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"I followed no regular studies whatever during our summer at Weybridge. We lived chiefly in the open air, on the heath, in the beautiful wood above the meadows of Brooklands, and in the neglected, picturesque inclosure of Portmore Park, whose tenantless, half-ruined mansion, and noble cedars, with the lovely windings of the river Wey in front, made it a place an artist would have delighted to spend his hours in."
Inside cover of Fanny Kemble’s Apocrypha, inscribed to ‘Fanny Butler from her affectionate friend M. Banisters Nov. 1st 1841.’
It is not, however, for her ‘Records of a Girlhood’ that Fanny Kemble is best known.
From the age of 19, Fanny gained fame and notoriety for her acting skills in Britain, playing lead roles in a number of Shakespeare plays. The profound impact of Shakespeare’s writing on Kemble’s life is evident from her ‘Apocrypha’ held in the Elmbridge Museum collection. This was a book of passages originating from the Greek version of the Old Testament, which were left out of the Hebrew Bible. They were sometimes used by Christians as a means to further study or instruction in the faith, but their status among different denominations varies. Kemble’s Apocrypha was clearly treasured and keenly studied, as it contains many notes in its margins, some of which reference passages from the Shakespeare plays which had such a huge impact on her life and were her trademark as an actress.
The cover of Kemble’s Apocrypha.
Kemble’s success brought her to the United States, where she met and married cotton and rice plantation owner Pierce Butler in 1834. By 1838, the couple had two daughters, and the marriage was beginning to face difficulties. During the four months that the family stayed at one of Butler’s plantations in Georgia from 1838-9, Fanny was appalled by the suffering she saw inflicted upon the enslaved people forced to work for her husband’s family. She wrote about the horrors she witnessed in a journal, which was published long after divorcing her husband, in 1863. It had a huge influence on the case for abolition, bolstering the Unionist cause in the American Civil War which was underway at the time, and securing Kemble’s place in the history of America’s Abolition Movement.
By studying children’s literature, we can learn much about the kind of messages past societies wanted their children to learn.
The 64 historic fairytales in Elmbridge Museum’s archive help reveal the stories which captivated these children of the past. Some, such as ‘Beauty and the Beast’, are tales which have endured. Others, like ‘A Step Into Fairyland’, contain much darker themes, with ‘The Babes in the Wood’ story inside this book ending in the death of two lost children. Below you can find images of a variety of beautifully illustrated fairytales in the collection.
From a collection of 24 children's books which belonged to Elmbridge local Emily Elizabeth Taylor, born 1903.
From a collection of 24 children's books which belonged to Elmbridge local Emily Elizabeth Taylor, born 1903.
Given to Louisa Wheeler of Weybridge at Christmas 1903.
Given to Louisa Wheeler of Weybridge at Christmas 1903.
From a collection of 24 children's books which belonged to Elmbridge Local Emily Elizabeth Taylor, born 1903.
From a collection of 24 children's books which belonged to Elmbridge Local Emily Elizabeth Taylor, born 1903.
Marked inside the cover 'front Nellie to Lizzie with love, 1908'.
Marked inside the cover 'front Nellie to Lizzie with love, 1908'.
From a collection of 24 children's books which belonged to Emily Elizabeth Taylor, born 1903.
From a collection of 24 children's books which belonged to Emily Elizabeth Taylor, born 1903.
This was a children's book published in the 1930s.
This was a children's book published in the 1930s.
As the 20th century progressed, children’s picture comic books became more popular. ‘The Beano’, with its humorous stories involving regular characters, was a massive hit amongst children in the UK. This one formerly belonged to a child in Weybridge. It is number 2707 from 4th June 1994, costing 35p and with its accompanying Matlows Giant Chew Bar still attached.
As another form of personal expression, poetry can help us to understand the emotions of past people during historic events. The poem on the left is on the front of a programme for a ‘Grand Tea Matinee’ in aid of naval prisoners of war. It was held in the Village Hall, Weybridge, on Saturday 8th January 1916. The poem thanks local traders for supporting the event and also lists those responsible for staging it. As such, it is an excellent primary source for both the information it tells us about local people, and the feelings of those locals towards the First World War and its military personnel.
The poem on the right is on a memorial notice for the funeral of Ann Maria Rowling, an Elmbridge local who died on the 23rd November 1887, aged 66. It is often thought that Victorian families did not love each other or grieve in the same way that we do now, due to the frequency of death amongst all age groups within families. Poems and sentimental literature like this memorial show us that this was not the case.
Memorial Notice for Ann Maria Rowling, who died in 1887 aged 66.
Programme for the ‘Grand Tea Matinee’ in aid of naval prisoners of war, held in the Village Hall, Weybridge, 1916.
‘Enigma’ may also bring to mind the development of science and codes. During the Second World War, the Enigma Machine was used by Nazi Germany to encode their communications, a code which was eventually broken by Polish and British scientists using technology, cryptanalysis and early computers. Below are a selection of items and information related to this theme.
As the daughter of the famous Lord Byron, Ada has her own close links to literary history. She is, however, most noted for her work as a mathematician, working with Charles Babbage on his ‘analytical engine’ – now commonly considered the first and earliest model for what would become a digital computer. It was the development of this machine which laid the groundwork for the later advancements in computer science seen during and after the Second World War.
After the Second World War, the development of modern computers continued to gather pace. This photograph shows Mr. Howard Lander operating a compact computer system at ”Milegate House” in Hersham, on the 23rd January 1978. The computer machines of the 1970s and 1980s were considerably more compact than that of the ‘Enigma’ machine and the ‘bombe’ of the war years.
This book, entitled ‘I, James Blunt’, provides yet another link to codes and cyphers. Published in the middle of the Second World War in 1942, the author H.V Morton imagines what life might be like if the Nazis were to successfully invade Britain. He writes from the perspective of protagonist James Blunt, and warns readers at the end of the book that its imagined scenarios could come true if the country’s people failed to maintain the war effort.
Perhaps most interesting, though, is the morse code scribbled on the back cover. The book was owned by Mr Sweet, a member of the local Homeguard. Morse code was commonly used during the war to encode telecommunications, and although we’ll never know the purpose of the scribbles on the back of his book, the code was clearly something in which Mr Sweet was well-versed, perhaps thanks to his training in the Homeguard.
