// Archives

Widespread flooding and the centrality of ‘community’ response

The scale of loss and destruction wrought by the recent flooding across the north of England has been sobering.  Communities in Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Yorkshire have all been, and continue to be affected. Amid threats of renewed floods with the imminent passage of ‘Storm Frank’- headline news at the time of writing- weather …

‘Foaming rivers of snow’ and lost sovereigns: sampling William Parsons’ diaries

In the previous blog post, Lucy highlighted the value of diaries in our extreme weather research and pointed to the richness of these sources, whether they were produced specifically as weather diaries or as more general records of everyday events and activities in which weather features. In both cases, compilation demanded quite a particular kind …

Now we are six (months old)

We are now six months into our research project and realising the scale of the undertaking we have set ourselves. At our recent team meeting, fueled by Lucy’s lemon cake and with the splendid panorama of the Liverpool skyline as a backdrop, we spent two days reporting on activities, discussing our progress and our strategy …

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 – 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 …