Introduction and Timelines
The Larkers: Henry Kent, Linnea Maertens, Thalia Nitz, Agnes Ohrstrom Kann, Anja Schwegler, Finn Stileman.
Project lead: Claire Harris (TDP). Supported by: Will Rathouse (TDP).
2022 has been an exciting year for new projects. One of these projects, A Thames Lark, brought together a group of young people to create an immersive event along the River Thames.
Event participants followed a self-guided trail along the river, collecting pages from a special edition zine that had been designed and created by the group. A Thames Lark aimed to amplify unheard voices from the past, unwrap hidden stories, and allow participants to explore an alternative history of the River Thames.
Linnea Maertens, the driving force behind the group, describes the creative process of making the zine:
So much thought and talent went into the creation of this zine. I want to offer proper tribute to those who volunteered their time and put up with my many emails and messages, especially towards the end of the project! I want to go into some of the thoughts, decisions, and specific credits for who did what on each page.
While we were planning the zine, page topics were split up into 3 categories, Timelines, Finds, and People, to keep things thematically cohesive.
Timelines
Finn had the idea of looking at how the Thames has been used as a site of offerings from the Stone Age to present. This developed into our first timeline and Finn selected images of significant finds found along the river. These acted as visuals for the types of votive offerings different communities have sacrificed to its murky waters. Thalia, who has collaborated with Finn before on archaeological illustrations, took on the design of this timeline. Her outcome is a beautifully rendered digital painting of the selection of finds displayed chronologically in the mud of a riverbank, the tide just lapping at their edges.
The next timeline (although it ended up mapping out space rather than time) was Agnes’s project. Agnes suggested an ecological topic discussing the history of the river’s wildlife, health, and environment. She drew extensively from the Zoological Society of London’s report of the state of the river in 2021. This report outlines everything from the numbers of specific species to the success of different conservation projects to the negative impacts of various human and environmental factors. Agnes illustrated her own research, bringing together the ZSL report with historical context and the even murkier past of the river’s health, intertwining this with woodcut inspired illustrations of the Thames and its animal species.
The final timeline was the history of London’s sewers which was suggested and researched by Claire. She traced the history from the earliest Roman evidence of waste disposal, the archaeology of the first public toilets, the great stink, all the way up to the current Tideway super sewer project and how that will improve the river environment. Henry’s design and illustration for this page outlines the history in equal parts grotesque, hilarious, and beautiful details.
Finds
Our next category was “Finds” which focused on archaeological digs or mudlarked discoveries as a point for discussion of deeper histories and complex discussions.
I researched and illustrated a page entitled “Queenhithe”, inspired by an article on the excavations carried out at Bull Wharf, City of London, which Claire drew my attention to. The original project uncovered the remains of the Saxon settlement at Aethelred’s Hithe (later Queenhithe). On the site a female skeleton was found which has been interpreted as a possible witch or cunning woman who was stoned to death and displayed on the foreshore. I used this deviant burial to discuss other links between rivers and violence against women, touching on medieval laws which threw women into water or off cliffs as punishment and ended with the last know case of a scold ducking off Kingston bridge in 1745. Since my page would be near the Queenhithe mosaic I created a background which referenced that and added black and white illustrations to highlight the topics discussed.
I also illustrated a page which we entitled “Apothecary Jars” which used foreshore finds like sugar mounds, clay pipes, and apothecary jars to discuss the connection between the Thames and the transatlantic slave trade. This topic was one of the suggestions of Malcolm Russell author of Mudlark’d who gave us several wonderful suggestions, some of which we used in this project and some we will have to do another project to explore further! Claire did the research for this page and on Malcolm’s suggestion we focused on the connection between London’s apothecaries and the slave trade. I created two collages for this page which used archived images as well as photos of artifacts from the Portable Antiquities Scheme. I combined common foreshore finds with botanical illustrations of common medicinal plants at the time as well as engravings of the Chelsea Physic Garden.
The last “finds” page was the Roman intaglio that inspired the TDP logo. This topic was suggested and researched by Will. The intaglio depicts four men rowing a galley with a swan or goose head at one end and what might be a raised sword at the other. The page looks at the possible link between the intaglio design and the Roman commander, Marcus Aurelius Mausaeus Carausius. Anja did the design and dramatically illustrated the twists and turns of Carausis’s rise to power and ultimate assassination.
People
The last section was on “People”, celebrating stories of underrepresented people who lived and worked along the Thames.
Hannah Snell was another recommendation from author Malcolm Russell who suggested her as a queer history topic to explore. Agnes took on the research, reading Snell’s autobiography and putting her story in the greater context of queer history in London’s Docklands. Henry took on the illustrations of this page. Using a beautifully restricted colour palette he recreated one of the surviving engravings we have of Snell in regimental dress as well as the prospect of Whitby pub and a wonderful cutaway of the Thames tunnel.
While writing the text, Agnes and I discussed whether to frame Snell as LGBTQ+ or as transgender. According to Snell’s own recounting she equated dressing as a man as wearing a costume. However, since her autobiography was dictated and then written up and transferred into the third person by her publisher, it is possible that the account doesn’t align exactly with Hanna Snell’s own thoughts. Although I don’t think that any of our modern gender terms would apply to her, I think she also stood outside what her own time could define. I have labelled her history as “queer”, beyond the binary of what we knew then or what we know now.
Anja illustrated the Celeste Sinibaldi page which was the research and writing of a long time TDP volunteer, Ann Dingsdale. Her research was one of the first topics suggest by Claire when we were still forming the project idea. I sent Ann’s research to my dad, who I thought would love to learn about Celeste, to edit down to our word count. After he sent me the edits I got another email from him.
The email was several pages long, laying out his musings on Sinibaldi. He described the historical context in which she grew up, in Napoleonic France, and how that might have motivated her decisions in later life, for example to dedicate her work to the British Navy to prove that she had no patriotism left for the French empire. He also gave me a list of questions, which I passed on to Ann, and told me that he had found a genealogical website which listed that Celeste had at least one direct descendant alive today. Anja illustrated the pages in her distinctive style, giving life to the story of this admirable woman and her fight for her passion against many societal blockades.
In our final zine there is no page illustrating the third in our “People” category. We had chosen to depict the story of Olaudah Equiano, the enslaved Nigerian turned free abolitionist writer. Equiano provided a first-person account of his kidnap and enslavement which, when published, went on to garner great support for the abolitionist movement and the eventual abolishment of slavery in the British Empire. Will provided the research and I took on the illustration. My fatal suggestion was that I should design and illustrate this page in the style of a graphic novel, which meant I gave myself way to much work to complete in the amount of time we had. I am still working on it he page and trying to put as much thought and detail as I can into how to depict Equiano’s complex and politicized life story.
I want to give my whole hearted thanks to the Thames Lark team and to everyone who made it to the Lark itself! You all made it happen and I hope that the Thames Discovery Program chooses to do more collaborative creative events like this in the future.