Inky Fingers and Flyaway Footprints
May 14, 2015
It’s not every Saturday you run into Roman hairdressers and chain mail-clad Vikings, but that’s exactly what happened to MSC staff at a rather breezy Mayfest last weekend! It was the first year that the Humanities building had been used as a venue for the University’s annual community day, and we were based in the …
A General History of Elections
May 8, 2015
From online voter registration to fixed Parliamentary terms, this General Election has seen a few ‘firsts’. In this post, we take a very quick tour of elections through the ages. A dull campaign? The art of eye-catching election addresses – the leaflets prospective parliamentary candidates send to people in the constituency – took a while …
One Born Every Minute
May 2, 2015
As William and Kate welcome their baby daughter into the world at the state-of-the-art private maternity ward The Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital, we had a look back through our collections to see what childbirth was like in the 17th and 18th centuries. Traditionally, pregnancy and birth were social and domestic occurrences, which predominantly …
“Macaroni looks like serpents”: A Victorian arm-chair traveller’s guide to Europe
April 20, 2015
“Superficial, incomplete, trifling! Such is the true character of this book. Inaccurate we hope it is not…the world, old as she is, would not sit still for her picture.” So begins the 1849 book ‘Near Home, or The Countries of Europe Described’ by Favell Lee Mortimer, nee Bevan (1802-1878). Now almost forgotten, Mortimer wrote 16 …
Happy Easter from Manuscripts and Special Collections
March 30, 2015
As this weekend is Easter, it seems appropriate to share some Easter-related images from one of our treasures: the 15th century Wollaton Antiphonal belonging to St Leonard’s parish church. An Antiphonal is a book of liturgical music. It contains the words and music to the sung portions of the Divine Office, and had to be large enough 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 …
Gongster and the ‘Gay News’ poem
February 25, 2015
Since its inception in 1939, The University of Nottingham student newspaper Gongster (now Impact) has often been used as a platform to rally against oppression and censorship, even when the paper itself has come under scrutiny and dictates. In 1978, however, the paper became a victim of censorship itself; in this particular case by their …
A love of letters
February 14, 2015
Guest blog by Ellen Hart – Subscriptions Manager at The Letters Page and third year English Language & Literature student. In keeping with the season and its sentiment, this is a blog about love and correspondence (and a love of correspondence). In my job as Subscriptions Manager at The Letters Page I spend a lot …
Rhymes and ‘Rithmetic
February 9, 2015
Earlier this month the Government announced that all children in England will be expected to know up to the 12 times table by the time they leave primary school at age 11. It has been touted as an old fashioned approach and a return to traditional educational values, so we thought we’d share with you some …
A Toast to Temperance
January 30, 2015
Are you one of the thousands of people participating in the January ‘Dryathlon’ and giving up alcohol for the month to raise money for charity? If so, then congratulations – the end is in sight! Focussed, month-long charity campaigns such as Stoptober and Dry January seem to have risen to prominence over the last few years. …
Find, follow, join us
