Marked Bullivant & Tipson, October 1830
Design for making livery uniform buttons; embossed design in the shape of a griffin.
Bullivant & Timpson were button makers, based on Great Charles Street, Birmingham, recorded in the trade directories from 1818 – early 20th century.
In the Worcestershire County museum collection.
The model beer engine was made by William Stokoe (whose granddaughter-in-law donated it to the Worcester City museum collection in 2001) a water engineer working around Worcester circa 1900, and is thought to be an apprentice piece made by Mr. Stokoe during his training. The beer engine is believed to be a miniature copy of the type of pumps used to raise beer from the barrel to the glass in a traditional public house.
The beer engine has a wooden case decorated with floral marquetry. Inside the lower case are four working brass valves connected by rods to four working levers on the curved upper section of the case. The valves are also connected to four taps on the front of the model; below the taps is a lead lined sink with a small drainage hole. Access to the lower case and the drain is via a small door on the case front.
Charles Ginner’s landscape painting of the Malvern Hills demonstrates his signature style: the use of a small, regular touch of thick paint, a method that can give his paintings the appearance of densely worked embroidery.
Ginner was born in Cannes, France. In 1904 he began to study painting at the Académie Vitti under Paul Gervais. Unfortunately Gervais disliked Ginner’s bright palette so much that the student felt he had to leave. He settled in London in 1910 and became a founder member of the Camden Town Group which also included Duncan Grant and Walter Sickert.
In 1914 Ginner published a manifesto which encouraged artists to look at nature in more detail, to use solid pigment, and to be influenced by Cezanne, Van Gogh and the Post-Impressionists. His paintings became more concerned with observation and description, and he turned his attention from interiors to landscapes.
In the Worcester City museum collection.
David Davies was particularly interested in the transparency of paint and he often used varnish as a medium to create a luminous feel. He even experimented with varnishing pastel sketches to give a porcelain glaze appearance.
Davies was born in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, the son of a miner. Both of his parents were from South Wales.
While still a student at the National Gallery Art School, he sold a painting to art collector James Oddie for a hundred guineas. This sale enabled Davies to pursue his artistic studies abroad, and he left Melbourne late in 1890. He travelled to Paris, where he studied at the Academie Julian under Jean-Paul Laurens.
Two years later, soon after their marriage in Paris, Davies and his wife, Janet, moved to Cornwall, where they mixed with the Newlyn artists’ colony. After a period back in Australia, they went on to settle in Dieppe where both taught to fund their painting.
Occasionally during the 1920s, Davies visited his friend Richard Heyworth in Cheltenham and they painted together. This picture was from one of these visits and was donated to the museum by Heyworth in 1937.
Horse-drawn tram from the Worcestershire Tramways, stopping at The Ketch on Worcester’s Bath Road in about 1912.
Electric tram outside Worcester City Library and Museum on Foregate Street, about 1925.
The Tramways and Accidents
Berrows Worcester Journal;
Saturday, February 23rd 1884.
Three accidents occurred on Monday in this city in connection with the opening of the tramways for the public use. One arose out of the crowding near the rails, and the others from boys following the cars. A lad named Henry Winscombe, painter, aged 14, was running after one of the cars down the Tything with a number of other lads, when he fell, and his right foot getting under one of the wheels, three of his toes were severely crushed. He was removed to the Infirmary, where it was found necessary to amputate two of the toes. The lad is progressing favourably. A boy about ten years of age and a woman named Bertha Eshbury. Fifty-four years of age, were also dealt with at the Infirmary in the course of the day for injuries sustained in the crowd which assembled near the tram lines. In the case of the woman, she was knocked down by a passing spring-trap – one of the wheels of which passed over her chest – in getting out of the way of one of the tram cars.
Images of the boys at Worcester Royal Grammar School included in past exhibitions at Worcester City Museums.
Officer Training Corps Shooting Team, 1922
Rowing Team, 1945
Hockey Team, about 1935
Football Team, early 1930s
