Object stories and the Crimean War

Florence Nightingale

On March the 27^th 1854, Britain and France declared war on Russia, which marked the beginning of the Crimean War. This war is now generally remembered in relation to Florence Nightingale and the Charge of Light Brigade, which was prominently written about in a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, describing the bravery of the British cavalry.

France, Britain, and Russia were competing for influence over the Middle East, and both religion and the desire for Ottoman territory with valuable trade routes were the catalyst for the war. Between 1853 and 1856 in what is now Ukraine, there were many causalities on both sides of the battle- a situation that Florence Nightingale’s work brought to the forefront of national consciousness.

Russian prisoners of war

In relation to this anniversary, I was thinking about related objects in the Great North Museum. There is a tobacco pipe in the collection, which is said to have been carved by a Russian prisoner during the Crimean War. The bowl of the pipe is carved in the form of a man with a long beard, wearing smoking cap with a tassel. There was a point when Russian prisoners were taken by the English navy to Lewes in southern England, and perhaps this pipe could have been carved there. The pipe came into the museum as a gift from Mr. Campbell in 1936. Campbell also donated two other pipes from Germany and Holland from his collection. The one from Holland is also relatively whimsical in its decoration and is composed of a china bowl displaying a print of a man carrying a gun.

Pipe NEWHM: 2000.H772

This pipe will be going on display in the ICCHS Newcastle University student exhibition, Changing Faces. The exhibition opens April 16^th 2013.