21st January 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the death in action of Lieutenant Eric Henry Janson Teasdale, who at the age of just twenty gave his life during the First World War. Guest post by Sedtin Wan (Development and Alumni Relations Office). Eric Henry Janson Teasdale, Lieutenant in the 1st Battalion serving in the Machine […]
One of our Special Collections Online that has always fascinated me is a collection of photographs of “Vanished Leicester” taken by Dennis Calow, a (now retired) architect who lived and worked in Leicester. Writing a decade ago, Dennis remembered that as an architectural student he, like most of his generation, had been ‘brainwashed into believing that everything […]
Behaving badly at the Christmas festivities and doing something you would really rather not remember is not an exclusively modern phenomenon, as a trawl through our Special Collections reveals – although in the 16th and 17th centuries the scene of your shame, rather than being the office party, might have been one of the many […]
During the 1980s an oral history project was undertaken by the Leicester Oral history Archive. These interviews are now held by the East Midlands Oral History Archives at the University of Leicester. I am currently working on a project to increase the number of these interviews that are available online (check out the current collection […]
Amongst the contents of the Fairclough Collection of engraved portraits, relating to political and social history in 17th century Britain, we have recently discovered this delicately executed miniature of Frances Stuart (née Howard), Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, who died in 1639. The oval appears to have been cut from a larger composition (in watercolour […]
“Mr Davis was educated at Mill Hill School, London. He became a cricketer of distinction and played for Leicestershire. In the great War he joined as a Private the 11th Royal Fusiliers and served in France, where he was killed in 1916”. [ULA HIS/FOU/2, Memorial Portraits Book] As described in a previous post, the University […]
In the fabulously Gothic frontispiece of the first illustrated edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: or The Modern Prometheus, published in 1831, the monster, dramatically lit by the moon, lies in a medieval chamber, complete with grinning skeleton. The artist, Theodor von Holst, has chosen to show the moment, when Victor, overcome with horror at the […]
15 October 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the death in action of Lieutenant Garth Smithies Taylor, a name which many staff and students at the University will have unwittingly passed on numerous occasions when entering the Fielding Johnson Building. The following account of Taylor’s life, death and significance to the University was researched and […]
We were recently contacted by Debra Wallace, who had used our Historical Directories collection to help research the life of Dolly Shepherd (1886-1983), an Edwardian Lady Parachutist. I found Debra’s account of Dolly’s life so fascinating that I asked to share it on the Special Collections Blog. I’m very grateful to Debra for agreeing to […]
The latest exhibition in the Special Collections programme is on the theme of scrapbooks. We hold a number of different types of scrapbook and it’s been quite a challenge to decide which ones to select for the exhibition. In the end we (that’s my colleague Ian Swirles and I) have opted for a selection which […]
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