Category: Museum

• Staring Into The Face of Death

  

  It’s not on display any more, but one of my favourite objects in The British Museum is Napoleon’s death mask. Death masks were often used in an era before photography was widespread and captured likenesses which were used in sculpting busts of the decased post mortem. John Constable’s is on display at the Royal Academy…

  Sheldon K Goodman

  June 30, 2022

  France, History, Military, Museum, People, Tours

  19th century, Cemetery, Death Mask, France, history, London, Napoleon, Saint Helena, South Atlantic, The British Museum, tour, Wellington

• Bones Beneath a Bishop’s Palace

  

  A Victorian dog and his master A pleasant fifteen minute amble from Parsons Green station, Fulham Palace and its gardens is managed by a charitable trust. In continual possession of the Church of England since AD 704 (when Bishop Waldhere acquired the Manor of Fulham) it is a scheduled ancient monument – which gives it…

  Sheldon K Goodman

  February 24, 2022

  Animals, Heritage, History, London, Museum, Visits

  19th century, Bishop, blog, Bones, Church, Dog Skeleton, Fulham, history, London, Palace, Pet, Pets, Pooch, trivia

• Death in the British Museum: Object in Focus

  

  Being invited by our wonderful Cemetery Club master of ceremonies Sheldon K. Goodman to participate in Death in the British Museum this coming Saturday has given me a little push towards reevaluating what the massive museum collection in Bloomsbury means to me. It has encouraged me to consider the importance of furnereal objects and how…

  Sheldon K Goodman

  July 22, 2021

  asian, Family, Heritage, Museum, Religion, Tours

  ancestor worship, asian, British Museum, Culture, Death Positive, death ritual, history, Incense, Online, Talk, tour, Vietnam, Zoom

• The Peregrine of St. Pauls

  

  The Museum of London has a fabulous Peregrine Falcon. It is however, dead. I saw this bird of prey when I visited the Beasts of London exhibition in 2019 and there was something terribly sad about seeing a creature, although long deceased, stuffed, mounted and displayed in a way that does not reflect the nature…

  Sheldon K Goodman

  May 26, 2021

  Animals, History, London, Museum

  Bird of Prey, Falcon, Hawk, history, London, Museum of London, Neville chamberlain, Peregrine Falcon, St. Paul's Cathedral, War

• Why Is There a Headstone in the Dickens Museum?

  

  Visitors to the Dickens Museum may be surprised to see a gravestone in the back garden. Of course it is perfectly legal to be buried in your own garden if you’re lucky enough to own one. But this headstone is a cenotaph: no bones lay beneath it. The actual person it commemorates has a fascinating…

  Sheldon K Goodman

  December 24, 2020

  christmas, History, London, Museum

  christmas, Dickens, Dickens Museum, Headstone, Holborn, Islington, Museum, Pickwick Papers, Public History, Robert Seymour

• The Greatest Library of Them All

  

  Libraries are a world you can get lost in. Earlier this week I paid a visit to my local cemetery, where I filmed a video about John Harris – the subject of one of my sixty second videos on Twitter. He’s buried in Queen’s Road Cemetery, Croydon. I explored his legacy to both the British…

  Sheldon K Goodman

  April 17, 2020

  Biography, books, History, London, Museum, Photography, Study

  Antony Panizzi, books, British Museum, history, Independence, Italian, Italy, library, Reading Room, Resistance, Ugo Foscolo