Shopping Saturday - Selfridges decorations for the Coronation in 1937

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Selfridges is a store that has always known how to put on a show. A special occasion like a coronation is a great excuse to hang out the flags - literally. This week Britain has been marking the 60th anniversary of the present queen's coronation, so it seems like an appropriate time to look back at the coronation of her father, King George VI, in 1937.

The whole of Selfridge's Oxford Street and Orchard Street frontages were decorated with flags, sculptures, pictures and banners bearing the Royal arms, and the company produced a 20-page booklet, from which these illustrations are taken.

 The centrepiece was a sculptural group 'The Empire's Homage to the Throne' over the main entrance, and above this was the Royal Medallion featuring portraits of the new king and queen.

Above this was a giant representation of the Imperial State Crown, amid a gold and silver sunburst, and the whole thing was surmounted by the figure of Peace 'Let Peace Prevail' which towered 150 feet above ground level.

Just above window level on the Oxford Street front was a series of 18 bas-relief panels depicting scenes in British history, from the Druids and Stonehenge to the Armistice in 1918. These were flanked by two 35-foot high sculptures representing Canada and India.

Round the corner in Orchard Street was a giant picture depicting the great seaports of the British empire, with a border consisting of the house flags and funnel markings of major British shipping companies. Either side of this were two more sculptures, this time for Australia and South Africa. Finally, each of the large plate-glass windows all round the store at street level, normally full of merchandise, contained an oil painting of a scene from the His Majesty's life. There were 30 of these in all. It must have been quite a sight.

Welcome new editions of old(ish) books

I'm not in the habit of plugging books (apart from my own, which comes out next month - you'll see some shameless self-promotion then!). But there are some books where a new edition is worth shouting about, and this is one of them. There is a lot of interest in Caribbean family history, but there is relatively little in print, compared to other areas of research. It's quite some time since the last edition of Guy Grannum's Tracing your Caribbean Ancestors appeared, and it has been out of print for a while too, so the new edition is particularly welcome. If you are interested in the subject, Guy's website Caribbean Roots is also worth a look.  

This book is a National Archives Guide, from Bloomsbury Publishing, I knew that publication was imminent, so I was pleased to see a few days ago that it had arrived in The National Archives bookshop - I could hardly miss it, it's Publication of the Month. This means that you can buy it at a bargain price, £11.99 instead of £16.99, if you follow the link above. Like a number of other new publications it is also available as a e-book, which you can buy direct from Bloomsbury.

I also noticed a new edition of another established title that first appeared 25 years ago, Bound for Australia by David Hawkings. Most of the records he mentions are held in The National Archives, and David Hawkings is extremely good at finding relevant ones. Since the first edition appeared in 1987 he has discovered a victualling list for the First Fleet among Treasury records, which he reproduces in full in Chapter 1 (TNA ref T 46/22). This edition has 8 more chapters than the original 1987 work, with 22 appendices, a bibliography and separate indexes of personal names, place names and ships.

Although the title and the cover illustration suggest that this is a book about convicts, the subtitle 'A guide to the records of transported convicts and early settlers' shows that its scope is wider than that. One of the items that caught my eye on flicking through the book was an extract from 'A List of Free Passengers on board the Convict Ship Merchantman at Swan River on the 15th February 1863' (TNA Ref: MT 32/5). Among the Wives and Families of Pensioner Guard , the conduct on board of Mrs McCourt is described:

'A violent and most unmanageable woman. She was reported to me by her husband for keeping company with single men on board and refusing to come to bed at 10pm.'

Oh dear. So it wasn't just convicts who caused trouble.

Bound for Australia is published by The History Press and is also available from The National Archives bookshop, and although it isn't Publication of Month, it too is on sale at a bargain price if you buy it online.

If it's Friday, it must be Sydney

View from my balcony

I started writing this on Friday in the Paramatta RSL, coming towards the end of the first day seminar of the Unlock the Past tour. I wouldn't say that I'm jet-lagged, I'm not actually doing to badly, but I have absolutely no sense of what day or time it is. Suffice to say that I have managed to be awake when I need to be awake.

I touched down at Sydney's Kingsford-Smith airport early last Monday morning, then had a connecting flight to Brisbane, arriving at 10.30am. I gave my first talk at the Queensland Expo that afternoon, and another in the evening. The first talk was one that I know so well that I could do it in my sleep, and it did cross my mind that I might wake up to find my self doing exactly that, but it was fine! The weather in Brisbane was dull and drizzly on the first day, but for the other two days of the Expo the rain was hammering down! I felt right at home. It was a nice change, I suppose, to have the locals apologising for the weather, because that's what we Brits usually do.

Still, the company was good, people seemed to enjoy the talks, and approached me with lots of questions afterwards. I particularly enjoyed 'The Will Forgeries', a talk I gave for the first time on Wednesday. It was especially appropriate for an Australian audience. It was also the final talk of my tour, and I was very excited to find someone in the audience who had been researching the same story, though from a different angle. We have exchanged email addresses so I see a fruitful correspondence coming on!

Now that's what I call a meat pie!

Now it's Tuesday morning, and I am back in Sydney, after giving my 15th and final talk yesterday in Melbourne. It's been great fun travelling round and meeting some great people in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne, but I'm looking forward to having a whole day and a bit to myself in Sydney before I fly home tomorrow afternoon. Everyone has been very welcoming, and I've been driven all over the place by an assortment of generous Australians, most of whom I had never met before. My good Geni-mate Jill Ball aka @geniaus and her lovely husband Robert were the most wonderful hosts for my time in Sydney last week: they not only put me up in their lovely home, but laid on the full tourist guide experience, culminating in dinner at the famous Doyle's restaurant. I just can't thank them enough.

Last night I arrived here at the Radisson in chauffeur-driven splendour, courtesy of Carole Riley and her husband, Keith. Fellow-blogger Carole has been my travelling companion for the last few days two, and she is great company, we found that we giggle at the same things; she and Jill have also patiently accompanied me to assorted gift shops in search of my essential travel trophies (a fridge magnet from every state I visit).  The lovely Radisson has upgraded me to a deluxe room, which is a lovely finale to my trip. I treated myself to a room service meal, and had a lovely long soak in the bathtub - there's even a shuttered window between the bathroom and the room so that you could lie in the tub and watch TV if you wanted to! Chateau Collins back in Chesham is going to be such an anti-climax when I get back, I'd better make the most of this decadence while I can.

 

Rootstech Day Two - no let-up in the pace

Another early start, with the FamilySearch VIP breakfast at 7:30. It helps if you are not facing the screen, which has a rolling slideshow of photos and biogs of all the attendees; it's a little disconcerting to glance up from your scrambled egg to see your own mug shot beaming inanely at you. It was, as usual, a very informal occasion, but there is a seating plan and place cards. I found myself sitting between Mike Hall, deputy chief genealogical officer with FamilySearch, whom I know quite well,  and Joyce Homan of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, whom I had not met before, who proved to be good company too. I was pleased to finally meet fellow blogger Janet Hovorka The Chart Chick of Family Chart Masters; we already have many mutual friends and I loved her 'Quick Insider's Guide to Salt Lake City'. Later I was introduced to Dennis Brimhall, new CEO of FamilySearch, who told me he will be visiting The National Archives at Kew in the near future.

The highlight of the day was the keynote address 'Exabyte Social Clouds and Other Monstrosities by Josh Coates, founder of MOZY, and you really had to be there, or at least watch the live-streamed version to appreciate what an event this was. He was funny, profound, thought-provoking - and barefoot. I did see him wearing shoes later, though. If you haven't already, catch it on the Rootstech site, you won't regret it. There is a good summary of the main points by The Ancestry Insider who understands this stuff better than most of us, and who helpfully explains the zombie in-joke.

Today was a key day for me, the day of our joint presentation on social networking, my geni-mates being Geniaus Jill Ball and We Tree Amy Coffin. I've already mentioned that our Canadian friend, Lorine McGinnis Schulze was unable to attend, but Jill, the driving force behind the whole thing, had left a slide showing Lorine's Olive Tree Genealogy Blog in the PowerPoint presentation, and Lorine herself was following the proceedings from afar, writing blog posts and commenting on Twitter. We had some nice messages of support beforehand (by various social media, of course), and it seemed to go quite well; several people said they liked it, no-one said they hated it, the room was pretty full and most people stayed to the end. and we had fun too. I call that a result. I promised to put some links and details of the example I quoted on a new page on this blog, and I will, but not just yet - one more day of frantic to get through first.

A personal highlight of the day was meeting my friends Martyn Killion and Heather Garnsey, from the Society of Australian Genealogists. I hadn't seen them for over ten years, so it was great to see them again. I'm looking forward to a proper catch-up over coffee before they fly home.

The NGS lunch was next, with a terrific double act from Josh Taylor and Barbara Rennick, looking at some (not all that) old technology - remember typewriters and mimeographs, writing letters and making calls on corded phones attached to a wall socket? Josh doesn't.

I attended the afternoon presentation on Google searching, and learnt some useful tips, but I was flagging a bit by then and had lot the ability to make coherent notes, so I'll have to catch up on that one later myself. After the Expo Hall closed I met up with some friends for an early dinner and rounded the day off watching the first episode of the new series of Who Do You Think You Are? featuring Martin Sheen. It was a good 'un too, with some particularly good revelations about the Spanish side of his family. I was surprised to find that he doesn't speak Spanish, though, considering his real name is Ramon Estevez. We were a small group, but we were Facebooking and tweeting with other groups watching elsewhere. There goes that social networking thing again.

It was late night at the Family History Library, just like last year, but I gave it a miss because I was pretty tired and my hotel is a good cab ride away from the Library. I still have Monday and Tuesday to get more research done. I even missed the anniversary edition of Geneabloggers Radio but I will catch the podcast later. Meanwhile, tireless ace reporter Geniaus was on hand and she posted a link to some great photos.