An entry in the diary of Archdeacon Strong, to whose model of the Block House allusion has already been made, suggests that the work was often bespoken, and that the dyes and other more expensive materials may have been paid for beforehand by the purchaser. The entry is: “23rd October 1801—Drove Margaret to ye Barracks. Bought the model of the Block House and provided the Mahogany. £1 11s. 6d., sergt. 1s., man 1s., soldier 1s. 3d.” The venerable gentleman’s diary contains other items throwing light on the price received by the prisoners for the fruit of their labours. From one such entry we learn that the Archdeacon, in 1811, paid two guineas for a marquetry picture of the Minster, now the property of his grandson, Colonel Strong.
The straw undoubtedly was bought from outside, and there can be no doubt that what applied to this “raw product” applied to other material and to tools necessary for the production of the works, by the sale of which we have Commissioner Serle’s authority for the prevalent opinion that within a few years of their confinement many of the prisoners had made one hundred guineas.
The great speciality of the Norman Cross prisoners was straw marquetry work, in which they greatly excelled, producing beautiful pictures in straw, and manufacturing and decorating with varied, elaborate, and most artistic designs, cabinets, work-boxes, desks, tea-caddies, dressing-boxes, small boxes of various shapes, hand fire-screens, snuff-boxes, silk holders, etc., etc. It would appear that occasionally the prisoners, skilled in this work, were applied to, to decorate with their marquetry, articles such as picture frames, etc. There have recently been presented to the museum of the Peterborough Natural History and Antiquarian Society, by a friend, through Mr. C. Dack, the Curator, fourteen examples of straw marquetry work, among them a case containing a telescope which was bought at the sale of Captain John Kelly, son of Major Kelly, the last Brigade-Major at the barracks. This resembles an ordinary telescope, except that the tube is covered by straw marquetry, the work of a prisoner, instead of the usual leather casing.
The illustrations, which are reproductions of very perfect photographs taken by Mr. A. C. Taylor of articles in the museum, show more convincingly than any verbal description can, the beauty of the designs and the workmanship of the most artistic of these articles, although they fail to show the colour effects produced by the use of dyed straws.
In all there are in the museum 162 examples of straw work, almost all of them being marquetry. There is one straw bonnet which was found in the roof of a house at Cottesmore, twenty-five miles from Norman Cross. How it is identified as Norman Cross work the author does not know, but if made at Norman Cross, it was probably carried away surreptitiously by a smuggler and hidden until a safe opportunity for its sale offered itself. The manufacture in the prison of hats and bonnets was forbidden.
Returning to the legitimate and more artistic work of the prisoners, it may be mentioned that the joinery and cabinet-makers’ work of the various articles made for decoration by the straw workers, most of it, as it is believed done in the prison, was of the best quality, and has made a durable base for the straw marquetry with which the experts overlaid them, in beautiful formal patterns with delicately coloured designs, human figures, birds, flowers, etc., interspersed. Pictures on panel, in the same material, are also found in private houses in the neighbourhood, but the most beautiful are now in the museum. One, a view of the west front of Peterborough Cathedral, bearing the name De la Porte as the artist who constructed it, has been already mentioned, and in the course of the researches made for the purpose of this history, the owner of the name has been identified with Corporal Jean De la Porte, one of the French heroes who on the 12th October 1805 fought against the British at Trafalgar, where Nelson died, but not before he had settled the question of our nation’s supremacy on the sea. J. De la Porte was taken in L’Intrépide. [129]
Another manufacture carried on very extensively by the prisoners was bone work, the cooking-houses afforded the material, and in the Peterborough Museum alone are 256 examples of the work produced by the skill and industry of the prisoners in their manipulation of the bones of the animals which were killed for their ration (of these 256 articles, 33 were the gift of Mr. C. Dack’s friend already referred to). With this material and the simplest tools were produced works, as a rule, more crude and of less artistic design than the works of the marquetry artists, but demanding skill, delicacy of touch, and untiring patience on the part of the artificer, who must in some instances have spent months and even years over their execution. Such a work was that represented in the illustration. It appears to represent a stage, on which are placed various figures.
