A ‘veritable fairyland’: Mikado Bazaar in Sunderland and the commodification of Japanese culture in the North East of England, 1861–1900

ABSTRACT

In the second half of the nineteenth century, many European countries and North America were hit by a great wave of interest in all things Japanese. This article examines how local retailers played a central role in spreading this transcultural phenomenon in a peripheral region, namely the North East of England.

Through more or less specialist shops, Japanese decorative articles such as textiles, ceramics, lacquerware, and fans became accessible in the North East at the same time as many other parts of the United Kingdom. By drawing upon newspaper advertisements, it has been possible to demonstrate that local retailers promoted the same idealised vision of pre-modern Japan that was intertwined with the countrywide desire for cosmopolitanism.

The Mikado Bazaar in Sunderland exploited this new pattern of consumption by arranging a multifaced shopping experience through which customers could virtually travel to an idealised Japan without leaving Sunderland. Such a reassuring and desirable image of Japan was instrumental in reducing Japanese culture to the state of a commodifiable set of objects.

KEYWORDS:

• Japan mania
• Japanese decorative objects
• advertising
• North East of England
• Sunderland

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Massimiliano Papini is a doctoral candidate in Visual and Material Culture Studies at Northumbria University, Newcastle Upon Tyne. His research is concerned with the cultural interaction between Europe and Japan through art and artefacts during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His publications include an article in the Journal of the Art Market (2:3, 2018): “Emporio Janetti Padre e Figli and the Japanese Art Market in Florence in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century”.

Notes

1 Girouard, “Introduction”; Lasdun, Victorians at Home, 20.

2 Girouard, “Introduction,” 20.

3 Aslin, The Aesthetic Movement, 79.

4 See Kramer, “From Specimen to scrap,” 129–30.

5 Bellars, “Manias,” 476.

6 Jackson, “Imagining Japan,” 250–2.

7 MacKenzie, Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts, 124–9; Checkland, Japan and Britain After 1859, 187–95. On late-Victorian Japonisme, see Watanabe, High Victorian Japonisme; Ono, Japonisme in Britain.

8 Fletcher and Helmreich, “Selected Galleries, Dealers and Exhibition Spaces in London, 1850–1939,” 306–7; Itoh, The Japanese Community in Pre-War Britain, 75–8.

9 Adburgham, Liberty's: A Biography of a Shop.

10 Lysack, Come Buy, Come Buy, 35.

11 Halén, Christopher Dresser, 39–46.

12 Alnwick Mercury, 1854–1867, 1869–1885, 1889; The Berwick Advertiser, 1862–1863, 1870–1871, 1873–1892, 1897; Berwickshire News and General Advertiser, 1870–1872, 1875–1879, 1881–1882, 1889, 1892; Darlington & Stockton Times, Ripon & Richmond Chronicle, 1863, 1877, 1880, 1889, 1894, 1896; Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 1870–1900; Durham Chronicle, 1857–1863, 1868; Durham County Advertiser, 1860–1870, 1872–1887, 1889–1900; Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 1878–1900; Hexham Courant, 1864, 1877, 1879, 1889, 1897; Jarrow Express, 1873–1900; Morpeth Herald, 1854–1896, 1898–1900; Newcastle Chronicle, 1855, 1862–1870, 1875–1896, 1899–1900; Newcastle Courant, 1850–1874, 1877–1879, 1881–1885, 1887–1893, 1895–1896, 1898–1900; Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 1858–1861, 1863–1900; Newcastle Guardian and Tyne Mercury, 1859–1872; Newcastle Journal, 1850–1885, 1889, 1893, 1898; Northern Echo, 1870, 1873–1897, 1899–1900; Shields Daily Gazette, 1855–1897, 1899–1904; Shields Daily News, 1864–1868, 1870, 1873–1877, 1879–1888, 1890–1900; Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, 1873–1895, 1898–1900; Teesdale Mercury, 1855–1870. Newspaper image ©The British Library Board. All rights reserved. With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk). For a historical overview of the newspapers published in the North East, see Newspapers in the Northeast, ed. Peter Isaac (Newcastle: Allenholme, 1999).

13 Richards, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England, 10.

14 Ibid., 7.

15 Appadurai, “Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value,” 3.

16 Appadurai, “Introduction,” 31.

17 Conte-Helm, Japan and the North East of England, 6–7.

18 Ibid., 6–8.

19 Sugiyama, “Thomas B. Glover,” 123–4.

20 Conte-Helm, Japan and the North East of England, 34–7.

21 Ibid., 20–51.

22 Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, September 3, 1886, 4.

23 Wray, Mitsubishi and the N.Y.K., 1870–1914, 315–8.

24 Conte-Helm, Japan and the North East of England, 99, 111.

25 The Japanese in Newcastle were part of a diplomatic mission which had already visited European countries such as France and other parts of Britain. In London they attended the opening of the International Exposition organised in 1862, becoming a sensation because of their “exotic” attire. Newcastle Courant, May 9, 1862, 3. See also Cortazzi, “Japanese Envoys in Britain, 1862–72,” 8–13.

26 Newcastle Courant, May 30, 1862, 2.

27 Among the many articles, see Newcastle Courant, October 14, 1853, 6; Newcastle Courant, November 12, 1858, 7.

28 Newcastle Journal, April 1, 1862, 4.

29 From among the earlier: J. MacGowan, Newcastle Daily Chronicle, November 30, 1861, 3; John Hunter, Alnwick Mercury, January 1, 1864, 4.

30 Newcastle Journal, December 2, 1863, 2. Dresser, “The Art Manufactures of Japan from Personal Observation,” 169.

31 Among the early acrobatic troupes that reached the North East of England, I can mention the Great Dragon. Newcastle Journal, October 3, 1867, 2.

32 See Cortazzi, Japan in Late Victorian London.

33 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, March 2, 1869, 1; Northern Echo, June 27, 1883, 1.

34 Northern Echo, May 31, 1877, 1; Jarrow Express, August 4, 1877, 3.

35 A total of 16 Japan-themed bazaars were organised all over the region between 1882 and 1898. For example, in Darlington, Newcastle Courant, October 27, 1882, 5; Durham, Durham County Advertiser, May 30, 1884, 8; or Middlesbrough, Northern Echo, October 30, 1889, 1. A more comprehensive analysis of Japan-themed charity bazaars in the North East will be discussed in my PhD thesis, Transcultural Flows from Japan to the North East of England 1862–1913: visual and material culture in relation to the Anglo-Japanese interaction (Northumbria University, forthcoming).

36 See McClaugherty, “Household Art”; Journal of Design History, 16:1 (2003) Special Issue ‘Domestic Design Advice’; Cohen. Household Gods.

37 Ferry, “‘ … Information for the Ignorant and Aid for the Advancing … ’ Macmillan's ‘Art at Home’ series, 1876–83,” 151.

38 Neiswander, The Cosmopolitan Interior, 39–42.

39 Ibid., 39.

40 Ibid., 48.

41 Eastlake, Hints on Household Taste in Furniture, Upholstery and other Details, 121.

42 From among the many, see Loftie, A Plea for Art in the House, 81; Panton. Homes of taste, 19.

43 From among the most popular domestic advice manuals, the library of the Literary & Philosophical Society, an institution which was the centre of the Newcastle cultural life in the Victorian period, still holds: Eastlake, Hints on Household Taste in Furniture, Upholstery and Other Details; Loftie, The Dining-room; Barker, The Bedroom and Boudoir; Edis, Decoration and Furniture of Town Houses; Crouch and Butler, The Apartments of the House.

44 Conte-Helm, Japan and the North East of England, 20–51.

45 Henry A. Yorke, South Shields. Shields Daily News, May 14, 1874, 2.

46 William Mossom & Son, Darlington. Northern Echo, December, 17, 1884, 1.

47 Robertson Thomas & Sons, Alnwick. Alnwick Mercury, December 6, 1884, 1.

48 William Stewart, Newcastle. Newcastle Journal, December 20, 1869, 1.

49 Newcastle Journal, August 31, 1866, 1.

50 Sunderland Daily Echo … , November 16, 1875, 1; Sunderland Daily Echo … , December 3, 1875, 1. Despite in trade directories it was still listed as ‘draper’, Binns developed its business in a department store by the turn of the century. Stobart, “Cathedrals of Consumption? Provincial Department Stores in England, c.1880–1930,” 822.

51 Durham County Advertiser, March 1, 1861, 1.

52 Desmond, ed. Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists, 712.

53 Northern Echo, June 1, 1896, 1.

54 Shields Daily News, April 26, 1867, 2.

55 Newcastle Journal, July 7, 1873, 1.

56 Durham County Advertiser, May 7, 1875, 1.

57 Northern Echo, December 14, 1891, 1.

58 Regarding Mawe & Co., see Huberman, et al., The Diary of Charles Holme's 1889 Visit to Japan and North America with Mrs Lasenby Liberty's Japan, xvi.

59 Wischermann, “Placing Advertising in the Modern Cultural History of the City,” 8.

60 Cheang, “Selling China,” 3.

61 Morpeth Herald, April 2, 1881, 6; Newcastle Courant, February 6, 1885, 6.

62 Sunderland Daily … , December 19, 1881, 1; December 22, 1881, 3.

63 Northern Echo, February 1, 1889, 1.

64 Jarrow Express, July 4, 1879, 5.

65 Sunderland Daily … , June 8, 1882, 1.

66 Brandimarte, “Japanese Novelties Store,” 25.

67 Corder advertised Japanese goods for the first time in 1873. Shields Daily Gazette, June 11, 1873, 4.

68 Sunderland Daily … , December 12, 1885, 1; November 29, 1904, 1.

69 Jefferys, Retail Trading in Britain, 1850–1950.

70 Lancaster, The Department Store: A Social History, 7–8.

71 Sunderland Daily … , January 7, 1884, 1; November 21, 1884, 1.

72 Sunderland Daily … , November 21, 1884, 1.

73 Durham County Advertiser, October 18, 1895, 5; Sunderland Daily … , December 13, 1898, 3.

74 Conte-Helm, Japan and the North East of England, 65–6.

75 Sunderland Daily … , November 21, 1884, 1.

76 Sunderland Daily … , December 12, 1885, 1.

77 Sunderland Daily … , March 16, 1886, 1.

78 Sunderland Daily … , November 18, 1889, 2; Johnson. Sunderland in 50 Buildings, 50–1.

79 Shields Daily Gazette, June 11, 1873, 4.

80 ‘Japanese costume, … Japanese skirts’, Sunderland Daily … , April 22, 1875, 1.

81 Sunderland Daily … , December 17, 1880, 1.

82 Sunderland Daily … , December 8, 1881, 1.

83 Sunderland Daily … , November 21, 1884, 1; November 10, 1887, 1; March 27, 1888, 1; August 25, 1890, 1; October 5, 1891; December 10, 1894; February 26, 1898.

84 Sunderland Daily … , December 13, 1894, 4.

85 ‘Indian inlaid goods and brass work, imported direct from Bombay’, Sunderland Daily … , November 24, 1886, 1; ‘Messrs Corder have received from their agent in Constantinople an extensive consignment of Daghistan and Persian rugs of rare beauty of design and finish’, Sunderland Daily … , December 20, 1886, 6.

86 The collaboration between Corder and Liberty is mentioned the first time in 1882, but it is not clear how long it lasted, probably until the early twentieth century. Sunderland Daily … , December 6, 1882, 1; April 27, 1895, 1.

87 Sunderland Daily … , December 16, 1891, 1.

88 I suggest that the ‘well-known dealer’ could be identified with the same Mawe & Co. mentioned the same week by Carter & Co. See note 57.

89 Bush, “The Ethnicity of Things in America's Lacquered Age,” 78–98.

90 Ibid., 90–1.

91 Gilbert and Sullivan, The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan, 559.

92 Rappaport, Shopping for Pleasure.

93 Lancaster, The Department Store, 17.

94 Sunderland Daily … , December 16, 1891, 2.

95 Sunderland Daily … , December 18, 1885, 3.

96 Sunderland Daily … , December 12, 1885, 1.

97 de Bruijn, “Virtual Travel and Virtuous Objects: Chinoiseries and the Country House,” 63–85.

98 Sunderland Daily … , December 16, 1891, 2.

99 Sunderland Daily … , November 12, 1894, 1

100 Lysack, Come Buy, Come Buy, 35.

101 Cheang, “Selling China,” 3.

102 Sunderland Daily … , December 13, 1898, 3.

103 Yokoyama, Japan in the Victorian Mind, 170–5.

104 Sunderland Daily … , December 21, 1887, 6.

105 Adburgham, Liberty's, 43.

106 Sunderland Daily … , December 14, 1892, 2.