Page 6 - Phonebox Magazine October 2011

MUSEUM MATTERS
The Georgian Apothecary Fun Day!
Cure your ails at our Georgian Apothecary Fun Day! Mix lotions and potions taken from real Georgian herbal recipes! Watch the fizzing and frothing as you blend your own brew! Learn about crazy cures and terrifying treatments for all types of Georgian illnesses! Dress up as an apothecary and play in our apothecary’s shop, then follow our trail around the gardens to pick out plants that were used in the natural herbal remedies. Play our quiz by matching up dreadful diseases to their cures and then handle some original apothecary’s artefacts from the 1700s. 26th October, 10.30 – 4.30pm. Normal admission prices apply, quiz £1.50 includes prize.
Archaeology Day
Calling all budding Indiana Jones! Come along to the Museum to get hands on experience of the working life of a real archaeologist! With activities for children and adults, this fascinating day will focus on eras ranging from the prehistoric to medieval Britain and beyond. Children can dig for treasured artefacts in our sandpit, rebuild a Roman vase and build their own Stonehenge in the Garden. Adults can talk to our local archaeologists and find out about the fascinating archaeological past of the area. With materials provided by the BBC's 'History of Ancient Britain', this event will be one of the highlights of the year! Normal admission prices apply.
Object of the Month for October
In October the Cowper and Newton Museum will be celebrating a local ‘find’: a colorful sheet of Chinoiserie Wallpaper dating from 1720. It was found in a house in Olney Market Place, formally The Catherine Wheel Inn. Zoom along to the Museum to see this wallpaper and find out how it was made as well as more about the fashion for Chinoiserie.
William Cowper
Pity for Poor Africans
I own I am shock’d at the purchase of slaves,
And fear those who buy them and sell them are knaves; What I hear of their hardships, their tortures and groans Is almost enough to draw pity from stones.
I pity them greatly, but I must be mum,
For how could we do without sugar and rum? Especially sugar, so needful we see;
What, give up our deserts, our coffee, and tea!
Cowper was living in Weston Underwood in the 1880s and 90s while Tom Clarkson and his Quaker friends waged their campaign which led to the abolition of the slave trade. Women had at that time no vote and were not expected to hold opinions on anything of import, and especially not in politics. Let us remember that less than one man in ten had the vote and Quakers, like women, had no vote and were not encouraged to express any opinion.
But it was the women who did the shopping, and it was women who led a great boycott against the use of sugar from the West Indies. Sugar at that time was the number one commodity just as surely as
is oil in our day.* Cowper published several pieces of poetry in support of the boycott. He detested everything of slavery and was heartily supported by the Throckmorton family who owned Weston Underwood, the alcove marks their appreciation of him.
*Hard to believe eh! The West India dock was built especially to accommodate that massive trade.
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6 Phonebox Magazine