Hampshire Record Office

(Sussex Street, Winchester, Hampshire SO23 8TH Tel 01962 846154). Last Thursday Lectures; 1.15 - 1.45 pm - admission free, but donations welcome.

22 February 2007 - 'All the world's a stage [coach]: travel diaries from the Grand Tour' by Adrienne Allen

12 February - 12 March 2007 'Gypsy Heritage' - an exhibition looking at Gypsy and Traveller homes, fairs, work and lifestyles from the 17th century to the present day.

Milestones Museum

The Basingstoke Canal - An exhibition by Surrey and Hampshire Canal Society exploring the history and restoration of the Basingstoke Canal. With special activities on Saturday 10 February. (Until 25 February). (Very interesting and informative - the editor)

Basingstoke Archaeological & Historical Society;

7.30 pm in Church Cottage, Basingstoke)

8 March - What Can We Learn From Human Bones? by Simon Mays of English Heritage

Willis Museum

11 November - 23 December 2006 - Faraway Festival Costumes, an exhibition of traditional dress from south west China.

10 March (10.00 am - 3.00 pm) - 'Mission Impossible: Saving the Past'. A look at how and why treasured objects, textiles, furniture, archaeology, and modern materials and collections survive. Discover how to look after your treasured heirlooms and collectibles with the team of conservators from Hampshire County Council Museums Service.

Willis Museum - Friends of the Willis Museum

(7.30 pm in the Museum)

15 March - The story of letter boxes by Brian Locock

Archaeology in Berkshire 2006 - Saturday 3 March from 10.00 am - 4.30pm at Ranelagh School, Bracknell. Featuring archaeological projects that took place in Berkshire during 2006.

Hendon RAF Museum - Countywide Travel are running a day trip to the museum on Saturday 31 March. Cost about £17.00. They may pick up from Tadley. Tel 01256 780079 for more information.

Last month's TADS meeting January 2007

A Victorian Magic Lantern Show, by a member of the Basingstoke Magic Lantern Society

'Roll up! Roll up!' We could imagine the Victorian or Edwardian public's excitement at the thought of a dimly-lit, smoky, yet colourful semi-ciné show of hand-painted glass slides projected through a magic lantern.

Our projectionist was appropriately and elegantly attired as he showed about 70 TADS members his magic of yesteryear.

Magic lanterns used bulls-eye lenses and projected light sources 300 years ago, but the inefficiency of candles, animal fat and oil lamps made the lanterns dangerous. In the 19th century a bright, incandescent light known as 'lime light' (calcium oxide) was used for the magic lanterns, as well as in theatres.

Slide production progressed from hand-painted skills to the more ambitious ones with moving images and eventually hand-tinted photographic slides: the forerunner of cinematography.

'Jon' had a magnificent and endless variety of slides from bucolic scenes to advertising, flowers, blacksmiths, jewellery, plumbing, burglars, vicars, gamekeepers, village bobbies, Exeter, Gay 'Paree', temperance society propaganda, burning cathedrals, seaside holidays, moral tales, death, bald men and cures for baldness! No Tadley scenes, though!

He then took us on a whistle-stop tour of England's Victorian South Coast, from the IOW to Lulworth and the Isle of Purbeck.

Included in the Show was a primitive karaoke type sing-along, 'Chick, chick, chick, chick, chicken', and we entered into the spirit of the night by joining in lustily.

Some of the 'magic' was when the projectionist could turn a summer slide to a winter one; and chromatropic slides which produce kaleidoscopic patterns on the screen. The most famous and popular image was of a poor Victorian man in bed, probably snoring, with his mouth open and a succession of rats running up the bed clothes into the said mouth. This is achieved by operating a lever and handle on the lantern. This caused gasps of horror from our modern Elizabethan audience at the 'good old days' and would have set the 1880 Victorian purchaser back 10 shillings (50p) which would have been about half a week's wages.

'Jon' said he became interested in magic lanterns about 14 years ago, and he certainly has a magnificent collection of Victoriana (and Edwardiana), which gives us a good social history of times past.

Thank you, 'Jon' for your dedication and historical accuracy.

Rosemary Bond

Page last updated: Saturday 22 December 2007