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 German perspective on the First World War
July 23, 2014
The final lunchtime talk held in connection with our current exhibition ‘All Quiet in the Weston Gallery’ takes place tomorrow. With the nation gearing up to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the First World War, through exhibitions, tv and radio programmes, books and articles, debate is, unsurprisingly, focused on British involvement in the war. …
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 …
‘Why I changed my name and did my duty’
June 23, 2014
This Wednesday sees the second of our lunchtime talks held in connection with our current exhibition ‘All Quiet in the Weston Gallery’. In “Why I changed my name and did my duty”-one family’s experience of World War One, Emeritus Professor Malcolm Jones tells the fascinating story of the three Vince brothers who all enlisted …
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 …
Chilwell Shell Filling Factory Explosion
June 3, 2014
On 1st July 1918, a huge explosion ripped through the National Shell Filling Factory at Chilwell, killing 134 workers and injuring twice as many more. The vast majority of the dead could not be identified and were buried in a mass grave in St Mary’s Church, Attenborough. Astoundingly, the factory was back in production the …
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