Beyond the Mayflower: Separatists and Puritans
October 6, 2021
Our new exhibition ‘Beyond the Mayflower’ is now open at the Weston Gallery, Lakeside Arts. Among the passengers on the sailing of the Mayflower in 1620 were a group of religious separatists who wished to worship in a different way to that allowed by the Church of England. In the early 17th century the Church …
New Manvers catalogue describes Thoresby in the 20th century
September 17, 2019
Newly catalogued papers in the Manvers Collection extend the story of the Thoresby Estate into the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. One of the largest collections held by Manuscripts and Special Collections is the Manvers Collection (Ma). It contains a record of the Pierrepont family’s landed estates, based at Holme Pierrepont and Thoresby, from the mid-seventeenth …
Ken Loach, Ken Coates and the European Union
July 6, 2017
In researching his 2016 British Academy award winning film ‘I, Daniel Blake’, director Ken Loach visited the St Ann’s Advice Centre in Nottingham (a community organisation offering advice on welfare benefits, employment and debt). Back in October 1966, two tutors of the University of Nottingham’s Adult Education Department, Ken Coates and Bill Silburn, had conducted …
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 …
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, …
Finding your Family
June 2, 2014
Within the 4 million documents held in Manuscripts and Special Collections are the names of hundreds of thousands of people from Nottinghamshire and the broader East Midlands. Catalogues can never list every person named in documents, so one of the major challenges of family history research is finding which records may refer to your ancestors. …
Family inheritance on display
November 21, 2013
We were delighted to welcome Sir Andrew Buchanan, 5th Baronet, and his son George Buchanan to Manuscripts and Special Collections last week, on Mark Dorrington’s first day as the new Keeper of the Manuscripts at The University of Nottingham. Over the years the Buchanan family have deposited several significant collections of papers created by ancestors …
Papers of a ‘Professional Revolutionary’
September 5, 2013
The next exhibition at Lakeside Arts Centre’s Weston Gallery features the papers of a local activist and Communist Party officer, Fred Westacott. Flyers, pamphlets and speeches in his personal archive document a lifetime of campaigning, as a supporter of a variety of local and international causes, from the Miners’ strikes to the Vietnam War protests. …
“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 …
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