Discover/Issue 11 April 2019

DISCOVER Issue 11/April 2019

The University of Nottingham’s Manuscripts and Special Collections INSIDE: Romantic facts and fantasies • MRI files • Animals in the archives • A parish library

Top left: Pastedowns of The Primer, set foorth by the Kynges maiestie and his clergie, to be taught lerned, and read: & none other to be used throwout all his dominions (London, 1545). Ashby Parish Library.

Welcome

Welcome Welcome to the latest edition of Discover, The University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections’ Newsletter.

I am extremely pleased to report that in a University-wide survey of professional services, we were the top rated unit across the whole University. We are the only service to have a 100% good and excellent rating, with 74% rating us excellent (the next highest being 64%). Comments received included “Special Collections are brilliant at supporting research and teaching…”, “staff are first rate” and “fantastic team…”.

Across the University of Nottingham Libraries, we are very much involved in an Integrated Scholarly Information (ISI) project. One strand of ISI will replace the libraries management system in April. For us, this will see changes in the way we manage and provide access to our printed special collections. The new system, Alma, will also enable us to overhaul our digital gallery, Historic Collections online.

Another strand of the ISI project commenced in February and, running for 18 months, it will procure and develop a digital preservation system. Increasingly, archives being created today are born digital records and never exist in paper format.

As curators of archives, we have a duty to preserve and provide access to digital records in the same ways we have preserved paper and parchment records over the centuries.

Indeed, many record series begin as paper records and then continue as digital files. The content is the same, just the format has changed – we preserve accounts from the middle ages as parchment rolls, then as bound account books and today as spreadsheets. Parchment and, to a lesser extent, paper records will mostly survive through benign neglect, digital records won’t – they need to be actively managed.

Formats and software are superseded and files become corrupted, so unless we intervene a digital black hole will be created.

For many years now we have also been creating digitised copies of archive, both as security and preservation surrogates and to improve access through exhibitions, public engagement, digital galleries and as teaching and research resources. Investment in digitisation is only sustainable if the digital files are accessible in the future so, just as with born digital archives, digitised material also needs to be preserved.

Through the ISI project we will be acquiring a digital preservation system and developing new processes and procedures to safeguard all our digital assets. I am therefore delighted to welcome Laura Peaurt as our digital preservation officer to coordinate this work.

I am also pleased to introduce two other new members of staff in temporary one-year posts: Barbara Sharp as archivist (Collections) and Emma Bonson as preservation assistant.

If you would like to find out more about any aspect of our work please do not hesitate to contact me. Meanwhile I hope that you enjoy reading this edition of Discover.

Mark Dorrington Keeper of Manuscripts and Special Collections 2

The life and opinions of a parish library: St Helen’s, Ashby-de-la-Zouch The parish libraries of Ashby-de-laZouch, Coleorton, Oakham, Elston and Loughborough, held at Manuscripts and Special Collections, have grown organically as patchwork collections created by individuals, merged and added to over time, often by the vicar himself or welloff parishioners. Collected in the parish, they document the history of ideas which prevailed and shaped life in the community.

In Leicestershire at the time of the Reformation, the earldom of Huntingdon was held by Henry Hastings, a Protestant and one-time companion of Edward VI, whose short reign established Protestantism in England. Hastings had succeeded to the earldom in 1560, the year the Geneva Bible was printed. One of the translators of this famous version was Anthony Gilby (1510-1585), a native of Lincolnshire.

Having begun his ecclesiastical career as a preacher in Leicestershire under the reign of Edward VI, Gilby emerged as a classical scholar and strong Calvinist. So when Mary I ascended the throne in 1553, Gilby fled to Europe to join other Protestant exiles. Gilby worked with William Wittingham and Myles Coverdale on the translation that would become the Geneva Bible, and helped devise a reformed liturgy for the English church.

Returned from exile, Gilby was presented by Huntingdon to the living of St Helen’s Church, Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

Huntingdon intended Gilby to evangelise his household – indeed the entire county. Gilby thus spent the rest of his life lecturing at Ashby and publishing translations in the interests of reform. He prefaced two works with dedications steeped in gratitude for his patron, Huntingdon, and his family: in 1570, the Commentaries of that divine John Calvine, upon the prophet Daniell, translated into Englishe, especially for the use of the family of the ryght honorable earle of Huntingdon, and in 1580, a translation of Beza entitled The Psalmes of David, Truely Opened dedicated to the countess of Huntingdon, the Earl of Leicester’s sister, ‘mine especial good Lady’.

According to the Dictionary of National Biography, Gilby set up exercises at Ashby to improve the learning of the local clergy, while his appointment by Huntingdon as a feoffee of the Ashby grammar school in 1567 gave him the opportunity to ensure the education in godliness of the next generation. Predictably, Ashby Parish Library holds works by Jean Calvin. The first is a 1565 Latin edition of the Commentaries, which Gilby had translated and published in 1570. This copy is much-used and has some handwritten underlining. The library’s second Latin work by Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1576), also falls in the time of Gilby’s incumbency and is heavily annotated with handwritten notes. Both copies are later editions of works which Gilby would no doubt have read fresh from the press.

Nevertheless, their intense use testifies to the importance of Calvin’s doctrinal theology to its readers.

Top right: Colophon of the book printed by John Hertford in 1539, later suppressed on grounds of heresy.

Pastedowns in The Primer (London, 1545). Ashby Parish Library.

Title pages of Jean Calvin’s Institutio Christianae Religionis (London, 1576) and Arthur Hildersham’s 108 Lectures Upon the Fourth of John (London, 1632).

Ashby Parish Library.

Huntingdon’s next protégée to be presented to the living of Ashby in 1593 was Arthur Hildersham (1563-1632). Hildersham’s family had royal connections: he was the great-grandson of Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury, the last of the Plantagenet dynasty, but his parents were Catholic recusants who disowned him on religious grounds – the young Hildersham chose to embrace the radical strain of Protestantism and became a puritan while a student at Cambridge. It was thanks to Huntingdon’s support that Hildersham could complete his studies. Thus encouraged, he began his career as a fervent reformist. His zeal and intransigence caused him to be deprived of his licence, then restored, and then to be fined and imprisoned for disobeying the orders of the Church. Throughout his tumultuous progress, Hildersham managed to excel as a preacher and his family enjoyed continued support from Huntingdon. Near the end of his life, Hildersham published a volume of 108 Lectures Upon the Fourth of John, duly dedicated to Huntingdon, which is his legacy to the community he served and to reformist thinking. The library’s copy of Hildersham’s Lectures is a second edition published in the year of his death, which appears to have been re-bound cheaply in the 19th or 20th century, reflecting perhaps the changed outlook of the community which had once harboured the firebrand puritan author.

A century after the death of Hildersham, St Helen’s Church owned a substantial library thanks to the benefaction of Reverend Thomas Bate (1675-1727). Bate had been baptised at St Helen’s and retained strong ties with the community as a descendant of a prominent mercer. Bate Sr had also collected many books during his life and bequeathed them to his son, Thomas, who was educated at Cambridge and took orders in 1699. Rev Bate bought contemporary and antiquarian books throughout his life and signed and festooned them with playful doodles. He never married and died relatively young, leaving his books to the parish he grew up in and where his father was buried. Rev Bate himself served just four miles from Ashby, as chaplain to Sir John and Lady Catherine Harpur at Calke Abbey, and from 1720 also as Rector of Swarkestone, which was in Sir John’s gift. Both copies of Jean Calvin’s theology dating from the time of Rev Gilby came from the Bate bequest. As father and son signed their names in books, we can tell that at least one book, acquired by Bate Sr, is likely to have been sourced locally and could stem from Ashby’s puritanical past. The other copy, acquired by Rev Bate, could have come from Ashby or further afield as his life took him to Cambridge and Calke Abbey.

Rev Bate’s taste was eclectic, ranging from theology to history, politics, travel writing and Greek and Latin poetry. The religious works include a Breviary printed in Venice in 1493, books on reformist theology and counter-reformist titles such as Philanax

Spotlight

King Henry VIII’s injunction establishing the use of and Illustration prefacing the psalms section, showing Bathsheba at her bath, in The Primer (London, 1545). Ashby Parish Library.

Anglicus (1663) by Sir Henry Janson. This is based on an earlier volume, The Image of Bothe Churches, published falsely under the initials PDM to pass for the work of the Protestant Peter du Moulin. It was in fact a papist treatise on the superiority of the Catholic subjects’ obedience versus the Protestants’ ingrained rebelliousness. The Rev Bate’s association with papist ideas would have dismayed the puritans of St Helen’s parish from a century before. One even more intriguing book, marked with doodles by the Reverend himself, harks back to the epicentre of religious persecution in the days of Anthony Gilby. It is the 1545 Primer authorised by Henry VIII and prepared under his supervision with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. In English, and designed for daily use, it contains the main parts of religious service, the epistles and gospels of the Sundays and psalms, prefaced by a beautiful illustration of King David spying Bathsheba at her bath. The Primer would have been above reproach given the editorial care, high-production standard and royal endorsement, if only the choice for the printer had fallen on a different man.

The printer Edward Whitchurch obtained an exclusive patent for printing service books and in 1545 he settled in the printing office in Fleet Street at the sign of the Sun. Between 1541 and 1545 he frequently changed addresses, living some time at The Well and Two Buckets in St Martin’s – today’s St Martin’s Le Grand – which going north becomes Aldersgate Street. Another printer, John Hertford, lived from 1544-1548 in Aldersgate Street.

We have no record that the two printers met, but the Primer contains pastedowns from a book printed by Hertford in 1539, for which he had been investigated by Thomas Cromwell. We know from a letter written to Cromwell by Hertford’s protector, the Abbott of St Alban’s Richard Stevenage, that he “[S]ent John Pryntare to London […] to order him at your pleasure.

Never heard of the little book of detestable heresies till the stationers showed it to me”. We do not know what punishment Hertford received for printing it, but it is assumed that the book was suppressed since no copies survive…except for the refuse pastedown pages in the seemingly impeccable Primer.

Pastedowns strengthened bindings and recycled printed or manuscript matter that was no longer saleable. In this instance the printer inadvertently used pages from a book that should have been obliterated for good. That book was printed at St Alban’s, thus incriminating Hertford and titled A Very Declaration of the Bond and Free Wyll of Man. The Obedyence of the Gospell, and What that Very Gospell Meneth. One of the Primer’s pastedowns shows the colophon, which identifies the pages as belonging to the lost book: “Here endeth the boke of the bonde and free wyll of man. Imprinted at Saynt Albons.” Judging from the quaint doodle drawn by Rev Bate directly under the colophon, it is likely that he read the pastedowns and wondered at the Primer’s untold historic value.

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Spotlight

Animals in the archives People’s love for animals has remained unchanged for centuries. Whether kept as transport, livestock, as status symbols, exotic curiosities, or pets, our collections feature many examples of letters, accounts and illustrations dedicated to a menagerie of magnificent beasts.

Perhaps the most unusual incident involving an animal is recorded in a letter from the 4th Duke of Newcastle under Lyne.

In the letter, written on 26 May 1828, the Duke reveals that he has received a gift, “A leopard….sent to me from India……She is in a cage and is very tame and harmless as a cat, the people play with her without her attempting to do any mischief……..In India she was tied and treated like a dog and on board ship she was a pet with the sailors and I saw them onboard put their hands into her mouth scratch her head and body and pull her about like a domestic animal. Direct Makin to keep her remarkably clean and to feed her at fixed hours. She should not be let out of the cage for fear of accident…”.

A note with the letter, written some time later, reveals that it did not end well…..“The leopard after being kept there for some time got very savage having attacked several people who attempted to go near it. The Duke had to part with it by presenting it to the Zoological Gardens London, fearing it might do harm”.

Subsequent members of the family kept more predictable animals such as dogs and horses. At Clumber, Kathleen Florence May Candy, Duchess of Newcastle, was by her own admission obsessed with both, so much so that she once described her passion as something akin to ‘mania’. The Duchess successfully bred, sold, and showed breeds such as the Borzoi (or Russian Wolf-hound), Fox Terrier, and the Clumber Spaniel (for which Clumber was already famous). Surviving estate papers record in detail the names and pedigrees of the Duchess’s dogs and how much they were sold for, together with correspondence to and from her kennel man (naturally, the kennel had its own headed writing paper). In order to house her huge collection of around 140 dogs, new kennels were built at Hardwick village near Clumber in 1891. They were described in a contemporary newspaper article as a ‘handsome range of well-appointed buildings’ complete with a canine hospital which ‘makes the place a dog’s paradise’. Even in death the dogs were remembered, as the Duchess had a tombstone erected in the grounds of Clumber House onto which the names of her favourite hounds were engraved.

Local author DH Lawrence sometimes mentions the animals he owned in his correspondence and literature. His dog Bibbles was the subject of a lengthy poem which begins, Little black dog in New Mexico, Little black snub-nosed bitch with a shoved-out jaw And a wrinkled reproachful look. It was described by WH Auden as “the best poem about a dog ever written”. Lawrence

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Clara the rhinoceros, from Tables of the skeleton and muscles of the human body by Bernhard Siegfried Albinus (1749). Med Chi Collection, Over.XX WE17 ALB barcode 6001747338.

also wrote about his pet cow Susan in the essay Love Was Once a Little. Lawrence also had a cat, Timsy, and at least two horses, one of which was called Aaron – ‘my black horse, very nice’ – which he bought when he and Frieda were living at a ranch in Taos, New Mexico. In a letter from 1925 Lawrence mentions an unfortunate incident in which Aaron had a close encounter with a porcupine, after which Lawrence had to remove the quills from the poor horse’s nose.

Horses feature prominently in the collections, and probably our oldest depiction is in the medieval manuscripts of the Wollaton Library Collection where they can be seen carrying brave knights into battle.

Within the Portland (Welbeck) Collection is a detailed 17th century manual on horsemanship written by William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle (1592–1676). Cavendish was Master of Horse to Charles II and was passionate about horses and the art of manège – training horses to perform a series of balletic movements. Cavendish was very thorough in his advice and, along with precise instructions on training methods and diagrams of the path the horses should take around the riding arena, he includes a list of names that he thought “proper” for “Hunting and Running Horses”. These range from the classical (Pegasus) to the more unusual (Cutt Buttock). Other examples, along with their original spellings, are Button, Bobb Tayle, Madd Capp, Silver Sides, Playe Fellowe, Lightfoote, Pudding, PrimRose, Blewe-Berye, Strawberies and Creame, Pecocke, RayneBowe, Sweet Lippes, and Ratt.

The humble sheep became the focus of one man’s interest, so much so that he formed a society for them. Robert Bakewell, born at Dishley Grange in Loughborough, founded The Dishley

DH Lawrence feeding an apple to Aaron, c1924-1925. DH Lawrence Collection, La Phot 1/78/6 and Extract from Lucy Denison’s letter to her brother Willy, 1856. Papers of Sir William T. Denison, De Wm C 121.

Engravings from Historia Æthiopica by Hiob Ludolf, 1681. Special Collection Oversize DT377.L8 barcode SC58440.

Sheep Society in 1783, with the aim of preserving purity of breed using the extensive farming knowledge he had acquired during his travels around Europe. Manuscripts and Special Collections holds an incomplete collection of the Sheep Society’s papers (MS 9). The society followed a strict code of conduct, for example, ‘Resolution No.4’ obliged members to keep the content of their meetings (held at local inns) confidential – it demanded “that secresy [sic] be kept by all the members respecting the business of these meetings except to the members absent, and that any member quitting the society keep secret upon his honour the transactions before he left it”.

Visitors to the Manuscripts and Special Collections Reading Room may be unaware that they have walked past an illustration of an 18th century animal superstar in the form of Clara (or ‘Miss Clara’) the rhinoceros. Clara appears in two engravings in the book Tables of the skeleton and muscles of the human body by Bernhard Siegfried Albinus (1749). One of these can be seen on our corridor wall, where she is pictured behind a human skeleton. This might seem like an odd pairing, but the aim of the composition was to reflect the accuracy and scientific understanding of the time. Clara’s owner, a Dutch sea captain, took her on a tour of Europe in the mid-18th century which lasted for 17 years! She proved a sensation wherever she went and was especially popular with artists who were eager to record what a real rhino looked like.

For depictions of animals which bear little resemblance to the real-life version, we need look no further than Historia Æthiopica (1691), a study on Ethiopia by German orientalist Ludolf Hiob. It is probably safe to assume that the artists employed to illustrate the volume had no access to real specimens and had instead to rely on field notes and eyewitness accounts. The volume includes wonderful engravings of monkeys, elephants, big cats, and a ferocious-looking hippo – which could easily be mistaken for a mythical beast.

The acquisition of an exotic pet is often mentioned casually in correspondence. When stationed in Ceylon in 1916, Myles Thoroton Hildyard wrote to his parents in Nottinghamshire

telling them he had visited Tripoli where he “went to the market to buy sweet corn and melons and bought instead a tiny gazelle called Bambino which is completely tame and very beautiful and sits under a bush all day by my truck.”

Within the papers of the Denison family is a charming Medieval knight on a horse, 13th letter dated 1856 from century. Wollaton Library Collection, ten-year-old Lucy Denison, WLC/LM/6 f237r. who was at the time living in Australia with her father WT Denison, Governor of New South Wales. Writing to her brother Willy (back home in England, at Eton), Lucy mentions her ‘Uncle Alfred’s’ impressive collection of birds. She provides Willy with a detailed inventory as follows: two satin bowerbirds, two Californian quails “very odd looking birds” (she has thoughtfully included a drawing of one), zebra doves, crested doves, a Feejee pigeon (“Uncle Alfred’s favourite”), black bantams, bronzewing pigeons, two cockatoos, “pink and grey”, a crimson [or red] winged parrot, a hen king parrot, and two ground parroquets. Uncle Alfred also possessed an emu for good measure.

Not to be outdone, Lucy’s father (and ‘Uncle’ Alfred’s brother) was also plotting at around the same time to acquire his own menagerie, although it is unclear if his ambitious plans were fully realised. He writes in a letter to his son Willy, “I am going to fence in the part of the domain in front of the drawing room window and to keep their deer, kangaroo, emus etc. in the paddock where they will be seen from the window….we have already a pair of India spotted deer and 3 emus – [and] a young Forester kangaroo. We shall soon have the place filled”. He wrote the following year, “I now have 7 deer just in front of the drawing room window and hope to have more soon”. Let’s hope that he did.

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Exhibition news

Romantic facts and fantasies Culture and Heritage of the Romantic Age, c. 1780-1840

Romantic Facts and Fantasies explores the turbulence and innovation of the Romantic period in Britain, an era that laid the foundations of our modern world. The years c. 1780-1840 saw rapid development in scientific and philosophical ideas regarding the self and what it meant to be human. They also saw the emergence of a recognisably modern celebrity culture, a trend fuelled by increasingly affordable print media. Indeed, Nottinghamshire’s own Lord Byron was arguably the first modern ‘celebrity’.

Church Rock in Dove Dale. Engraving from drawings made by Joseph Farington RA. From Britannia depicta: a series of views (with brief descriptions) of the most interesting and picturesque objects in Great Britain.

Part 6 (1818). East Midlands Special Collection Oversize X, Der 1.D28 FAR.

The French Revolution of 1789 sent shockwaves across the Channel. Radical thinkers envisaged a new political and social order in Britain as well as in Europe, while the violent overthrow of the French ruling classes led to fears of social and moral disorder on home ground.

The Romantic era was also characterised by a reaction against the 18th-century Enlightenment idealisation of logic and reason. Faced by this intellectual shift, writers, artists, and even scientists sought refuge in the world of the imagination. Many famous writers of the Romantic period produced exciting visions of the world. These included such varied works as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which questioned the boundaries of science and humanity, William Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell, which challenged conventional morality and organised religion, and Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, which reworked the traditional Robin Hood folk-myth into the tale known today. Romantic literature is often characterised by a fascination with the imagination combined with a preoccupation with the material realities of the natural world. This combination of the factual and the fantastical can be traced throughout our exhibition, in texts and artefacts representing Britain and the world beyond.

Facts and fantasies also inspired creative thinkers closer to home. The East Midlands was one of the heartlands of British Romanticism: Nottinghamshire was briefly home to one of its leading lights, the poet Lord Byron, and Derbyshire still bears traces of the industrial landscape created by visionary engineers such as Richard Arkwright. Exhibits on display include images, documents and artefacts chronicling the landscape of the Romantic East Midlands, as well as items relating to Byron’s life at Newstead Abbey, including a first edition of his supernatural drama, Manfred (1817).

The works of lesser-known writers are also explored, such as James Thomas Townley Tisdall, Henry Kirke White, and Mary Howitt, all three of whom corresponded with major Romanticera figures such as Robert Southey, Sir Walter Scott and

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(Left) Table of the muscles of the human body from Tables of the skeleton and muscles of the human body by Bernhard Siegfried Albinus (1749). Nottingham Medico-Chirurgical Society Library Oversize XX, WE17 ALB. (Right) The Reunion of the Soul & the Body. Etching by Louis Schiavonetti from original designs by William Blake from The Grave, A poem by Robert Blair (1813).

Special Collection Oversize, PR3318.B7.G7.

Percy Bysshe Shelley. Kirke White wrote many of his poems, particularly his popular Clifton Grove (1803), while he was apprenticed to the law firm Coldham and Enfield in Middle Pavement, Nottingham. Howitt wrote much of her work, including the famous The Spider and the Fly, while a member of Bromley House Library, which had recently moved to its present location on Angel Row. Further afield, the Romantic era also saw the drawing together of the studies of science and nature, as the rapid discovery of flora and fauna from the new world and developments in fields including comparative anatomy and palaeontology enabled scientists and artists to uncover and document the workings of both human and animal bodies. This contributed to changing common perceptions of the nature of the human, the individual, and the self, which were expressed in explorations of the physical body (both factual and fantastical) and inspired visual and textual representations of mythical creatures. The work of pioneers of Romantic-period science is still celebrated today, including figures such as Erasmus Darwin (the grandfather of Charles Darwin), who was born in the Midlands town of

EXHIBITION EVENTS A series of events will be held to accompany the exhibition at Nottingham Lakeside Arts. Places are limited. Book in advance on 0115 846 7777.

GALLERY TOURS

Weston Gallery. Admission free, Advance booking required.

Wednesday 5 June, 2.30-3.30pm.

Tuesday 2nd July, 2.30-3.30pm.

Join the curators for a guided tour of the exhibition and discover the stories behind the items on display.

LUNCHTIME TALKS

Djanogly Theatre. Admission free. 1–2pm.

GOTHIC HAUNTING FROM THE 1790S TO THE PRESENT Wednesday 5 June The condition of haunting is central to the gothic mode. Dr Matt Green, Associate Professor in the School of English, explores haunting and being haunted. He discusses creative writers and artists from William Blake to Alan Moore in a survey of texts and narratives of the gothic tradition from its hey-day in the 1790s into the 21st century.

ROMANTIC REPUTATIONS: ANGELIC AUSTEN AND BEASTLY BYRON? Tuesday 2 July Was Lord Byron really ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’, and was Jane Austen a ‘narrow-gutted spinster’? As two of the most enduringly popular writers of the Romantic period, their lives have been scrutinised and their moral reputations polarised. University of Nottingham PhD researchers, Ruby Hawley-Sibbett and Amy Wilcockson, ask whether their lives, loves and works have been misrepresented.

Tornado. Engraving by William Blake after Henry Fuseli RA. From The botanic garden: a poem, in two parts: with philosophical notes by Erasmus Darwin, 3rd edition (1795). Special Collection Oversize, PR3396.A66.D95.

Newark-on-Trent. Visitors to the exhibition will be able to explore how Romantic ‘fact’ and ‘fantasy’ worked together and against one another during this complex age whose inventions and innovations paved the way for modernity and simultaneously exulted the power of the imagination and its creations.

This exhibition has been jointly curated by a team from the University of Nottingham’s School of English (Professor Lynda Pratt, Dr Máire ní Fhlathúin, Johnny Cammish, Colette Davies, Ruby Hawley-Sibbett, Jodie Marley, Amy Wilcockson and Dr Charlotte May) and Manuscripts and Special Collections.

Opening hours

Weston Gallery, Nottingham Lakeside Arts University Park, NG7 2RD Friday 10 May–Sunday 25 August Open Tuesday–Friday 11am–4pm.

Saturdays and Sundays 12noon-4pm.

Closed Mondays.

Free admission.

PAUPERS AND POETRY: THE WORKHOUSE AT SOUTHWELL Friday 26 July The early 19th century is often seen as a time of invention, creativity and technology. However, it also saw the development of an institution that shaped the lives of less fortunate members of society for decades to come – the Workhouse. This talk by Dr Charlotte May will focus on the Workhouse at Southwell, Nottinghamshire, whose founder was a close connection of the poet Lord Byron.

ROMANTICISM, CARICATURE AND POLITICS Tuesday 20 August The years 1780-1840 are sometimes regarded as the ‘golden age of caricature’. In this illustrated talk, Dr Richard Gaunt, Associate Professor in the Department of History, considers the rough, boisterous sensibilities which caricaturists brought to their craft.

FILM SCREENING

MARY SHELLEY (2017, 12A) Tuesday 25 June, 7pm (2 hours plus introduction) Djanogly Theatre. Tickets £5 (£3 concessions) A romance based on the relationship of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Elle Fanning) and the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (Douglas Booth). When the couple leave England with Mary’s sister Claire to stay at Lord Byron’s villa near Geneva, Mary is inspired to write one of the most important novels of the nineteenth century, Frankenstein. The film will be introduced

by Dr Charlotte May.

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A selection of research files.

MRI Collections Project

The papers of Sir Peter Mansfield One of the most interesting parts of the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) project is cataloguing the papers of Sir Peter Mansfield who, in 2003, was awarded a Nobel Prize for ‘discoveries concerning Magnetic Resonance Imaging’.

A ring binder and notebook from the 1960s recording his experimental work.

The files contain a wide range of materials, such as handwritten notes and diagrams, photographs of experimental A selection of patent specifications results, published academic papers, and overhead projector from the collection. transparencies used to deliver talks or lectures. They relate mostly to his professional life, although there are also some Another significant personal papers. However, the largest parts of the collection are part of the collection published academic papers and journal articles, correspondence relates to Sir Peter’s own about his patents, and papers relating to his research. studies and research.

This includes his A Level The application of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to and undergraduate magnetic resonance imaging was a new and exciting field in the An example of the variety of notebooks, which provide materials found in one file.

1970s and 1980s. Given the potential practical applications in illuminating insights into physics the field of medical scanning, Sir Peter was keen to protect his education in the 1950s. Sir Peter studied for his undergraduate discoveries by patenting them. He took out many patents based degree in physics at Queen Mary College, London, from 1956 to on his research, sometimes with his colleagues as co-inventors.

1959.

Getting a patent granted could take years of detailed work. Sir Peter used the Nottingham firm of patent attorneys Eric Potter & Clarkson (now Potter Clarkson) to act for him.

Producing a clear description of the techniques or devices being patented was not an easy task, and in those early days any accompanying diagrams had to be drawn by hand by the inventors before being rendered by a graphic artist. To fully protect an invention, patents had to be filed separately in each country, and the collection contains correspondence relating to patents in the UK, US, Japan, the EU, Israel and China.

Filing a patent was only the start of the process, because the patent authorities would then raise queries, objections, and sometimes even rejections, each of which had to be considered and responded to.

Some of the early correspondence in the collection refers to how Sir Peter was keen to file patents ahead of other scientists such as Paul Lauterbur in the US. This demonstrates what a rapidly moving field MRI was in the 1970s when the basic techniques were being discovered and refined. Other topics covered in the correspondence include the division of royalties that resulted from the patents, and cases where Sir Peter felt that his patents were being infringed.

Some examples of the patents granted to Sir Peter were Image Formation Using NMR (with Allen Garroway and Peter Grannell) in 1977, NMR Methods (with Roger Ordidge) in 1985, Echo Planar Imaging Systems (with Roger Ordidge and Ronald Coxon) in 1992, and Active Acoustic Control In Quiet Gradient Coil Design for MRI in 1999.

The published academic papers and journal articles within the collection are extensive, consisting of around 200 papers authored or co-authored by Sir Peter, and 700 papers not by him which he kept for reference. He and his collaborators published in a wide range of journals including Physical Review, Journal of Magnetic Resonance, Polymer, Journal of Scientific Instruments, British Journal of Radiology, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

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Sir Peter’s research notes and papers date from 1959, when he started his PhD on Proton Magnetic Resonance Relaxation in Solids by Transient Methods (also at Queen Mary College), and then continue for the next 40 years of his working life. They include notebooks and files relating to his early experiments on NMR, often with photographs of experimental results (in the form of electronic signal traces). As his research progressed, such photographs gave way to images of MRI scans as we would recognise them today.

The collection also shows the variety of Sir Peter’s research interests, ranging from establishing the basic principles of MRI in the 1970s, through his work on Echo Planar Imaging and real time imaging in the 1980s, to acoustic screening and fluid transport in porous rocks in the 1990s. Also present are files in which he gathered together academic papers on a particular topic, then added his own notes. Topics he studied include fast fourier transforms, liquid crystals, cross relaxation, chemical shift and neural stimulation. Handwritten and typescript drafts of many published academic papers, including diagrams and photographs are also captured in the collection.

Many of his early mathematical proofs relating to NMR are written on loose sheets of unlined paper, whereas his experimental work is generally recorded in bound notebooks or ringbinders. In the 1970s he even used two large diaries to jot down notes and calculations. He also sometimes stored loose sheets of notes between the pages of his notebooks and files, which makes life more challenging for the archivist.

There is also evidence of how he used computers in the 1970s and 1980s, including printouts of computer programs and their results on many topics. These date from the time when computers with tiny amounts of memory were expensive.

This collection therefore acts as a salutary reminder of how scientific research was carried out before desktop PCs and electronic storage became cheap and ubiquitous.

We are in the process of cataloguing all of these notes and papers. Once completed, they will form a fascinating resource for those interested in the scientific process and the development of medical technology.

Profile

d r a h c r O l e a h Rac What is your job title and when did you start working in Manuscripts and Special Collections?

I’m an archives assistant. I started here in October 2018.

How did you become interested in archive work?

I did palaeography (the study of handwriting) and diplomatic (the critical analysis of historical documents) as part of a history course at Lampeter University, which I loved. I looked into taking the postgraduate archives course then, but couldn’t afford it straight after university! After some years in customer service roles, I was lucky to get a fixed-term archives assistant job at Oxford University in 2016/2017, which gave me the experience I needed to finally apply for the course.

What is the project that you are working on?

It’s the MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) project, which involves cataloguing, preserving and selectively digitising the papers of individuals and groups involved in the development of MRI – Professor Sir Peter Mansfield, Professor Brian Worthington, Professor Raymond Andrew and the British Radiofrequency Spectroscopy Group (BRSG). All those involved, except for the BRSG, were based at the University of Nottingham at some point in their careers, and most of the underlying research took place in the 1970s/80s. The project has been funded by the Wellcome Trust and I’m involved in the cataloguing and preservation aspects of the project.

Did you know much about the development of MRI before starting on this project?

No, and it has been fascinating to learn more about it as I work on the papers. For instance, there is a lot of patent information in Sir Peter Mansfield’s papers. From his correspondence, we know that it was important for him to try to get a patent for every breakthrough, which is something that I had never really thought about before.

What does your job involve?

I work on cataloguing – creating descriptions of the material in the collection, physically sorting the papers into order, and repackaging in archival folders. I work with the project archivist, Zoe Ellis, and we also have two digitisation assistants working on the many thousands of slides in the collection.

What kind of material have you found in the collection?

Research papers, letters, patents, slides, photographs, that sort of thing. We’ve sent a lot of audio visual material such as video and audio cassettes to be digitised. We’re not sure yet exactly what’s on them, but we do know that some of them record MRI experiments. We also know that when Peter Mansfield gave talks he made requests in advance for video recorders to be made available, so he probably took this audio visual material with him. We know from the invitations he received that he spoke to experts in his own field and also to groups who would have had no knowledge of MRI technology, such as medical

staff. They would not have known how to read the results of a scan in the early days.

What kind of catalogue descriptions are you creating?

I’m cataloguing at item level, which means, as far as possible, creating an individual catalogue entry for every single letter, research paper, publication and file. For example, with the patent correspondence I’ve catalogued the sender, recipient, date and subject matter, as well as listing any enclosures. This information is added into CALM – which is the database we use to create our catalogues – and will be made available on the Manuscripts online catalogue at the end of the project: mss-cat.nottingham.ac.uk. So far we’ve created descriptions for over 1700 items.

Have you discovered any particularly interesting or unusual documents or items?

There’s lots, but I always like it when I come across something that is a bit random. In the Mansfield papers, I found an application form for a flying school as flying was one of his interests. He went on to qualify for a fixed-wing private pilot’s licence and a helicopter licence. I also found some paperwork to do with lost luggage connected with one of his many trips abroad.

Which aspect(s) of the project are you most enjoying and why?

All of it! It was daunting at first to see how much needs to be done, but it’s satisfying to see it all start to take shape. It’s lovely to take piles of notes and calculations, and repackage it to make sure it lasts for future researchers.

Have there been many challenges?

Early on in the project there was an accrual of 34 boxes from the University’s Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre, which obviously added to the cataloguing workload! It’s great that publicity about the project led to this material being deposited with us. I’ve also had to learn new skills, such as repackaging, as well as get an understanding of all the scientific terms.

When you have finished this project do you hope to continue working in archives?

Yes. I’m currently doing a distance-learning postgraduate diploma in archives and records management at Dundee, which finishes in December 2019. Working on the MRI project has been really good for giving me practical experience, to go with the theory. Working in Manuscripts and Special Collections has also allowed me to observe other aspects of archive work too, and this has also helped with some of the modules in my course.

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Recent acquisitions

Title page of Travels in India, during the years 1780, 1781, 1782 & 1783 by William Hodges RA.

Procession of a Hindoo Woman to sacrifice on the funeral pile. Plate 86 in Travels in India by William Hodges RA.

What’s new?

Poster advertising one of the famous explosive lectures given by the Chemistry Department’s Dr Brian Shaw and Dr Brian Shaw in action in one of his lectures. UAF1/6/1/3/5/16.

The acquisition of new material for the development of the collections held within Manuscripts and Special Collections is one of our core and most exciting activities. Recent newsletters have reflected the work we are currently undertaking, in particular, to develop the University archive and extend our institutional memory.

University records

We are always delighted to hear from our alumni and it is wonderful to see the fascinating material they have retained from their time at Nottingham. Photographs have an obvious instant appeal, and among a recent acquisition (NUP/ACC 2972) are images of sports teams, DramSoc performances, and productions staged by Wortley Hall (the former Wortley Hall of Residence at Lenton Firs, now the Department of Architecture and Built Environment), as well as a few playbills and programmes.

Recent transfers of historic papers from the School of Chemistry mean that activities and people associated with chemistry are also now well represented in the archive. We reported on the first instalment of chemistry papers in our last newsletter, and since then have acquired further files, photographs, correspondence, printed papers and ephemera which provide a wonderful insight into the chemistry department over many years (UAD/13/ACC 2973). We would be delighted to meet with colleagues from other University departments and faculties to discuss the potential transfer of material to Manuscripts and Special Collections for addition to the University archives.

While we acquire records in many situations and circumstances, a sad fact of our work is that collections sometimes come to us at the end of people’s lives. Manuscripts and Special Collections has had a long relationship with Professor Richard (Dick) Osborne, who sadly passed away last year aged 93. Osborne joined the University’s geography department in 1959 and became Professor of Economic Geography in 1967. He was also Dean of the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences from 1979-80 until 1982-83 before retiring from the University in 1989-1990.

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Book covers of travel literature donated by Professor Michael Jones.

Over the years he transferred many papers to us, including items relating to his former colleague in Geography, Professor KC Edwards. We are grateful to Professor Osborne’s family for facilitating our receipt of various papers collected by him over many years. These include a wonderful collection of documents dating back to the 17th century which relate to Osborne’s ancestors, farmers of land in Brailsford, Derbyshire, and to which papers he has added his own family history research notes, transcripts and writings (MS 942). In addition, we have acquired a further collection of papers relating to Osborne’s career at the University and to his academic research which included population geography and Eastern Europe (PRO).

Literary papers

While the last few months have seen a focus on Universityrelated records, we continue to work closely with Stephen Lowe in the development of our collection of his papers. Our most recent addition is a recording of the local author talking about his Meeting Ground Theatre work (SJL ACC 2980).

This was the outcome of a wonderful opportunity for us to interview Stephen and it presents a different and more personal dimension to this evolving collection of a contemporary writer.

Special collections

Notable additions have been made to the Travel Collection. The Travel Collection was created in Manuscripts and Special

Staff and students outside Cripps Hall, 1970 (Professor Osborne is in a light suit and gown 12th from the right on the front row). PRO.

Inventory of John Bembridge and Hannah his wife, late Hannah Osborn; 1751.

MS 942.

Programme and photograph relating to the Wortley Hall production of Romanoff and Juliet in 1963.

NUP/ACC 2972.

Pages from an account book dated 1701-1749, MS 942.

Papers relating to Esperanto, including a Geographical Summer School held at Nottingham in 1961, conducted entirely in Esperanto. PRO.

Collections in recent years from books held by the University’s libraries. It encompasses travel writing between the 17th and the 20th centuries, tapering off in the 1950s when travel became an integral commodity of mass consumerism. Travelogues published in this timespan reflect significant economic and cultural trends. The earliest examples of travel writing in the Collection gravitate towards the Holy Land and the Levant, as well as describing other European regions along the routes of the medieval crusades. Travel writings in the 18th century explore the Grand Tour-route to sites of cultural antiquities in southern Europe and document discoveries along supply routes created by the whaling industry and colonial trading, later colonial rule on other continents. The global aspect of travel follows through and becomes democratised in the 19th and 20th centuries, when better infrastructures and greater personal wealth enabled more Europeans to take up travel for scientific and anthropologic exploration, leisure and culture. The earliest travelogue in the Collection is by George Sandys (1578-1644), A relation of a journey begun an: Dom: 1610 : foure bookes : containing a description of the Turkish Empire, of Ægypt, of the Holy Land, of the remote parts of Italy, and ilands adioyning, published 1615 in London. The book ran into several editions, of which the fifth and seventh – published later in the century – are also available in this collection.

At the beginning of 2019 the Travel Collection was enriched by a donation from Professor Michael Jones. Professor Jones taught at the University of Nottingham from 1967 to 2002, specialising in French medieval history. The core of his collection of travel books was inherited from an uncle by marriage, Professor Edward Alfred Stewardson (1904-73), professor of Physics at the University of Leicester.

Professor Jones’s own interest in exploration began as a boy, when he read Thor Heyerdahl’s Voyage of the Kon Tiki (1950) and he eagerly acquired the accounts of Hillary and Tensing’s conquest of Everest (1953) and the Fuchs expedition crossing Antarctica (1956), gradually building up his own collection of travel literature, especially works relating to Arctic and Antarctic exploration.

Three other notable accessions were made to the Travel Collection by purchase. The first of these is Giles Fletcher’s The History of Russia or The Government of the Emperour of Muscovia with the manners & fashions of the people of that country. Second edition, 1643.

The first edition was published in 1591 under the title Of the Russe Common Wealth. Giles Fletcher (1549-1611) had served as English ambassador to Russia in 1588 where he renegotiated terms of trade between the two countries. The book focuses on Russia’s government and natural resources. As an outside observer of a Christian country little known in Western Europe, the author appreciated Russia’s unbounded potential and sought to understand why the state failed to realise it. He took a dim view of the country’s ruling system and held it responsible for economic and social failures he observed. Russians were “uncivilised, cruel, drunk and tyrannical” and their “corrupt tyrannical commonwealth was far worse than honest savagery with no government”. Fletcher’s publication was not diplomatic and following complaints that it would potentially damage Anglo-Russian trade relations the book was suppressed by the Privy Council. Few copies of the first edition survive. The second edition was published at a safe distance of over 50years and with a changed title. In Manuscripts and Special Collections this treatise strengthens holdings relating to Russia’s social history such as the Russian Revolution Collection and the War Posters from the Soviet Union.

Our second purchase is William Hodges RA Travels in India, during the years 1780, 1781, 1782 & 1783. The author is best remembered as the painter who accompanied Captain James Cook on this second voyage of exploration aboard the Resolution (1772-75). Later Hodges became the first European landscape painter to travel to India where he painted numerous topographical views for the East India Company. The volume Travels in India is illustrated with aquatint prints made from his paintings and a map drawn by the author. Hodges’ travelogue is valuable for the attention he pays to local customs and his eye for the picturesque. He writes at length about a Sati (or suttee) ceremony he is invited to observe and describes what he sees in a subjective writing style that sits well alongside the drawings he made “on the spot”.

Our final addition to the Travel Collection is Ann Radcliffe’s A Journey made in the summer of 1794 through Holland and the western frontier of Germany, with a return down the Rhine: to which are added observations during a tour of the Lakes of Lancashire, Westmoreland and Cumberland. This first edition appeared in 1795. The journey with the rather disjointed title was originally intended to continue into Switzerland and France, but due to a confusion over passports at the Swiss border Ann Radcliffe’s travelling party was turned away and decamped to the Lake District instead. Her travelogue complements the Collection’s significant cluster of travel writing which emerged at the height of the Romantic Movement in England. The exhibition in the Weston Gallery, Romantic Facts and Fantasies, showcases a number of outstanding examples of travel literature published in this significant cultural epoch.

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Contact details Manuscripts and Special Collections The University of Nottingham King’s Meadow Campus Lenton Lane Nottingham NG7 2NR mss-library@nottingham.ac.uk +44 (0)115 951 4565 nottingham.ac.uk/ manuscriptsandspecialcollections @ mssUniNott

Parchment, Paper and Pixels Highlights from Manuscripts and Special Collections at the University of Nottingham

Parchment, Paper and Pixels provides a taster of the wonderful collections held by Manuscripts and Special Collections.

This iBook introduces you to a selection of archives, maps, photographs, posters and music covering the globe from Iceland to China by way of Nottingham and the Soviet Union.

Download for free at:

nottingham.ac.uk/open/ebooksandibooks.aspx