‘A THOUGHT PROVOKING MUSEUM’ THE RUSKIN MUSEUM, CONISTON

 

‘A THOUGHT PROVOKING MUSEUM’

THE RUSKIN MUSEUM, CONISTON

Landworker magazine of Unite the Union 

“I think it is a little gem because it covers so much from John Ruskin, Donald Campbell and the Bluebird  and Arthur Ransome  plus the history of Coniston that includes the copper mines,” said Margaret Davison of Hexham. 

Opened in Coniston Village by the friends of the writer, philosopher, art critic and social pundit John Ruskin a year after his death in 1900, the award-winning Ruskin Museum has been described as “the most thought-provoking in the Lakes” in The Rough Guide to the Lake District.

High praise indeed for the local people who own and manage the museum that is heavily reliant for funds on visitor admissions plus support from volunteers.

Photograph is copyright of Mark Harvey 

“I am very proud of our self-sufficiency,” explains Anne Hall OBE, who has chaired the museum’s management committee for 15 years. “The museum is built from traditional local slate but includes modern technology such as touch screens to tell some remarkable stories”.

                                              Photograph is copyright of Mark Metcalf 

Ruskin’s love of the Lake District landscape and communities drew him to spend the last 28 years of his life in Coniston. He was a gifted painter and the museum houses some of his beautiful watercolours and drawings plus geologically important minerals and crystals.  

As an art critic, Ruskin, who chose to be buried under the Yewdale Fells rather than in Westminster Abbey, believed in the idea of "truth to nature". He encouraged painters to closely observe the landscape so as to capture the natural world as truthfully as possible without romanticizing what they saw. He believed art could transform lives.

In the 1850s Ruskin began giving public lectures and after observing the malevolent impact of the Industrial Revolution on the atmosphere and the pollution of the environment and people’s souls, he taught drawing at the Working Men’s College in London.

He attacked the dehumanising power of capitalism for being based on “the negation of the soul” where human beings are turned into profit. He understood the Victorian desire to be rich was pursued to have power over others and contriving “that our neighbours have less”. He rubbished Adam Smith’s belief that self-interest ultimately benefits everyone. Ruskin’s book Unto the Last, published 1862, continued to be well read into the 20^th century and persuaded, amongst others, Gandhi to fight for social justice.

When he arrived in Coniston in 1872, Ruskin helped to further develop the  Coniston Mechanics’ Institute to provide education and amusement for working people.

He helped develop the Langdale linen industry viewing it amongst his finest achievements. Women with no previous experience of hand-spinning or weaving were taught both, proving that handmade linen could compete with mass-produced and that women could discover  fulfilling and creative work roles.

The Museum houses numerous examples of hand-spun, hand-woven linen, including embroidered items from nature, and some great Ruskin Lace examples that are big favourites of the museum director Tracey Hodson.

 

In the 1870s he addressed letters to England’s workmen urging them to form their own movement to take control of their own destiny.

By 1889 the London Dockers were following in the footsteps of the Matchgirls the previous year by forming their own union to successfully win a famous strike that paved the way for trade unions to flourish.

“Ruskin was talking about things over 150 years ago that are so relevant today such as a working wage, the environment and green issues, he was a remarkable man,” states Hall.

So too was Donald Campbell. And it was to discover more about the speed ace that Keith Stevens had persuaded his wife Christine to visit the Ruskin Museum whilst holidaying locally from Norfolk.

Campbell broke four World Water Speed records on Coniston before tragically losing his life in a 5^th attempt in January 1967. The Bluebird Wing that houses the engine from the boat in which Campbell died and which lay in the lake for 34 years is packed with memorabilia alongside the prototype Bluebird JetStar ski-boat that Campbell planned to manufacture.

What is missing is the iconic hydroplane Bluebird K7 and wreckage. This has been restored by Tyneside engineer Bill Smith who has hung on to it in a drive to show it in action at public events.

However, Campbell’s daughter Gina wants it restored to the scene of his death and housed at the Ruskin Museum, which was able to extend their premises by obtaining a national lottery grant on the basis this would happen. A Bring the Bluebird home campaign is currently seeking support.

                                           Photograph is copyright of Mark Harvey 

One boat that is on display is the sailing dinghy Mavis, the inspiration of the fictional Amazon featured in the Swallows and Amazons series of children’s adventure novels that were set in the Lake District by author Arthur Ransome who was educated in Windermere and is buried in Cumbria.

Alan Davison read “Arthur Ransome as a kid and I knew there was an association with Coniston and the story about the doctor (Dr Ernest Altounyan bought two dinghies with Ransome so that the pair could teach their children to sail on Coniston Water – ed) and his children and the boat was new to me and it was good”. 

 The couple are keen museum visitors and were clearly impressed by the Ruskin Museum with Margaret, a retired freelance journalist, stating: “It is a little gem because it covers so much from John Ruskin, Donald Campbell and the Bluebird  and Arthur Ransome  plus the history of Coniston including the local copper mines”.

Christine Stevens also enjoyed her visit.  “The museum is very nice. I prefer small museums as they have a more homely atmosphere, “ while Keith had discovered from the museum’s displays that “ as well as Campbell and Ruskin, Coniston has many other local heroes.”

Collectively they include all those numerous people who have comprised the local mountain rescue team, 75 years old this year and still turning out turning out in all-weather 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and all funded solely by donations.

Much earlier, Owen Glynne Jones (1867-1899) became the first climbing superstar as a result of being photographed by the Abraham Brothers whilst rock climbing in the Lake District before he died aged 32 when a spectacular human pyramid collapsed and he was thrown hundreds of feet.

Then there were the Coniston Tigers, a group of young men who in the 1930s escaped from depressed industrial towns to explore the fells whilst Alan Bennett Hargreaves was a leading rock climber in the Lake District and Wales.

Coniston farm labourer James Hewitson, who lived a stones throw from the museum,  died in 1963 but there is still an annual ceremony locally to the man who won the Victoria Cross after he led a daylight attack on a series of enemy crater posts in Givenchy, France on 26^th April 1918.

The museum is only a matter of yards from to the start of the

copper mines trail. It is a steady uphill one mile plus walk to the Upper Bonsor Mill mine and where workers battled the weather, noise and risk of serious injury and death to break down the valuable copper ore from its surrounding rock that was mined underground. (By the time the mine closed in 1897 the workings were over 375 metres under the Deep Level.)

Many copper mine workers were immigrants, particularly from Ireland, desperate to escape poverty and persecution in their own countries.

It is a story Krystyna Browning can relate to. She spent her early years at Lowther Park Penrith in a Polish Resettlement Camp that opened in 1947 and closed eight years later. “After WWII my dad came to Britain to escape persecution from the Russians whilst my mam had escaped from the Germans. They met when they came to Cumbria and I lived the first six years of my life in the camp”.

The family moved to Birmingham and in a long and varied life, Krystyna  at one time worked at the massive Bass Mitchell Brewers site and was a member of the TGWU, now UNITE.

Ten years ago, Krystyna and her husband moved to Cumbria and she started working part-time at the museum earlier this year. “I love the variety of people who come in to the museum. I am still  discovering a lot more about the items on display and the people featured. It is fascinating.”