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Displaying Drink, 1650 and 1850' is a collaborative project between Dr Karen Harvey in the University of Sheffield's History department and Dr Rachel Conroy, a curator at Museums Sheffield The project originated from Harvey's research on material culture, ritual and drinking in eighteenth-century England. This work explores what the ritual use of drinking objects meant for contemporaries. A central issue to emerge was how particular kinds of drinking occasions reinforced relations of power. Boisterous punch parties, from which women were notably excluded, licensed the cultural and political authority of men. Women's domestic responsibilities, and their more supposedly more genteel natures, on the other hand, were reinforced by powerful associations between women and tea. These gendered associations were expressed through - but sometimes complicated by - the objects used for drinking.
A University of Sheffield 'Knowledge Transfer Opportunities Fund' grant, supported by the Higher Education Innovation Fund, enabled the development of the project 'Displaying Drink: Ritual at the Eighteenth-Century Table'. This drew on Harvey's work but also other important research in the arts and humanities on the areas of civility, consumption, taste and gender. The grant funded a University academic (Harvey) and a curator (Conroy) to work in partnership, bringing together this academic research with extensive curatorial knowledge and expertise about the objects. The resulting design was then realized by a team working at Museums Sheffield. The result is a display in the Metalwork Gallery, at the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield, which opened on Saturday 19th July 2008. The display explores the significance of the historic rituals associated with drinking, in the home, the alehouse, coffee house and tavern between 1650 and 1850. Many new drinks were introduced to England during this period, with manufacturers designing new kinds of objects for storing, preparing and consuming these exotic concoctions. Amongst the objects on display are a Wedgwood Chocolate Cup dating from the end of the 18th century, an Old Sheffield Plate Loving Cup from the mid 1700s, and a stunning silver, gilt and glass Travelling Set used by wealthy day-trippers in the early 1800s.
The project has helped to place some of the objects in Museums Sheffield's important decorative art collection more firmly in their wider historical, cultural, social, and political contexts. The resulting display thereby brings some important academic research out of the University and into a broader public domain. It hopes to encourage visitors to reflect on the cultural significance of mundane practices of drinking, both in the past but also in their own lives. At the same time, the project has given staff at the University unrivalled access to both a rich collection of historic objects, and also to curatorial expertise at Museums Sheffield. 'Displaying Drink' has been an exciting collaboration between two of the major cultural and educational institutions in the city, one that both partners hope to build on in the future. For further information please contact Dr Karen Harvey in the History Department. k.harvey@sheffield.ac.uk |
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Department of History
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