Next ZOOM meeting is POSTPONED

 

POSTPONED BECAUSE OF COVID19 LOCKDOWN

NEW DATE: WEDNESDAY 17th FEBRUARY 2021

Captain Peacock and the Swans of the River Exe

This month's  ZOOM meeting of Starcross History Society is on Wednesday, November 18th, from 7.30pm until 9.00pm. You can join anytime: no need to apologise for being late, and you can leave anytime BUT YOU WON'T WANT TO LEAVE this meeting with Joe Hancock from Burn the Curtain Interactive Promenade Theatre Company. Please wear a Victorian hat. or not 😅

This Covid19 summer, a massive project was planned around Starcross's Victorian polymath; Captain George Peacock:

•  Swan pedalos were to be built on Exeter Quay. Ragtag characters from all over the world would retrieve parts of Captain Peacock's inventions and reconstruct them on Exeter Quay.

• An exhibition about Captain Peacock would have displayed Malcolm Fairweather's scale model of The Swan of the Exe which he was making for Starcross History Society.

• A graphic novel about Captain Peacock would have been commissioned

• People dressed in Victorian costumes were to retrieve Captain Peacock inventions which would have been hidden around Exeter Quay. Did you know that his drinking water converter is still in use today? And he invented a screw propeller.

The wasn't to be this year, but don't miss this ZOOM meeting where you can find out about all the stuff Captain Peacock did; and share your own ideas about how to celebrate him.

There's a How to ZOOM guide on

https://starcrosshistory.blogspot.com/2020/10/how-to-zoom.html?m=1

To get the link for this November 18th Starcross History Society ZOOM meeting, please email heirnet@gmail.com

We make no charge because we believe that history should be FREE... but it's not,  because we like to offer our ZOOM presenters  a remuneration, and we have the Professional version of ZOOM. 

If you can afford it, please give a donation via the PayPal button. 

Thankyou very much.

We have never charged admittance to our meetings because we believe that History should be Free for All. Now that we have all our meetings online, we can't flog raffle tickets or teas& coffees, or have a voluntary collecting pot. 
We have ambitions to make cash from a YouTube channel, but this will be a long time project... We'll need over 30,000 followers and we'll need to register as a charity.
Meanwhile, if you have enjoyed one or more of our ZOOM meetings, perhaps you would kindly donate something. 
We would like to keep going. We also have more projects we'd like to see through.
See the EVENTS page for details of more projects, but currently we are working with the Starcross Action for Trees group to install a topiaried Yew tree or trees in Starcross, reminiscent of the conical Yew trees which were along The Strand.

Research Dimension to Starcross History

It would be great if Starcross History had a research dimension. Is there anyone out there who would help? Historian Jon Nichol reckons that to research our history isn't rocket science. Here's his plan for howto:

1 interest on a topic - 

2 questions & questioning

3 Three major avenues for enquiry 

-  Internet 

- external bodies - record offices / libraries / local collections of sources - 

- the locality

4 Research: with firing off of new, supplementary questions related to the investigation of sources / collection of evidence with an ever widening rings of investigation in the pool of the past

5 The pattern of thinking that I outlined - with the reaching of conclusions grounded in evidence, and the form in which you want to present your history.

 A suggestion for our first piece of research is Victorian Starcross. How should we present our research: short articles for the Starcross Newsletter, a booklet, or a CD or all 3? The Dawlish and Teignmouth Area Talking Newspaper have offered us the use of their state-of-the-art studio to record stories from local people. Photographs and documents could be added to a CD.

some of the tekkie equipment in the Hear and Now studio, Dawlish

 

 Grants are available for community research. Does anyone know of any other bodies who might help?

The Heritage Lottery Fund 

Heritage Lottery Fund logo

Peacocks' Tails Trail Workshop

The children of Starcross Primary School made lots of progress today in Melissa Muldoon's Peacock Club workshop

The workshops started 2 weeks ago. The children looked at pictures of peacocks, real peacock's feathers and a model of a peacock. Because the Peacocks' Tails will be displayed outside, stuff used to make them had to be weatherproof.

 

Materials gathered included: CDs, silver foil, bottle tops, plastic sheets, buttons and beads. 

Here's some of the peacocks' tails eyes

 The next stage was to devise a framework for the peacocks' tails. There are lots of ways this could be done. Here's a tail Pauline made by attaching some wooden slats to an old fireguard, covering the slats with green netting, and trimming the netting into a fan shape with feathered edges.

When the children attached the eyes, and some green tinsel was added the result was magnificent. This promises to be a spectacular tail.

Melissa started another tail with a broken garden rake for the base

White feathers, made from plastic milkbottles, were added. More decoration will create another splendid tail.

A another idea from Melissa: attach green plastic feathers; made from a sheet of scrap plastic flooring; to some aluminium rods (which might have once been a TV aerial) 

There's another tail-in-the-making behind this one. It's a broken, blue umbrella.

When the eyes were added to the feathery fan, everyone thought the result was really good

Messy Church in St Paul's Church are going to make 2 tails. One will be for Captain George Peacock's grave in the churchyard, which will be the starting point for the Peacock's Tails Trail around the village. The other Messy Church tail will be the finishing point; in St Paul's Church.

At least 10 tails will be made for the Peacocks' Tails Trail, which will be a trail around some of the historical places in Starcross on St George's Day - Saturday, April 23rd. Tail Trail cards will be on sale in the church on the day, for £1 each. The cards will list the whereabouts of each tail with a rhyming clue, in true Dartmoor letterbox style. Each tail will be near to one of the important places in the village, such as Regent's House where Captain George Peacock lived. Captain Peacock invented a screw propeller, and anti-fouling paint. He designed his iconic, Victorian yacht 'The Swan of the Exe' - which is pictured on  the Starcross History club badge.

 By each tail on the list will be a Dartmoor letterbox-style rubber stamp with a stamp-pad. The first 50 cards back, complete with all the stamps, will win a real peacock's feather.

Captain George Peacock lived in Regent's House

Look for the letterbox under the mouse 

and please has anyone an old computer mouse they don't need? Cheers 

Starcross residents are invited to make and display a peacock's tail outside their house, with a Dartmoor letterbox-style stamp and pad hidden nearby. For your creation to be listed on the Peacocks' Tails Trail cards, and to have a chance to win the trophy for the BEST PEACOCK'S TAIL; please let us know about it before April 1st. 

The Peacocks' Tails will have another outing on Scarecrow Day; Saturday, 18th June. They also have a 3rd engagement - with Trail Recycled Art in the Landscape in Teignmouth for the summer season.

If you have anything you would give us to make a peacock's tail, please get in touch.

Thanks

Meet this Wednesday - From Pycroft to Rycroft: speaker Ian Goodrick

Steampunk Hat Workshop in St Paul's Church

Thankyou everyone for your support. We've now accumulated enough steampunkstuff for future workshops, but more donations can always be used

The materials gathered for this workshop included:

• Hats, watches and trimmings from The Attic, Baker's Yard, Alphinbrook Road, Alphington, Exeter EX2 8RG
• More hats from charity shops
• Spectacles
• Net, silver trimmings, gold card, ribbons and black fascinator bases from Exeter Scrapstore 
• Nuts, bolts, chains, tools 
• Material and leather pieces
• Feathers
• Buttons
• Jewellery
• a clock 

Look at this fabulous creation by a 6-year-old. He picked out the top hat, and arranged all the steampunk bits and pieces he fancied. Then we used a glue gun to fix them to the hat. Magic!

Steampunk creation

Here's what's on the marvellous topper:

spectacles
butterfly
bird
strawberry
2 zips
2 watches
2 green buttons
piece of a silver sock
a white metal clip

Here's the steampunkhat workshop in St Paul's

Steampunk hat workshop

St Paul's Church was open for the Devon Historic Churches Day
The newly completed Starcross Wall Hanging was on display. Village organisations and residents have each made a square. This is living history.

A leaflet about the history of Starcross Church was given out. St Paul's Church was originally the Holy Trinity Church in Chapel Hill in Exmouth. This church became too small for the increasing congregation, so it was demolished, and the stone was shipped to Starcross to build the Victorian St Paul's.
Photographs and comprehensive information about the history of Starcross was on a side table.

Steampunkjunk Poster

Please can you paste the link for this post around the internet? and print&display the poster somewhere?
Thanks

Steampunk hat workshop

Since St Paul's Church in Starcross is Victorian, we will bring the first of our VICTORIAN STEAMPUNK HAT WORKSHOPS to the Devon Historic Churches Day on Saturday 12th September. 9am - 4pm. We invite you to come dressed in full steampunk regalia. There will be no charge for this fun workshop which is both  for adults and children, but the steampunkjunk to create your hats will be on a Bring  and Buy basis. You can bring your own hat to steampunkup, and share ideas, or perhaps you'll spot some 'I must have that' steampunkjunk you'll have to buy.

The children will also be able to make Victorian mobcaps with a circle of material and ribbon, or tophats with cardboard and cellotape. They might like to add a few cogs&feathers.

Some of the Starcross steampunk hats here pictured have taken weeks to produce. They are works of art. Can you spot the one with the REAL GLASS EYE?

If you want to bring a hat to embellish with steampunk stuff, we will have lots of it on sale: clocks, dials, cogs, feathers, flowers, lace, net, zips, spectacles. We'll also sell some hats for you to work on.
For a small donation, you will be able to make a simple hat: a circle of fabric and ribbon will make a mobcap; some card stapled together will make a topper. But you can still add some wackiness if you buy some of our ridiculous decoration. You might just want to buy items to work on at home.
What is steampunk? It's a celebration of the Victorian era: their way of life, inventions, literature, explorations and fashion.

For the workshop, we need more hats; men's women's and children's. Flat caps, bowlers, top hats, wedding hats, straw boaters, velours, safari hats, berets, military caps,  - any hat can be adapted to steampunk.
We need more things to add to the hats: anything already mentioned PLUS: pieces of engineering such as bicycle parts, rubber tubing, telescopes, magnifying glasses, maps, screws, nuts&bolts, buttons, cotton reels, locks, keys, handles, sewing items and safetypins.
We also need: material, cellotape, glue, string, thread, wool, ribbon, tape, and perhaps you have scissors and staplers we could borrow.
And we might need some help on the day.

The materials we don't use will go into future workshops.

Devon Historic Churches Day Saturday 12th September

As part of Devon Historic Churches Trust's Devon Historic Churches Day, St Paul's will be open from 9am - 4pm on Sat 12th Sept.

The wonderful folk at St Paul's will be serving bacon baps from 9am - 12 noon. The wall hanging will be on display, and literature on the history of the church.

The Starcross Wall Hanging. Each 1foot square illustrates an aspect of our village life

Embroidery of the square depicting the new memorial garden for the Royal Western Counties Hospital

Starcross History has been invited to bring a display. The last time we went to St Paul's, we had a workshop to make feathers for The Swan of the Exe. This time, we'll have a workshop to make Victorian hats: mobcaps, from a circle of material and some ribbon; and top hats using card. Maybe we'll add a touch of modern with old sunglasses, camera bits, clockbits, feathers and GEARS... -  steampunk tophats? 

 

 

We'll ask for a donation towards the cost of materials. We'll get some of them from Exeter Scrapstore, which we joined as a group when we needed some white netting for the wings of our swan.

Please can anyone help on the day? We also need material and card and steampunk hat accessories; more scissors, staplers bodkins and cellotape too. Thanks.

Steampunk hat stuff we would like

• old hats
  feathers
  old sunglasses
  old glasses
  nuts
  bolts
  gears
  cogs
• smashed clocks and watches (not digital)
• anything else you can think of which would have been around in the Victorian era
•  
•  
• Here's some pictures of steampunk hats.
  
  
  
  
   
  
   

What is steampunk? Wiki has the answer - it's about Victorian fantasy. Jules Verne. fantastic inventions. Victorian technology.

Steampunk hats can be quite expensive steampunk hat on ebay

Fire in The Strand

Many thanks to Gordon White for these evocative photographs

Our Wackin Burd arrives

Here's a drawing of The Swan of the Exe under sail, and next to it is the newly arrived base for Starcross History's Wackin Burd. Thankyou Teignbridge District Council for this dinghy which is perfect for our project. She waits to be made resplendent with a swan's head, neck and wings, and masses of white plumage made from plastic milk bottles.

Lots of help needed, and more feathers please.

Since the message behind our TRAIL project is protest about plastic pollution of the oceans, it's appropriate (and easier )  that our thrown-away plastic boat remains bright blue and very obviously plastic. This makes stark contrast to Captain George Peacock's Swan of the Exe which was a luxurious, wooden yacht, painted white and gold; although her pennant, which she held in her beak, was blue.

 The Victorian poet Nathan Hogg described her in his 1886 poem A Turrabul Ryde be Rayle  …

Vur bigger thin a rick a hay
Thare zwim’d a wackin burd..

 in  Second Series of Nathan Hogg’s Letters and Poems:
 A New Series of Poems in the Devonshire Dialect including The Witch  Story of Mucksy Lane and The Kenton Ghost
Fourth Edition Enlarged. Dedicated by Permission to His Highness Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte.
London: John Russell Smith, 36, Soho Square.  Exeter:H. Baird (the author) 1, St Martin Street Opposite the Exeter Bank and all booksellers
 1886
Humeriss Poams; digitized by Google

Dingles Heritage Fairground

Dingles Fairground Heritage Centre is on the Devon-Cornwall border, 7 miles east of  Launceston. There's vintage fairground rides, and a gallery of fairground art. Special rates for coach parties. What a great place for us to visit one day!?

Victorian Rodeo Switchback

1930s Skid Ride

1930s Dodgems

The 1940s Ghost Train

Vintage Arcade 1940s -1970s machines

Please make loadsafeathers

Our project to recreate The Swan of the Exe

Image from http://www.archive.org/stream/devoncornwallnot111amer#page/166/mode/2up

  for the 2015  Teignmouth Trail Recycled Art in the Landscape needs more feathers

Here's 2 of them

How to make a feather

1. Take a plastic milkbottle and cut out long leafshapes as big as possible. Probably get 2 out of 1 milkbottle
2. cut 2cm slits all along the edges

The feathers will be attached to a wire netting swan. If we get loadsafeathers, the whole of the old rowing boat could be covered with them as well. We have until July to complete our sculpture.

Here's allabout  The Swan of the Exe
by Tony Dunlop on Devon Perspectives
This Victorian 10-berth folly  was designed by Captain George Peacock of Regent's House, Starcross, launched from Dixons yard at Exmouth in 1860 and moored by Starcross pier. It caught fire and perished between the World Wars. Her iconic tender, The Cygnet, is the prize exhibit in nearby Topsham Museum

Captain George Peacock 1805 - 1883

Captain George Peacock 1805 - 1883

If you have more information about Captain George Peacock, or you offer help with this research, please add your comment below. Thankyou

George Peacock was born at Regent's House in Starcross, in 1805.

The following is a précis of the short biography on the National Archives website

"

He served on his father's ships in the Mediterranean... and became a ship's master. He joined the Royal Navy in 1828. He was 2nd master of H.M. Steamship Echo. In 1840, he left the Navy and was appointed as the first Commander of the newly constituted Pacific Steam Navigation Company.

Shortly after leaving the PSNC in 1848, he formed a company to manufacture anti-fouling paint which he had invented.

He became Superintendant of Docks at Southampton. In 1858 he retired to Starcross. "

He commissioned Dixons of Exmouth to build a nautical Victorian folly The Swan of the Exe which was launched in 1860. 4 Cygnets were built. Just one cygnet was used as a tender to the Swan of the Exe. The other 3 were sold. 2 went to Paignton, and 1 to Bournemouth. (Dunlop,T internet, accessed Feb 20th 2015) Only the Exe cygnet remains, (unless anyone knows differently) and she was rescued and preserved by, and is the pride of, nearby Topsham Museum

The Swan of the Exe burnt out inbetween the 2 World Wars.

The story of   The Swan of the Exe has been written by Tony Dunlop on his website Devon Perspectives. The images and the content have generously been made available to all under a creative commons license

The Swan of the Exe Image courtesy of Tony Dunlop, http://www.devonperspectives.co.uk/swan_of_the_exe.html

Further biographical notes, details of his explorations and surveys, papers relating to Captain Peacock's inventions and ideas, papers relating to The Swan of the Exe, papers relating to the Exmouth Warren, printed works, photographs and papers relating to the Cookson family are held in the Liverpool Record Office

Biography of George Peacock by Peta Rée

This is available online by subscription to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Most UK public libraries subscribe to this online, which means that all you need is your library card to access this biography. How to access the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Topsham Museum

have kindly sent us a wonderful diagram of  The Swan of the Exe, to help us with our project, Recreating The Swan of the Exe and invited us to see the documents they hold about our Captain Peacock. The museum opens again on April 1st.