From my reading of The Wyvern: a Topical, Critical & Humorous Journal published in Leicester around the turn of the century, I was shocked to learn that serious outbreaks of smallpox continued to be a problem in the city right up until 1902-4. During the second half of the 19th century, the corporation struggled with […]
The forthcoming local council and mayoral elections in Leicester have made me wonder what issues were preoccupying our local administration during the period when The Wyvern, a rare local Victorian periodical, was in circulation. This short-lived but fascinating Topical, Critical & Humorous Journal appeared between 1899 and 1906. It was published from ‘18 ½’ Belvoir […]
With a General Election campaign in full swing, it seems like a good time for some blog posts about the sources we hold on the history of British parliamentary elections. As we all head off to our local polling stations on 7 May, one thing that we will take for granted is that when we […]
In 1627, at the age of only 21, Sir Thomas Herbert travelled to Persia and India as a low-ranking member of Charles I’s embassy to Shah Abbas I. His account of his experiences, Some Years Travels into Divers Parts of Africa and Asia the Great …, first published in 1634, was a great success and […]
Supporting academic colleagues with teaching is an important part of our work in Special Collections. Semester 1 has been a busy time for us, with visits from students on eight different courses at the University of Leicester and one from our friends at De Montfort. In an age where so much primary source material is […]
‘Next to printing, photography is the greatest weapon given to mankind for his intellectual advancement,’1 Peter Henry Emerson wrote in Naturalistic Photography for Students of the Art, first published in 1889. This book, described at the time as ‘a bombshell dropped in the midst of a tea party’2, passionately argued that photography should be ‘naturalistic’, […]
One of our current projects in Special Collections is to identify material that could form the basis for undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations. To do this I’m getting the opportunity do one of the things that I enjoy most about my job: exploring our collections. Despite having worked here for two years, there’s still much that […]
While we may be tucked away in the basement of the David Wilson Library there are plenty of exciting discoveries to be made in Special Collections, as recent media interest in our collections demonstrates. We had a busy week last week launching our new exhibition celebrating the life and work of Leicester author Sue Townsend. […]
‘God alone knows why I keep trying to get a play on. I must be out of my mind, for I’m even toying with the idea of a new one! I know I’ll be wasting time and effort but I can’t get it out of my mind,’ Kevin Laffan wrote in about 2001, when he […]
The Special Collections team has been joined for the last couple of weeks by Claire Preval, an undergraduate intern from the Department of the History of Art and Film. Claire spent her first few days doing a great job of sorting our extensive collection of foreign language editions of works by Sue Townsend and has […]
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