Publicity for First Exhibition

I have had 250 postcards printed to publicise the first exhibition at the Dovecote on the 28th June. The front is a copy of a lino cut I produced before Christmas. the back is hand lettered and lino cut. I have left them at all the cafes/coffee shops in Moseley, the Fighting Cocks, Zen, Guthrie & Garnie, Oxfam Books and the Exchange. I also took some up to Kings Heath Library and the Ort Cafe in Balsall Heath.

Moseley Society Newsletter

This months Society Newsletter has a good article about my first planned exhibition at the Dovecote

B13 Magazine

This month's B13 magazine featured an article by Steph Silk, who I met when researching stories and images based on Moseley in Bloom. It turned out that she was also researching the stories behind all the names on St.Mary's Church WWI Roll of Honour, and she was very interested in the work I had done on the Furse Family.

 The transcript of the article is as follows:

Who Do You Think They Were?

Second Lieutenant William Henry Furse was 25 when he was mortally wounded by a bullet in No Man's Land. He was taken back to the British lines but died within hours.  40 miles away his brother Alan Furse was celebrating his 24th birthday but could hear distant guns.  It was 1st July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

The name of William Furse is one of 106 names commemorated on the Moseley Roll of Honour in St Mary's Church.  A small B13 Platoon has chosen to investigate these 106 men of Moseley and William Furse was amongst the first batch examined by Gillian Catell.

The 1911 Census shows  the Furse family living at 53 School Road.  The father Henry was an electrician from London, the mother Florence Mundy Cox was from a large local family. They married in 1890 in Solihull and set up home in Hampstead, London, where sons William and Alan were born over the following two years. In 1900 a third son  Claude, was born in London.  The 1901 Census shows the family split up while Florence was in a nursing home in London.

We have no further evidence until we find them at School Road but we know that the two elder boys went to Solihull School and Claude the youngest later went to King Edward High.  William becomes  a bank clerk and Alan a clerk to a Chartered Accountant.

At the outbreak of war both sons volunteered for the Birmingham Battalions known as the Birmingham PALS. These became the 14th,15th and 16th (Service) Battalions of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. The Furse brothers were both in the 14th Batallion until September 1915 when William was commissioned into the 21st Northumberland Fusiliers. Towards the end of 1915, William, on leave in Moseley, married Beatrice Law, a private secretary  from 67 Cambridge Road and returned to France.

My  story now leaps forward 100 years. It was pure serendipity when I met local printmaker artist Sarah Moss recently in connection with her unique contribution to the Moseley Local History Group's project, 'Moseley Then and Now'.  She was sourcing Moseley photographs from Victorian times to the present day to inspire  6 narrative copper plate etchings.  She showed me a print of her WWI etching, and told me it was a family group by the name of Furse! She had found a folder of unidentified family pictures while rummaging in the  MLHG archive.  A scribbled note from the owner of 36 Salisbury Road said that they had been found in the loft in 1981 when they moved in and that the previous owner was C.S. Furse. Sarah delved into  the Archives at the Birmingham Library and found that the Furse family had moved from School Road to  Salisbury Road in about 1919. Sarah was hooked. She bought Terry Carter's book "Birmingham Pals" a history of the 3 Birmingham Battalions and found to her joy numerous extracts from the letters and memoirs of Alan Furse. And to my joy, she lent me the book.

Back  to 1916 when Henry and Florence received the dreaded telegram . On 7th July, Alan received a telegram from his parents, telling him of William's death. He reflected back on his birthday celebrations, "little did I know that my best pal had gone to his long rest."  Later that year Alan was hospitalised and then discharged as medically unfit for further service.  He became senior partner at Cox and Furse, Chartered Accountants, he never married and continued living at Salisbury Road until he died in 1970. Claude remains a mystery but we know that he didn't marry and stayed at Salisbury Road until he died in 1981.

William's young widow Beatrice  also continued living at Salisbury Road until 1921 when she married Frank JD Lindner.  Sadly she died in childbirth in 1922 at The Dingle Nursing Home in Wake Green Road. Her son James survived and died in 1997.

You can see Sarah Moss's Exhibition of Moseley stories "The Boys Cheered and The Girls Cried" at the Cow House on Saturday 28th June as part of the Open Gardens Weekend.

Come and Join the B13 Platoon

Stephanie Silk
Stephanie@moseleyB13.com

With thanks to Terry Carter, the late Graham Reeves, and the Moseley Local History Group www.moseleyhistory.co.uk                                                                                                                         (718)

Two more plates in progress

I have recently completed some initial proof prints from two new plates. The first is of the interior of Shufflebotham's Stores (now Cafephilia). The photograph and story featured in 'Exchange Stories' - a recent project that took place at the Moseley Exchange. Roy from the Moseley Society recalled his memories of the grocers store.

I am pleased with the finished plate and particularly like the sepia ink. I will need to add some spot colour, but as yet haven't decided on what that should be. I may wait until I have completed more images and decide what works with the other colours I have chosen as highlight.

The second new plate is based on the story from Moseley Park and Pool about the Cross brother and sister who fell through the ice whilst skating in January 1895. This plate needed a good deal of work as there were so many stages to etching the aquatint. I also scratched into the plate beforehand to recreate the ice. Unfortunately I wasn't aware the pressure was too heavy on the press and the more I printed the plate. the worse the image became as the aquatint became compressed.

 As a consequence, much of the detail has been irretrievably lost, and I have no choice but to start again! I was happy with the background and the ice, so I will try and recreate this. There were other errors that I can correct, such as the foot with no aquatint.

I finally got round to printing the lino cut of my Victorian Ice Skates that I did for the Smart Gallery exhibition in Skipton. I haven't yet decided how I will use this in my exhibition, but it would be nice to display the skates themselves alongside the etching.

Pigeon Holes

I have found some industrial pigeon holes, salvaged from a local factory, that I can use in the Dovecote. They are ideal as a place for visitors to post their stories and other contributions to the archive. The concept of a pigeon hole clearly links with the Dovecote itself.

Although I was originally looking for wooden pigeon holes, I feel happy that the metal ones effectively reflect the industrial growth that Moseley was built on.

Visit to Bournville Exhibition Space

On Friday those of us involved in organising the 'Significant Features' exhibition went to see the exhibition space at Bournville. We were able to present our ideas for the exhibition to the rest of the team and to discuss plans for the next few weeks. The layout of the show will be themed around aspects of the survey 'Social Mix' .We measured up the space and Ross has produced a floor plan for us to finalise the lay out.

More on Wood Engravings

After completing a trial wood engraved block, I have since engraved the four blocks I ordered from Chris Daunt. Two have motifs from Moseley street signs and two are from Moseley Park flora.

These will be used at the first exhibition planned at the Cowhouse at the end of June, to co-incide with the Open Gardens weekend. I would like visitors to try their hand at printing from these blocks, perhaps I could produce a simple map that could be used as a background to create 'My walk round Moseley'. I am assuming most interest for this will come from children. I have ordered more blocks from Chris and have taken some more photos of imagery I can use. If I could end up with at least a dozen blocks, I think that will give me enough to make a start during the first event.