A Goodbye to Victoria’s Animals

So, It’s the final week of blogging and I am aware that last week’s blog did not exist. My apologies, however we finished our work early which meant that we could have the Thursday and the Friday off work and I only remembered about the blog when Roisin was asking me for the link to the WordPress account when I was on the motorway to Armathwaite Hall in the Lake District (if you have not been, go, it’s beautiful!).

Hence, this being the final blog. As mentioned, we have finished our work including the production of little badges that will be given out over the course of the autumn exhibition and the University’s Light Night events across Liverpool.

Cute, I know. It was hard for us to choose the little images that would go on them, so we decided to choose two each and when we did we realised that we had to insert an image of the Special Collections and Archives logo and more importantly; cater to the audience. So we found an image with some pretty cats. From Left to Right, the names of the images are: ‘Dignity and Impudence’, ‘The Royal Lion and Unicorn’, ‘Muzzle Your Dog and Let your Child Drown’, ‘The Pet Fawn’ and ‘Persian Cats’. After that is the LJMU Special Collections and Archives logo: an icosahedron.

The whole experience, as you may know from my previous blog posts, has been very interesting and fun all while allowing me to progress in the working world. I have also gained the ability to recognise a majority of Victorian imagery. Some of which, can be seen hung on the walls throughout Armathwaite Hall (again, I suggest you go). As well as this I have developed a reflex of shouting at people that I recognise Victorian imagery because I am well-cultured (now) and that I work as a researcher for Liverpool John Moores University. Ah, doesn’t time fly by. The closing of week ten (it’s actually eleven) is actually quite saddening. I will miss the routine of coming to work, seeing Roisin and going to Dory’s for lunch to get something different every day (This is a lie. I literally bought two pieces of toast every day).

Don’t Fret! The memory of Jade and Roisin will go on, because we left a little bit of ourselves, not literally, in the exhibition. I know that Roisin has also include this in her blog, but it means something to the both of us: ‘They Grew in Beauty Side by Side’.

This image is the last image in the exhibition and is an image that we have included because we felt that it was the most encompassing of the images we had seen throughout Victorian media, or more specifically the images that we had studied from the LJMU Special Collections and Archives’ 19^th Century collection. The image has been digitised from a periodical called The Animal World, which was the volume that Roisin and I had initially bonded over while waiting for our interview. It features a young girl sat in a brick house eating from a bowl, shared with a cat and a dog. The girl represents the innocent youth and the unbiased-feelings that children as clean-slates had towards animals. It also demonstrates the choice of animals that Victorian society predominantly welcomed into their home and how it hasn’t changed much today. We can see ourselves in this image and that is why we included it.

Before we finish the final blog, we must remember The Children’s Friend. A hearty periodical that has been a feature of this weekly blog for ten weeks. I hope you all have as much fun completing them as I do and I will include the answers this time along with the questions.

Enjoy and Goodbye,

Jade x