Artist, author and also presenter of 

Anglia TV's 'King and Country' programmes.

Surveys and Maps of Wisbech Exhibition

Shopgirls

Parts of this series were filmed at the Museum and around Wisbech

History Rising Bake - A - Cake competition

Calling all cake makers and sugar crafters!

Be inspired by the amazing displays and objects at 

Wisbech & Fenland Museum and make a cake.

History Rising is an art project by Dutch artist Marjolijn Dijkman. Marjolijn will be installing specially made sculptures in the Hudson Room at Wisbech & Fenland Museum from 1 November to 5 January 2014.

For further details download our guideline sheet.

To enter, fill in the Bake-A-Cake entry form, which can be downloaded here.

Half-term drop in workshop coming soon!

Museum Square, Wisbech, Cambs, PE13 1ES

01945 583817- info@wisbechmuseum.org.uk - www.wisbechmuseum.org.uk

Drop in Workshop - Wed 31 July

New shop stock has arrived!

 

Orthoceras and goniatite plaque

 

A selection of necklaces

 

 

Agadir ammonite

 

 

Orthoceras bookends

 

 

Cambropallas

 

Fimo bead bracelets

 

plus a large selection of books, gemstones, minerals, souvenir items and more!



Free Activity! 1st June - Help make a horrid witch!

Half Term Drop In Workshop

Wisbech Camera Club Exhibition



'Wisbech: A Century of Memories'. Last few days to view.

Now ending on Saturday 27 April.

Half Term Activity

Poetry Competition

Jane Stuart

Jane Stuart (1654 -1742)

‘Queen of the Reapers’

Wherein lies the truth in the story of Jane Stuart. In the graveyard attached to the Friends’ Meeting House, Wisbech stands a simple headstone with the initials “JS”, and the age and date “88” and 1742”. This is the final resting place of one Jane Stuart, widely acknowledged as a natural daughter of James II, King of England. This is according to folklore written down some thirty years or so after her death by Samuel Peckover, a prominent Cambridgeshire Quaker.



Jane is believed to have been born in Paris, the daughter of James, Duke of York, then in exile. He had escaped England in 1648 when confined to St James’s Palace by Parliamentary Leaders. Jane became a maid of honour to Queen Henrietta Maria and remained at the English Court from the Restoration (1685) to the Glorious Revolution (1688), but she has never been officially recognised. After the Glorious Revolution, Jane escaped the Court and finally found refuge in Wisbech, living a life of simplicity and piety.



Before this, however, there was a further intriguing twist to her story which lead to her being named Queen of the Reapers. Although the Court of James II was Catholic, it is understood that Jane Stuart became influenced by the principles of the Quakers. Like many of similar radical belief, she was imprisoned because of her association with the movement. It was during this period of her life that she became engaged to be married. Tragically a coach in which she and her future husband were travelling overturned and he was killed.



Following this tragedy, Jane remained in London for some time before eventually setting-off on foot towards the Isle of Ely. Presumably penniless, she sought after work and enquired at several houses about employment. When asked what she could do, she answered that she was prepared to set her hand at anything. To which the response was, “Canst thou reap?” She replied that she didn’t know but was willing to try. So she was sent into the field, and before evening she was discovered to be so proficient at reaping as to be called Queen of the reapers. 1

In Wisbech she lived in a basement room in a white house at the far end of the Old Market looking towards the Town Bridge. Today it is more familiar as Granny’s Cupboard. There she supported herself by earning her living reaping in the fields in the summer and spinning wool and flax in the winter. Though she led a humble existence she remained an enigma as a further story suggests that neighbours witnessed her reading the New Testament in Greek.



After the Glorious Revolution the deposed James II fled to France, where the King of France provided him with the use of a chateau at St Germain-en-Laye. Although several Quakers visited James II at St Germain, there is no record of Jane Stuart ever being there; nor did James II, a tender father to his natural children, ever mention her. During the rising of 1715 she is alleged to have hired transport to take her to Scotland to see her half-brother, James III (James Francis Edward). There is no connection between Jane Stuart and a namesake, a widow, who claimed to be a great-granddaughter of James I.

Jane Stuart died in Wisbech on 12 September 1742 and was buried in the Quaker burial-ground there. She was unmarried.



Notes:

1. Fenland Notes and Queries, Volume II, p.178.

Reference sources:

A Note on Jane Stuart by R.W. Ketton-Cremer

Eveline Cruickshanks Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

The Royal Quaker, Mrs. E.B. Tanqueray, London, 1914



Make these consistent:

R.W. Ketton-Cremer, A Note on Jane Stuart. In a journal? Place? Date?

Eveline Cruickshanks, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Mrs E.B. Tanqueray, The Royal Quaker, London, 1914.

Great Expectations Exhibition

This is the last few days to visit our Great Expectations exhibition ' So I called myself Pip...' and to wonder at the magnificent display of Miss Havisham's wedding feast by local artist Fred White. Also on display is the original manuscript of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

"one of the iconic images of English literature"
Miriam Margolyes

The Collection - An Introduction. Walking through the entrance to the museum you enter into a treasure house of curiosities and wonderment....

Christmas and New Year Closing

We will be closed from the 

23 December until 21 January 2013 inclusive.

All the Staff, Trustees, Friends and Volunteers

would like to wish you a

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!

Miriam Margolyes talks Dickens's Women

Contact the Angles Theatre to make a booking

www.anglestheatre.co.uk

Heritage Weekend Drop-In Activity

Museum Square, Wisbech, Cambs PE13 1ES     01945 583817

info@wisbechmuseum.org.uk        www.wisbechmuseum.org.uk

Current Library Exhibition: Embroidery Samplers from the 18th& 19th Centuries

On Saturday 5 May 2012 Wisbech & Fenland Museum will be holding a temporary display of 18^th and 19^th century embroidery samplers from the museum’s collection. The free display will be held in the library and will be open from 11am till 3pm. This display will be a chance to see examples of embroidery that are usually not on public display, and haven’t been so for a number of years.

Included will be pieces worked on by local school girls, such as: Hannah Tuck and Ann Falter from Upwell and Sarah Elizabeth Coulson from Rings End. Also on display is an impressive mourning sampler from 1864 by Elizabeth Booth, this sampler is a memorial for several of her family members. Some of the samplers are especially detailed and eye-catching, including one by Ann Mackman dating from 1825 which includes several embroidered images, including a house, animals and flowers.

The museum would also like to ask members of the public who visit the display if they have any information on the embroiderers whose work is featured, as the history of those who once lived in Wisbech and its surrounding areas is of great interest.

This display on embroidery samplers also coincides with an interesting exhibition of modern textile art by the Fen Edge Embroidery group held in the museum’s Hudson room, allowing visitors to see how this art form has evolved over the past three hundred years.

The exhibition can be viewed at other times by prior appointment.

The exhibition has been curated by Sophie Woods from Terrington St. Clements, who is studying Fashion and Dress History at the University of Brighton.

Hastings' Wisbech: views of Wisbech in the 1960s

The Museum's current exhibition, which runs until the 30th March, showcases the drawings of Geoff  Hastings which are based on his photographic survey of Wisbech in the 1960s. Many of the buildings featured have seen drastic changes or are simply no longer there.

Dickens First Day Cover now available to order

The Wisbech Museum and All Saints' Church, Walsoken, have come together to produce a limited edition first day cover to mark the bi-centenary of the birth of Charles Dickens. The cover will include stamps with a Dickensian theme.

Only 280 covers will be produced and signed covers will be limited to 20 of each name and will include:

Gillian Anderson, Douglas Booth, Simon Callow, Dame Judi Dench, Gerald Dickens, Stephen Fry, Sir George Martin CBE and Ron Moody. Patrick Stewart is already sold out!