// Archives

Getting into the Archive – The Hingham Town Book (part 2)

The Hingham Town Book A few weeks ago, Lucy reported on her recent visit to Norfolk Record Office. A source which I alerted her to following discussion with members of the British Agricultural History Society at the annual spring conference was the Hingham Town Book. As Lucy noted in her blog, the Hingham Town Book, …

Getting into the archive: Joseph Woolley’s diaries

Joseph Woolley This week I thought I would detail another source that I’ve been working on in Nottinghamshire Archives. Born c. 1773, Joseph Woolley was a framework knitter and stocking maker from Clifton, Nottinghamshire. There are 6 surviving volumes of diaries, for the years 1801, 1803, 1804-05, 1809, 1813, and 1815. The series record personal …

Getting into the archive: Eighteenth-century weather diaries in Devon

Devon Heritage Centre and the National Meteorological Archive The Devon Heritage Centre is housed in an unprepossessing building amidst a jumble of light industrial units, car parks, supermarkets and arterial roads on the edge of the city of Exeter in Devon. It holds archival and local study material relating to that county. Contained within the …

Getting into the archive: the Pegge-Burnell diaries

Over the last few weeks I’ve been spending time at Nottinghamshire Archives looking through some of the documents of interest that we’ve identified from online catalogues searches. These potentially contain information on extreme weather events of the past that will be included in our database. Pegge-Burnell of Winkburn One of the largest collections of documents …

Getting into the archive – Pies, snowball fights and blazing chimney pots? Must be the diary of a Victorian lady

Elizabeth Nutt Harwood I spent a fulfilling day in Nottinghamshire Archives last week. Among the documents I requested was the diary of one Elizabeth Nutt Harwood of Beeston Meadow, Nottinghamshire. This covers a period from 1838 to 1842 and is rich in detail about the daily life of this educated young woman and her well …

Getting into the archive – H.R. Potter

Although we’re still in the early stages of the project and very much finding our way through numerous ideas, technologies, and archive catalogues…  I have managed to complete a few days of work in the archives.  Deciding to start local, these days have been spent over at the Kings Meadow Campus of the University of …