Discover Issue 6/September 2017

INSIDE: Collected Words • Poison cases • Peep of Day • Mind the gaps • 5 minutes with Ursula

Issue 6/September 2017

DISCOVER The University of Nottingham’s Manuscripts and Special Collections

Welcome

Welcome Welcome to the latest edition of Discover, The University of Nottingham Manuscripts and Special Collections’ newsletter. This is a special edition featuring articles on some of our lesser-known printed collections. Our Special Collections Librarian tells us about her work and just what makes a Special Collection special. We also have articles on a Bible primer from the Briggs Collection of Educational Literature; a macabre collection of newscuttings on poisonings, and an appeal to fill the gaps in our holdings of the vast array of University student publications.

Some of you will have participated in the Public Services Quality Group Survey of Visitors to British Archives during autumn last year. We were very pleased to receive an overall satisfaction rating of 96%, making us the highest-rated archive service in the East Midlands. I would like to pass on my thanks to my colleagues who achieved an impressive 98% rating in the three questions relating to staff. We are taking note of your comments in trying to improve our services, and further details can be found on page 9.

Our exhibitions at the Weston Gallery at Nottingham Lakeside Arts go from strength to strength with extremely high visitor figures for Threads of Empire: Rule and Resistance in Colonial India. Our next exhibition will be Collected Words running from 8 September to 3 December 2017. With Nottingham recently awarded the prestigious UNESCO City of Literature status, this exhibition will celebrate some of our literary collections. We are best known for holding the nationally accredited DH Lawrence collection but this exhibition will showcase some of our other local authors and poets.

Continuing on the literary theme we were delighted recently to add to our Coventry Patmore collections.

Patmore was a 19th-century poet who worked as a librarian in the British Museum. We have acquired one of the few editions missing from our comprehensive printed collection, The Angel in the House, The Espousals, 1856, with the volume inscribed to the artist Dante Gabriel Rosetti. In addition we have acquired a manuscript of Patmore’s poem ‘Night’ and a collection of autograph letters. Other recent acquisitions include further business records, additions to the University archives and to our theatre collections.

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

Mind the gaps It’s tempting to think that students these days rely solely on the Internet and social media to disseminate information. Yet print still has prestige, and studentrun magazines like Impact continue to be produced.

We collect and preserve an impressive array of publications made by students from the last 120 years.

Sadly, there are lots of gaps.

Student publications can be tricky to get hold of, appearing and disappearing without warning, and having limited distribution. We develop relationships with societies and editors, approach stalls at Freshers’ Fairs, and scrounge from stacks of free magazines, but there’s still issues that get away from us.

The publications we have cover a broad range of student activity and interests, from informative newsletters to cheeky comedy and satire. Some are produced semi-professionally while others, like the newsletters produced by student halls of residence in the late 70s and early 80s, seem to relish their low-fi, anarchic status.

It’s amazing that we have any issues at all of these typewritten, stapled sheets, often with the title scrawled in felt-tip. Sometimes the name had some obvious relation to the hall of residence: The Boot, for Florence Boot Hall (1979), and Cavendish capers, for Cavendish Hall (1981-82). Hugh Stewart Hall had Kiwi times (1982), presumably a reference to the hall’s namesake having lived and worked in New Zealand, though this doesn’t explain why Nightingale Hall adopted a similarly Australasian feel with Dingo flat (c.1984).

Many student publications eschew numbering or dating which makes it difficult to work out what’s missing. The internet can help: we hold eight editions of The mic, a glossy magazine which reviews music acts, but can see from its website that it is currently on issue 42. That’s a lot of gaps, but it’s still one of our better

Chickerah, 1935, was produced to raise funds for charity. Red blob, 1969, the newspaper of the Nottingham University Socialist Society. It’s a corker, 1987 – this is our only copy of this title. The mic, 2007, is subtitled Nottingham University’s Official Music Magazine. Climax, May 1981, produced by students from the Nottingham University Conservative Association. Echolalia, May 2012 – this magazine is a current title produced by the University’s medical students. Kiwi Times, Feb. 1982 – someone has helpfully pencilled the issue number on to the cover of this student magazine from Hugh Stewart Hall. Jerk, c.1980s, produced by the University Blues Club. Chick, 1970, published for the Karnival Committee of Nottingham Students’ Charities Appeal.

represented music publications, especially when compared with our single, unnumbered copies of Jerk (c.1980s, produced by the University Blues Club) or It’s a corker (1987). Did these ever reach their difficult second issue, or were they one hit wonders? It’s impossible to tell.

Politics is a subject far better represented in the collection.

From 1980 to 1983 the Nottingham University Conservative Association produced Climax: the blue magazine. Blue by name and blue by nature, Climax is a rare example of right-wing comedy satire, with a disclaimer practically daring anyone to make a complaint against them.

On the political flip-side, we also hold three issues of a paper produced by the Nottingham University Socialist Society in 1969. Titled (perhaps unfortunately) Red blob, it includes its own attacks on University authorities. As the editors declined to use any kind of numbering, we have no way of knowing whether we hold all the issues produced.

Since the 1930s students at Nottingham have engaged in massive annual charity fundraising, and produced carnival magazines, the earliest of which was Chickerah (1932-1938, revived 1950-1953). A high quality magazine with beautifully illustrated covers, Chickerah is chock-full of crude humour and adverts from well-meaning sponsors, the juxtaposition of which meant that said sponsors would on occasion make formal complaints to the University. At least it was all in a good cause.

Academic departments have also got in on the publication act, with a notable current title being the Medical School’s blindingly glossy Echolalia (‘meaningless repetition of another person’s spoken words as a symptom of psychiatric disorder’, according to Google). We’re pleased to report that all four of its issues are present and correct in the collection.

Our earliest student publication is The gong, which celebrated writing and poetry by staff and students. First published in 1895, it continued sporadically for roughly eight years. Featuring work by various luminaries (including DH Lawrence), The gong was very much seen as a prestige arts publication and we have most – but not all – copies of it.

By far our most heavily used student publication is the infamous newspaper The gongster (later known simply as Gongster), and it’s frustrating that here too there are gaps in our holdings. From irreverent mishaps, Students’ Union squabbles, halls of residence getting TVs, fees, and members of the opposite sex, The gongster is a catch-all of University life from its inception in 1939.

It continues to this day despite its name changing to BIAS in 1978, Impact in 1985, and then morphing into a magazine in 1996.

Impact magazine is a mainstay of the University of Nottingham Students’ Union and we still track down every issue.

Student publications represent a fascinating snapshot of the student experience over the past century, and we attempt to collect current titles as well as seek out past material. Thanks to kind donations from alumni there’s always hope that we can find more material thought lost for ever, so remember: if you’re moving house and discover a box full of student publications in your attic, do get in touch. With your help we may be able to fill in those gaps.

Student publications can be viewed in the Manuscripts and Special Collections Reading Room. Catalogue records for student publications are available via NUSearch. Visit nusearch.nottingham.ac.uk

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s e s a c n o s i o P Spotlight

There’s material in our collections which you might consider to be somewhat creepy. The albums of broadsides sold as souvenir guides at public executions, for example. Or perhaps it’s locks of human hair that set your teeth on edge. Yet these things pale by comparison with what many in Manuscripts and Special Collections consider to be the most macabre material we have: a set of over 30 volumes of British newspaper clippings sat within our collections of rare medical books.

When seen on the shelves the volumes seem fairly unassuming, but don’t be fooled by the fading colours and ornate gold leaf detail on the spines. Whoever compiled these albums of extracts dating from the 1910s to the 1960s had a very specific interest.

Handwritten labels, some peeling, are affixed to each spine, detailing the subject collected in obsessive detail: POISONS. The volumes open with a slight creaking of the thick, scrapbook paper, revealing the clippings of aging newspaper. Each extract has been carefully snipped out and pasted in, the columns and headlines jigsawed into place to create neat, methodical presentations. The articles are all annotated with the title of the newspaper they came from and the date, written using a fountain pen in tiny, spidery writing.

Headlines leap out, lurid and sensationalist: THE PILLOW OF DEATH draws your attention to an article about a biology student in Fulham who sprayed his pillow with ethyl chloride to induce sleep the night before an exam. He was found the next morning by his housemate, asphyxiated (vol 32, p1). HE POISONED HIS WIFE “FOR LOVE” is another headline which may catch your eye, a short piece about a man from Milwaukee who made a habit of repeatedly poisoning his wife in an attempt to keep her feeling ill which – he believed – caused her to show him ‘more affection’. He was caught when he tried to feed her poisoned pastries in the hospital (vol 32, p24).

Every story collected – and there’s literally hundreds of them in each volume – involves people experiencing the effects of poisoning in some way, whether by accident, murder, or suicide. It’s hard when flicking through the volumes not to feel overwhelmed, as every page brings another selection of tragic, disturbing, or bizarre stories: the woman who was addicted to vinegar for thirty years and ended up ‘pickled alive’ (vol 16, p1); the factory workers in Leicester who mistook a load of roots fallen from the back of a lorry for liquorice, and happily started chewing on them, only for them to turn out to be deadly nightshade (vol 19, p30); the wife who had to identify the body of her husband, found dead from coal-gas poisoning in a boarding house room with another woman (vol 27, p77); the schoolboy who noted the bitter taste in the tea given to him by his schoolmaster, a man then jailed for four years for attempting to commit ‘improper assault’ (vol 30, p157); the young woman – by day a dental receptionist, by night a party girl with a tumultuous relationship, and who was found dead in a four-poster bed next to an empty pot of sleeping pills at a country mansion which had just been host to a ‘Hallowe’en orgy’ (vol 35, p109).

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The articles themselves are cold and impersonal, leaving you to fill in the emotional gaps between the lines.

Sometimes the text appears offhand, even mocking, such as in the story of the 26-year-old music teacher who, suspicious about her lover’s frequent absences, committed suicide by resting her head on cushions by the gas oven. The paper described her as someone ‘inclined to exaggerate her troubles’ (vol 14, p55).

Some stories are epic tales which go on for several pages, the headlines giving each shocking revelation as it comes: ARSENIC IN SUGAR: POLICE ALLEGATION is followed by CLERK DENIES ARSENIC IN SUGAR CHARGE, and then finally, FAVOURITE NEPHEW POISONED THE SUGAR – TRIED TO KILL AUNT AT TEA PARTY FOR FRIENDS (vol 27, p59-61). It somehow seems so quaintly English, as if from an Agatha Christie novel.

Some articles highlight the changing attitudes towards poisons: CANCER CLAIM UNSCIENTIFIC, SAYS DOCTOR, screams a headline from 1958 about a physician from Harley Street pooh-poohing the Minister of Health for announcing that heavy smoking can cause lung cancer: “They will be blaming mother’s milk next”, he is quoted as saying, before going on to criticise the newly formed NHS for making health issues “a matter for every untutored MP to air his views”. (vol 33, p11).

Though the volumes themselves wouldn’t look out of place on a movie set about a sociopathic serial killer, the Poison cases scrapbooks are presumably the work of a medical doctor, a specialist in the effects of poison and poison treatment.

Unfortunately we cannot offer any concrete information as to who this person was, or what they hoped to achieve by compiling 50 years’ worth of often distressing newspaper clippings about poisonings. Hopefully the volumes, despite their sad, often distressing tales, were able to be used as research for treating poisonings on a medical and social level. Now, though, despite their ghoulish nature, they serve as reminders of the history of journalistic sensationalism, changing social attitudes, and the sometimes sad and extraordinary fates of ordinary people.

The volumes themselves can be viewed in the Manuscripts and Special Collections Reading Room upon request. A catalogue record for Poison cases is discoverable on the library catalogue, NUSearch: nusearch.nottingham.ac.uk Some of our volumes of Poison cases, Med-Chi Collection Oversize, QV600 POI.

Profile

l l i r k c A a l u s Ur

How long have you worked for Manuscripts and Special Collections?

Just over two years now.

What’s your job title and what does your job involve?

Special Collections Librarian. My job is to look after the University’s rare published works. Special Collections has nearly 80,000 books, arranged in 40 collections. It is an important job because it ensures that valuable resources are available in perpetuity: not just stored for safe-keeping but promoted for use in teaching and research.

The term special collection is unfamiliar to many people. What does it mean and what qualities does a publication need to become part of a special collection?

There are several criteria. A collection that was built around a person’s cultural interests or an organisation’s role has the potential to be a special collection because it is curated – the collection has been gathered together for a purpose and then managed in some way, rather than being treated as individual books or objects. Here it is the collector’s focus and taste in acquisition that is key.

WG Briggs, who donated the Briggs Collection to Manuscripts and Special Collections, was an avid collector of early educational literature written for children. He served as a member of the University of Nottingham’s Council for many years and when he offered to donate his private collection to the University it was gratefully accepted.

An example of an institution as collector is the Nottingham Medico-Chirurgical Book Society whose library was acquired by the University. The Society’s library, curated in the course of the 19th century, had lost its practical use as a reference library and needed to be repurposed for its historic interest. Three things lined up: a local benefactor offered to help the University to acquire the books, the Society’s own history is rooted in Nottingham and, incidentally, the University Medical Library already held a fine collection of medical rare books.

What subjects do the special collections cover?

We have special collections on early educational literature, historical medical books, libraries compiled by the Church of England in the 18th century for clergymen serving in remote country locations. We also have collections centred on a person, such as the DH Lawrence Collection, which is a treasure-trove of first editions and publications by and about the writer who was an alumnus of this University.

The Works of Shakespeare by W. Shakespeare, Cambridge Shakespeare Collection, PR2753.

E87, barcode 6002524094.

How can researchers locate the items they are looking for?

NUsearch, the search engine for the University’s library resources, has the inbuilt functionality to recall a whole special collection. If I key in the name of the collection in Advanced Search in the field ‘Collection’ it recalls a hit list of all the materials in it. I can also combine with AND to search for key words inside a special collection, which is also incredibly useful to narrow down a search.

Do you have a favourite item from a special collection?

Impossible to choose, but I will pick something from the Cambridge Shakespeare Collection as it is something I can personally relate to. I am a fan of paperbacks and reading on the hoof, opportunistically, whenever I can. This little 1887 Cassel and Co edition of Shakespeare was designed for this purpose. It is nicely produced, illustrated, but on thin paper like a modern bible. These cheap, pocket-sized works by Shakespeare served a new market. They were meant for readers who required a portable read to fit in with busy schedules. To me they signal the moment when there was a critical mass of time-poor working people with enough education to need to read some Shakespeare at any given time.

An increasing number of old and rare books are available online, can you foresee a time when the physical books are redundant?

With old and rare books, digitisation helps people to read them at leisure. The object itself needs to be protected, it is rare and often fragile, which is why it should only be seen in a reading environment that’s optimised for book preservation. With rare and old books particularly, I fear that unless you are a researcher and used to investing days in reading a book in a library, the odds are that you’ll decide against reading it when you come across it by chance, like on a search engine hit list. Digitisation would remove this barrier and make the book accessible to a broader base. But the object still holds cultural clues that are lost in digitisation: the style of binding and paper quality, the specific materials and skill invested in the production.

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Exhibition news

COLLECTED WORDS

Our latest exhibition at the Weston Gallery, Collected Words: From the Literary Collections at the University of Nottingham, draws on our rich literary holdings in celebration of Nottingham’s City of Literature status.

In 2015 Nottingham became one of only 20 cities around the world to be recognised by UNESCO as a City of Literature – a reflection of the city’s unique literary heritage and creativity. This exhibition of material from the literary archives and collections of printed books held by the University of Nottingham, highlights the work of Nottinghamshire writers and the treasures to be found in the historic collections of local literature lovers. It also looks at the University’s role in shaping the reputations and inspiring the early careers of local poets and authors.

The exhibition shows how authors down the centuries have been inspired by different aspects of Nottinghamshire, ranging from the beauty of the countryside to the often harsh realities of industrial working life. Victorian poets such as Henry Kirke White celebrated the rural charm of Clifton Grove, whereas authors such as Alan Sillitoe, Hilda Lewis and Stephen Lowe wrote about the realities of working class and factory life.

JM Barrie is also believed to have been inspired by aspects of Nottingham when he wrote Peter Pan. The University of Nottingham itself played a key part in The Unfortunates, an innovative ‘book in a box’ produced by BS Johnson in 1969.

The importance of local aristocratic families as early book collectors and authors is also examined, drawing on the literary papers from the Library of the Dukes of Portland at Welbeck Abbey. These papers contain gatherings of the manuscripts of

Fragment of An Ode to the Moon

by Henry Kirke White. Kw P 65.

Frontispiece of Sociable Letters written by the thrice noble, illustrious and excellent princess, the Lady Marchioness of Newcastle, from Special Collection Oversize, PR 3065.N2, barcode SC 87932.

poets including Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, known to some as Mad Madge but celebrated by others as the earliest writer of science fiction. The exhibition includes a first edition copy of her Sociable Letters, published in 1664. The ‘Restoration rock star’ poet, the Earl of Rochester, also features in the Portland literary papers, and the exhibition contains a curious manuscript describing his antics when he masqueraded as a doctor.

This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see a masterpiece of medieval poetry from our Wollaton Library Collection, Confessio Amantis by John Gower, which is annotated with some charming drawings of animals. Another highlight is a typescript of Pansies, a late collection of poems by DH Lawrence. Earlier typescripts of Pansies had been intercepted and confiscated by government officials in 1929 on the grounds of indecency.

Undaunted, Lawrence produced further typescripts, one of which was smuggled into England from Paris and used to produce a privately published unexpurgated limited edition.

The University of Nottingham acquired a previously unknown Pansies typescript in 2015, and it is displayed in public in the exhibition for the first time, together with a limited edition signed copy by Lawrence himself.

Also featured are some of the drafts, proofs, typescripts, scrapbooks and rejection letters to be found in writers’ archives, demonstrating both how writers revised their work before publication and the difficulties of getting published. It also reflects upon the changing fortunes of published authors, including how DH Lawrence was considered to be ‘a skeleton in the cupboard’ by some at the University until he was the subject of a University exhibition in 1960, 30 years after his death.

The exhibition has been curated by staff from Manuscripts and Special Collections. It runs from Friday 8 September to Sunday 3 December.

Opening hours

Weston Gallery Nottingham Lakeside Arts, University Park Open Tuesday-Friday 11am-4pm, Saturday, Sunday 12noon-4pm.

Closed Mondays.

Free Admission

Goose Fair by illustrator Nora Lavrin. From ACC 1547/23/9.

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EXHIBITION EVENTS A series of events will be held at Djanogly Theatre to accompany the exhibition. Places are limited.

Book in advance on 0115 846 7777.

LUNCHTIME TALKS 1pm-2pm. Free.

NEW ADDITIONS TO THE DH LAWRENCE COLLECTIONS Thursday 28 September Dr Andrew Harrison will discuss and interpret several recently acquired items in the University’s internationally recognised Lawrence Collections, including a manuscript of Laura Philippine and a rare typescript of Pansies, which is displayed for the first time in the exhibition.

Dr Harrison is Assistant Professor in English Literature and Director of the DH Lawrence Research Centre at the University of Nottingham.

READING NOTTINGHAM’S UNREAD: REPUBLISHING JAMES PRIOR’S FOREST FOLK Thursday 12 October First published in 1901, Prior’s pacey novel is set in Blidworth against a background of the Napoleonic Wars and Luddite riots.

It lay unnoticed for many years, although DH Lawrence rated Prior’s work. In 2016, Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature and Spokesman Books co-published DAWN OF THE UNREAD, graphic accounts of vengeful local writers resolute on being read by new generations. In the ferment, Forest Folk clawed its way into view. How will it fare in the bookshops of 2017?

Tony Simpson edits The Spokesman, journal of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, and is a director of Russell Press printers.

LOCAL AUTHOR ALISON MOORE: LOCATION AND LANDSCAPE Thursday 26 October Man Booker Prize shortlisted writer of fiction, Alison Moore, will be exploring the influence of location and landscape in her novels, including a work in progress. She will be looking at inspiration, research and the fictionalisation of settings including the Midlands, the Scottish Borders, the Rhineland and the seaside.

Alison Moore’s first two novels, The Lighthouse and He Wants, were Observer Books of the Year. A third novel, Death and the Seaside, is out now. She is also an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Nottingham.

CASTRATING ROCHESTER: JOHN WILMOT’S MANUSCRIPT POETRY Thursday 16 November This talk looks at the peculiarities of the manuscript canon of the poetry of John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1648-80), and its examples in the collections at the University, not least the autograph manuscripts of Rochester’s poems to his wife, which are more restrained in their expression than most of his writing.

Dr Adam Rounce is Associate Professor in English Literature at the University of Nottingham and an expert in restoration and 18th-century poetry and literature.

FILM SCREENING

SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING, with introduction

by Nottingham-based performance poet Andrew Graves Thursday 26 October, 7.30pm (89 mins plus introduction) Djanogly Theatre, Lakeside Arts Tickets £5 (£3 concessions) This award-winning film is based on the 1958 novel of the same name by Nottingham author Alan Sillitoe (1928-2010). Directed

by Karel Reisz and produced by Tony Richardson, it had its UK release this month in 1960. Nottingham was the location for much of the exterior filming, and the novel’s anti-hero, Arthur Seaton, worked at the Raleigh bicycle factory.

The film will be introduced by Nottingham based performance poet, writer and film fanatic, Andrew Graves, who will examine the piece’s themes, lasting appeal and the important part it played in the British New Wave cinema of the 1960s.

BEHIND-THE-SCENES TOURS

Free These events are offered as part of the Being Human 2017 festival. To find out more and to book tickets, visit lakesidearts.org.uk/special-events/event/3631/beinghuman-2017.html CURATOR’S TOUR OF THE COLLECTED WORDS EXHIBITION Monday 20 November, 11am to 12 noon Weston Gallery, Nottingham Lakeside Arts Join one of the curators for a guided tour of the Collected Words exhibition. Hear some of the stories behind the unique archives, manuscripts and rare printed books on display; learn why DH Lawrence’s Pansies had to be smuggled in to the country, discover the writings of Margaret Cavendish of Clumber Park, the world’s first female science-fiction author and find out why she was known as ‘Mad Madge’, and view a masterpiece of medieval poetry.

TOUR OF MANUSCRIPTS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS Wednesday 22 November 2pm to 3.30pm King’s Meadow Campus, University of Nottingham Join us for a behind-the-scenes tour of Manuscripts and Special Collections and view some of the treasures from the literary collections that didn’t make it in to the exhibition. Explore our collections of papers by and about DH Lawrence, a collection that has been designated as being of outstanding national and international significance, discover some of the region’s lesser-known writers, and view rare works from our extensive collections of children’s literature.

You will visit the archive store, conservation and digitisation studios and can find out more about the unique material held

by Manuscripts and Special Collections and how the papers of writers and authors end up in an archive.

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Spotlight

Peep of Day

In the words of her grand-niece Rosalind Constable, Favell Lee Mortimer wrote “one of the most outspokenly sadistic children’s books ever written”, yet she topped the Victorian best-seller lists and was well-regarded as an educational author.

Peep of Day: A series of the earliest religious instruction the infant mind is capable of receiving is a Bible-primer aimed at four to five-year-olds, presumably to terrify them. At the beginning of Lesson 1: On the Body, Mortimer writes “How kind of God it was to give you a body! I hope that your body will not get hurt”.

Perhaps the vaguely-menacing, Mafia-boss overtones were not picked up by very young children.

Published in 1833, Peep of Day was Mortimer’s first work and was an immediate best-seller, with hundreds of thousands of copies printed in 37 languages. Our edition was published in 1844 and bears an inscription in the front page: “To William Scott. Ann & Peter Aitkin. November 6/[18]45”. We have no information about who these people were, but books such as this were commonly given as rewards for achievement or attendance at school or church.

Mortimer was deeply religious and absolutely determined to impress upon young minds the consequence of disobedience and lack of faith, but some of the passages are intended as life lessons warning children about the common hazards in Victorian streets and homes: “Will your bones break? – Yes….if a cart were to go over them…If [your body] were to fall into the fire, it would be burned up. If a great knife were run through your body, the blood would come out.”

Favell Lee Bevan was born in 1802 to the Quaker and Barclays Bank co-founder David Bevan. She converted to Evangelical Protestantism aged 25. Her first love, Henry Manning, married another woman and after her premature death converted to Catholicism, eventually becoming Archbishop of Westminster.

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Peep of Day by Favell Lee Mortimer, Briggs Collection of Educational Literature, Lt210.BS/M6, barcode 6001924828.

This must have been quite a shock for a woman who described Catholicism as “a kind of Christian religion, but it is a very bad kind”.

She married at the relatively late age of 39 and there are differing accounts as to whether her nine-year marriage to the Reverend Thomas Mortimer was happy or abusive. Despite publishing 16 books for children, she had none of her own. At her marriage she acquired two step-daughters, but the vast majority of her experience came from teaching the children on her father’s extensive estates. Her methods and teaching hints included in her books – flashcards, patient repetition, and the awareness that children have different learning styles – are surprisingly modern.

Peep of Day begins with lessons and questions about the body and family, but the bulk of the lessons cover Bible stories about Creation, the Life and Death of Jesus, and ending – appropriately enough – with Judgment Day: “God has seen all the naughty things you have done. He can see in the dark as well as in the light, and knows all your naughty thoughts…One day God will burn up this world we live in. It is dreadful to see a house on fire. Did you ever see one? But how dreadful it will be to see this great world and all the houses and trees burning! The noise will be terrible: the heat will be very great. The wicked will not be able to get away. They will burn forever…”

Mortimer died in 1878 aged 76, and according to her niece’s biography of her, “Her doctor said she was the only person he ever met who wished to die”. Such was Peep’s influence that her obituary in The Times, printed on 27 and 28 August 1878, read: “On the 22nd inst – at RUNTON, NEAR Cromer. Favell Lee, widow of the late Rev Thomas Mortimer (Authoress of The Peep of Day, &c), aged 76”.

Peep of Day is now sadly out of print. Our copy comes from the Briggs Collection of Educational Literature, a collection of over 2,500 children’s books and games from the 16th to 19th centuries, and is available to view in our Reading Room on King’s Meadow Campus.

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Recent acquisitions A selection of material from the Nottingham Arts Theatre, NAT.

What’s new?

Advertising material for the Ladybird brand, ACC 2839.

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‘Night’ by Coventry Patmore, ACC 2858.

Papers relating to the hosiery industry, the records of a local theatre company and University photographs and ephemera are among the diverse range of exciting new accessions acquired by Manuscripts and Special Collections in recent months.

Business

In 1932, Eric Pasold (1906-1978) extended his family’s textile interests in Czechoslovakia and set up a new factory at Langley, Buckinghamshire. Papers relating to the Pasold Research Fund, established by Eric in 1964 through the donation of shares in the family business, were transferred to the University in the 1990s (BPS). The fund supports research on textile history. Now Eric’s own extensive research papers have been added to this collection. These document the history of knitting across the world, including the invention of the stocking frame knitting machine by Nottinghamshire-born William Lee. Sitting alongside the records of the Pasold Research Fund are the records of the Pasold Company itself (MS 814), the first group of which we received in 2007. These have now been complemented by a further accrual (ACC 2839).

The Pasold Company’s greatest success was the establishment of the world famous Ladybird brand, selling children’s T-shirts, dressing gowns and pyjamas in enormous quantities in chain stores across the globe. Eric was an early and enterprising adopter of brand marketing, using a family legend and a symbol of good luck to make Ladybird a famous household name.

Wonderful examples of his innovative advertising techniques are to be found among the papers we have recently acquired. These include Ladybird Adventure Club publications and Ladybird comic strips. The Ladybird symbol is to be seen everywhere on the company’s records. Even the annual reports and accounts are spectacularly visual, featuring large numbers of humanised ladybirds industriously engaged in various aspects of the manufacturing trade.

Theatre

Manuscripts and Special Collections is establishing a specialism in local theatre archives and we are delighted to have taken in our first collection of records from the Nottingham Arts Theatre (NAT).

The Nottingham Arts Theatre started performing to Nottinghamshire audiences in the 1930s as The Nottingham People’s Theatre before establishing its permanent home in George Street in the Lace Market. Also known as the Nottingham Co-operative Arts Theatre, it staged 10 productions a year, and many famous names were associated with it, such as John Bird, Peter Bowles, Sherrie Hewson, Michael James (Jayston), Ken Loach, Su Pollard and John Turner. This fascinating collection of programmes, photographs and reviews, as well as some administrative records, is a wonderful addition to our growing theatre resources.

Literature

We are pleased that we have also been able to add to our considerable literary holdings with the acquisition of further items relating to the writer Coventry Patmore (1823-1896) (ACC 2858). This most recent addition to the Patmore Collection originally acquired by the University in the 1930s consists of the autograph poem ‘Night’ and 14 letters from Patmore to various recipients which provide insights into his life as a writer and include comments on his literary work.

University of Nottingham

We are always seeking to acquire items relating to the University, so that we can improve knowledge of our institutional history and preserve important records for future generations.

Recent University accessions include the papers of an alumnus concerning his membership of the University’s Christian Association and the Presbyterian-Congregational Society (ACC 2805). Photographs and ephemera such as notices, programmes, invitation cards and menus provide a wonderful sense of a student’s involvement in these societies in the late 1950s and early 1960s. An accrual of photographs in both analogue and digital format from the Students’ Union (ACC 2835), provides further insight into the lives and activities of former students. This material came to us as a result of the current Portland Building work and the consequent move of the Students’ Union, and we hope that more papers may similarly come to light.

A collection of photographs from the Estates Office (ACC 2847) has added to our growing visual record of the University’s history. This include awe-inspiring aerial views of the University’s Nottingham campuses, together with a wonderful series of colour prints charting the development of the Jubilee Campus from the clearance of the former Raleigh site to the completion of the campus’s distinctive buildings.

Digital files

Several recent University accessions have arrived in digital format, reflecting the increasing frequency with which we now receive born-digital material. At the same time, we are creating digital files ourselves, mostly in WAV or mp4 format, with the conversion of some of our analogue holdings (film reels, audio tape reels, VHS and Betamax tapes etc.) so that the content can be preserved and more readily accessible. This is a vast project and is ongoing, but recent conversions have enabled us to listen to, and view, some material which has effectively been ‘hidden’ to us for several years. As a result, we have started to enhance our online catalogue descriptions for such items in the George Green, DH Lawrence and Lincolnshire Folk Song Collections.

Special Collections

Notable additions to the Special Collections include two books which have recently come into the Briggs Collection of Educational Literature. Published in London in 1807 and 1827, they cover the subjects of mathematics and drawing, respectively. The Multiplication Table in Verse: embellished with fifteen copper-plate engravings to illustrate the subject and render it more engaging to the youthful mind is a particular treasure as it depicts a variety of everyday scenes of Georgian life in which a child can recognise themselves. Similarly, Charles Taylor’s A Familiar Treatise on Drawing for Youth contains informal drawings of children and young people as well the standard drawing exercises involving the human body. The Coventry Patmore Collection has acquired the first-edition of the author’s volume of poetry The Angel in the House. Book II: The Espousals. This British edition, published in London in 1856, completes the array of first edition publications by the famous Victorian in this Special Collection. The author’s signature and autographed dedication to “DG Rossetti from his friend” suggests that this volume was a gift from the author to the poet and artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

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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