Among the Inn’s greatest treasures are the Molyneux Globes – a pair of globes, one celestial and one terrestrial, created by the celebrated globe-maker Emery Molyneux in 1592. In May of this year, the terrestrial globe left the Inn, to be displayed as part of an exhibition entitled The Tudors: Passion, Power and Politics at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.
The Globes
Molyneux was a mathematician and maker of instruments, who accompanied Sir Francis Drake on his circumnavigation of the globe in 1577-80. He was assisted in compiling information by a network of contacts, including Richard Hakluyt and the Middle Templar Sir Walter Raleigh, and produced this pair of globes in 1592. While other individual globes by Molyneux can be found in settings such as Petworth House, ours is the only surviving pair, and may have been given to the Inn by William Crashawe, Reader at Temple Church, in 1613.
The terrestrial globe, which was updated in 1603 to include more recent developments, gives a remarkably accurate geographical account. It depicts the circumnavigations of Drake and Cavendish and shows the discoveries of many of the notable navigators and colonists of the day. The pair were dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I, and her coat of arms is displayed proudly on the globe.
The Exhibition
The exhibition in Liverpool, which centres on the five Tudor monarchs, is built around a substantial loan of their portraits from the National Portrait Gallery. It considers their often-dramatic reigns from several different perspectives, including conflict, literature, and of course the expansion of exploration, global trade and colonisation, with which our terrestrial globe is intimately bound up. The exhibition also examines Black Tudor history and the LGBTQ+ experience in the period.
Preparing for the Loan
The request for the loan was first received in May 2021, and after careful consideration was approved by the Master of the House and the Executive Committee. It was deemed a unique opportunity for members of the public to see the globe, particularly as it would be the only known occasion in history that either of the globes had been displayed outside London.
Once the loan was in approved in principle, a great deal of information-gathering and planning was required. The condition of the globe itself was a priority – was it suitable to be moved and transported across the country, and displayed in a busy exhibition? Sylvia Sumira, the leading authority on historic globes and their conservation, was engaged to produce a condition report on the globe and reported that it was in a fit state for the loan to go ahead, providing that expert care was taken in its transportation and display.
Extensive investigation was carried out to establish whether the conditions at the Walker Art Gallery itself were of an appropriate standard for the globe to be displayed there. A site visit took place in early 2022, during which the Inn’s Conservator, Siobhán Prendergast, and I met the exhibition curators and conservation managers and discussed all aspects of the loan, as well as inspecting the exhibition space, loading areas and security measures. Environmental conditions met the appropriate standards, and a temporary display case to house the globe was constructed by ClickNetherfield, global leaders in exhibition display case design and manufacture.
For the duration of the loan period, it was agreed that the globe would be insured under the Government Indemnity Scheme, which enables museums and galleries to take loans for exhibitions mounted for the benefit of the public by covering the associated insurance costs, which would otherwise be prohibitive.
The journey to Liverpool
The question of transportation posed one of the biggest challenges. Neither globe is known to have travelled so far in their history, and are only known to have left London once, when they were stored in a stately home near Beaconsfield for the duration of the Second World War. A request received from an Australian museum to borrow them in 1986 was declined based on their fragility. A fine art logistics company, Constantine Ltd, were engaged by the Walker Art Gallery to carry out the packing and transportation, and detailed plans were drawn up over the course of several weeks.
At last, the day arrived: almost a year to the day since the original request had been received. Early one Wednesday morning, Sylvia Sumira arrived to carry out the final condition checks on the globe and declare that it was still in a fit state to travel. This confirmed, the team from Constantine arrived, moved the globe carefully downstairs (the lift being just too narrow to accommodate the object), and began to crate it up. This was quite something to behold – the extensively padded and secure crate being literally constructed around the globe itself.
At last the globe was secured in its crate, and it was time to move it out of the building – a task not without its nerve-wracking moments. Soon, however, it was safely in the back of the Constantine van, and – Sylvia on board to supervise – making its way through London and up north.
After several anxious hours of waiting, the good news arrived – the journey had gone smoothly, and the globe had been safely delivered to the exhibition space. The next morning, having acclimatised to the environmental conditions, it was installed in its display case – ready to be admired by the thousands of members of the public who have already visited the exhibition.
Barnaby Bryan read Philosophy at King’s College, Cambridge, and later qualified as an Archivist at University College London. He has undertaken archival work at various institutions, including Unilever’s corporate archive in Port Sunlight. He joined the Middle Temple as a Project Archivist in 2015, progressing to Assistant Archivist in 2016 before being appointed as the Inn’s Archivist in 2019.
