The Datebook Summer 2016 | Page 8

The story of Warehouse No. 1
at West India Docks, the
busiest docks in the world, is
told through images, recordings
and displays that allow you to
interact with the historic
machinery and equipment and
hear stories of life in the docks

understanding
and appreciation
of the Museum’s
other nine
galleries covering
histories such as
“London, Sugar and
Slavery” and “Docklands at
War’. This FREE MUSEUM is
a gem of a gift to Londoners
and visitors.

moved from Quayside
to Warehouse and
back. A gruesome item
also includes the
mummified remains
of the dock’s cat
with a captured rat …
just to delight the
children!

T

he Museum of London
Docklands recently
celebrated the opening of a
new exhibit that immerses
you in the history of No. 1
Warehouse. Not expecting to
find a Warehouse
fascinating, my thoughts
were turned around and
captivated by the exhibit,
made even more special at
the breakfast launch by the
curators telling their stories
about how they are making
entertaining and engaging
use of the verbal histories
that were ‘captured’ from
the last remaining workers
at the working warehouse
before it closed in 1980.

Warehouse
hand-winch.

This engaging exhibit really
gives you a good perspective
and further draws out your

JONATHAN BYRNE

Tea chests being weighed using a
beamscale, 1949.

from the mouths of people who
lived them. As a hive of activity
for dockers, coopermen,
warehousemen, merchants,
clerks and the every vigilant
Customs Men, with ingenious
methods of ensuring duty was
paid on Tobacco, precious
cargos were monitored and
continually weighed as they

Museum of London Docklands exterior.

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/
museum-london-docklands

Royal Society of Portrait Painters

T

he Private View of the
125th exhibition of the
Royal Society of Portrait
Painters took place on 4th
May at the Mall Galleries.
Out of 2000 submissions
106 were non-member
artists, giving everyone a
chance, and there were 238
portraits on show.
The show, opened by Lord
Hindlip, runs daily for just over
two weeks and this year it
included a record number of
Robin-Lee Hall: Don and Daisy

famous faces including H.R.H.
The Princess Royal, Lord Bragg
(broadcaster), Lord Hattersley
(politician) and Sir Tom
Courtenay (actor) along with
Professor Stephen Hawking
(physicist), Roger Scruton
(philosopher), Andrew Strauss
(cricketer) and John Williams
(Executive Chef at The Ritz) and
well known to The London & UK
Datebook.

Paul Brason: Eighteen, Winter Light
(in progress).

6

THE LONDON & UK DATEBOOK

You do not have to be famous
or wealthy to have a portrait
painted. All sections of society
and sitters from all age groups

Richard Foster: Trinity House (winner of the Burke's Peerage Foundation
Award for Classically Inspired Portraiture).

were represented. This year
three portraits were of people
who had reached their
centenary and three for whom
life is a struggle. The Mall
Galleries give a helpful guide
to commissioning a portrait
with expert help throughout.
The Galleries were packed full
for the prize giving and the
President Robin-Lee Hall did
an excellent job in getting

everyone’s attention. There
were six prizes in total with the
prestigious Ondaatje Prize for
Portraiture presented to Lantian
D for an oil portrait of Roger
Scruton along with a medal and
£10,000. Amazingly five out of
the six prize winners were from
the Open Entry giving all
portrait painters a glimmer of
hope.
LYNNE WARNER

Photo Credit: © Museum of London / © PLA Collection

No. 1 Warehouse –
Museum of London Docklands