m - Isle of Man Today

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4 anxmillennium
manx illennium
21
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The title to this view
is a ‘Manx Wedding’
but no further
details are given as to
where or when. There’s a
lot of hat raising and
cheering going on. There
was a Manx Wedding at
Lezayre as part of the
Heritage Year (1986)
celebrations put on by the
Lezayre Heritage
Committee. Many will
recall a Manx Wedding in
Laxey in the 1950s –
probably to coincide with
the centenary of the great
Laxey Wheel in 1954. Some
of the customs still take
place at everyday
weddings. It used to be a
custom for newly married
couples in Douglas to walk
around the lighthouse at
the end of the Red Pier
then the quayside hobblers
would hold a rope to block
their passage until the
groom coughed up some
coins. The rope and
throwing shining pennies
was used as recent as 7th
August this year when
Joanne Garrett and John
Kelly were married at St
Mary’s Church. Returning
to the photograph, can any
reader identify the location
of this event?
MNH/pic/4324
Iassume the centre post into
which the large wooden gates
fastened actually lifted out when
they went to launch the lifeboat. This
lantern slide view shows the Douglas
lifeboat house of 1896 which was built
to the designs supplied free of charge
by Mr Rennison the architect. He
came to the Island at the time of
designing the Villiers Hotel just over
20 years earlier and designed many
of the entertainment buildings in
Douglas as well as houses, shops etc
etc. He was probabl;y the most
prolific architect of his time yet he
lies in an unmarked grave in the
Borough Cemetery. The previous
lifeboat house was a traditional stone
built building and was located on the
shore at Harris Promenade roughly in
line with where the Sefton now stands.
This building is in the Harbour
Commissioners’ yard on The Approach
Road which leads to the Battery Pier.
There was a slipway set against the
harbour wall at The Croak and the
lifeboat, which weighed 11 tons, had to
be pulled across the road and then
lined up with the slipway. When she
returned from service it took six pairs
of horses to pull her back up. In 1924 a
new lifeboat house (the present one)
was opened almost directly opposite
this building. MNH/pic/1002
The subject matter of this lantern
slide given to the Manx Museum in
1952 by Major Harris is ‘Dick
Curphey, fisherman of Douglas’ A note
on the slide says he was going around
with a basket of fish on his back 30-40
years ago. Whether this meant 30-40
years before 1952 or before the slide was
taken is hard to establish. Perhaps
there is a reader who can advise or tell
something more about Dick Curphey
MNH/pic/4222.
Aschool sports team, enough
players for rugby but it is a
football in the hands of the lad in
the middle. On the jumpers are the
initials VCFC which stands for Victoria
College Football Club and on the back of
this recently donated photograph it says
1882-3 season. On the floor is an animal
skin and a bowler hat but why I don’t
know. The Victoria College was in Victoria
Road, Douglas. According to Canon Hinton
Bird’s book ‘An Island that led’ a history of
Manx Education it was founded in 1881 by
Richard Farrell BA LLD. He had
previously been vice principal of a large
London school and in setting up the college
was assisted by J.H. Hopkinson of Lincoln
College, Oxford. Canon R. D. Kermode,
well known vicar of Lezayre up to the time
of the second world war was one of the
early pupils here who went on to
Cambridge. By 1884 the exam results
from Victoria College outperformed King
Williams College! Farrell retired in 1892
and the college eventually closed in the
first decade of the present century
Photo No 4.