A new view: changes to our Manuscripts Online Catalogue
February 17, 2016
After ten years of faithful service, our Manuscripts Online Catalogue has had a facelift. Our new CalmView website, like our old catalogue, allows users to search over 250,000 records describing our rich manuscript and archive collections. However, beyond a cosmetic refresh, the launch of CalmView has allowed us to bring thousands of records relating to …
Lifting the Lid on North Wheatley Manor
March 10, 2015
My name is Hannah and I am a Masters History student at the University of Nottingham, specialising in Medieval English history. I decided to do some voluntary archive work as I am considering a career as an archivist and so applied to Manuscripts and Special Collections. My research interests mainly involve manorial documents and so I …
The Countess, the Castle and the Captain
January 27, 2015
An interesting collection of documents has recently been catalogued and made fully available to researchers. The Bentinck family, Counts of the Holy Roman Empire, were cousins of the Dukes of Portland (see their family tree) The first Count, William Bentinck (1704-1774), inherited the Dutch lordships of Rhoon and Pendrecht. In 1733 he married Charlotte Sophie, …
Marketing the ‘dear little things’
March 24, 2014
When cataloguing the records of the Wholesale Textile Association the other day, I came across a thought-provoking article in the trade magazine the ‘Textile Distributor’ from 1935. It offers advice to advertisers concerning the marketing of children’s wear and flags up what it considers to be a growth market: “Fashion counts enormously in presenting any …
50 years of Medical School records
February 11, 2014
2014 marks 50 years since it was first announced that a new medical school and teaching hospital was to be built in Nottingham. The announcement, made in Parliament on 27th July 1964, led to the creation of the University of Nottingham Medical School, part of the Queen’s Medical Centre. Now with the help of funding …
Picturing the Medical School
July 8, 2013
The process of cataloguing the archives of the University of Nottingham’s Medical School has uncovered a wealth of around 350 photographs and over 100 slides. To find such a large amount of images documenting the construction of the Medical School and University Hospital (later to become Queen’s Medical Centre) during the 1960s and 1970s is …
Building the Medical School
March 4, 2013
It has been thirty-five years since the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh visited Nottingham to open the new university hospital and medical school, named the Queen’s Medical Centre. The visit, which took place on 28th July 1977, was the culmination of years of planning and building work on the new complex. Nottingham had been campaigning …
“Thousands of students yet unborn will pass along the corridors and learn in the lecture rooms…
October 26, 2012
… and wrest the secrets from nature in the laboratories. Their work will link still more closely industry with science, add to the honour of the city and help to increase the well-being of our nation.” This was Jesse Boot, of Boots the Chemist fame, speaking in 1928 about University College, Nottingham. Some 84 years …
“Will you come into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly,
March 12, 2012
‘Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy; So begins the famous children’s poem, ‘The Spider and the Fly’. This is just one of the many poems and stories written by the celebrated Victorian author Mary Howitt whose collection of family correspondence is held in Manuscripts and Special Collections. The Howitts certainly encountered …
Hydrometric data in the archives
September 23, 2011
One of the problems facing an archivist when cataloguing the papers of a business or organisation is the presence of material of a technical nature. The files of the Hydrology/Water Resources Section of the Trent River Authority include series of hydrological data in a range of technical formats that are going to prove challenging to …
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