“It is possible, just dimly possible, that the real pattern and scheme of life is not in the least apparent on the outward surface of things, which is the world of common sense and rationalism, and reasoned deductions; but rather lurks, half hidden, only apparent in certain rare lights, and then only to the prepared eye; a secret pattern, an ornament which seems to have but little relation or none at all to the obvious scheme of the universe”. — Arthur Machen, from The London Adventure or the Art of Wandering (1924)

A recent entry here concerns a book, a gift from a student on the last day of class in architectural history. The content of the last two lectures seemed to resonate with this favored book and he wished to share those feelings, for which I am grateful. Now two-thirds complete with the read, I can see what it was that spurred the gift and will 1) take its content to heart, and 2) pass the book along again in due course to another unofficial member of the Wander Society. As is the case more often than not, the Smith book reminded me of one I’d read several years ago and now need to read again: The London Adventure or the Art of Wandering (1924).

Aging hip joints and sciatica that comes and goes at its pleasure have told me I shan’t be wandering very much in these latter days. But both Smith and Machen leave open a useful alternative: to wander in place. Indeed, I’m wandering right now in the 4th floor computer lab, with little wear and tear on the hip and the luxury of engaging in a good ramble when and to wherever I see fit. Today’s adventure is taking me briefly to Agincourt and a consideration of yet another untapped and under-explored aspect of community history: mental health. I’ve alluded to it now and then — Walden Retreat, for example, the private mental clinic on East Thoreau Avenue along the banks of Crispin Creek or the puppet shows held on Saturday afternoons in The Commons by some of Dr Kölb’s “guests” — but the time comes now for a more comprehensive treatment of the general topic of mental health, what community standards have been hereabouts, and how they’ve changed through one hundred and fifty years.

My own mental health is always in question. It took a sudden turn this week which I hope the content of this entry or its sequels will serve to improve.

As multi-sensory creatures, I’ve asked students to map their neighborhood, the place where they grew up, but map it in terms other than visual. What sounds do you recall? What did it smell like and how did those smells vary throughout the year? Writing about a design by Liverpool artist Margaret Lloyd (which was crafted into a stained glass window by artist-craftsman David Fode), a fell down a rabbit hole that suggested there may, in fact, be more than five senses. What about the sense of humor or, since we’re speaking of the British, of humour.

What’s so funny?

Sight, smell and sound may enable us to place ourselves in physical space. But the sense of humor performs the same valuable though unrecognized function to understand our position in time. As with any element of the social construct, change occurs with greater and greater speed; what seems funny today may not have been a month ago. Perhaps even yesterday. The question of Margaret Lloyd’s design in 1905 has already challenged our notion of what’s so funny.

One of her designs, the one which served as inspiration for a stained glass window, was based on a staple of late 19th and early 20th century popular culture: the Punch & Judy Show. However politically incorrect it may be today, the very idea of exposing children to physical domestic violence and then to find amusement in Judy being thwacked by her partner Punch was perfectly acceptable entertainment at the pier or country fair on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Some sleuthing produced two ore examples of Margaret Lloyd’s design ability, part of a series called “The Village Fair”. One of her circular designs was titled “Cakes and Ale” but the other — the one which took me farther down that rabbit hole and resulted in this blog entry — was titled “Richardson’s Show” (left in the pair shown here). I held out little hope for identifying her source but, typically, the internet satisfied my insatiable curiosity: John Richardson was an early 19th century comedian, though that’s probably not the right word for his time and place. Sources suggest “showman” as far more apt.

John Richardson [1766-1836] is fairly well documented, which helps to explain why someone active in the early 20th century would know a British public figure who died the year before Victoria ascended to the throne. According to one on-line source, “Charles Dickens described a performance of Richardson’s show at Greenwich Fair as a melodrama with three murders and a ghost, a pantomime, a comic song, an overture, and some incidental music, all done in five-and-twenty minutes.”¹ Thanks to his first novel The Pickwick Papers — which was serialized between March 1836 and November 1837 — any British schoolchild during the reigns of Victoria and Edward VII would have know the eccentric showman Richardson (shown above during his own lifetime). It was the content of his “Show” that brings up today’s topic: how has humor changed through time?

¹ For Richardson in a larger context, visit: http://www.classic.circushistory.org/History/Clown2.htm#BIB.

Archers (that’s what people from Agincourt call themselves) have been summering at Sturm & Drang since the 1880s. A spur line of the NITC served the community between about 1911 and WWII, with a single stop at the Station-Store where passengers transferred to the motor launch that served an arc of resorts going halfway clockwise around Lake Drang. Depicting “lake life” has been aided by postcard offerings of examples from cabins to hotels, most of them dating before 1929 and, therefore, of a more rustic character. With good fortune, I found two postcard views that qualify for inclusion. I’m certain each of them has a story to tell.

In the land of Six Degrees of Separation (with or without Kevin Bacon), I’ve experienced more than a fair share of connections that seem too close for coïcidence. Witness the (synthetic) family of Anson Curtiss Tennant, entirely concocted and major players in the Agincourt narrative.

photo copyright John Rylands University Library

The young architect required a family, so I provided one, three generations back and two ahead. To simplify the “work”, I made the founder of the family a bastard, there being at least three “Tennant” families in Burke’s Landed Gentry as sperm donors. Flash forward several years: Mr J. Johnson and I were walking down Deansgate, the main thoroughfare in Manchester, UK. I stopped short, making Jeremiah wonder what could be wrong, and I pointed to the John Rylands Library two blocks ahead. I was a little foggy on its date but knew precisely that the architect had been Basil Champneys, a name that doesn’t roll lightly off the tongue or the memory. We invested a couple hours wandering it wondrous interior where the main reading room is presided over by larger-than-life white marble sculptures of the library’s founders John and Enriquetta Rylands. Then flash forward to a simple search for additional information on the library and its founders at the end of the 19th century.

Much to my surprise, shock and amazement, Mrs Rylands was the former Enriqueta Augustina Tennant [1843-1908], born in Havana, Cuba, to an English father and Cuban mother. You can find quite a bit of biography about her but two things are important for me: #1) her maiden name was Tennant, for krysakes, and #2) “Enriqueta Rylands is one of the most influencer [sic] philanthropists in the history of the United Kingdom,” according to a documentary I found. [They must have used google.translate.]

It’s going to take a while to weave this good woman into the tale but I’m compelled to do it.

It is with extreme sadness that I report the death in Waukesha, Wisconsin of David G. Fode, a contributor to the Agincourt Project, though he may not have understood that. For a deeply personal reminiscence of Fode’s life, see this blog written by a close friend.

The community of Agincourt was made real through its stories and its stuff, words (too many of them) and objects, material culture (of which there will never be enough). David — whom I never met but communicated through email — operated a stained glass studio in Waukesha. I discovered him through the most random searching on the web and found a craftsman with both wit and skill. I had found an illustration during my undergraduate years at the University of Oklahoma in an early issue of The International Studio, an art journal with a long run of holdings in the library at OU. I’ve been able to find very little biographical material about the artist but that image stayed with me for literally decades, until I found myself designing Agincourt’s kindergarten, circa 1910, and needed some ornament to be in keeping with the general Arts & Crafts feeling I was trying to establish. Lloyd’s illustration of a Punch & Judy show, no matter how sexist it might be in our own culture, was a mainstay for children during the Victorian and Edwardian years.

What Lloyd intended for her charming, albeit politically incorrect image, I have no notion. But it looked to me like the beginning sketch for a stained glass window — one that would require one hell of a lot of staining, there being perhaps a thousand infinitesimal shards of color in its design. I contacted David Fode, included a copy of Lloyd’s design, and asked if he could interpret it at 24-30 inches in diameter. That window is here — in our dining room but still unframed — as an artifact in The Agincourt Project.

The world of stained glass craft has lost a remarkable and phenomenally creative person with David Fode’s passing. Whenever and wherever any subsequent Agincourt exhibit may occur, the “Punch & Judy” window will be a prominent feature and a testimony of David’s work.

I genuinely feel the afterlife will be more beautiful through his presence.

David G. Fode

1968-2022

That’s the official number of souls who went down with the R.M.S. Lusitania on 7th May 1915. But I continue to wonder whether that number ought to be adjusted by one, the one who went down but came back; the one who escaped being recorded, whose name appears on neither list, of those who perished or those who lived to wonder why they hadn’t.

That number comes to mind this morning as I rummage for a couple coins from what I’m reluctant to call a collection. Somewhere hereabouts are two coins struck by Martin Coles Harmon while he was “King” of Lundy, during 1925-1929 when its status was as a “micronation”. The 1,100-acre island lies off the coast of Devon in the Bristol Channel. Harmon had his own coinage struck in 1929 — the puffin and half puffin — which got him in deep difficulties with the British government and resulted in some jail time. Whether the notoriety was just compensation you’ll have to ask Mr Harmon, but that’s another story for another day. During this quest (as is often the case at our house), I ran across something else misplaced among the detritus: a piece of medalic [spellcheck doesn’t like it with either one “L” or two] art or what coin collectors are wont to call exonumia [spellcheck doesn’t like this either].

When the RMS Lusitania (the ancient Roman name for their province which is now Portugal) sank, the Germans took considerable pride, more than sufficient to strike a commemorative medal, a piece of both medalic art and propaganda. That medal — I’ve not seen one for sale or auction until curiosity overcame me today — was recast in 1916 by Selfridge’s to benefit St Dunstan’s Blinded Soldiers and Sailors Hostel; 250K were cast, which makes it considerably less than rare, but the point is made: there was no honor in this bald-faced act of savagery.

Our copy of the British restrike retains is commemorative box and single-sheet brochure. But it also contains a handwritten letter from F. Luerson of #83, Amhurst Rd, Hackney E8. Google.earth will take me there in a few moments. The note is addressed to “My Dear Ruby” and dated Christmas, though the year is missing, torn or worn from top and bottom of the single foolscap sheet. It’s just like me to wonder about the writer: Who were the Luersons? And would the period of their residence provide a clue to which Christmas it was that seemed appropriate to remind a friend of such a disaster. Seems an odd gift, given that Ruby might well have known someone who might have known someone whose name was on the list. The list which might have included Anson Curtiss Tennant, if only he’d been real.

Tomorrow, maybe, the story of the puffin and half-puffin and the aforementioned Mr Harmon. And WTH that could have to do with a fictional town in Iowa.

PS [a few minutes later]: Mr Frederick Luerson (son of Frederick Luerson and Anne Fenner) had two sisters and did himself serve in the British military. The Luerson home may have become lost in street renumbering, The current premises are either: 1) Yori Sushi, 2) Supreme Boutique, a unisex salon, or 3) Noodle Express, none of which are likely to be anywhere near my Bucket List.