Poetic Responses to Editing DH Lawrence

On 5 May 2022, 14 writers from the Writer Highway group, led by Cathy Grindrod, were invited to respond to our exhibition Editing DH Lawrence, running at Lakeside Arts until 29 May. Here are the poetic responses, check our other blog post for prose responses! Many thanks to all involved. Reflections on Editing DH Lawrence …

Reflections on Editing DH Lawrence

This is a guest post by Dr Rebecca Moore, Exhibitions Officer. As Editing DH Lawrence enters its fourth and final month at the Weston Gallery, my thoughts turn naturally to reflecting on the exhibition. After hosting many wonderful events, one question from visitors was often repeated: ‘What do you think Lawrence would have made of …

Sir Peter Kent

What links pleistocene sites in Kenya and Tanzania with the Forties oil field and the Lincolnshire Trust For Nature Conservation? The answer is the varied career of West Bridgford-born exploration geologist Sir Peter Kent (1913-1986). Archaeological work Kent studied geology at University College, Nottingham. At the age of 21 he travelled to East Africa as …

Mansfield and the Waste of Water

In 1899, the Nottinghamshire town of Mansfield was causing a certain amount of confusion and alarm. The population was just under 16,000 according to the 1891 census, was predicted to be about 18,500 to 20,000 by 1901. The problem facing engineers George & F.W. Hodson was that they were all using a suspiciously large quantity …

George Green Library: A Photographic History

George Green Library, originally known simply as the Science Library, was one of various buildings funded in the 1950s and 60s which signalled a massive investment in science teaching and research at the University of Nottingham, facilitated by the Vice Chancellor of the time, Bertrand Hallward. Although the proposed Science Library was originally conceived to …

What is ‘censorship’?

This is a guest post by Gregory Walker, Midlands4Cities Doctoral Student. ‘I would emphasize, first of all, that there is in England no censorship of books’.[1] These were the words of Home Secretary Sir William Joynson-Hicks in the same year (1929) that he seized two typescripts of D. H. Lawrence’s poetry collection, Pansies, in the …

International Women’s Day: Dr Edith Becket

Dr Edith M Beckett (1877-1952) was one of the earliest students of University College, Nottingham, where she obtained a London BA degree in 1898. Unlike some universities, London (and thus by extension University College Nottingham, which did not award its own degrees) allowed female students to earn a degree, rather than simply complete their studies …

International Women’s Day: Dorothy Brett

This is a post by ‘Editing DH Lawrence# co-curator, Dr Rebecca Moore. Dorothy Eugénie Brett, born in London in 1883, was an artist of noble birth. Having had drawing lessons since the age of five, she joined the Slade School of Art in 1910, and studied there until 1916 where she became known simply as …

International Women’s Day: Alice Selby

A creative, individual and superb teacher, Alice Selby was a force to be reckoned with when she joined University College Nottingham in 1918 after completing her studies at Cambridge University. She was one of only four academic staff in the English Department, and rising to become Senior Lecturer and Head of English.   She taught …

Feminist Archive East Midlands at the University of Nottingham

A team of volunteers and former members of the Nottingham Women’s Liberation Group have been working with Manuscripts and Special Collections at the University of Nottingham to create a feminist archive for the East Midlands.   The archive consists of material compiled by women involved in various strands of activism between the 1960s and 1990s, …