Dave Walker, our Local Studies Librarian writes our weekly local studies blog, The Library Time Machine. We’re very lucky that he writes for us occasionally too! Over to Dave….
Following my recent post Rites of Spring: Mr Ruskin’s May Queen on the Library Time Machine blog, I was invited to visit the May Queen archive at Roehampton University. Whitelands College, a teacher training college was one of the first educational establishments for women and was started at Whitelands House in the King’s Road in the 1840s.
The art critic John Ruskin, together with the Principal of Whitelands College John Faunthorpe devised the idea for an annual May Queen festival at the College. The first May Queen Ellen I was elected by her fellow students in 1881 and there has been a May Queen or (from 1986 when King Gary was elected) a May King ever since. Whitelands College left Chelsea for a bigger building in Putney in 1930 and subsequently amalgamated with a number of other colleges to form the University of Roehampton. The Whitelands campus is now in a part Georgian part modern building originally called Manresa House which is an odd coincidence as the other Manresa in London is Manresa Road home of the first Chelsea Library.
We were taken by the Archivist, Gilly King to the secure archives room in the old part of the building. I was expecting to see photographs and college records preserved in archive boxes which we did find but I hadn’t anticipated what you can see below: two racks on which were hanging the dresses of the May Queens.
The dresses (and one May King’s suit on the left) in the pictures are for the living May Queens and Kings who can come back to the festival each year. The archive boxes contain the dresses of the dead queens packed away carefully as they will never be worn again although a few of them are on display in the College. There was also the one below.
This is the dress first worn in 1898 by Queen Ellen II which had been on display and was now waiting to go back in its box.
I was accompanied on the visit by an Australian archives student who was doing a placement with us. I thought it would be useful for her to see a small specialist archive as part of her programme but my main purpose in going was to see the scrapbooks of photographs which cover the history of the May Queen festival, especially the ones that cover the period when the College was in Chelsea. I’ve been trying to get an image of each May Queen and to identify the previous queens in the group photos like this one.
From the left: Mildred I (1904), Florence (1906), Elizabeth II (1892), Ellen I (1881), Agnes II (1909),Dorothy I (1908), Elsie II (1907) ,Evelyn (1905), Elizabeth I (1886)(I think),Muriel I (1903), Annie II (1895), Edith (1883)
The archive at Whitelands College is a fascinating and significant collection. It’s not open to the general public but the College does take part in the annual Open House event and there are also group tours.
On our way out we saw some more May Queen dresses on display.
These are the dresses of Elsie II who you can see in the group photos and Queen Edna (1924).
Here, in the May Queen corridor you can see Queen Thyra (1890) on the far right.
I managed to get a decent picture of Queen Elizabeth II (1892) who was also in the group photo as she was seventeen years before in the year when she was elected.
I took plenty of other pictures in the archives which will form part of an extensive file on this fascinating part of Chelsea’s history. The final picture is one for Shari to send home.
Dave Walker
Local Studies Librarian
Further information
- Open House London will be on 21 and 22 September 2013. For more information visit the Open House London website.
- More information about Whitelands College can be found on the University of Roehampton’s website.
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I was v. interested in your site as I`m writing a biog. of Alwyn C.E.Carr, who with Omar Ramsden was a well known Arts and Crafts silversmith (see google images). In his will Carr left £100 (1938) for the `May Queen Cross and Chain Memorial Fund`. Have you come across this? I`d love to know more.
Helen
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Sounds interesting! We’ll pass on your message to Dave and see what he says…
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Do you know where the painting of the may queen procession is – may be by Ruskin? It used to hang in the dining hall at White lands college in Giles Gilbert Scott building in Putney. I was a student there in 1975.
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Hi Kym,
Thanks for the comment and interest.
I have sent your question off to our Local Historian and Archivist, who hopefully will come back with a response.
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Hi Kim,
I now have a response from our Local Studies and Archive Librarian.
He saw the painting at the Whitelands campus in Roehampton the first time he went there. It wasn’t there when he attended the May Monarch Festival this year.
It’s possible it’s on loan as they do often loan out material from their archive to Ruskin related institutions.
It’s not by Ruskin as it depicts a procession led by Queen Eva, the 1902 Queen – Ruskin was dead by then.
Please contact the College direct if you want to see it, as it may be back by now.
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Do you have the full names of all the May Queens?
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Are you looking for a particular queen? If so, and if she’s pre-1930, we may be able to help- if not, our local studies librarian has the contact details for the archivist at Whitelands. If you can, send some more details and we will try to help.
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Hello. I stumbled across this discussion thread while researching my Great Grandmother Daisy Elizabeth Heal. She was a May Queen at Whitelands. Unfortunately I don’t know in which year, but I have her birth year down as 1875 so I guess we would be looking at around 1895. It would be great if you had access to any information about her.
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My mother in law was Irene Chadwick and she was Queen of the May at Whitelands in 1932. Is there a photograph of her in the corridor you mention? Sadly she passed away in 1969. We have her queen of the May book with its dedicatory insert The Crown of Wild Olive.
Regards
Heather Hughes-Jones
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Hi Heather,
I’ll ask our Local Studies librarian to have a look.
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