This project for Museum of London Docklands is to give children a flavour of life as a docker in Victorian London. I made labels for the costumes, panels for the furniture, retouched sheet music for the Joanna (that’s ‘piano’ if you don’t speak Cockney) and had fun drawing a repeating pattern for the tablecloth. What I enjoyed most of all, however, is the fact that I’m a direct descendant of a Victorian docker! My great-grandfather John Philip Cornish lived from 1862-1948 in Stepney and worked as a casual docker ‘on the stones’. This meant he’d turn up at the docks and stand on a cobbled forecourt amongst hundreds of men and hope he’d be chosen for a day’s work. It was a tough life. Below is a photo of John in his late 60s. Although he’s looking pretty content, note that he’s covering one hand - he lost two and a half fingers to the docks but must have wanted to keep that ‘Mum’.
The family continued to live in Stepney, my grandfather too worked ‘on the stones’, choosing to stay put during the Blitz, where my father remembered being bombed out five times. But perhaps that’s a story for another day …
(post by Tanya)