Tuesday June 2 at 5:30 pm US central time

Join us for a virtual seminar at the intersection of Methodist history and special collections hosted by Professor Ted Campbell of Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.

The event will feature a presentation by Dr Gareth Lloyd of The John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, on how digitised primary sources can be used to investigate a grassroots Revival network and provide new insights into early Methodist history.

If you are interested in joining the seminar, please email Professor Campbell for further details (tedc@mail.smu.edu)

A strong coffee shared with Stella Halkyard before social distancing was implemented was how I was first introduced to the wonderful avant-garde poet, artist and Benedictine monk dom sylvester houedard (better known by his initials always written in lower case dsh.) Stella came to be an integral figure securing the dom sylvester houedard archive in the 1990’s for the John Rylands Library.

High on caffeine I left Stella feeling energised and inspired, I thought about the collection and specifically the dsh archive.  Stella’s words and wonderful insights into how the collection came to exist at the John Ryland Library stayed with me. I had to know more and we arranged to meet up again.

Sadly soon after we met the announcement came from the Government regarding COVID-19 and the lockdown.  Stella kindly agreed to answer three questions for the John Rylands Library Blog keeping of course to the social distancing rules!

Q. How did you find out about dom sylvester and his work?

A. New in post at the John Rylands Library I first came across dsh’s work when I was carrying out analysis of the modern literary archives, I became the first person to curate them at the Rylands in the early 1990s. Being new in post one of the things I had to do was to find out more about the collective and individual content of the collections. So I carried out a content/collection analysis exercise, which, in general terms, revealed the subject strengths of the collections.

When I was analyzing the Carcanet archive I discovered there was a lot of material relating to concrete poetry, visual poetry, and the print culture of little magazines, and artists editions including material relating to poets like Edwin Morgan and artists like Ian Hamilton Finlay.  Both EM and IHF were close friends of dom sylvester and part of the same literary and artistic networks – in fact dom sylvester was the greatest of networkers within the British concrete poetry movement linking artists in the UK to artists from across the globe.

On the grapevine I heard (via Professor Ian Rogerson, former librarian at MMU) that dom sylvester had died (1992) and that the community at Prinknash Abbey were keen to deposit his archive with an institution.  We were visited in the Rylands by a delegation of monks from Prinknash. They were delighted to find that the library was home not only to fantastic collections of recent and contemporary poetry and art but it also held outstanding theological and religious collections (Christian, Buddhist, Islamic and Jewish) which tallied exactly with dom sylvester’s interests and vocational work. This was very important because they had been in contact with other institutions but they were only interested in acquiring the archival material relating to dom sylvester the artist-poet. But the Rylands, however, could also accommodate dom sylvester the theologian, priest and ecumenical thinker.

I was then invited to stay at Prinknash to appraise dom sylvester’s archive. I was the first woman (apart from district nurses ministering to the sick) to be allowed into the enclosure of the abbey and given free rein to explore dom sylvester’s rooms (cells). Suffice to say it was clear it would be an important acquisition to the collection of modern literary archives and the wider collections at the Rylands! During my stay I was invited to make a pitch to the community at Prinknash at their Chapter Meeting.  It was decided it should be deposited in Manchester and so it travelled North taking two trips in the Prinknash Abbey pottery van.

Q. Was there a surge in interest for his work and the dsh archive?

Yes, there was a lot of interest in dom sylvester, his work and concrete poetry in general. However it is probably since the beginning of the 21^st century that deep interest has been building in his work and his influence has been noticeably felt. It is especially the case that his work speaks particularly to younger generations of artists for whom he is an inspiration. They have often visited the archive to see his work, and their encounters with it then acts as a springboard for their own practice.

Q. Can you pick a poem or object from dsh collection that you can still see if you close your eyes.

It is quite hard to confine myself to naming just one work! As dom sylvester’s aesthetic of visual poetry is highly memorable and I can picture lots of his works in my mind’s eye and the range of media he worked in is dazzling. But the work I wish to nominate is ‘wind grove/mind alone. ’The first time I saw this work it was hung on the wall in the cell dom Sylvester used as his study in Prinknash Abbey.  It was hung, by his desk, on the wall surrounded by his books (now in the strong rooms of the Rylands). It was his companion, something he looked at often. It’s a multimedia work consisting of typstract – a form he invented where the words of the poem are made by the symbols on a typewriter in red and blue (hugely exacting work).   These words also act as a reversal – another form he invented – where the words can be read in different directions to make new words – in this case by gazing into the reflective mirror surface. So ‘wind grove’ turns into ‘mind alone’. And I love the way it’s participatory and invites the reader in – as a reader I have to take part in making the meaning of the poem actively as I move around it. I become part of the poem just as it becomes part of me – in my mind’s eye. 

Thank you Stella for being so generous with your time and words.

Trade directories provide an invaluable primary source for social and family historians.  In a series of three posts, Special Collections Librarian, Julie Ramwell, introduces a unique 18th-century directory with candid annotations by a Manchester surgeon.

Early Manchester trade directories

Trade directories, which list the names, addresses and occupations of ‘merchants, manufacturers and principal inhabitants’, were produced in response to the rapid expansion of provincial towns during the 18th and 19th centuries.  In Manchester, the cookery writer, Elizabeth Raffald (1733-81) compiled the first directory in 1772.  The John Rylands Library holds six out of the seven Manchester directories published up to 1800.  Of particular interest is an interleaved copy of John Scholes’s 1794 directory, with extensive annotations in the hand of local surgeon, Robert Wagstaffe Killer (1763-1841).

In this post I will introduce the man himself.  My second post will explore the range of annotations available. Finally, I will share some of the doctor’s detailed comments and observations on ill-health and causes of death in Manchester in the first half of the 19th century.

Family life

The middle child of Manchester hatter, George Killer (d. 1791) and his wife Elizabeth (née Leigh) (1736-1820), Robert Wagstaffe Killer was named in honour of his maternal grandmother Silence Wagstaffe (1714-53).  As a child, Robert was close to Silence’s second husband, Robert Thyer (1709-81), Chetham’s Librarian from 1732 to 1763. 

Letters from Thyer in the Library’s Bellot Papers reveal that the two Roberts took a trip to Liverpool together in August 1774, for the purposes of sea-bathing.  Staying in fashionable Wolstenholme Square, the Manchester Grammar School student ‘[wrote] his Latin every day’, but found time to purchase a gift for his elder sister, Elizabeth – a sixpenny coconut which, unfortunately, went bad!

In 1787, Robert married Jane (c. 1758-1824), daughter of James Watson (d. 1782), gentleman, of Swinton and Stockport, and his wife Judith (née Holland) (c. 1732-99).  Interestingly, under his own entry in the directory, Robert has added the following comment: ‘Declined practice 1822 & went to Islington near London on account of his wifes [sic] ill health’.  Jane died in Islington in 1824.

In 1831, Robert retired to Farley, Staffordshire, where he died on 25 May 1841, aged 77.  He is buried in Alton church, in the family vault of his friend, the Manchester surgeon, John Bill (1756-1847).  As Robert had no children, most of his estate, including the directory, passed to his younger brother, John Egerton Killer (1798-1854), an apothecary and surgeon. John added a few annotations, relating mainly to ‘country manufacturers’ from Stockport.

Professional life

Both Robert, and his brother John, entered the medical profession.  In 1781, Robert was apprenticed to the surgeon Edward Hall (1731?-91) at Manchester Infirmary.  When qualified, he commenced practice in Stockport, but was elected surgeon to Manchester Infirmary in 1790, when the number of honorary posts was increased.

The post of honorary surgeon was unpaid, but the resulting status and prestige helped surgeons to build up their private practices.  Fees were also obtained by taking on apprentices.  Killer had four apprentices during his career, one in Stockport, and three in Manchester.  His final apprentice, William Goodlad (d. 1814), dedicated a book to his former master ‘as a token of respect for his abilities, and of gratitude for his friendship’.

Manchester Infirmary was located in Lever’s Row (now Piccadilly) from 1755 to 1908. The adjacent Lunatic Hospital opened in 1766, and a Dispensary was added in 1792. The Operation Room was located on the top floor, to afford the best light.  The image shows the Infirmary pond, an ornamental stretch of water, which was refreshed daily.

In 1794, Robert was living at 26 Lever’s-row, a popular address for Infirmary staff, situated next to Piccadilly. In 1804, along with fellow surgeons John Bill and Michael Ward (1761/2-1834), Robert resigned his post at the Infirmary, following a dispute with the house surgeon, John Hutchinson (d. 1808).  By 1815, Robert was living at 19 Piccadilly, with a surgery at 25 Travis-street. He was known for treating the poor without charging for his services.

In addition to his work at the Infirmary, Robert worked as a surgeon to the Manchester and Salford Volunteers. In 1802, the officers of the second Battalion of Manchester and Salford Volunteers presented Robert with a large silver cup, ‘as a Token of their Gratitude for his prompt and disinterested Attention to the frequent Claims of this Corps on his professional Abilities’.  The second Battalion, led by Lieutenant Colonel John Sylvester, consisted of 1,000 men.

The annotations

It is unknown whether Robert acquired the directory as new, but the annotations – which abound throughout the preliminaries, margins and interleaves – seem to date from the 1790s onwards.  These handwritten observations, facts and opinions, which relate to hundreds of Manchester residents, are often delightfully blunt:

Wildsmith Benjamin, dentist, peruke-maker and hair-dresser, 18, Hunter’s-lane
He was a dentist of celebrity in his day, but knew little scientifically – Very pompous.

Hilton James, attorney, 54, Market-street lane
He was a very poor creature indeed and not remarkable for his integrity or honesty

Cropper John, Gentleman, Newton-lane
as like a gentleman as is a Mouse to an Elephant

Further examples will be found in the second part of this blog post.

Find out more

Scholes, John, of Manchester, Scholes’s Manchester and Salford Directory (Manchester: Sowler and Russell, 1794) with annotations by Robert Wagstaffe Killer has been reproduced in full in the Library Digital Collections.

This is the second of three blog posts by Julie Ramwell introducing a unique 18th-century trade directory with annotations by a Manchester surgeon.  The first post focussed on the life of the surgeon, Robert Wagstaffe Killer (1763-1841).  This post explores the range of annotations that he made.

Manchester’s ‘principal inhabitants’

Trade directories, which provide basic details of names, addresses and occupations, can help to fill the gaps between and/or before census returns.  The annotations by Robert Wagstaffe Killer (1763-1841), made mainly in the early 19th-century, flesh out these bare bones, providing a wealth of detail about Manchester’s ‘principal inhabitants’, their families, their work and their characters.

Successes and failures

Manchester in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was a dynamic space, constantly changing and expanding.  There were opportunities for success – and failure.  James Watson, Gentleman ‘acquired a good property by manufacturing umbrellas being the first of any consequence of that trade in Manchester’. Likewise, after separating from their business partners, the Sandfords, McConnel and Kennedy went on to become the largest cotton-spinning concern in Manchester.

Sandfords, Mc Connel and Kennedy, cotton-spinners and machine –makers, New Islington
… Mc Connel & Kennedy … each … now occupies a mansion … Thus have industry & ingenuity in a few years raised them from common mechanics to a state of affluence.

By contrast, Robert also records numerous bankruptcies and failures.  Benjamin Potter, merchant, who died in 1810, had ‘retired from trade’, but ‘made this year some bad speculations in cotton and died insolvent’.  1816 is noted as ‘a year of ruin to hundreds’.

Removals from town

Business failures sometimes resulted in removal from the town, as speculators tried their luck elsewhere.  R. Wetherell, silk and cotton-manufacturer, ‘went to Liverpool’; John Parke, Africa-check-manufacturer, ‘to the Isle of Man’, and James Norman, merchant, ‘to Paris’.  Other reasons for removal include retirement, family connections – and crime. John Smith, calico-printer, ‘Having defrauded the Revenue, … fled to America in 1811 or 12.’  

Though most relocations were local, to nearby towns in Lancashire or Cheshire, others travelled further afield: from Penzance to Flintshire; to Europe, and beyond. Long-haul destinations include Brazil, Argentina and Jamaica.

Manchester Medical Men

Barnes Ralph, surgeon, 13, Shudehill
removed to Eccles and died in 1802. His widow became Matron of the Lying Hospital in 1805.

In addition to recording appointments, resignations and dismissals of his medical peers, Robert provides numerous insights into the private lives of Manchester’s surgeons, doctors, man-midwives and apothecaries.  We learn, for example, that his friend John Bill, M.D. became a wine merchant in 1802; that Thomas Tomlinson, surgeon and man-midwife, had a love-child with his housekeeper, and that Michael Ward, surgeon, was ‘the oldest practitioner in Manchester’ when he died in 1834, aged 72.  Of particular interest are Robert’s comments on character and ability:

Ferriar John, M.D. 4, Dawson-street
died suddenly of apoplexy Feby. 1815 aet. 52. He was a man of learning & a skilful Physician, but his temper was so unaccommodating – his Pride so great, & his manner to his medical brethren so disgusting that his practice had greatly diminished. – He is said to have been very intemperate of late.’

Family history

Family relationships are key to the family historian, and Robert’s annotations provide a wealth of incidental detail on marriages and offspring, before the years of civil registration and census returns.   References to children often include names, occupations and places of residence, plus details of marriages and deaths. Other relationships mentioned include siblings, in-laws, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, and cousins, providing valuable clues about extended family networks.

Marriage, widowhood and re-marriage all feature. For example, we learn the surnames of all three consecutive husbands of Mrs Hyde of Ardwick.  Separations and divorces are also noted, along with unusual alliances:

Bernhard Frederick, merchant and manufacturer, 8, St. Mary’s
Had foolishly married his Housekeeper who alienated him from his relatives & old friends.

Sutton Joseph, timber-merchant, 21, Shudehill
Married again when aet. 77 to a Miss M[atild]a Lowe of Stockport aet: about 20.

Some facts can be corrobated and/or expanded by contemporary sources, including parish registers, probate records and entries in newspapers and journals.  Miss Lowe, for example, was actually 28 when she became Mrs Sutton. Rather surprisingly, Joseph outlived his young bride. 

Other snippets of information capture individual details and events, which would otherwise remain unrecorded.  We discover, for example, that Thomas Fleming, archal-maker, and John Walker, drysalter, both ran close carriages; that George Smith, a commissioner of taxes, ‘went by appellations – Gentleman Smith & Walking Smith for he often walked 20 miles before dinner’, and that Ellen Mawson of Ardwick, was ‘a singular old lady who in her dress preserves the Costume worn sixty years ago’.

Manchester life

Robert’s focus on individuals also offers glimpses into Manchester’s religious, educational and cultural practices. William Hardman, drysalter, ‘‘a great lover of music’ is recognised as ‘one of the fathers of our concerts’, while Nathaniel Gould, merchant, is described as ‘an indefatigable Patron of the Sunday Schools’. In the ‘great character’ of Charles Lawson (1728-1807), headmaster of Manchester Grammar School from 1764 until his death, we are told, ‘the gentleman & the scholar were intimately united.’  Sadly, Robert did not recall all of his schoolmasters so fondly:

Derby Rev. John, M. A. second master of the Free-Grammar-school, 20, Long mill gate
His learning was not deep. His temper was fretful, and his partialities and prejudices were so evident as to disgust most of his scholars.

The third and final blog post in this series will focus on ill-health and causes of death.

Find out more:

Scholes, John, of Manchester, Scholes’s Manchester and Salford Directory (Manchester: Sowler and Russell, 1794) with annotations by Robert Wagstaffe Killer has been reproduced in full in the Library Digital Collections.

This is third and final post by Julie Ramwell introducing a unique 18th-century trade directory with annotations by a Manchester surgeon. The first post focussed on the life of the surgeon, Robert Wagstaffe Killer (1763-1841).  The second post explored the range of annotations that he made.  This post focusses on ill-health and causes of death.

Medical complaints

As a member of the medical profession, Robert Wagstaffe Killer had a particular interest in the health and well-being of Manchester’s residents. His annotations in Scholes’s 1794 Manchester directory frequently reference a wide range of medical conditions:

Thorp John, surgeon, 39, Cock-gates
He has suffered by Rheumatism many years, and was at times unable to walk upright

Wardle James, merchant, house, 5, Shepherd’s-court
Had a paralytic stroke in June 1810 which rendered him incapable of any exertion

Brigham William, surgeon and man midwife, 17, King-st
Suffer’d many years by asthma

Sadly, many conditions proved fatal.  Natural causes of death listed include: tuberculosis  (referred to as ‘consumption’ or ‘phthisis’); ‘hydrothorax’, which also affects the lungs; ‘angina pectoris’ (chest pain); ‘childbed’, and ‘constipation of the bowels’.   Mary Dawson ‘died of cancer in her Breast’, while the widow of James Hardman, gentleman, ‘suffered amputation of a breast 2 years ago and remained healthy for a year, but since she has undergone great suffering’.

Poverty versus excess

Manchester’s densely populated areas, incorporating cellar dwellings, filthy lodging houses and unventilated cotton mills, were a breeding ground for diseases such as typhus. Epidemic fevers swept through neighbourhoods, decimating families:

Fildes Thomas, grocer, 37, Bank-top
Died of a fever 1795 and his widow died of a fever Feby. 1796 leaving 6 little children

For those who escaped poverty, fine living could bring its own problems.  A diet rich in meat and alcohol could lead to a build-up of uric crystals in the joints, causing more than one Manchester resident to become ‘a Martyr to the Gout’.

Rasbotham Dorning, Fellow of the Collegiate Church, 3, Old Church-yard
Mr Rasbotham died July 18th 1804 – He was seized with the gout in his stomach, and died in a few hours. Few men have been afflicted more severely with this dreadful malady.

Excessive drinking seems to have been commonplace, particularly among the younger generation. The son of Thomas Hatfield had ‘drank many years abominably’, while John Dawson’s son is labelled ‘a wine bibber’. Robert also sees heavy drinking as a contributory factor in other conditions, including consumption and dropsy (oedema).

Rowbotham Ephraim, joiner and market-looker, 5 Apple-market
Died June 29th 1803 aet. 52 No man was more respected or regretted by his acquaintances … but drink he must have till he died dropsical.

A series of unfortunate events

Alcohol also played its part in accidental deaths. John Longworth, surgeon, who ‘drowned in the river Irwell’, ‘was in liquor, & missed his road at night’.  Robert Booth and Joseph Wrigley both lost their lives in the Rochdale Canal, while Philip Bousfield ‘drowned in a pit near his house’.

Travel could be hazardous, whether on foot or by horse. Robert records five deaths resulting from falls from horses, including that of the surgeon, Thomas Tomlinson who ‘got up, went home and visited a patient’ before dying ‘a few days’ later. Horse-drawn vehicles could be equally dangerous, to both occupants and pedestrians.

Parker Robert, manufacturer, house, 9, Brown-street
Heaton Norris. July 21st 1815. His horse ran away with the gig in Stockport and he was thrown from it with great velocity. His head falling on an iron bar was fractured, & he died in a quarter of an hour.

Fullerton, John, sadler, 20, Deansgate
ran over by Hackney coach at Brown St. end on the — of December 1833. Leg & arm broken. He died in three days aet: 69. He was deaf.

Other accidents involve: falling down steps; getting caught in machinery, and mishandling firearms. The moorland shoot of Richard Entwisle’s son ended prematurely when ‘whilst charging one barrel of his gun the other was discharged and blew his brains out1831’.  Equally unlucky was the son of Samuel Faulkner, linen-draper, who ‘was shot by his cousin, being behind a target at which they were shooting’. Perhaps most bizarre however, is the unfortunate death of Thomas Tipping:

Tipping, Thomas, and Co., manufacturers and calico-printers, 1, Tipping’s Court
Mr T. Tipping was stooping to tie up a carnation in his own garden after tea on the 14th of July 1815 – His foot slipped, he fell forward and his eye alighting on an old arrow, which was used for a prop to a flower, it pierced the eye and entered several inches into the brain. He died two hours after the incident. Aged 68.

Mental health and suicide

Robert records details of eight suicides, and one attempted suicide, all male. Business failures, debt and intemperance are mentioned, but suicide was normally attributed to insanity, to allow a Christian burial to take place.  

Bingham John, tallow-chandler, 7 Hanging-ditch
Mr Bingham had long experienced temporary alienations of mind, and under the influence of one of these dejections he cut his throat May 29 & died the 31st 1816

Personal connections

Does your family come from Manchester? Can you find your surname in Robert’s directory?  Connections with the past can be found where least expected.  On 28 July 1811, Robert Wagstaffe Killer assisted his former apprentice, William Goodlad, in an operation to remove a tumour from the right thigh of a 41 year-old baker.  The operation was a success.  The baker was my 4x great-grandfather.

Find out more:

Scholes, John, of Manchester, Scholes’s Manchester and Salford Directory (Manchester: Sowler and Russell, 1794) with annotations by Robert Wagstaffe Killer has been reproduced in full here.

The Reader Engagement Team feel immensely privileged to work in such a special environment, where we get to help readers every day and be surrounded by our wonderful special collections and colleagues.

When we found ourselves working from home as a front-line team, we did initially question how this was going to work. It quickly became clear that we could still offer a service to our readers whilst sat at our kitchen tables, on our sofas or in our gardens. We also saw it as an opportunity to be able to get more deeply involved with our collections. 

Here we will hear from members of the team with insights into how they have been working during lockdown.

Kate Miller:
I have been timing meetings and calls to fit in with my two young sons’ naps/ quiet time which has been tricky to say the least, but keeping in touch with the team has been a priority for me as we offer support to each other on a professional and personal level. We have started to think about what steps need to be taken when we do eventually reopen the Reading Room. When time allows I have been doing some work related training courses, including a fabulous one I did recently on the History of the Book. I have found that crafting has helped me wind down once work is done and the boys are in bed- weaving and cross stitch are my current favourites- also my garden has never looked better! I am very proud of the way the team have risen to the challenge of working from home.

Dominic Marsh:
I’ve been working with a number of our back office IT systems. The Library recently rolled out Office365 and Microsoft Teams to all staff and I’m part of a project to encourage staff to engage with and get the best out of these resources. I’ve also been preparing for an upgrade of our CRM system and most importantly working with our IT staff to allow readers to order Special Collections material via the Library catalogue. More on this when we re-open. I’m also hindering my children’s home education, making bookcases, playing music, and both causing, and participating in, arguments.

Catherine Smith:
While I’m working from home, I’m currently transcribing a handlist into a Word document. The handlist is The Goulden Collection, which is a collection of materials on clubs and activities for the deaf community in the 1960’s until the 1980’s. It covers many educational visits, unions, associations and their membership and activities which were available for young deaf adults. I’ve also just completed an online course on the History of the Railways and their workers, and I’ve just started  a course on Mindfulness. We are also all answering enquiries on CRM, so our readers are still connected to us.

As a team we use Microsoft Teams, and this has proved to be invaluable. We have a team meeting each week and our coordinators Dom Marsh and Kate Miller keep us informed of anything we need to know. They also keep our spirits up with fun questions about the collections and photos to identify and generally look after our wellbeing.

I’m doing lots of reading in my spare time as well as pottering about in the garden. I’ve been lucky to have a pair or robins nesting in my garden for the first time. It’s been great to watch them fly in and out of the nest as I do the washing up! I’m looking forward to being able to see my new granddaughter properly again but until then I’m grateful for technology which allows me to see her from a distance.

Angela Petyt-Whittaker:
Whilst working from home, the major project I am involved with is compiling the metadata for the painter Frank Salisbury’s ‘Autographs of my Sitters’ books (MA 2019/96), which have been digitised by the Library’s Imaging team. I am transcribing the contents of Volume 2 (my colleague Ian is working on Volume 1). This contains the signatures of the famous people Salisbury painted from 1933 -1960, including royalty, aristocracy, politicians, industrialists, theologians and actors. I have deciphered their autographs and am now in the process of researching and writing brief biographies of each person, which is proving to be fascinating. I’ve also been assisting the team in answering researchers’ enquiries on CRM as well as helping to schedule upcoming posts and monitor comments on the Special Collections blog. In addition, I’ve completed two online courses on Victorian Portrait Photography and the History of the Book – the knowledge I’ve gained will greatly assist me with my job at the Rylands. Away from work, I’ve been baking, decorating and tending my allotment!

Jass Thethi :
Covid-19 has been a difficult time for many, in different degrees and different ways, in order to counter act this I have been cultivating joy, personally and within the community, to counter act the worry and fear which engulfs the world at the moment.

The main way I have been achieving this is working to create a beautiful space in my Highfield Country Park, my local oasis away from the hustle and bustle of life. I walk my 1-year old dog, Sasha, in the park at least twice a day. When I found a volunteer scheme, called The Bee Sanctuary Movement, which works to re-wild the country park and create a space for enjoyment I was more than excited to join.

My main project included creating woodchip paths (also known as echo paths) and bramble bushes. On my days off work I would take Sasha and work moving logs and woodchip with a wheelbarrow (and the help of Sasha) to create spaces for people to walk. Once the lanes and bramble bushes were created, we began to sow wildflower seeds.

A week after jokingly calling the path Sasha and I created ‘Sasha’s Path’ I was told that all the new created paths would be named after all the volunteers’ dogs! Signs were hand painted and placed in the areas the dogs had helped create or enjoyed the most.

More about the Bee Sanctuary Movement can be found here: https://www.manchestercommunitycentral.org/contacts/view/241403

Ian Graham:
By a stroke of luck, the materials I am using for my current project were digitised mere hours before the lockdown began, enabling me to work from home with minimal disruption. The project itself is a lengthy, tricky and interesting one. Working together, Angela Petyt-Whittaker and I are cataloguing the Sitters Books of Frank Salisbury, an English artist primarily active in the first half of the twentieth century. Comprising two thick volumes, the Books contain the signatures of Salisbury’s subjects, a mixture of royalty, noteworthy public figures and largely unremembered businessmen, socialites and private individuals. Angela and I will publish a blog about the project in the near future; meanwhile, a digitised rendering of the Sitters Books can be found at https://luna.manchester.ac.uk/luna/servlet/view/search;JSESSIONID=6e494719-7d59-4663-935f-702663d581b3?search=SUBMIT&q=frank+salisbury&dateRangeStart=&dateRangeEnd=.

Although the Sitters Books are my main focus, I am also working through a fascinating History of the Book online course, as well an equally fascinating interactive palaeography course, the latter of which may have left me with a permanent squint from peering at impenetrable bygone handwriting styles.

Aside from work, my lockdown lifestyle is sensible. I take daily walks, keep to a routine and put on proper day clothes every morning. To my credit, I’ve so far avoided the madness of self-improvement; I have not learned to cook, mastered a language or taken up jogging.

Lorraine Coughlan:
I am currently doing some transcribing work for the Library, including a Henry Parkes letter and the text from the booklet detailing the Enriqueta Rylands exhibition held some years ago. Away from work, my knowledge of Manchester’s parks is increasing and I’m visiting some places I haven’t been to since my teenage years.

Bruce Wilkinson:
I’ve mainly been working on the Dave Cunliffe Archive, creating one large searchable spreadsheet of the material which has been box listed and I’ve produced a couple of blogs about my work with the Student Ephemera Collection.

I’m currently developing a Guide to Special Collections Template about material held in the Ernest Wilson Papers, a composer and musician of dance orchestra tunes originally from Salford, for the Literary and Performing Arts Archivist Jessica Smith and I’ll be developing a blog about him when that’s finished this week.

I’ve also been in discussions with Lianne Smith, the Christian Brethren Archivist, about using anti-apartheid and Black Power material from the Student Ephemera Collection to help her write something for Black History Month.

John McCrory:
On the day the Library’s closure was confirmed, and a spell of home-working inevitable, I was fortunate to bump into Jessica Smith, our Creative Arts Archivist, and offered a pile of interesting work (with the promise of more if necessary!). As such, I’ve been working on the collections of the architect Raymond Unwin, theologian and poet dom sylvester houédard, music critic Michael Kennedy, and the author Elfrida Vipont.

Our collections are listed in many forms, from full catalogues on ELGAR to an entry in the accession register, bound manuscript volumes to typescript box lists, and much variety in between. Amidst the gloom, the closure of the Reading Room at least offered an opportunity to work on these catalogues, ensuring our collections are better recorded for readers on our return.

Working on the Raymond Unwin Papers has been a particular pleasure. Unwin helped set the high minimum standards of social housing after the First World War, and more than anyone else determined the look and form of these estates. From my desk at home I have a panoramic view of one of those inter-war estates, and have had plenty of time to appreciate his legacy. 

The children’s writer Elfrida Vipont also wrote extensively on Quaker themes; while arranging a box list produced last summer by Nicole McNeill, I was intrigued by the title of a work Vipont wrote for a children’s broadcast on the BBC: ‘Doctor Dimsdale in Russia’. Dimsdale was a Quaker and personally summoned by Catherine the Great to vaccinate her and her son, Grand Duke Paul, against smallpox in the 1760s. He published a fascinating account of this experience, which has been digitised by the Wellcome Collection.   

It’s been difficult working without access to the collections, and one gains an even greater appreciation for the wealth of material we hold at the Library, along with our privileged access to it. However, the greatest loss has been the daily interaction with our readers, and the sense the collections are being explored, examined and enjoyed in the concentrated space that is our reading room. Of course, we hope for a safe return as soon as possible.

David Goulding:
I’ve been busy keeping in touch with the two teams I work with in my split role, taking part in wellbeing initiatives and helping colleagues with blog projects as well as undertaking online training. I am collating data to help make high-demand books available online and improving the accuracy of the ‘Locate a book’ system. Not forgetting the research enquiries, we answer as part of the normal workload. My elderly parents need more help with shopping trips and clinic visits, which has meant I have been able to enjoy their company regularly. I’m involved in various music projects, and with my partner have explored the hidden pockets of wildlife in our inner-city locale as well as caught up with cinema, theatre and friends online. All of which has helped me to successfully avoid doing battle with my hoarding tendencies and put off clearing out the spare room!

Throughout this period of unprecedented change, the Reader Engagement Team have endeavoured to provide an efficient enquiry service to researchers from across the world and will continue to do so whilst working from home. We have also been actively involved with assisting the Library on a wide range of cataloguing and transcription projects, particularly focussing on enabling access to more digitised Special Collections. Even though we are not together in person, the lockdown has brought us closer as a team, with video calls and collaborations enabling part-time staff to interact with colleagues they wouldn’t normally see. We all hope to be back in the Reading Room in the future and look forward to welcoming our readers once again.

There will also be further blog posts from the team with more in-depth information about the projects they are working on so watch this space!

Please visit the Manchester Digital Collections website to discover more.

The novelist and journalist Charles Dickens (1812-70) is most closely associated with London, the setting of most of his novels.  However, he often travelled north, for both business and pleasure.  Today, on the 150th anniversary of Dickens’s death, Special Collections Librarian, Julie Ramwell, looks at Dickens’s relationship with Manchester.

First impressions

Charles Dickens made his first visit to Manchester on 6 November 1838, as a young man of 26.  Like many visitors to this rapidly growing industrial town, Dickens was both ‘disgusted’ and ‘astonished’ by the grim conditions that he witnessed.  However, he returned to Manchester on numerous occasions, drawn by work, family and friends.

What the Dickens?

Ebenezer Scrooge; Miss Havisham; Oliver Twist.  These larger-than-life characters might never have existed, if Dickens had followed his first love – the stage.  Famously, Dickens may have become a professional actor, had not ‘a terrible bad cold’ prevented him from attending an audition at Covent Garden.   Instead, as his journalistic career took off, Dickens indulged his lifelong passion for the theatre through amateur productions, often for charitable causes.  The John Rylands Library holds two Manchester playbills featuring Dickens as actor and/or manager.

Every Man in His Humour

In July 1847, Dickens led a star-studded cast in a performance of Ben Jonson’s Every Man in His Humour.  The company included two of his brothers, and several close friends: John Forster (1812-76), Dickens’s literary advisor and chosen biographer; Douglas Jerrold (1803-57), the playwright and journalist; John Leech (1817-64), illustrator of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, and the Manchester-born artist, Frank Stone (1800-59).  The evening raised funds for Dickens’s impoverished friend, the poet Leigh Hunt (1784-1859).

The Frozen Deep

The death of his friend and fellow amateur actor, Douglas Jerrold in June 1857, prompted Dickens to host a further fundraiser, on behalf of Jerrold’s widow.  Wilkie Collins’s The Frozen Deep was performed at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall on 21, 22 and 24 August 1857.

This is one of a series of playbills produced for the occasion. Manchester Central Library holds a complementary playbill, including a cast list: https://twitter.com/MancLibraries/status/1262734793932001280?s=09. 

The play, which was adapted by and ‘performed under the management’ of Dickens, tells the story of John Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition in search of the Northwest Passage (1845), in which 129 men died.  Before coming to Manchester, the play was performed privately at Dickens’s home, Tavistock House, and then at the Gallery of Illustration in London, including a performance for Queen Victoria.  Dickens’s portrayal of Richard Wardour often moved the audience to tears. 

Dickens’s daughters acted alongside him in semi-public performances, but were replaced by professional actresses in Manchester, due to the size of the venue.  Dickens’s secret affair with 18-year-old cast member, Ellen (Nelly) Ternan (1839-1914) led ultimately to the breakdown of his 22-year marriage.

Social conscience

Dickens was a champion of education and self-improvement.  In 1843, at a fundraiser for the Manchester Athenaeum, he applauded the lectures, library and classes that, for sixpence a week, were ‘accessible to every bee in this vast hive.’  The worker bee has been a symbol of industry in Manchester since the Industrial Revolution.  The celebrity author also raised funds by signing autographs at a sovereign a time.

In 1852, despite a hectic schedule, Dickens made time to speak at the opening of the Manchester Free Library in Camp Field. He hoped that the free lending library would be ‘a source of pleasure and improvement in the cottages, the garrets, and the cellars of the poorest of our people’.  In fact, the venue proved so popular in its first week that a police officer was assigned to control the crowds around the borrowing desk.

Manchester in print

When visiting Manchester, Dickens might call on his sister Fanny (1810-48), who lived with her husband and fellow musician, Henry Burnett in Ardwick.  Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in just six weeks, following initial inspiration during a trip to Manchester in 1843.  Scrooge’s sister, Little Fan, is Fanny’s namesake, and some scholars suggest that Fanny’s son, Henry Burnett Jr (1839-49), who was disabled from birth, was the inspiration for Tiny Tim.

Dickens’s trips to Manchester and other northern towns also inspired his tenth novel Hard Times (1854), which was serialised in Dickens’s weekly magazine Household Words. Set in the grim industrial mill-town of Coketown, the novel captures the rigours of urban working-class life.

Elizabeth Gaskell

Transcription:
Tavistock House
(Silver Street, Golden Square, California)
Twenty Fifth February 1852
My Dear Mrs Gaskell. A hasty note, after
writing my head nearly off. Thomas
Wright shall be heartily championed,
and with all possible speed. By a
curious coincidence I had sent, the
day before I received your letter, my small
help to his subscription. O what a lazy
woman you are, and where IS that article!
Ever Faithfully Yours
CD.

The Manchester-based writer Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-65) was a frequent contributor to Household Words.  She and Dickens had a difficult working relationship, heightened by her failure to meet deadlines.  In this short letter, Dickens discusses the Manchester prison philanthropist, Thomas Wright (1789-1875).  A public subscription, publicised in Household Words, raised a pension for Wright, allowing him to concentrate full-time on his good works.

Public readings

Dickens also visited Manchester on his reading tours, when he gave animated public performances of his own works, including A Christmas Carol.  According to the Manchester Courier, ‘Manchester heard the great novelist for the last time’ on 22 March 1869 when ‘he read – or rather acted – “Sykes and Nancy”’ at the Free Trade Hall.  His ‘almost painfully dramatic’ performance generated a ‘torrent of applause’.  Sadly, the tours took their toll on Dickens’s health.  Charles Dickens died, from a stroke, on 9 June 1870, aged 58.

Find out more:

31 letters written by Charles Dickens to Elizabeth Gaskell, accessible online via the Library Digital Collections.  See also: https://rylandscollections.com/2019/06/12/digitisation-of-letters-by-charles-dickens-in-the-elizabeth-gaskell-collection/

Though many of us may feel a bit reticent about closely examining the subtleties of our own urine, we are all familiar with how this dynamic liquid can be an indication of our wider health. Whether it’s pregnancy, medical tests or simply a sign of dehydration, urine is still essential for understanding the body in health and disease.

As an unstable liquid that can be easily physically and chemically examined, urine has been central to the diagnosis of disease for thousands of years. Whilst we might be surprised to hear a healthcare professional today declaring our urine “pale as the reduced juice of meat”, or (more alarmingly) “deep blue as of very dark wine”, we still expect them to make observations about our bodily functions that are often dependent on sight, sound and touch. Perhaps they are not consulting urine wheels, or holding a matula (a glass flask designed for examining urine) up to the window for a closer look, but they may be drawing conclusions using the colour chart of a Dipstick urine test.

In February, the Historic Reading Room of the John Rylands Library featured a pop-up collection encounter displaying an eclectic selection of items from our special collections and some fascinating objects from the Museum of Medicine and Health (MMH). From 16th-century books and manuscripts to an early 20th-century urine sugar testing kit, we had some great discussions with visitors about how urine diagnosis has changed over time. Some highlights are showcased below for your virtual enjoyment!

With thanks Caroline Hall, a wonderful co-presenter, and Steph Seville for kindly lending a number of objects from MMH for the day. Find out more about the Wellcome-funded project that facilitated this event here. Caroline has posted about the event from a Visitor Engagement perspective on the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health’s Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) blog here.

In collaboration with the Centre for New Writing and the Creative Manchester project, for the last month or so I have been working on a podcast series called the Rylands Brief. The podcast showcases the poets and poems in the Carcanet Press exhibition, which was due to open in March 2020. The week that the exhibition was installed, the Rylands closed owing to the ongoing pandemic, and the exhibition remains as yet unvisited.

The first episode is a conversation with Carcanet Managing Editor Michael Schmidt, where he pays tribute to the life and work for poet Eavan Boland, who sadly passed away earlier this year. Listen to episode 1 here.

In the second, I talk to Stella Halkyard, one of my predecessors as Carcanet archivist, and longtime contributor to Carcanet’s poetry journal, PN Review. Stella met several of the poets featured in the exhibition and tells wonderful stories about Les Murray and Christine Brooke-Rose. Listen to episode 2 here.

All feedback is welcomed, I am new to the world of podcasts, but I hope to improve as the series progresses!

This is the second blog in our series on Manchester’s Wood Street Mission by Max Maxfield, History MA student at the University of Manchester.  In this blog Max looks at how the Mission partly funded its work in the 1880s by publishing sentimental accounts of children living in the slums of Manchester and Salford 

Methodist Minister and founder of the Wood Street Mission, Alfred Alsop (1844-1892)

In the early days of its history, the Wood Street Mission was mostly dependent upon the financial support of the Manchester business community. Alfred Alsop found benefactors by networking with local retailers, merchants, and other prominent business people, however these were not the only means through which the Mission generated income in the late nineteenth century. Alsop (and other leading figures who were associated with the charity) recognised the need to acquire the support of the wider general public, a task which would require the Mission to develop public relations strategies and to promote the charity’s cause.

Illustration From Dark to Light: or, Voices from the Slums by a Delver [A Alsop], 1881

      One of the most effective ways in which senior Wood Street Mission figures carried out this task was through the print medium and the utilisation of the emerging media landscape. For example, between 1879 and 1885, Alsop wrote and published a series of philanthropic novels (some of which he wrote under the pseudonym ‘A. Delver’) that directly helped the Mission by generating income through sales. However the primary purpose of these novels was to attract new support for the charity. Consisting of a mixture of fictitious waif stories and accounts of real-life experiences of poverty, Alsop’s novels helped to raise awareness of the dire living conditions of the working class in nineteenth-century Britain. By making the public engage with these stories, it was hoped that readers would shatter their ‘ignorance of life below the surface’, realise the need to address the injustice of poverty, and offer their financial support to the Wood Street Mission.

All of these publications were written in the melodrama genre in order to depict poverty in a manner that would resonate with the public and stir them into action. Melodrama was the dominant theatrical form in late-nineteenth-century Britain and pervaded the popular literature of the period, including philanthropic literature. The defining feature of melodramatic philanthropic writings was stark contrasts between dark and light forces, and Alsop’s novels were no exception.

Children lined up outside Wood Street Mission. University of Manchester Library. Ref. WSM 15/1/1

Alsop uses many chapters to explain how working-class adults succumbed to these evils and how their situations could be alleviated, however it is undeniable that children were the true victim of these texts. Working-class children are presented as beacons of innocence that have been tragically corrupted by the neglect of their parents. Alsop despairs at the prospects of working-class children growing up in these conditions and asserts that suffering would pass down through generations without outside intervention. Children living in such places of immorality were destined to ‘grow up to be drunkards and gaol birds’ like their parents, or suffer even worse fates. Indeed, these novels contain many accounts of tragic events involving children who received no philanthropic help and suffered at the hands of their carers.

Alsop included such tragic stories in his novels in order to emphasise the depth of injustice within British society and the need for the middle and upper classes to take appropriate action. The heroic philanthropist was to intervene in the lives of the working class and halt the passing of degeneracy from generation to generation. The Mission would offer a platform for individuals to pursue their own self-development, rise out of the world of poverty, and become ‘acceptable’, prosperous British citizens.

Title page: From Dark to Light: or, Voices from the Slums by a Delver [A Alsop], 1881

Thus, whilst Alsop’s novels enable us to understand ways in which the Mission engaged with the public in its early years, these texts also offer an opportunity to learn more about Alsop’s perception of poverty and what his beliefs were regarding the most effective means of ‘rescuing’ the working class. These novels therefore are valuable historical sources that reveal a huge amount of information regarding the views of the founder of the Mission, and thankfully two of these sources are available in the John Rylands Library! (Below the Surface, 1885, and From Dark to Light, 1881). We highly recommend having a look at these texts if you are interested in learning more about poverty in late-nineteenth-century Manchester and the early values of the Wood Street Mission.

You can find out more about the archives of The Wood Street Mission here and also consult a detailed catalogue. 

Hannah Smith, a student from the Liverpool University Centre for Archive Studies, writes about her cataloguing placement at the John Rylands Library earlier this year.

What and Who?

A long time ago, in a time that seems far, far away, but was only January 2020, I was a postgraduate student on a placement with the Special Collections at the John Rylands Library.

I’m a University of Liverpool student on the Masters of Archives and Records Management postgraduate course, or to quote the head of the John Rylands Special Collections, part of the “Liverpool Massive”.

I have worked in business archives and records management, so I hoped for experience within an established and respected institution such as a local authority or an educational environment. I was fortunate to be placed at the John Rylands. As a very excited Mancunian, I was familiar with the neogothic building on Deansgate and was excited to get two weeks behind the scenes and have a nosy at collections, but also get a chance to see how the archive works in comparison to the other organisations where I had previously worked.

For anyone reading this who may not know, there is a lot of confusion in public understanding of the difference between archivists and librarians because superficially there are some overlaps in the separate roles.

The way I explain it to those who do not know the difference is that we as archivists and records managers are information professionals who deal with primary sources that are not necessarily published as secondary sources. We can deal with original records which may range from papyrus, to born digital records. When I say ‘deal’, this can involve the life-cycle of the item and when I say item/record that too could be anything. Very simply put, archivists: collect, appraise (which is to determine whether an item is institutionally relevant and historically pertinent), and catalogue the items for future users to find and access easily. We then take care of the collection.

Upon my arrival, I was warmly welcomed by EVERY member of staff and made to feel welcome within the department.  I was shown around behind the scenes. The building continues to be aesthetically pleasing throughout.

I was given the task of sorting a collection of personal papers by artist, art critic, historian and lecturer R. H. Wilenski lands has the collection as Wilenski was a lecturer at the University of Manchester in the 1940s. Fortunately, the collection had already been box listed. What archivists mean by ‘box list’ is that the archive has not been appraised but the items have been briefly but broadly arranged and described.

I was not familiar with the subject areas therein of sculpture, painting, art history, or art criticism. I had just two weeks to work on the project, and I wanted to get as much done as I could! I had to get to know the collection before I could even start cataloguing it. This was the first time I had led the arrangement and cataloguing of a real-world collection: no pressure! I managed to organise the collection in a way that I hope was thematically and organisationally accessible for future researchers. In an ideal world I would have had time to organise every single document within the collection, but this would not have been feasible, even in a more generous time-frame.  A project archivist does not necessarily have to be familiar with the area, but they must be able to recognise themes and subjects in order to categorise them for users.  Not only did I have to familiarise myself with the collection in order to arrange it, but I had to describe it accurately and consistently across many different topics. And I had to master EAD XML computer coding. Thankfully I had great guidance.

Now for the exciting bit…

Within the collection there was some excellent early twentieth-century modern art history material. For me, some notable items in the collection were letters to Wilenski from many notable artists in the modern art movement (and in some cases friends of Wilenski) such as Jacob Epstein, Eric Kennington, Patrick Heron and Stanley Spencer, amongst many others. One of my particular favourites was finding personal correspondence from the composer George Gershwin!

Wilenski was an expert on the artist and critic John Ruskin and published books on him, and on topics such as modern sculpture and Flemish painters and there are drafts and proof copies of these books present within the collection. There are cuttings from Wilenski’s Evening Standard and Guardian critiques of exhibitions relating to modern art. The collection captures much of the early movement within modern art, and reveals not only Wilenski’s opinions but also public perceptions of the work of modern artists such as Jacob Epstein and the memorial to TUC members lost in war (people hated it).

Overall, it was an honour to be able to work on such a notable and satisfying collection. It clarified how important primary sources – special collections and archives – are for illuminating lost narratives from such a remarkable area as the growth of the modern art movement and its contemporaneous society within the early twentieth century.

P.S. I got to see the Gutenberg Bible.

Through our social media channels, this week we are featuring images from our medieval European collections. Visitor Engagement Assistant Lee Brooks, who is also working towards a PhD in History at the University of Manchester, explains what some of these documents are. Lee’s PhD encompasses medieval secular and ecclesiastical politics, including clashes between Church and state in England in the period 1066-1200.

The John Rylands Library is incredibly fortunate to hold a wide variety of medieval treasures. The collection includes works of literature, religious texts, legal documents, and administrative records to name just a few. In this blog, I explain what certain types of medieval documents are. It is certainly not a complete list. If you are interested in seeing more, you can do so via LUNA and the Manchester Digital Collections sites.

This blog focuses on documents from Europe, however the study of history for this period should by no means be limited to medieval Christendom. The John Rylands Library contains works from all over the world, including items seen in the recent Seeing the Invisible exhibition, which featured medieval Syriac and Arabic manuscript collections. Do keep an eye on the Special Collections blog which explores a wide range of our collection in more detail.

Missal

In medieval Europe, the production of manuscripts was dominated by monasteries and churches, so many of the texts that survive to us today are religious texts. A missal is an instruction book on how to say the mass, and in the medieval period we often see them decorated with illuminated letters and images.

This example of a missal from our collection was produced in Salisbury in the thirteenth century, and you might recognise the elaborately decorated scene as a depiction of the Nativity, featuring the infant Christ and the Virgin Mary in the centre. Of course, we can’t forget the stars of many a Nativity play – the hungry animals at the bottom, not all too fussed with the coming of Christ!

Indulgence

Were you heading for heaven or hell? Either way, after death you may have had to wait in purgatory first. Purgatory was believed to be the place between heaven and hell, where you would await your final judgement. The concept of purgatory gained traction in the Middle Ages, and this eventually led to the granting of indulgences. To reduce your time in purgatory and increase your chances of spending eternal life in heaven, you could receive an indulgence, granted by the Church. Indulgences didn’t come cheap; you would have to earn it by your actions. This could have been through pious deeds or by making a donation to the Church. By the late Middle Ages the concept led to a lucrative system of selling indulgences, where you could buy your way out of your sins. This system became even more widespread after Johannes Gutenberg introduced the printing press with movable type to Western Europe in the 1450s, which allowed for the production of indulgences on a much larger scale.

The John Rylands Library holds one of the first such indulgences, which is an early example of printing. This particular indulgence was issued by the archdiocese of Cologne, which was granted in return to support a military campaign against the Turks, dated 27^th February 1455. As the fifteenth century progressed indulgences were being sold all across Europe, covering all manner of sins. By the sixteenth century the concept of selling indulgences came under increasing attacks from those looking for change in the Catholic Church, such as Martin Luther, who believed the selling of indulgences was being abused.

Book of Hours

In Christian monastic practice, the day is broken up into a routine of eight different times, known as canonical hours. At each time, a set of prayers and psalms are recited. In the medieval period, lay people (people who were not part of the church clergy) wanted to integrate part of this monastic practice into their own daily lives, and so it became popular to own a personal book of hours which would contain prayers and psalms, ready to recite at the appropriate time. They became fashionable and wealthy benefactors could have their books elaborately decorated.

Books of hours have survived more than any other medieval illuminated manuscript, and the Rylands collection features a variety of examples, from those containing just the basic text, to stunningly beautiful works featuring manuscript illumination alongside the text itself. This example, produced in the late fifteenth century, was owned by Mary, Queen of Scots, and the image on this page features St Margaret rising from the back of a monster.

Charters

A charter is a document that records a grant or transaction, and in the medieval period, this could have been issued to record different things, including grants of property, rights or money. Charters could have been issued by those at the very top of medieval society such as monarchs and popes and as the medieval period developed, private charters became more common. They were often written in Latin and can be a really useful source of information for historians, as many contain details of dates, places and individuals. Perhaps one of the most famous examples of a medieval charter is Magna Carta (Latin for ‘Great Charter’), which was an agreement of rights between King John and his barons in 1215.

The Rylands holds many charters from different levels of society, including this charter dated c.1130-1140, detailing a transaction from the Earl of Chester to Alan Silvester. A seal could be added to mark a document’s authenticity, but in many cases they haven’t survived. In this instance you can make out the Earl of Chester himself riding on horseback.

Chronicles

A chronicle is a document that records historical events, often laid out chronologically. They weren’t just from Europe or the medieval period, with historical chronicles occurring all over the world. In terms of medieval Europe, many still survive to this day. The most notable in England is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, begun during the reign of Alfred the Great and extending up to 1154, covering major events including, for example, the battle of Hastings in 1066.

Some chronicles would borrow from others and could blur the lines between mythology, literature and history. An example of this held at the Rylands comes from the Marlborough Brut Chronicle, produced in the fifteenth century, which is composed in Middle English. This passage details the slaying of a giant named Gogmagog, who terrorised Britain along with many other giants, before the founding of London, described here as New Troy. Later in the work, the chronicle records contemporary events that can be corroborated.

Hagiography

A hagiography is a biography of a Christian saint, including details of their pious actions and miracles. These works were popular in medieval Europe, and could be used to promote a cult around a particular saint. Saints’ cults could often be quite lucrative for a local area or church, as people would visit the shrine or relics of a saint as part of a pilgrimage. Hagiographies were used to help promote a cult, so therefore they did not convey negative information about a holy person, and can contain exaggerated ideals and actions.

This example, from a thirteenth or fourteenth century manuscript of a work originally written in c.1180, is from the Life of St Edmund. St Edmund was King of the East Angles who was killed by Danes in the ninth century, and in the accompanying image, St Edmund appears as a vision in a dream.

Beatus

A work known as a Beatus is a commentary on the apocalypse, often decorated with images depicting scenes from the Book of Revelations in the Bible. This type of work takes its name from a Spanish monk called Beatus of Liébana, who first created his commentary in the eighth century. The image depicted here is from what is known as the ‘Rylands Beatus’, created in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, also in Spain. In this particular image, a demon is confined to a cage which is being controlled by an angel. There was some incredible imagery produced throughout this work, and you can access it at the Manchester Digital Collections resource here, including being able to search through different pages depicting scenes from the apocalypse.

Photographed by Arthur Reavil.

Arthur Reavil’s photographic Album of Women’s Work in Wartime held at The John Rylands Library provides a fascinating insight into the working lives of women during the First World War (1914-1919). There is little written about Reavil but his photographs depict a time in history when servicemen were away at war and women were called upon to help on the Homefront. 

The women photographed by Reavil were keyworkers during this period. They repaired roads, drove buses, nursed the sick, worked in large factories, maintained roads and tram lines and worked on the land in a variety of roles. Reavil photographs women in both urban and rural settings. The settings are crucial and add a sense of drama and context to the photographs, they also remind me of film stills taken from old movies, capturing a moment in time. 

Nostalgia and memories are held in Reavil’s photographic album. Photographs were and still placed in albums for safe keeping and viewed page by page through thin sheets of clear plastic.  Now many of us carry and view photographs from hand held devices or computer screens.

When opened an extensive hand typed index methodically details the albums contents.  Each photograph has an individual reference number and this provides coherence to the arrangement of the album.  Some effort and patience is required to find the specifics of individual photographs but well worth the effort.

Reavil was a mysterious figure and mainly interested in photographing locomotives and train engines in numerous railway stations across the country, as a consequence in 1926 Reavil was invited to deliver a lecture on “The Photography of Locomotives and Trains in Motion” attending The Royal Photographic Society. It is of no surprise that a proportion of the album is dedicated to women working on the Railway as ticket collectors, porters, railway guards, signal lamp cleaners and Royal Mail workers,

Reavil photographs women at their place of work and they deliver a visual record of women employed in a variety of jobs usually associated with men during this period. Other images depict women fulfilling roles such as window cleaners, painters, mechanics and police women. The photographs provide a fascinating insight into the uniforms and clothes worn by women during this period.  Put together with a variety of hats and gloves the clothes illustrate a specific role and act as a visual reference.  The photographs not only reveal the working lives of women during Wartime but they also offer a record of how women dressed for work depending on the nature of their employment.

The photograph “Bus Conductresses” Reavil captures a female proudly standing at the rear of a bus ready for a day’s shift.  A shoulder bag, money bag, and a ticket machine are worn in a muddle across the smart uniform of the conductress, along with a large badge depicting the number 1095, no name given just a number. Public transport was pivotal and enabled the safe transportation of people to and from their place of work; transport was a key aspect of supporting the economy during the Great War.

Bus Conductress

Reavil has positioned the Bus Conductresses to stand next to banners and a variety adverts. The camera captures an advert glued onto the window for a brand of Margarine and “Phosferine” (a tonic that promises relief from indigestion, maternity weakness, sciatica, neuralgia, loss of appetite, exhaustion, hysteria, rheumatism, decay, neuritis, headache, influenza, nervous debility)

Safety messages are also displayed on the bus reminding people to “Cross Near a Lamp” and asking “Is It Safe” Public messages displayed to warn the masses of danger and ask people to stay alert. Today we see warnings regarding COVID 19 asking us to Stay Safe and Alert!  

A selection of the images are from rural settings and interestingly portray The Women’s Land Army.  Reavil’s camera captures women working on farms hay baling, feeding calves, milking, picking crops and working as foresters; using heavyweight equipment. They are photographed wearing heavy boots and unflattering trousers covered by oversized aprons worn to fulfil the roles that men would usual do.  

Tram Repairers

In more urban surroundings Reavil’s photographs depict women driving a variety of vehicles; mechanical and horse drawn. Some are repairing roads using oversized pick-axes, observed by curious onlookers. Other photographs show women with their hair tied in headscarves or hairnets to keep safe from dangerous looking machinery. Munitions factory workers are pictured gauging fuses in neat rows while other women are photographed next to heavy machinery working as drilling operators and welders.

Many of these opportunities were closed to women after the war as servicemen returned to their jobs.

In the first of two blog posts, Reader Services Assistants Ian Graham and Angela Petyt-Whittaker discuss their joint project to catalogue two unique and historically important autograph books…

The Methodist collections of the John Rylands Library includes a large archive of personal papers created by the artist Francis “Frank” Owen Salisbury (1874-1962).

Born into a large family in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, Salisbury initially trained as a stained-glass painter. Winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy Schools enabled his artistic talent to flourish. He subsequently became one of the best-known portrait painters of his generation. His subjects included heads of state, kings and queens, generals, industrialists and actors from both sides of the Atlantic. Salisbury’s portfolio also contained depictions of state occasions and he became regarded as Britain’s unofficial Artist Laureate.

The main collection comprises correspondence, drawings and watercolours, but a significant addition arrived in November 2019, generously donated by Salisbury’s grandson.

The new deposit consists of two beautifully bound volumes containing the signatures of people who sat for Salisbury’s portraits and official commissions between 1904 and 1960. This is without doubt the finest single autograph collection in The John Rylands Library, containing the signatures of hundreds of prominent men and women, including some who changed the course of 20^th century history.

The signatories include the British Royal Family and their official households. Salisbury’s artwork included ceremonial and commemorative events, such as The Heart of Empire – the Jubilee Thanksgiving … (1935) and The Coronation of … King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (1937). The people depicted in the paintings subsequently signed the Sitters Books annotated with the date and the occasion.

Salisbury’s art commemorated the two World Wars, including evocative paintings such as The Burial of the Unknown Warrior (1920) and The Briefing of the Bomber Crews (1941). He depicted Winston Churchill more than any other artist, including two iconic images of the war leader, The Siren Suit and Blood, Sweat and Tears (1942).

A devout Methodist, Salisbury painted many religious leaders, both contemporary and historic, including John Wesley and Pope Pius XII.

At present, we are preparing metadata to accompany an online version of the Sitters Books which have been digitised by the Library’s Imaging team and are available to view in their entirety. Given the size of the books and the sheer number of signatures (Salisbury famously worked quickly, a talent honed by painting his twin daughters each day for the first year of their lives) this is a lengthy, tricky and interesting undertaking.

The first step is to identify each sitter by his or her signature, which is usually accompanied by a date. Often, this is easy enough; the signatures are clear, even elegant. Other times, however, they require some deciphering. Now and again, a signature remains impenetrable no matter how hard you squint. This is where a second pair of eyes comes in useful to double-check.

As we transcribe, turning each page of the Sitters Books reveals a new surprise – there is a real thrill at seeing the handwriting of a famous historical figure leap out from the paper. The volumes are a real ‘who’s-who’ of 20^th century establishment, high society and big business. Many of the most famous people of the time are represented, including Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Field Marshall Montgomery, King Edward VIII, King George VI, Queen Elizabeth II, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, David Lloyd George, Pope Pius XII, Benito Mussolini, Clement Atlee, John D. Rockefeller Jr, Marjorie Merriweather Post, John P. Morgan, Maria Montessori, Billy Graham and Evangeline Booth. Some autographs are instantly recognisable – in the case of Will Keith Kellogg, his signature is still replicated on the boxes of the breakfast cereal company he founded.

Frank Salisbury took his Sitters Books all around Great Britain, Europe and the United States adding signatures of his illustrious subjects. It is an honour to be able to unlock their contents. This project is all-consuming and has certainly honed our skills in palaeography and detective work.                    

In the second part of this blog, we will explore the fascinating task of researching biographies of the sitters and some of the stories we have uncovered.

Images reproduced with the permission of The John Rylands University Librarian and Director of the University of Manchester Library and The Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes (The Methodist Church in Britain).

Animal skins have been written and drawn on since the Ancient World, and methods to prepare them refined.  Parchment and its highest quality form, vellum, are the culmination of that development.   Skins are soaked in an alkaline solution for over a week and scraped clean of hair, fat and viscera: essentially leaving a mesh of pure collagen fibres. This is stretched out and left to dry under tension, then scraped again to an even and desired thickness.

Parchment has seen various uses throughout the world, as drum-skins, shields, window panes and for interior decoration, for example as lamp-shades and wall panels, favoured for its durability and soft, subtle tones.  However, it is in manuscript culture that parchment and vellum endures most significantly.  Beginning in the form of scrolls, the use of parchment evolved hand-in-hand with the creation of book structures and their development. As well as being the written page, parchment saw use as the material for sewing, sewing support and covering.

From the 15th Century, printing decreased book production costs and rapidly spread the use of paper as the written page. However, parchment and vellum still held authority as the writing material of longevity and refinement; legal documents, government records and diplomas continue to use the material.  For high end calligraphy, vellum is refined further by polishing the surface perfectly smooth.

The library holds examples of parchment and vellum manuscript pages that were recycled to cover later books, including Indulgences printed by Gutenberg that were once used as pastedowns.

The drawback to parchment is its sensitivity to humidity.  The addition of moisture undermines its tensioned structure, by loosening and untwisting the collagen fibres until they turn into gelatine.  This process of gelatinisation cumulatively and irrevocably weakens the parchment.

Further detail on the process of parchment production can be found in this blog post.

Leather is the preserved hide or skin of an animal. Any skin can be made into leather and species as diverse as deer, shark, dog and kangaroo have been used. It is a ubiquitous material found across the world and throughout history. Some of leather’s earliest uses were for shelter, footwear and carrying water.  

Library collections are full of leather, as a covering for books. Leather is ideal for this purpose because it is 100% collagen and its fibrous structure means it is durable, strong and flexible.  Leather is also a luxurious material, which is tactile to hold. Goat and cattle skins are popular leathers for book covering as they display these characteristics well.  

Skin in its raw form would quickly putrefy and decay. To stop this happening, methods of altering the physical nature of the skin were employed. These ranged from tanning or tawing, to simply drying and using the skin as raw hide. 

The earliest leathers were prepared using smoke, which is a mild tanning agent. Another known method was to rub the brain of a dead animal, which is full of oils and enzymes, over the surface of the hide to make it supple and durable. Vegetable tannage is another method; oak bark is traditionally used for this, with hides being soaked in a pit containing an oak bark solution for a year.  

Tawing is another method of preserving a skin. Traditionally alum is used, resulting in a white skin which is sometimes used for the structural elements of a book’s binding such as sewing supports and closures. 

Leather covered books are decorated in a numbers of ways. They can be embossed and lettered using heated metal hand tools: this is called tooling. Acid can also be used to decorative effect; and leather-working techniques can be employed to create both decorative and functional features such as ties, end–bands and in-lays. 

When books are digitised by the library’s imaging team the bindings and the content are photographed. Follow this link to explore the Manchester Digital Collections. https://www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/ 

Wood has been used throughout history by human civilization, in such forms as fuel, shelter, transport, tools and decoration. It is renewable and versatile; strong but easily shaped by basic tools, allowing for the creation of practical and beautiful things.

Wood in primarily made up of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, in a rough 2:1:1 ratio (dry weight), varying by wood type. Cellulose forms the main structure, with hemicellulose binding and filling gaps and lignin providing stiffness and halting rot.

Boards for books can be made from wood and either covered in leather, alum-tawed skin, parchment or textiles. In some historic styles and designer bindings the wood is left whole or partly un-covered, polished and shaped to highlight the grain and natural beauty of the wood.

Wood provides stability to the book by supporting the binding, if suitably attached.  The weight keeps the pages flat and compressed, which is important for books written on materials that want to move and distort like parchment.  The quintessential hardback.

All manner of wood varieties have been used in bindings, including: oak, birch, poplar, pine, walnut, cedar, olive and fruitwoods.  Like many materials, availability tends to dictate choice unless a specific property is required.  Importantly, it is the way boards are cut that maximises their stability.

Quartered boards, either split or sawn, are cut radially from a log.  The growth rings of the tree are therefore perpendicular to the face of the boards and less liable to warp.  Depending on the thickness of the boards and size of the log, the width of boards is varied to make the most economic division of the wood.

Quarter-sawn Oak boards were used in the recent rebinding of Latin MS 164, a Book of Hours.

Explore our digital collections, especially the Latin Manuscripts, for more examples and glimpses of wood used in books https://www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/

Papyrus was made as far back as the fourth millennium BCE, using the pith of the plant, Cyperus Papyrus. Due to the plant’s abundance across the Nile Delta, it was the principal writing material in ancient Egypt.

The green outer rind was removed, and the stems cut into longitudinal strips and soaked in water. These were arranged in parallel rows with edges overlapping. Then a second layer was laid over this, perpendicular to the first. The layers were either pressed or beaten together, then dried, resulting in a laminated sheet. The adhesion of the strips is facilitated by the plant’s sap, and the application of pressure which fuses the cellulose in each layer together.

Traditionally, multiple sheets of papyrus were joined to form scrolls using a starch-based paste. The papyrus surface was prepared for writing using a coating made of egg, gum, and milk.

When parchment was introduced, in the first centuries BCE and CE, folding sheets to form book sections was also quickly adopted for papyrus. It became common to cut sheets from papyrus rolls to form codices.

Papyrus was used for a variety of documents: administrative records, letters as well as didactic, literary, and medical texts.

The Rylands Papyri collection held by the John Rylands University Library, is one of the most extensive and wide-ranging papyrus manuscript collections in the United Kingdom.

The Library’s most famous artefact: Greek P 457, also known as the St John’s fragment, is the earliest known fragment of the New Testament.

The fragment is from a papyrus codex. It is very small but contains the beginning of seven lines from John 18:31-33 on one side and the end of seven lines from John 18:37-38 on the other.

To learn more about this unique artefact and read about the use of Multispectral Imaging software on the fragment follow these links:

https://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/search-resources/special-collections/guide-to-special-collections/st-john-fragment/

https://rylandscollections.com/2020/04/30/imaging-takes-an-isolated-view-part-1-hidden-treasures-or-unknown-pleasures/

To visualize images of the codex Greek Papyrus 28 and explore its content:

https://luna.manchester.ac.uk/luna/servlet/view/search?search=SUBMIT&q=Peri+palmon+mantike&dateRangeStart=&dateRangeEnd=&QuickSearchA=QuickSearchA

https://facesandvoices.wordpress.com/2013/11/30/if-your-anus-twitches-then-troubles-will-follow-human-bodies-divination-and-papyrology/

Paper was made in China as early as 200BC.  The craft was passed along the Silk Road, through the Middle East and Europe, with paper mills appearing in Britain by the 15^th century. Paper has had many uses, especially before plastic was invented and when glass was rare: such as for wrapping goods; for lanterns, and kites. Crucially, it is also the perfect material for writing, printing and making books.

Paper making is a highly skilled process, with the methods of production varying according to the style of paper and the traditions of the region. Paper is made by pulping plant material into fibres in water, then straining the mixture through a large mesh. Once dry, the resulting sheet of fibres is a flexible material strong enough to be repeatedly handled.

Many plant materials can be used, including wood, cotton and flax. Amongst other substances, these all contain cellulose. Cellulose is a long molecule made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen that gives plant cells their structure. The length of cellulose molecules makes paper strong and flexible. The closer to 100% cellulose content; the better the paper. High cellulose content paper can be folded and unfolded countless times along the same line, which is necessary to make a functioning book.

Paper is highly absorbent, allowing ink and pigments to enter and mingle with the fibres. This means the writing or drawing is less disturbed by handling than it would be on an unabsorbant surface like parchment. However, this quality can result in ink spreading too much, therefore a ‘size’ is required. This is a dilute adhesive, either added in the pulping stage or brushed over the finished sheet. The end result is paper that has a good level of absorbency.

The thickness, texture and absorbency of the paper can be adapted according to taste and use by the maker. It can even be decorative. For instance, by adding dye to the bath of plant fibres during the making stage.

Explore our digital collections, to see a huge variety of works on paper. https://www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/

The Collection Care team is a multi-skilled team of ten conservators from a range of backgrounds, who are ideally equipped to deal with the wide range of items we hold at the Library.   

So, how did we get here?  

The Collection Care department evolved from a Library Bindery established in the early 1950’s by the then Librarian Dr. Moses Tyson and was managed until 1983, by Arnold May MBE.  

The bindery was almost solely devoted to the rebinding of printed lending collections and was typical of binderies of the day, in that roles were defined by gender. Women carried out work deemed semi-skilled, i.e. book sewing and basic page repairs. The men, who were all time-served bookbinders, carried out the bookbinding and finishing (lettering).  There were different role descriptions and paygrades and they even worked in separate rooms.  

The Shift from Bindery to Collection Care

The first step towards change came in 1983 when an embryonic Conservation department, staffed by a mix of permanent and project funded contract staff, was created to operate alongside the bindery. These two departments co-existed until a change of management and structure in 2008 began the shift from an industrial style bindery with small-scale conservation unit attached, to the all-encompassing Collection Care department. 

From 2008-2015 this department was split into Conservation and Preservation teams, with the Conservation team based at The John Rylands Library and concentrating on Special Collections, whilst the Preservation team concentrated on thesis binding and repairs to the modern lending collections. 

Click to view slideshow.

Commercial thesis binding ceased in 2014, allowing more time to be devoted to Special Collections, which led to an increased profile for that area. Staff numbers reduced over the years from a high of seventeen in the mid 1990’s to the current and highly skilled team of ten based across three locations today.  

Current State and Looking to the Future

The current Collection Care team has specialist knowledge encompassing: books, paper, pith, parchment, leather, papyrus, photographic, and visual collections, as well as the conservation skillsets necessary to treat these items and materials.  

Click to view slideshow.

Collection Care leads crucial Preservation activities including: environmental monitoring; integrated pest management; specialist object handling advice and guidance; box–making, and bespoke storage solutions. In the near future, we will be focussing on a scientific approach to preventative conservation, looking at agents of degradation and making better use of the stores. 

Collection Care is also involved with public engagement through events like exhibitions. We prepare items for display, and design and manufacture book supports and mounts using an in-house box–maker.  

In a forthcoming series of blogs, members from Collection Care will provide insights into their work. The first in the series will focus on the materiality of the book.