A life lived

September 5, 2015 1:38 AM

Just over a hundred years ago, Frederick Jury lost his brass luggage tag. A few days ago Nicola White, a mudlark, found it on the Thames foreshore. Through Twitter, Nicola, and a bunch of local and family historians, were able to put together his story.

Nicola also often finds messages in bottles and tries to track down their creators.

If you want to go mudlarking, read this first, so you know the procedure, even better, speak to these people, who know what they're doing.

posted by Helga-woo (13 comments total)

This is lovely, thank you. I didn't know that people were allowed to look on the Thames shore for objects, or that there were so many old objects to find if you have the skill for it! Years ago I found a button from a firefighting suit on a hiking path and still have it tucked away; I'd be so excited to find a coin from even just a hundred years ago.

I enjoy doing my own amateur history work, which is mostly on the stories of specific buildings - I believe so much in the value of taking a shred and telling its specific story. It's a way of bringing the huge unwieldy past down to human scale, since finding out what happened to this person who lived in your area (or what happened to this building in your neighborhood) gives insight into larger events and patterns without being instantly overwhelming. You start with your ordinary impulse to be a little bit nosy about other people's lives and end up learning about wars and movements.

And this kind of history work is accessible to amateurs! You don't have to be an expert in the whole history of a region or era in order to do meaningful work, you can make a useful contribution by learning about a small specific thing and putting together the available materials on it. It's satisfying and exciting to piece together a story and tell something that hasn't been told before.
posted by dreamyshade at 3:39 AM on September 5, 2015 [7 favorites]

In June of this year, I found an unexploded world war II hand grenade very close to where I found Fred's luggage tag, near Enderby Wharf in Greenwich

I am amazed this keeps happening in the west.
And yet... it does.

Damn.
posted by Mezentian at 4:25 AM on September 5, 2015

"I am amazed this keeps happening in the west."

Zone Rouge in France. See here, also.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:34 AM on September 5, 2015

I knew all about Laos and Cambodia and such with the landmines, but figured Europe would have cleaned up a lot more after WW1 and WW2.

Thanks! I love hearing about all the ways we fuck up everywhere (which makes stories like the nametag all the sweeter).
posted by Mezentian at 4:37 AM on September 5, 2015

It's very common. All over Europe. A big chunk of the East End was sealed off last month to remove an unexploded bomb in a cellar. Did they figure if it hadn't already gone off, it wasn't going to go off and they just repaired the house around it? Or it was so buried in rubble no one knew it was there at the time. That seems to have happened a lot.
posted by Helga-woo at 4:52 AM on September 5, 2015

It's a regular event in German cities with new construction works: an unexploded bomb is found and removed or detonated. This is a recent, high-profile example.
posted by tracicle at 6:31 AM on September 5, 2015

I wonder how he came to lose the tag. Did he lose a suitcase with it? He might have speculated that it would be found in a hundred or a thousand years, but hardly that it would cause strangers all over the world to read about him using a kind of telephone network film apparatus.
posted by Segundus at 6:38 AM on September 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

"The "Z" paupers' area was sadly very overgrown, with small tombstones arranged back to back and in some cases completely covered in brambles and nettles. I wasn't feeling too optimistic to tell you the truth. In some areas you could have done with a machete. And then, after getting entangled many times in nettles and thorns, and peering underneath horizontal gravestones, my friend shouted "I've found Frederick". And so we all went to see him, and Jason straightened the stone."

What a wonderful tale, Helga-woo; thank you for sharing it.
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:38 AM on September 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

A terrific story and post—thanks, Helga-woo!
posted by languagehat at 8:12 AM on September 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I too had not realized that mudlarking existed past the 18th-19th century. I really hope they use period dress to do this but I realize this is a sad twee desire.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:10 AM on September 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is fascinating. Great post!
posted by tuesdayschild at 10:35 AM on September 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Nthed: great story, thanks for digging this up. I went, I guess, mudlarking a couple of times along the South Bank, while I was living in SE just off the Old Kent Road. It's not hard to do when the tide is low, but all I have to show for it is a few pipe stems and bits of patterned china. I would have been pretty excited to have found a piece of shrapnel. I did once find a fragment of bomb casing, but it was at a former weapons testing range at Orford Ness, Suffolk so it doesn't have the quite the same resonance as being an actual piece of the Blitz.
posted by Flashman at 10:52 AM on September 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

A previously on mudlarking.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:18 PM on September 8, 2015