• Tags:

‘300th Anniversary of Whitehaven Harbour 19th July – 6th September

"We are celebrating 300 years of Whitehaven Harbour in a new exhibition. In 1708 a Royal Act established the Town and Harbour Board of Trustees and a new era in Whitehaven’s history was born."

I like the idea that a big picture could be generated out of the exhibition space at The Beacon where a programme of events could include the taking of a group photograph of the Harbour Commissioners themselves - that this live activity should take place amongst historic artefacts and memorabilia which would inform the very long focus of this idea.

I feel that within the context of staging a formal group portrait of the Commissioners and archetypes working in the harbour there is an opportunity to approach the history and heritage of the Harbour Commissioners themselves and to view this as a cultural asset worthy of deeper investigation. The event of this anniversary is an opportunity to invite the commissioners to reflect on their own identity relative to the harbour.

During our conversation Peter Tyas remarked that you could look upon the history of Harbour Commissioners not just as 300 years but as 2,000 people. This is the idea I want to pursue and express. That is some family tree!

I am very interested in the way that company documents hold the traces and remaining material evidence of all that industry. Also the way in which they inspire thoughtfulness even though they no longer have any commercial interest for the commissioners themselves.

For example:

#1 Peter Tyas and I discussed with Commissioners Celia MacKenzie and Terry Ponting their acquisition of Bonds/Debentures issued by the Commissioners and purchased in order obtain the necessary permissions to facilitate the commission of the new harbour gates. The present commissioners and others bought these bonds with their own funds and own them as individuals. Although of little investment value these Bonds were described as fascinating parchment documents in which the names of all their various owners and the history of their transactions were recorded.

#2 During our conversation Celia produced a ledger (cash book) of the commercial Letts’ stationery type and written in biro, and pointed me towards the record of the last harbour dues charged on a chemical shipment to the Marchon site. She had felt unable to discard this feeling that it was a little piece of history marking the end of an era. It is kept on top of filing cabinets in her office. Of course it looks completely unremarkable!

#3 We discussed the company records and I was shown in a small room upstairs a collection of file boxes, ledgers, documents, blueprints, drawings and some in fish crates even a bell from a dredger stacked in dusty piles overlooking Lowther Street.

#4From a discussions with both Sue Palmer of the Beacon and Celia Mackenzie it emerged that the company archive has already been split with some of the material entering Cumbria County Archives. Amongst this material the Archives Service possess a selection of Harbour Commissioner’s day books in an unbroken sequence spanning seventy years.

#5 The Beacon holds very little material of consequence to the history of the commissioners other than representations of the harbour in ‘art’ much of what it has is archival in nature and would be unlikely to be collected now in order to avoid duplicating the activities of the archive service.

For the purposes of the exhibition I would like to remove these remaining records from the Harbour Company offices and display them exactly as they are shown in the photograph above within a secure enclosure in the Harbour Gallery.

I would like to display photographs of the archetypal harbour workers along the 14.9 metre wall facing the entrance and portraits of the Commissioners themselves on the 7.9 and 6.0 metre walls to the left and right of the door. During the course of the exhibition I would like to invite the Commissioners to examine this material, perhaps selecting items that they feel are particularly significant and which could touch on their personal history with the company. I would also like to explore the possibility of shooting a group portrait of the Commissioners in and amongst this pile of documents in a planned and staged event.

The subject and purpose of this photograph would be to represent a group of people taking stock of their heritage on the tri-centenary of their organisation 1708-2008. As a cultural project this is about their own grasp of a place in a line of guardians and trustees who have managed the harbour’s affairs. It would be my hope that for them this would be an inspiring event that would lead to a greater investment in and investigation of this heritage and make a very powerful statement that the physical and built infrastructure of the harbour stands on the foundation of human enterprise.