Town Hall.

The Town Hall is a magnificent – exuberant – example of Victorian brickwork. It was constructed to the designs of a local architect, Charles Henman, and inaugurated by the Prince of Wales in 1896. There is a large statue of his mother, Queen Victoria, outside the façade on Katherine Street.

Until the 1980s, the enormous edifice was used for local government purposes. In the late 1980s, and early 1990s, the interior was renovated. Areas that were no longer needed for council business were repurposed as a public library, a café, a museum, and the David Lean cinema. A large room, which retains its original interior décor, the Braithwaite Hall, continues to be used for concerts, theatrical shows, and other public functions. It looked to me that the inside of the building had been hollowed out to create a spacious central atrium with a glass roof, which can be overlooked from galleries surrounding it on each floor. The result is pleasing to the eye. From the outside of the building, you would not expect to see this kind of atrium. The Town Hall complex is now known as the Croydon Clocktower, the name referring to the building’s high brick clock tower.

The film we watched in the small David Lean cinema was wacky but wonderful – a complete contrast to an incredibly slow-moving Taiwanese film, “Days”, which we watched a few days later.

Sell the wife at Smithfield instead of divorcing her

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IF YOU WISH to see the meat market at London’s Smithfield in action, either you must go to bed very late or wake up quite early, because the market is only open between 2 am and 10 am. This April, we visited it at about 1.30 in the afternoon, and there was little to see and there was hardly any odour in the air.

Back in October 2017, I walked from Clerkenwell to Smithfield, and wrote about it in a blog I published (https://londonadam.travellerspoint.com/44/). Here is what I wrote about the meat market:

“At Peters Lane, Cowcross street turns southward towards to meet St Johns Street, which commences at the north side of Smithfield Market, an indoor wholesale meat marketplace. Smithfield’s central Grand Avenue is entered through an archway flanked by two heraldic dragons and a pair of stone sculptures. The Avenue runs beneath a high roof supported by ornate painted ironwork arches. Side aisles are lined with the meat dealers’ stalls and glass-covered display cabinets. In 1852, London’s livestock market was moved from Smithfield to Copenhagen Fields in Islington (off Caledonian Road, where the Caledonian Park is now located). This cleared the area for the construction of the present meat market, which was completed by 1868. Constructed in an era before refrigerators were used, the market was designed to keep out the sun and to take advantages of prevailing breezes.”

I continued as follows:

“In mediaeval times, Smithfield had a bad reputation. It was known for criminal activity, violence, and public executions. In the early 19th century, when obtaining divorce was difficult, men brought their unwanted wives to Smithfield to sell them, then a legal way of ending a marriage (see: “Meat, Commerce and the City: The London Food Market, 1800–1855”, by RS Metcalfe, publ. 2015).”

In relation to disposing of a spouse, I quoted the following verse by an unknown author quoted in “Modern Street Ballads”, by John Ashton (published 1888):

“He married Jane Carter,

No damsel look’d smarter;

But he caught a tartar,

John Hobbs, John Hobbs;

Yes, he caught a tartar, John Hobbs.

He tied a rope to her, John Hobbs, John Hobbs;

He tied a rope to her, John Hobbs!

To ‘scape from hot water,

To Smithfield he brought her;

But nobody bought her …”

What I did not mention in my 2017 piece is that John Ashton noted in his book:

“Wives at the market did not fetch good prices; the highest I know of, is recorded in The Times, September 19, 1797: “An hostler’s wife, in the country, lately fetched twenty-five guineas.” But this was extravagance, as, with the exception of a man who exchanged his wife for an ox, which he sold for six guineas, the next highest quotation is three and a half guineas; but this rapidly dwindled down to shillings, and even pence. In 1881, a wife was sold at Sheffield for a quart of beer; in 1862, another was purchased at Selby Market Cross for a pint; and the South Wales Daily News, May 2, 1882, tells us that one was parted with for a glass of ale. Sometimes they were unsaleable …”

Fascinating, but horrific when you think about it. In any case, you will be pleased to know that although I visited Smithfield with my wife a few days ago, I had no intention of selling her! Instead, we enjoyed some liquid refreshment in the nearby branch of the Pret A Manger café chain.