Kathryn Steenson
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A Spotlight on Black History
October 13, 2014
If you ask people what archives are, the most common response (after a blank look) is generally something along the lines of boxes full of old parchment. That’s not exactly incorrect – Manuscripts & Special Collections does have an enormous number of rare books and historic documents – but it misses an important part of what we …
Ruling with an Iron Fist
October 1, 2014
You wouldn’t expect to receive threatening letters from the Ku Klux Klan or to be hounded by the press in the street for doing voluntary work, but that was the experience of Eric Irons, the first black magistrate in England. His is one of several biographies featured in the pamphlet “Sitting on the Bench: experiences …
The Morning After the Nay Before
September 19, 2014
For anyone who has somehow missed the extensive – and sometimes heated – campaign, this morning the results of the Scottish Independence Referendum were announced. The Union between Scotland and England has been in force since May 1707, after both the Scottish and English Parliaments had passed their own separate Acts ratifying the Treaty of Union. …
Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside
September 10, 2014
We were inspired to write a post about all things Skeggy by the recent BBC News story featuring 104-year-old Sid Pope, who has visited Skegness every year since he was 10. A tiny fishing village of just 350 people at the time of the 1871 census, the coming of the railway a few years later boosted …
All Orders Promptly Executed
August 13, 2014
Fifty years ago today, 13 August 1964, the last two people to be executed in the United Kingdom were hanged. The victim was a 53 year old van driver named John West, who was killed during a robbery in his home that went wrong four months earlier. A neighbour had been awoken in the middle of …
Fighting Footballers
August 6, 2014
On 6th August 1914, the Nottingham Guardian reported that three Nottingham Forest players, who were Army Reservists, had been called up. Within days of Britain declaring war on Germany they had, along with many hundreds of other Nottinghamshire reservists, left their homes and families to join their regiments. William Fiske (or Fisk) was born in …
The Black Sheep
July 21, 2014
Whilst helping a visitor with an enquiry recently, I came across a slim pamphlet entitled “Young Delinquents in Nottingham” (Ref: Not 3. H40 NOT). The eye-catching cover features a series of caricatures of juvenile delinquents in a style more often associated with cartoons or parody. If criminals were as distinctive looking as some of these …
What’s in a name?
July 11, 2014
It was Zsa Zsa Gabor who said “I call everyone ‘darling’ because I can’t remember their names”. Perhaps she had never been introduced to people blessed (or cursed?) with creative, unique or downright strange names. Here, in chronological order, are fifteen genuine examples of people’s names taken from the manuscripts that we have come across: Original Steele, of …
Maths, Myths and Mines: What’s New in Manuscripts & Special Collections
July 1, 2014
It’s a rare week that passes for Manuscripts & Special Collections without something new arriving. The new accessions range from a single book or manuscript, to a van-load of boxes. Some are gifts, others are deposited (i.e. loaned), and a small minority are books or manuscripts we have bought. There is inevitably a delay between …
Thirty minutes of your time; a lifetime to someone else
June 14, 2014
Today is World Blood Donor Day, organized by the World Health Organization to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and blood products and to thank voluntary unpaid blood donors. Appeals for public donations have been made for over sixty years, and the NHS Blood and Transplant service estimates that currently 4% of the …
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