Professor Hedgehog's Journal

A Man and a Brother?

Posted on 29/07/2015 by carolinemmurray

Hindsight is inevitably a snare for the serious historian – how much more so for the dabbling amateur? How could so many normal people (and not just Germans) support the Nazi party? How could so many people (and not just men) have opposed female suffrage? And how could so many educated, sophisticated and philanthropic people not have a problem with slavery? Continue reading →

Posted in History, London | Tagged abolition, Clapham sect, George Hibbert, Jamaica, slavery, William Wilberforce | 5 Comments

The Garden Museum

Posted on 27/07/2015 by carolinemmurray

What do the following museums have in common: Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, The Queen’s House in Greenwich, and the Garden Museum in Lambeth? The answer is a good news/bad news one: all three are about to undergo refurbishment, extension or improvements, but as a result all three are having to close down for a time. Continue reading →

Posted in Botany, Gardens, History, London, Museums and Galleries | Tagged Elias Ashmole, Garden Museum, John Tradescant, St Mary's Lambeth, William Bligh | 9 Comments

Graves of the Great and Good

Posted on 24/07/2015 by carolinemmurray

I had been meaning for ages to visit the Ascension Burial Ground in north Cambridge, and a tweet from Zoe Cormack about the grave of J.G. Frazer and his wife finally got me off the sofa and out of the house. I caught the bus from the city centre (thinking gratefully – as so often – about the wise advice of my classics teacher when I was applying to Cambridge: ‘Remember that two of the three women’s colleges are up the only hill in East Anglia’), and got off in the dizzying, oxygen-deprived heights of Huntingdon Road. Continue reading →

Posted in Cambridge, Gardens, History | Tagged Ascension Burial Ground, Cambridge | 5 Comments

The Professor of Basket-Making

Posted on 21/07/2015 by carolinemmurray

In the Museum of Cambridge (formerly the Folk Museum) not far from Murray Edwards College (formerly New Hall) but somewhat north of John Lewis (formerly Robert Sayle) there is a bizarre object donated in 1925 by Thomas Okey (1852–1935), first Serena Professor of Italian in the University of Cambridge but formerly a basket-maker of Spitalfields in the East End of London. Continue reading →

Posted in Cambridge, History, London, Museums and Galleries | Tagged basket-making, Cambridge University, Italian literature, Museum of Cambridge, Spitalfields, Thomas Okey | 6 Comments

Retirement: Four Months In

Posted on 20/07/2015 by carolinemmurray

First thought: who would have thought it? I should have marked the first three months, or quarter-year, in June, but it passed by almost unnoticed. I see from my diary that on 20 June I was recovering from (and writing up) the giddy excitement of my jaunt to Sheffield, wimpishly failed to go to the Castle Hill open day because it was raining, and had a friend round to tea. Continue reading →

Posted in Cambridge, Gardens, London, Museums and Galleries | Tagged gardening, reading, retirement | 6 Comments

Plant of the Month: July

Posted on 19/07/2015 by carolinemmurray

It doesn’t take a very fertile brain to extend the ‘Object of the Month’ concept to other areas: so welcome to ‘Plant of the Month’. This should perhaps be the titan arum (#tinytitan), which has flowered this year in Edinburgh as well as in Cambridge, but since it is (a) plant of the decade rather than of the month, and (b) very well covered elsewhere, I have decided to choose instead the lavender, brilliantly represented during July in almost all areas of @CUBotanicGarden (as well as in my own rather more modest plot). Continue reading →

Posted in Botany, Cambridge, Gardens | Tagged CUBG, lavender, plant of the month, titan arum | 1 Comment

Anna Maria Vassa

Posted on 17/07/2015 by carolinemmurray

Last night, I went on one of the wonderful Allan Brigham’s Cambridge ‘Town not Gown’ walks, intended by Allan (a Cambridge Blue Badge Guide) to introduce the inhabitants of Cambridge to some of the less familiar aspects of their city. It is his intention that everyone should finish the walk knowing something they didn’t know before: this was achieved spectacularly for me at St Andrew’s Church, Chesterton. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged abolition, Chesterton, Gustavus Vassa, Olaudah Equiano, slavery, Town Not Gown | 2 Comments

Object of the Month: July

Posted on 15/07/2015 by carolinemmurray

While hanging around in the Fitzwilliam Museum, hoping to get a ticket for a talk on Ruskin’s Turners (I did, and it was excellent), I decided that this would be the ideal opportunity to launch a new project – Object of the Month!!!! Each month, I will choose – not completely at random – a museum artefact to write about. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ceramics, Fitzwilliam Museum, Glaisher bequest | 10 Comments

The Stone Guest

Posted on 11/07/2015 by carolinemmurray

Actually, on this occasion, the Stone Guest was rather more loam and roughcast than stone. To be honest, he looked as though costumed by a despairing wardrobe mistress as Mr Badger in an am-dram production of Toad of Toad Hall. Consequently, he wasn’t really very scary, despite what the music and libretto were doing for him. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Covent Garden, Don Giovanni, Mozart, opera | Leave a comment

Think Pink!

Posted on 09/07/2015 by carolinemmurray

You will have to excuse me (though indeed you may be very relieved): this piece is much more pictures than words. Visiting the Botanic Garden in bright sunshine but very high wind, I was struck especially by the pink flowers (not that the blues, purples, reds, yellows, oranges and greens weren’t equally exciting, and of course it’s debatable in this context what is pink, what is purple and what is red): there was something in the quality of the light which made the pinks really glow. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Cambridge University Botanic Garden | Leave a comment