Joseph King & the Peasant Arts Museum lecture 1925

In the Haslemere Educational Museum I came across Joseph King's notes on a lecture about the Peasant Arts Museum.  It is part typed and part written, suggesting that this was a lecture he presented a number of times and had modified along the way, although it is referring to being written in 1925.  The lecture is titled "A Peasant Arts Museum: its characteristics and value".

Joseph King, Honorary Curator, Peasant Art Collections 1925-1943
reproduced courtesy of Haslemere Educational Museum,
examining mangleboards of the Peasant Arts Collection

"What is the way of living of the general mass of our countrymen today? 

"The Englishman today lives in a home, one of a row in a closely built over district; he earns his living at a greater or less distance from home, in a factory, workshop, mine, office or other large undertaking, where he follows a regularly repeated routine, having little chance for variety of scene or occupation, little scope to use or develop initiative or originality, not knowing the men at the head of the concern in which he works.  And when the day is ended, his tired body and mind are refreshed by the standardized music of the gramophone or the wireless, the mechanical pictures of the cinema and the commercialized issues of the evening penny paper.

Peasant Arts Museum
reproduced courtesy of
Haslemere Educational Museum

"Let us not be too hard on the days in which we live nor too superior to the masses of mankind nor too read to exercise the Englishman's privilege to grouse and grumble.  But let us face the fact that life is increasingly standardised, mechanical and commercialised.

"Thirty years ago when these conditions were already powerful but not yet in the overwhelming flood which is sweeping us along today, certain friends imbued with the teaching of Ruskin that life without industry is crime and industry without art is brutality, found a message in these popular forms of art and the employments still existing where the worker used both brain and hand, followed old traditions and suited his aims to the real wants of the people around him.  They found these elements of culture and healthy life especially in the peasantry and in the industries engaged in, and dependent on, agricultural life.  They founded the Peasant Arts Society, which still exists as the Peasant Arts Guild.  For about a quarter of a century the movement has been carried on, and the work has been undertaken by various agencies, by discussions, lectures and meetings, by encouraging, starting and maintaining various handicraft industries especially weaving, by the issue of a magazine each month, continued with sacrifice and with distinction for eight years, and by the carrying on of a business for the sale of the products of selected industries at the Depot.  Besides these activities, some of those in this movement started a Peasant Arts Museum.

Peasant Arts Museum postcard,
reproduced courtesy of
Haslemere Educational Museum

About 15 (in 1910) years since a collection of objects was formed and gathered together at Haslemere.  In 1913 the fine collection of the Rev. Gerald S. Davies (now the Master of the Charterhouse) was acquired.    Mr Davies had collected during his travels, mostly in Northern Europe, such objects as were hand-made and home-made by peasants for their own use and  not for sale* (for an article to be reckoned as a product of Peasant Art it must have been made not to sell to another, but to keep, or at most to give - see The Vineyard).  It was hoped to place and arrange the whole Collection in a special building, for which plans had been prepared, when the events of August 1914 arose to prevent any such development.  Meanwhile, the Collection  was deposited in a building at Haslemere, where some of its beauties and interest could be seen, though much was stored, awaiting a proper gallery for its exhibition.

Recently a scheme for New Buildings for the Haslemere Educational Museum, a quite separate institution entirely independent hitherto from the Peasant Arts Museum, has been adopted.  The Haslemere Educational Museum, a collection of natural history and historical objects with a fine library, was founded on original lines by the late Jonathan Hutchinson, F.R.S., and is now to be placed under a new Trust Scheme in a permanent home.  The Peasant Art Museum has been offered to, and accepted by, the Haslemere Educational Museum and will be deposited shortly in a fine set of rooms, adequate in space and every other respect, thus forming a section of the new Haslemere Educational Museum.  The Committee of the latter accepted the offered Collection on generous conditions.  On the other hand certain Members of the Peasant Arts Guild and of the Peasant Arts Museum Committee contributed considerable sums to secure the permanent housing and future upkeep of this unique collection.

Peasant Arts Museum postcard,
reproduced courtesy of
Haslemere Educational Museum

What are the characteristic features of the Peasant Arts Museum?  The handmade home-made equipment of peasant's household will naturally fall (for the most part) into two categories, the articles of wood-work made by the men, and the textiles woven by the women; there are also articles of metal, horn, bone, and leather.  One of the most remarkable set of things are the washing implements, mangleboards, rollers, beating and pressing bats - the simple utensils which have given place to the mangling and washing machine and the new chemical soaps which have made the weekly or monthly washing of linen quite a different business to the old method of cleaning with plain cold water and rolling on board or table.  This section of the P.A. Museum comprises about 100 pieces: 45 mangleboards..."

extract of Joseph King's Peasant Arts Museum lecture notes
reproduced courtesy of Haslemere Educational Museum