May 5, 1999--Still running around London on my last full day, trying to find all the Shelley-sites I can.
Of course, it’s hopelessly hopeful to imagine that
historical sites from Mary Shelley’s day remain as they were—or remain at all.
I once suggested to scholar Betty Bennett that it would be a good idea for
“someone” (i.e., not I!) to compile a list of all the places Mary lived—with a
note about the place’s current status. Betty thought it was a good idea, but I
have no idea if anyone’s pursued it.
So much has occurred since 1851 when Mary died.
Railroads, highways, subways, World War II, urban renewal, and, of course, the
sort of contemporary casual carelessness with which present wanderers of this
planet sometimes (often?) treat those who have gone before.
By way of a small, small illustration: I attended tiny
Hiram High School in tiny Hiram, Ohio (1959–1962); the high school, built
between 1913–1914, closed in 1964, consolidating with the nearby community of
Mantua (pronounced MAN-uh-way by the
locals). The elementary grades remained for some more years, but the old high
school portion of the building was razed in the early 1980s, and the rest of it
went in 2010 after being unoccupied for a while. Today, there is only an empty
lawn on the site. No sign. No indication that anything had ever stood there.
Memories fade fast. At my wife’s retirement
celebration at Hiram College in May, 2012, I spoke with a young member of the
history faculty and discovered she had no idea
that Hiram had once had a public school system, K–12, had once had a high
school only blocks from where we were chatting.
So as I scurried around London my final day, I was not
finding a lot—nor was I expecting to find a lot—that remained. I just wanted to
go there, to stand there. Here’s what I found.
• The Marble Arch at Tyburn—still standing. Still echoing
(in my mind, anyway) with the terrified cries of those who were executed on
that spot for some six hundred years.
• Bread Street—nothing. The church, of course, is gone
(as I said), and if Mary were to stand where I stood to take the pictures I
took, she would recognize absolutely nothing. Urban renewal. Modern buildings. She
could just as well be standing near the site of Hiram High School.
• 14 North Bank Street—I took various subway lines to
find the street, but what I found was nothing
that suggested Mary and her son had ever been there. I realized, standing
there, that I could have been just about anywhere in the Western urban world. From
the soil that Mary knew have risen apartments and offices, thick stacks of red
bricks and glass that look like buildings everywhere—factories, offices, schools.
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| St. Mildred's, Bread Street PBS and MWS married there Destroyed in WW II by the Luftwaffe |
Hi, I attended Hiram elementary K-4 in the early 80s. There was a Troyer in my grade then as I recall. I remember that in front of the building, beneath the pine trees, laid the stone carved sign that said "high school." I saw them often as I took a shortcut from my house on Peckham to school. I live far from Hiram now, but take virtual tours occasionally either via Google maps or just through memory, of the town but also college buildings. The smell of Colton is still quite pungent in my mind. As kids, we knew nearly every square inch of that town - our games often encompassed large sections of it. I smiled to read that Dr. Sprogis was in Hiram long before I was born.
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