Manuscripts and Special Collections

The University of Nottingham retired its blog service in December 2025.

The following is a list of preserved posts from the Manuscripts and Special Collections blog.

• 1977-2017: 40 years of the Queen’s Medical Centre
• 50 years of Medical School records
• A back-of-the-envelope history of Christmas cards
• A Blessing and A Curse
• A clove of gillyflower at Christmas
• A Family Reunion
• A Fresh Crop of Records
• A General History of Elections
• A grand day out from Rochdale to Nottingham via Aachen: to Know Power
• A love of letters
• A Marvellous Time at Mayfest!
• A new view: changes to our Manuscripts Online Catalogue
• A Painter and A Petition
• A Peek Behind the Iron Curtain
• A Picture-Perfect Placement
• A spoonful of spermaceti helps the medicine go down
• A Spotlight on Black History
• A Tale of Scales and Slippers
• A Toast to Temperance
• A Token of Childhood
• A Trip Down Memory Lane
• A year immersed in water records
• Absolute Units
• Additions for the D H Lawrence Collection!
• Adult Education and Workers’ Control
• Advent greetings from Manuscripts and Special Collections
• Advocates for animal welfare
• Advocates for animal welfare: FRAME
• Advocates for animal welfare: The Three Rs
• Agricultural Societies
• Alisander’s Journey and Other Poems
• All Manor of People: everyday life in Newark Court Rolls
• All Orders Promptly Executed
• All Quiet in the Weston Gallery: The First World War in the University Of Nottingham’s historic collections.
• All the World’s a Stage!
• All Work and No Play
• An almost entirely cow-free post about cows
• An Ancient Historian in the Archives
• An electrifying history of the East Midlands
• Anne Vaux: recusant!
• Are you smarter than a 19th century 10 year old?
• Around with William Parsons
• Art and activism: Rosemary Wels
• Art, Antidotes and Anatomy
• Audrey Beecham: Warden, historian, poet, anarchist, feminist, and champion of the underdog
• Back to School with Dinah Holt
• Back to the Future: Time Travelling with the University Time Capsule
• Ballads at KMC
• Balls, Boots and Players goes live
• Between the Covers: Books and Booksellers
• Beyond the Mayflower: Catholics and recusants
• Beyond the Mayflower: nonconformist churches
• Beyond the Mayflower: Separatists and Puritans
• Beyond the Reading Room: 5 Minutes With Debbie Crookes
• Beyond the Reading Room: Document Production
• Beyond the Sunken Garden: The Many Lives of Lenton Hurst
• Birds of America: Flights of Fancy
• Black History Month
• Bloody Flux and the King’s Evil
• Book illustrations in Briggs and Porter Collections
• Bookish Bingo
• Botanists and Businessmen: meet the residents of Highfield House
• Bound for Serampore
• Building the Medical School
• But what do you do all day? – Our second lockdown diary
• But what do you do all day? Our Lockdown Diary
• But what do you do all day? Our third lockdown diary
• By the pricking of my thumbs Something wicked this way comes
• Calendar Adventures
• Carry on Collecting: Tri Campus contemporary collecting during lockdown
• Cataloguing Connie: Part 1
• Cataloguing Connie, Part 2
• Cataloguing Connie part 3: the Finale
• Cataloguing History: Time with the Manvers Collection
• Catching ‘The Flying Fish’
• Celebrating archives everywhere: “A world without records is a world without memory”
• Celebrating Magna Carta
• Celebrating the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
• Censorship and Banned Books
• Charlotte Sutton’s Scrapbook
• Cheers to Nottinghamshire’s Pubs!
• Chekhoviana: Marketing a Foreign Classic to British Audiences
• Children’s Stories from Special Collections
• Chilwell Shell Filling Factory Explosion
• Chimera Obscura? – The Value of the University’s Special Archive and Foreign-Language Skills
• China’s Photograph Fever
• Cholera and Compassion in the Crimea
• Christmas Closure
• Christmas in the Collections
• Colin Wilson Conference
• Collected Words: From the Literary Collections at the University of Nottingham
• Colley Cibber
• Colonialism in Correspondence: The Letters of Lord William Bentinck
• Come Hail or High Water
• Connie Ford: Keepsakes of an Activist
• Croquet Lawns and Coach Houses: Echoes of Lenton Mount
• Dark, Satanic Mills
• Dead End? Tunnels under Nottingham in fact and fiction
• Dead Man Found in Coffin
• dear sisters exhibition opens
• Dear sisters: Have you seen this feminist zine?
• Death of the Author: Newspapers in the French Revolution
• Decoding Images in Early Modern Print
• Digital Collecting for the University Archives
• Digital preservation of Students’ Union materials
• Discovering Iceland with the Benedikz Collection
• Discovering John Achard
• Discovering the digital
• Discovering the digital: Developing born digital access
• Displaying D.H. Lawrence
• Doctoring Derbyshire
• Doctors, Diaries and Descendants
• Documenting the pandemic and beyond: website captures for the University Archives available to view
• Dog Island
• Doodles and Divinity
• Early Boots Adverts
• Effie, Lady Eastlake, and the evidence in the archives
• Einstein a Go-Go: When Albert Gave a Lecture at University College Nottingham
• Elenor Mundy’s Cookery Book: Cracknells
• Embracing serendipity at the annual archives conference
• Environmental advocacy and European politics: The instrumental work of Ken Coates
• Et Maintenant Quelque Chose De Différent
• Exhibition Fully Fashioned: Archival Remnants of the Textile Trade
• Experiencing Adult Education at Nottingham
• Exploring the Archives: A summer placement at Manuscripts and Special Collections
• Explosives: a Shaw-fire way to get students’ attention!
• Expressing the Unspeakable
• Extra mirrors and sewing rooms: “the civilising effect of female company upon the male population” in mixed halls of residence
• Family and Local History
• Family Hair-looms
• Family inheritance on display
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
• Feeling under the weather? Try frog’s liver, peacock dung and just a dash of dead man’s skull
• Feminist Archive East Midlands at the University of Nottingham
• Feminist Footnotes
• Fighting Footballers
• Finding leaves in books
• Finding your Family
• Five Minutes With…. Ursula Ackrill
• Florence and the 5th Duke
• Florence Nightingale Comes Home to Lakeside Arts
• Florence Nightingale Returns
• Forest Town: the town in the countryside
• Forestry and Photography
• Found: the lost archive of the Cross Country and Athletics Club
• Fragments of a Saint
• From Clues to Context: Exploring Archives as an Archaeology Student
• From Manuscripts and Special Collections, with Love
• From Rags to Witches: the grim tale of children’s stories
• From Reader to Volunteer: an exciting, satisfying, and inspiring experience
• “Full steam ahead” (Papplewick Pumping Station)
• Fungi and friendship: Margaret Cavendish-Bentinck, 2nd Duchess of Portland
• Gardens, Graveyards and Gladiators: A Victorian Journey through Italy
• George Green and his windmill
• George Green Library: A Photographic History
• George Green Library: Then and Now
• George Green: Nottingham’s Magnificent Mathematician
• Georgian Delights
• Getting Political with the Archives
• Gingerbread from Elenor Mundy’s Cookery Book
• Going Global! A History of the University of Nottingham
• Gongster and the ‘Gay News’ poem
• Grand Tourists and Others: exhibition opens
• Gunpowder, Treason & Plot
• Handling History – a recent archive placement
• Happy Anniversary, Russian & Slavonic Studies!
• Happy birthday KMC!
• Happy Birthday, NHS!
• Happy birthday to George Green Library!
• Happy Census Release Day!
• Happy Easter from Manuscripts and Special Collections
• Happy New Year!
• Heirs and Spares: Succeeding George IV
• Highlighting the History of Sutton Bonington
• History of Hallward Library Part 1: Need for the Library
• History of Hallward Library Part 2: Designing the Library
• History of Hallward Library Part 3: Building the Library
• History of Hallward Library Part 4: Legacy of the Library
• History of the James Cameron-Gifford Library, Sutton Bonington Campus.
• “Hitler is kaput!”: Soviet war poster victory celebrations
• Holinshed’s Chronicles: Shakespeare’s textbook
• Homage to the Arboreal World
• Horticulture
• House of Many Names: Tracing the Evolution of Paton House
• How does it feel now you’ve won the war?
• How to do a Scoping Survey at Manuscripts and Special Collections
• Hugh Stewart Hall: from Marlepitt to Manor House
• Hydrometric data in the archives
• Images of India
• In Search of D H Lawrence
• In Sickness and Incest
• In The Bleak Midwinter
• Inky Fingers and Flyaway Footprints
• Inspiring Beauty
• International Women’s Day: Alice Selby
• International Women’s Day: Dorothy Brett
• International Women’s Day: Dr Edith Becket
• Into the Labyrinth
• Introducing the Feminist Archive (East Midlands)
• It’s All Fun and Games
• Kate Greenaway’s Album
• Keep calm and Curry on
• Keeping Pace with Sporting Developments
• Ken Loach, Ken Coates and the European Union
• King’s Meadow Campus
• Lady Chatterley’s Cuttings
• Lady Chatterley’s Lover wears Paul Smith
• Last Orders at the Weston Gallery
• Launch of the iBook ‘Parchment, Paper & Pixels’
• Lenton Priory
• Life in 19th century Ethiopia
• Lifting the Lid on North Wheatley Manor
• Live on Campus! – the 1970s
• Living Letters
• Look at our new Digital Gallery!
• Looking back to get ahead: Volunteering at Manuscripts and Special Collections
• Luddites: Gangs of Loughborough?
• “Macaroni looks like serpents”: A Victorian arm-chair traveller’s guide to Europe
• Mad Dogs & Englishmen
• Mansfield and the Waste of Water
• Manuscripts & Special Collections Achieves National Accreditation
• Manuscripts and Special… Experiences!
• Manuscripts at Mayfest
• Manuscripts feature in University’s Impact Campaign
• Manuscripts in the Media
• Manuscripts Mysteries: Canada, Cake and Clergymen
• Mapping a Career in Conservation
• Mapping Modules
• Maps, Military and More at Mayfest 2014
• Marginalia in a Medical Manuscript
• Mark Dorrington arrives as new Keeper
• Marketing the ‘dear little things’
• Maths, Myths and Mines: What’s New in Manuscripts & Special Collections
• Matt Marks archive collection: ‘The Bridge’ and how it came to be
• Maurice William Partridge: Chemist and Accomplished Artist
• Medieval Christmas Mass
• Medieval treasure to be opened to public view
• Meet Nottinghamshire’s People
• Meet our German manuscripts and Special Collections
• Meet the Manorial Records!
• Meet the Participants
• Microscopy
• Mind the Gaps
• Monday Mysteries
• Monday Mystery: Celebrity Scrapbook, 19th century style
• Money in Manuscripts & Special Collections
• “Mothers and Midwives” goes live!
• Mr William Saville’s Crime
• MRI Collections Project draws to a successful close
• MRI Collections Project: Shining a light on slide digitisation
• MRI Collections Project: Sir Peter Mansfield’s Patents and Academic Papers
• MRI Collections Project: Sir Peter Mansfield’s research papers
• MRI Collections Project: Slides – A reversal in fortune
• MRI Collections Project: the papers of Brian Worthington
• MRI Collections Project: the papers of Raymond Andrew
• MRI project gets under way
• MRI Scanning and George Green
• Mum’s gone to Iceland
• My experience interning for Manuscripts and Special Collections
• Mysteries of the Forest
• New book shines light on seventeenth-century collections
• New cartoons acquired
• New Discoveries in the D H Lawrence Family Papers
• New leaflet about the Portland Collection
• New Manvers catalogue describes Thoresby in the 20th century
• New water collection descriptions online
• “No Turtle is an Island”
• Nobel prizewinner at The University of Nottingham
• Notable Nottingham Alumni: Raja Azlan Shah
• Nottingham Advantage Award Placement: Working on Westacott
• Nottingham Blitz
• Nottingham’s New Chancellor
• Nottingham old and new
• Nottingham Theatre Archives Revealed
• Off to the races!
• Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside
• On the Land
• On the Road with Prince Leopold
• One Born Every Minute
• One hundred years on: New types of University and new possibilities for lifelong education?
• Our Autumn/Winter Collections
• Outreach Diary
• Page 3, pin-ups and double standards
• Papers of a ‘Professional Revolutionary’
• Papplewick Pumping Station
• Photographing artefacts for the dear sisters exhibition
• Picturing Shakespeare
• Picturing the Medical School
• Pills and potions in the archives
• Pirates!
• Planning the Trent Building
• Plants & Prayers
• Playing Around with Archives
• Poetic Responses to Editing DH Lawrence
• Politics Gets Personal
• Portland Building: from the archives
• Prose Responses to Editing DH Lawrence
• Purchasing Pansies: a new addition to the DH Lawrence collections
• Putting Creative Writing Back On The Syllabus
• Putting it in Perspective
• Putting the ‘camp’ into ‘campus’
• Rain Rain Go Away!
• Rain, Records and Research
• Rambling around rock holes
• Rapping At My Chamber Door
• Reading Room Reopening!
• Reading the correspondence of the Duchess of Portland
• Reading the Runes
• Reaping What You Sow
• Recipe of the month: Cheese rolls
• Recipe of the month: Stewed rump of beef ‘the Welsh way’
• Reflections on Editing DH Lawrence
• Remembering Hans
• Remote volunteering: tackling transcriptions
• Researching historic documents of climate, weather, and health
• Results Day Special: Midwifery Exams in the 1940s
• Revisiting the Dark Side; the archive of the University of Nottingham Gothic Society
• Rhymes and ‘Rithmetic
• Robert Boyle, the Biggleswade Bigamist
• Rock ‘n’ Roll at the Students’ Union
• Ruling with an Iron Fist
• Saving the Soviet War Posters
• Say Cheese!
• Scary Tales
• Schooling in the Third Reich
• Sealed Knot
• Silence
• Simple Medicine
• Singing from a different Hymn sheet
• Sir Peter Kent
• Skeletons and Superstitions
• Smallpox
• Spooky Scary Skeletons
• Spotlight on Slavery
• Student society archives: the SNoGS time capsule
• Student Union Posters
• Stunning slides saved from skip
• Take a Gander at Goose Fair
• TC Hine: Victorian Autograph Hunter
• Temples, tombs and troglodytes: the mythical origins of Nottingham’s caves
• The Advantage of Fairy Tales
• The Advantage of Volunteering
• The Art of Making Fireworks: a children’s guide
• The Bachelors’ Balls
• The Ballad of the Cherry Tree
• The Beginnings of University Park
• The Bigger Picture
• The Black Sheep
• The British Cotton Growing Association
• The Canterbury Tales
• The Cold War in the Cold Store
• The Cotton Research Corporation Library
• The Countess, the Castle and the Captain
• The Crimean War on Camera
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Cockayne
• The day Mahatma Gandhi came to Beeston
• The Fall and Rise of Little Fanny
• The First Cut is the Deepest
• The German perspective on the First World War
• The History of the Historian of Science
• The Ken Coates collection – the coal mining industry and its decline in Nottinghamshire
• The Leen: Nottingham’s River
• The life and times of a Victorian gentleman in Nottingham
• The Life of a Communist: My placement working on the political papers of Fred Westacott
• The Lions’ Den: Entertainment in Nottingham’s caves
• The Missing Medieval Village of Keighton
• The Morning After the Nay Before
• The Night Nottingham Castle Burned
• The Nottingham Feminist Archive Group: activist archiving
• The phoenix in early modern print woodcuts
• The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
• The Sound of Lincolnshire Folk Song
• The University of Nottingham Chapel
• The Unloved Chimney
• The Witches of East Mids
• Thirty minutes of your time; a lifetime to someone else
• Thoresby’s Lady Rozelle: the Nottinghamshire landowner who loved the open ocean
• Thoroton Society members view historic Bible
• Thoroughly Modern Manor
• “Thousands of students yet unborn will pass along the corridors and learn in the lecture rooms…
• Threads of Empire: Rule & Resistance in Colonial India
• Through the Lens: A Victorian Travel Album
• Throwback to The Gongster
• Time with Lawrence – a student from Malaysia campus on her archive placement
• Tin Town: village of the dam builders
• To the Moon! Descriptions of Lunar Travel in the Special Collections
• Top 10 Tips: Visiting Manuscripts & Special Collections (pt 1)
• Top 10 Tips: Visiting Manuscripts & Special Collections (pt 2)
• Tri Campus Collecting: Freshers, punks, and trainspotters in the University Archives
• Tri-Campus Collecting Project: Time Capsule
• Tri-Campus Contemporary Collecting
• Uncovering feminism and sexism in the University Archives
• Unearthing the Secrets of Vesuvius
• Unlocking the DH Lawrence Collection
• Vaccinations
• Veterinary Verse: The life and rhymes of Connie Ford
• Victorian Valentines
• Victory in Europe Day
• Volunteering and all that jazz
• War work in the water archives
• Watching Lady Chatterley
• Water! is turned on
• Water work: the staff of the River Trent Catchment Board
• Welcome Back Part 2: The Re-Re-Opening
• What are your chances of a job?
• What is ‘censorship’?
• What’s in a name?
• ‘Why I changed my name and did my duty’
• “Will you come into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly,
• Windows on War – guest blog by Laura Todd
• Wish You Were Here
• ‘Wish You Were Here!’ Picture Postcards: The Wrench Series
• Wollaton’s Virtual Antiphonal on display
• Women’s Suffrage in the D H Lawrence Collection
• Work placement with Manuscripts and Special Collections: the Stephen Lowe papers
• Working with the Coventry Patmore Collection
• Working with the Feminist Publications Collection
• Working with the Mining Collections
• World Book Day 2021
• Year In Review
• You May Now Turn Over Your Papers