Kathryn Steenson
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Family and Local History
June 15, 2020
A University library and archive is not the first port of call for many family historians. Manuscripts & Special Collections has more resources than some, and you don’t need to be staff or student at the University to come and use them. Normally we would have a stall at the Local History & Archaeology Festival …
Colley Cibber
June 8, 2020
If ever there was a case of success and fame being the result of luck, rather than talent, then Colley Cibber is it. He was an awful poet who became Poet Laureate through his political connections; a middling actor who connived to became a pioneering actor-manager in Drury Lane; and an unscrupulous and divisive man …
Planning the Trent Building
May 22, 2020
Guest blog by Emelia Dengel and Oliver Lack, Geography undergraduates who completed a work placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections. For our placement at MSC we were tasked with cataloguing and repackaging a group of over 150 architectural and engineering plans of Trent Building dating from the 1920s to the 1990s. The Trent Building opened …
Victory in Europe Day
May 8, 2020
Today is Victory in Europe Day, marking the 75th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender to the Allies in World War II. Adolf Hitler had committed suicide on 30 April once it became clear that Germany’s military forces were on the brink of collapse. He was succeeded by Karl Dönitz, formerly the Supreme Commander of …
Dog Island
May 3, 2020
This is a guest post by Geography PhD student placement Robert Frost. My placement started in October 2019 with the aim of looking at the Engineers’ Files of the water drainage records in the University’s Manuscripts and Special Collections (MSC). These covered the predecessor bodies of the Severn Trent Water Authority, including the Trent Catchment …
Heirs and Spares: Succeeding George IV
April 13, 2020
This is a guest post by Dr Richard A Gaunt, academic curator of the exhibition Georgian Delights: Life during the reign of George IV 1820-1830. George IV spent most of his adult life waiting to be King. So accustomed have we become to this fact, and to the various machinations associated with his part in …
Homage to the Arboreal World
March 27, 2020
Trees have long been of significant importance to the human species. Our relationship with trees began with their ability to satisfy neolithic needs such as shelter and nutrients, which progressively shifted towards trees’ later central contribution to the evolution of agriculture and machinery. Indeed, major socio-economic changes over the 15th to 18th Centuries saw the …
Off to the races!
March 13, 2020
As today is final day of the Cheltenham Races, we’re trotting out some documents about horse racing in Britain and how some of its notable figures crop up in our collections. It’s become a cliche that the feckless elder son of an aristocrat gambles away the family fortune on cards and horses, but although there …
Monday Mystery: Celebrity Scrapbook, 19th century style
February 3, 2020
The Manvers family of Holme Pierrpont were one of the most influential families in Nottinghamshire in the second half of the 19th century. The men held high-ranking positions in various Army regiments, served as local MPs, and held other important civic offices, such as magistrates or Master of the Hunt. The archives we hold very …
The Cold War in the Cold Store
January 22, 2020
In the week before Christmas Manuscripts and Special Collections’ staff carried out an internal relocation of material and repackaging exercise that involved the entire section. To make this happen we decided to close the library to the public, freeing all staff to work in the library’s archival store. That week we donned warm layers and …
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