22nd June: The V and A

The V & A Museum in London opened on this date in 1857.

1. The V&A covers 12.5 acres (5.1 ha) and has and 145 galleries. The galleries cover a distance of seven miles. The permanent collection consists of over 4.5 million objects. Some of the things you can see on a visit include: the first commercially produced Christmas card; Charles Dickens' pen case and manuscript for Oliver Twist; the earliest photograph of London, a view down Whitehall from Trafalgar Square (before Nelson's column was built), a daguerreotype taken by a M. de St Croix in 1839; and a writing desk which belonged to King Henry VIII.
2. It grew out of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Henry Cole, the museum's first director, was involved in planning that. The museum was initially called the Museum of Manufactures and first opened in 1852 at Marlborough House, but was transferred to Somerset House a few months later. At this stage the collections covered both applied art and science. The collection moved to the current site in 1857 and was opened by Queen Victoria. At this time it was called South Kensington Museum. It wasn't called the Victoria and Albert Museum until 1899. The new name was announced when Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone for the Aston Webb building (Queen Victoria's last public appearance, incidentally). She really wanted to call it simply the 'Albert Museum'. In the 1980s, Sir Roy Strong renamed the museum "The Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Museum of Art and Design".
3. Accessibility has always been important to the V & A. It was the first museum to use gas lighting, making it possible to open it in the evenings, so that working class people could visit. Henry Cole said the lighting was introduced "to ascertain practically what hours are most convenient to the working classes" and that he hoped 'the evening opening of public museums may furnish a powerful antidote to the Gin palace'. In 1862, the first popular exhibition was held, with the catchy title of 'Special Exhibition of Works of Art of the Medieval, Renaissance and More Recent Periods'. To make sure people outside London could see parts of the collection, there was a specially constructed railway truck so that exhibitions could travel around the country. More recently, in 1973, the focus was on attracting young people and it became the first museum to host a rock concert, by British progressive folk-rock band Gryphon, incorporating a lecture on how mediaeval music influenced the Music of today.
4. It was the first museum in the world to have a restaurant for visitors. It had a range of menus: first and second class, plus a third class service for 'mechanics and all workmen employed at the Museum Buildings and even for the humble working class visitors'.
5. The inscription over the main entrance reads 'The excellence of every art must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose', a quotation from the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds. Some of the mosaic floors in the Museum were made by female prisoners in Woking Prison. Museum staff gave the mosaic a Latin nickname, 'opus criminale'.
6. Queen Victoria was said to be shocked by the nudity of a full-size plaster-cast of Michaelangelo's 'David'; so a fig leaf was specially made to cover David's "crown jewels". It would be hung on the figure by a pair of hooks when dignitaries visited.
7. The central garden was redesigned by Kim Wilkie and is called the John Madejski Garden. It has an elliptical water feature lined in stone with steps around the edge which can be drained for receptions or exhibitions. There are also two Dogs buried in the garden - Sir Henry Cole's dog Jim, and another 'faithful dog' Tycho - and there are memorial plaques to them.
8. During World War II, as much of the collection as possible was sent to either a quarry in Wiltshire, to Montacute House in Somerset, or to a tunnel near Aldwych tube station for safe keeping. Anything too big to be moved was sand-bagged and bricked in. The worst loss was the Victorian stained glass on the Ceramics Staircase, which was blown in during an air raid. There are pock marks still visible on the façade of the museum caused by fragments from WWII bombs.
9. In the 1950s a member of staff stole several hundred objects, including a number of swords which he smuggled out of the Museum down his trouser legs.
10. The museum's basement is said to be haunted by a warder named Clinch, who is said to have committed suicide down there. The room in which he took his life is known as 'Clinch's Hole'.