Happy Census Release Day!

On a Sunday afternoon at the tail end of a global pandemic, millions of people in the UK sat down to complete the decennial census forms, a head count of everyone in the country on a given day. I could be referring to 2021, but as today is Census Release Day, you’ve probably guessed that …

Family and Local History

A University library and archive is not the first port of call for many family historians. Manuscripts & Special Collections has more resources than some, and you don’t need to be staff or student at the University to come and use them. Normally we would have a stall at the Local History & Archaeology Festival …

Lifting the Lid on North Wheatley Manor

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 Black Sheep

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 …