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Men's Educational
1850's

I have several of these banners and each one is stunning The Working Men's Educational Union, King William Street, London, was a philanthropic society founded in 1853 to provide education to the working classes. These hangings or diagrams would have been used in their lectures, held at various locations, to illustrate the latest advances in knowledge. They were printed on cotton to avoid paper duty and also presumably because it made them re usable. The First (Third, Fourth) Annual Report of the Working Men’s Educational Union is in the British Museum. It lists officers, contributors, members and proceedings at the annual meeting and keys to the diagrams published.There first annual report (1853) lists a coloured cotton wall hanging 109 as 'Lord Rosse's Great Reflecting Telescope, at Parsonstown, Ireland'. and was one of a series of hangings depicting telescopes and their optical principles. At each corner is a brass eyelet. The number 109 is printed in the lower left hand corner below a stamp for the Working Men's Educational Union, King William Street, Trafalgar Square, London. The Trades Union Congress library told me that they have a book entitled "A History of the Working Men's College,1854-1954" by J. F. C. Harrison (1954)which documents the history of the London Working Men's College but does not appear to mention the Union at King William Street, although this may have been a venue for some of the classes prior to the establishment of the Working Men's College in 1854. The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London have one of these hangings 'Leviathan of Parsonstan' from 1853.

Cataloguing

Working Men's Educational Union coloured lithograph printed on cotton, the lower left hand corner stamped Working Men's Educational Union. King William St, Trafalgar Square, London and 204 with a man standing beside a megatheriom Cuvieri lost Phocene. S America written in black ink, hand coloured in cream ,rich red brown and black, one of the creatures teeth with A in the left hand top corner, each corner with a brass eyelet, the reverse written in ink 3ft 10 x 2 ft 3 in or 118 x 89 cm wide

Condition

As you will probably be able to see there are stains to the top left hand corner and the left hand side.