Manchester Museum Archive

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Manchester Museum, Manchester Natural History Society, T.H. Huxley, Museology, E.B. Tylor, Henry Ling Roth, Ethnology, Tasmanian aborigines, James Backhouse Walker, John Watt Beattie, Museum history, Anthropology

Dr James Peters writes:

Special Collections has recently taken in the first consignment of the archive of Manchester Museum. The archive will be managed as part of the University archives, of which it constitutes an important addition.

The Museum has a long history, tracing its origins to the collections of the Manchester Natural History Society and the Manchester Geological Society. In 1868, these collections were transferred to Owens College, the forerunner of the University. In 1888, the Museum opened on its present site on Oxford Road, in a building designed by Alfred Waterhouse.

The Museum is recognized as one of the most important university museums in the UK. Its collections encompass zoology, botany, geology, Egyptology, anthropology, archaeology and numismatics.

The Museum’s archives include extensive material on its  collections, personnel and  buildings. Records include the correspondence files of successive heads of the Museum, an extensive cuttings collection and records of building projects and exhibitions. Also present are the surviving records of the Manchester Natural History Society (1821-68).

The archive includes an illuminating memorandum by the naturalist T.H. Huxley, who was consulted about the Museum’s design. Huxley wanted strict segregation between public and research spaces, as shown in this 1868 sketch of the Museum’s layout. Originally, following Huxley’s advice, the Museum had a strong academic focus, but over time, the benefits of public participation were also appreciated, and the Museum became a popular institution with the Manchester public.

Sketch by T.H. Huxley for the design of Manchester Museum, 1868.

One of the most interesting and unexpected components of the archive is a  collection of papers of the Victorian ethnologist Henry Ling Roth (1855-1925), which he gave to the Museum after the First World War. Ling Roth published studies of the peoples of Borneo and Benin, but is best known for The Tasmanian Aborigines (1890), for many years the standard study of the subject.

Ling Roth’s papers on the Tasmanian aborigines include correspondence  with the E.B. Tylor, the ‘father of British anthropology’,  and with the Tasmanian experts, James Backhouse Walker and John Watt Beattie, as well as the notebooks, drawing and photographs used in the preparation of this work.

The Museum’s archive will be of particular relevance to those interested in the history of museology, especially museum collecting and museums as public institutions.  However it also has a broader value for cultural and intellectual histories of Manchester and beyond.

Charles Wesley in the Spotlight: Publication of the Complete Letters of the Great Hymn Writer and Evangelist

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Charles Wesley, Letters, Methodism, Oxford University Press, Prof. Kenneth Newport, Publications, Research

Gareth Lloyd writes:

Portrait engraving of Charles Wesley (Ref: MARC MAW Ms 279).

Charles Wesley (1707-88) is regarded by many people as the finest hymn writer in the Christian tradition. Works like “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” and “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” occupy an important place in hymnals of most denominations and are familiar even to non-Church goers. Yet, other aspects of his life and ministry are often overlooked.

This is about to change as the complete surviving letters of the co-founder of Methodism are published for the first time. The collection contains approximately 700 texts, which document the many twists and turns of a remarkable life from Charles’s undergraduate days at Oxford to his death sixty years later.

The letters reveal a man who was far more than just a writer of hymns. Wesley’s genius as a preacher and religious leader contributed to the birth of the evangelical movement, probably the greatest success story of the modern Church. Another key theme of the collection is relationships. Charles was a family man devoted to his much younger wife and their three children; he was also a brother who clashed bitterly in his later years with his domineering sibling and ministerial partner John Wesley. All of these aspects, and many more, are displayed in a collection, which shows that Charles Wesley was not only an accomplished poet, but also a vigorous and eloquent prose stylist.

Letter of Charles Wesley to John Wesley, 5 May 1729 (Ref: MARC DDCW 1-3)

The letters are a significant resource for the study of public, private and religious life in Georgian Britain at a time of rapid economic and social change, seen through the eyes of a man who ministered to the urban poor and mixed with the social elite, observing both with a keen eye and ready wit. They offer a sometimes radically different perspective to traditional views of the rise of Methodism and are rich in spiritual insight.

The letters were transcribed and edited for publication by Dr Gareth Lloyd of The University of Manchester’s John Rylands Library and Professor Kenneth Newport of Liverpool Hope University. The first volume containing texts written between 1728 and 1756 was published on 25^th April; volume 2 containing the rest of the collection will follow in approximately three years.

The publication of volume 1 attracted considerable interest from the mainstream media including coverage in and the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, which managed to forge a link with the recent death of Margaret Thatcher.

A description of the book appears on the website of Oxford University Press.

‘Up the S(e)wanee’ or ‘Meet me in St Louis’? A Wesleyan and Newman Studies Tour of the South

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Asbury Theological Seminary, Asbury University, Center for Digital Theology, Henri DeLubac Lecture, Manchester Wesleyan Research Centre, Newman Institute, Pittsburg, Sewanee, St Louis University, T-PEN, University of the South

Peter Nockles writes:

The Manchester Wesley Research Centre (MWRC) was established in 2002 to promote research on the life and work of John and Charles Wesley, their contemporaries in the 18th-century Evangelical Revival, their historical and theological antecedents, and contemporary scholarship within the Wesleyan and Evangelical tradition. The Centre is a partnership between the Nazarene Theological College, Didsbury, the University of Manchester Library, the University of Manchester’s Department of Religions & Theology, Cliff College, and the Asbury Theological Seminary in the US. The current Head of the School of Arts, Languages & Cultures, Professor Jeremy Gregory, has been an active participant, supporter and friend of the MWRC.

The object of the collaboration has been to develop a centre for research in Evangelical Studies which has an international as well as national profile. In particular, a key function of the Centre from the start has been to highlight the resources of the Methodist Archives in the John Rylands Library and to promote the scholarly use thereof among the international academic community.

Dr Peter Nockles (second left) and staff at Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky.

It was for this reason that I recently spent time at Asbury University and the MWRC partner institution of the Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky.  During my visit, I was privileged to hold conversations with key faculty members, librarians, archivists and leading Wesley scholars who have visited us in recent years, notably Professor Kenneth Collins, Professor Howard Snyder and Brian Yeich (the latter in 2010 made a fact-finding visit to Rylands to explore how our strategic planning processes). Asbury University’s Special Collections contains a ‘Wesley and Friends Collaborative Research Center’.

I was also given tours of the special collections and demonstrations of state-of-the-art digital processes at both library institutions. Digitised materials in the ATS Special Collections can be found at Asbury’s ePlace website.

My visit was part of a longer lecture tour in which I gave keynote public lectures at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, and at St Louis University (SLU), St Louis, Missouri, where I gave the annual Henri DeLubac Lecture. At SLU I had conversations with Professor Kevin Mongrain, Director of the Newman Institute at Pittsburgh and Director of the Newman Archive digitisation project. I was also a participant in a two-day ‘Receptions of Newman’ Symposium at University of the South, Sewanee.  While at SLU, I also met with the Head of Special Collections and a highlight was finding out about the work of SLU’s Center for Digital Theology. The Center aims to create multimedia and electronic products that support research and teaching in Theological Studies. Its most recent project has been T-PEN, an open source tool for digital transcription.

Delegates at the Newman’s Receptions Symposium, University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee: Prof. Mark McInroy (University of St Thomas, Minnesota, USA); Prof. Ken Parker (Saint Louis University); Emeritus Prof. John Sullivan (Liverpool Hope University); Prof. Frederick Acquino (Abilene University, Abilene, Texas); Dr Peter Nockles. Photo taken by Prof. Benjamin King (University of the South, Sewanee).

Robert Webster, a great friend of the John Rylands Library, and Peter Nockles, at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.

Poster for the 18th Annual DeLubac Lecture at St Louis University, delivered by Dr Peter Nockles

The Thomas Allan Collection – A Major Resource for 19th-Century British Studies

Tags

Archives, Cataloguing/Resource Discovery, Methodist Church, Thomas Allan, Toleration Act of 1812, Wesleyan Methodists

Thomas Allan was a solicitor and political adviser to the Wesleyan Methodists and was considered one of the most influential laymen of his generation. Appointed legal adviser to the Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1803, he was a powerful figure in the successful struggle against proposed legislation imposing restrictions on religious freedom – regarded as a landmark in the fight for protection of civil and religious liberties. Allan was also heavily involved in discussions that led to the passing of the Toleration Act of 1812. Outside of the religious sphere, Allan was active in the movement for the abolition of slavery and was a correspondent of important figures within the government and judiciary.

The Allan collection is one of the largest archives of personal papers in the Methodist collections. It consists of correspondence, legal documents, notebooks and printed ephemera documenting Allan’s professional activities and personal life between 1795 when he qualified as a solicitor and shortly before his death in 1845. It contains letters from 3 Prime Ministers (Henry Addington, Spencer Perceval and Lord Liverpool), numerous bishops, government ministers and senior legal figures. It illustrates the behind-the-scenes significance of men like Allan, whose name rarely appeared in public, but who did much to shape 19^th century public life and policy across a range of spheres.

Previously unlisted, the collection has now been catalogued by Karen Jacques and will make a valuable addition to the inventory of finding aids providing access to the Methodist collections. To down the catalogue in PDF form click here: Thomas Allan Collection Catalogue.

Gareth Lloyd and Karen Jacques

Certificate of Thomas Allan’s Admittance as a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers, London, 15 October 1799. MAW MS 1/12.

“Sisters in Christ”: A Significant New Resource for Gender Studies at the University of Manchester

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Acquisitions, Archives, Cataloguing, Gender Studies, Methodist Church, Wesley Deaconess Order, Women in Churches

The Wesley Deaconess Order was founded in 1890 in response to the realisation that an Order of dedicated women had a valuable part to play in the life of the Methodist Church. For over one hundred years, deaconesses made a significant contribution to British Methodism across a range of activities – pastoral, evangelistic, nursing, in teaching and in overseas missions.

Before the entry of women into the ordained ministry in 1974, the deaconess work was the principal official means by which female ministry was exercised in British Methodism. Their contribution to the life of the Church (which continues today) was immense and had a particular, but not exclusive, impact on youth work and social ministry, especially in the inner city.

The deaconess collection consists of committee minutes, training and policy documentation, photographs, personnel records and the personal papers of deaconesses and supervising staff. The records of the annual Convocation and the Deaconess Training Institute are also well-represented in the archive.

The deaconess collection is now fully catalogued to item level and provides valuable opportunities for research into the evolving role of women in the life of the modern Church. To down the catalogue in PDF form click here: WDO Archive Catalogue.

Dr Gareth Lloyd

WDO 4/29. Group photograph of deaconesses at the Institute, 1910.

First Meeting of the North West Seminar

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North West Early Modern Seminar

Reblogged from North West Early Modern Seminar:

• 

Last Friday was the inaugural North West Early Modern Seminar at the John Rylands Library on Deansgate. We had a great turnout and lots of interesting speakers, which were tweeted live. Our 5 speed-daters were:

• Mark Towsey – Books and their Readers in Eighteenth-Century Britain
• Jonathan Spangler – Lorraine and the Dreams for a Middle Kingdom
• Anna Jenkin – Female Murder in Eighteenth-Century London and Paris…

Read more… 106 more words

Buffalo Bill Scrap Book – A Hidden Treasure of the John Rylands Library

Tags

Buffalo Bill's Wild West, Digitisation, Native Americans, Popular entertainment, Scrapbooks, William F. Cody

Buffalo Bill Scrapbook, English MS 1393.

Considerable public and scholarly interest has recently been aroused by a scrapbook of memorabilia that documents a fascinating and significant cultural phenomenon.

In the closing years of the 19th century, “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” was the greatest show on earth. Millions of people from kings to coal miners were entertained by William F. Cody’s show-business extravaganza featuring cowboys, Cossacks, and Native Americans. The show introduced the legend of the Wild West to the world and created images of the frontier that were later adopted by Hollywood and contributed to perceptions of America that still resonate.

The scrapbook was put together by the Hipkins family of London, personal friends of Buffalo Bill Cody himself. It consists of hundreds of photographs, news cuttings, magazines, letters and other documents produced by or about the Wild West Show during its British tours of 1887, 1892 and 1903. This collection of what was once described as “odds and ends” tells a multi-layered story. History and the creation of history, anthropology, American Studies, race, imperialism and the rise of mass entertainment are just some of the themes covered by this scrapbook in an unusual and visually evocative fashion.

The collection is rare to the point where it is possibly a unique survival in the UK. Individual documents about the Show are listed in the collections of other institutions, but nothing on this scale that tells the story of “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” in Britain. Until recently, the scrapbook had never been used for the purpose of research. It is in effect a hidden treasure of the John Rylands Library.

Click here to view a selection of images from the Scrapbook on Luna, the Library’s image database.

Dr Gareth Lloyd

Native American on horseback, photo by J.E. Hunt, 141 Clarendon Road, London.

Ecclesiastical History Society Postgraduate Colloquium

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Conferences, Ecclesiastical History Society, Postgraduate Colloquium

The Library was very pleased for the second year to host and provide venue facilities for the annual Ecclesiastical History Society Postgraduate Colloquium. The event was very well attended and provided an excellent forum for postgraduate students to ‘find their voice’ and promote their research and receive constructive feedback. Professor Jeremy Gregory, Dr Stella Fletcher (EHS Honorary Secretary), and Dr Peter Nockles each chaired at least two panel sessions. Dr Fletcher writes:

Ceramic ornament depicting John Wesley. Sidney Lawson Ceramics Collection.

“When Clifford Dugmore founded the Ecclesiastical History Society in 1961 he was professor of ecclesiastical history at King’s College London, but had previously served as Bishop Fraser lecturer in the same subject at the University of Manchester.* It may well have been during his years in Manchester that the seeds were sown not just of the Ecclesiastical History Society, but also of the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, of which he was the founder.  Since the 1960s the Society has become less of an overtly London-based organisation and has held its annual summer conferences in various locations throughout Britain and Ireland.  Although none of its residential conferences have been held in Manchester, a number of its postgraduate colloquia have taken place there, most recently at the John Rylands Library on 22 February 2013.  On that occasion twenty-three papers were read by students from the universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Huddersfield, Lancaster, Leeds, Leicester, London, Manchester, Queen’s Belfast, Oxford, Westminster and York.  The subject matter ranged widely, though there was an emphasis on early modern and modern British topics that doubtless reflects the current balance of research.  It also happens to reflect the strengths of the Rylands’ own collection.”

*Copies of the Society’s history are available from the Honorary Secretary.

Peter Nockles

Private Books for Educational Use – the Formation of the Northern Congregational College Library

Tags

Annotations, Congregational, Dissenting Studies, Nonconformity, Provenance

Tuesday 26 February 5.15-6.45pm

Demonstration of a new digital resource charting how early nonconformist readers in Lancashire and Yorkshire interacted with their books.

Speakers: Dr Ben Bankhurst (Queen Mary, University of London), Dr Rachel Eckersley (Queen Mary, University of London), Ed Potten (Cambridge University Library)

R217058.1, Northern Congregational College Collection

The Northern Congregational College Project will make available in digital form the Catalogue of the Library of the Lancashire Independent College, Manchester (1885) and details of the 2,400 surviving books from the library of the Northern Congregational College, formed in 1958 from the amalgamation of two major Congregational colleges founded in the nineteenth century, Lancashire Independent College and Yorkshire United Independent College. In 1984 the Northern Congregational College became Northern College (United Reformed and Congregational). Most such libraries were founded on private collections and supplemented over generations through bequest and donation. Selected books were acquired in 1975/6 by the The John Rylands Library. These books, dating from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, are unusually rich in provenance and evidence of use. Perhaps most interesting are the marks of ownership and use of the everyday reader – men and women who owned only a handful of books and whose annotations are the only evidence of their interaction with them.

The details, including high-resolution images of bookplates, inscriptions and annotations, will be published on Dissenting Academies Online: Virtual Library System http://vls.english.qmul.ac.uk/ , a union catalogue which represents the holdings and loans of selected Baptist, Congregational, and Presbyterian/Unitarian academies in England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and which forms part of the ongoing Dissenting Academies Project http://www.english.qmul.ac.uk/drwilliams/academies.html . The Virtual Library System will be introduced by Professor Isabel Rivers (Queen Mary, University of London) and Dr David Wykes (Dr Williams’s Library, London).

Booking is essential, please contact our Customer Services Team on 0161 306 0555 or jrl.events@manchester.ac.uk

The Tony Dyson Collection

Matthew Schofield, one of our volunteers, reports on his work with the Tony Dyson collection:

Working as a volunteer at the Library, I am approaching the end of cataloguing the Tony Dyson Collection. Tony Dyson (1928-2002) was an academic, writer, literary critic, editor, educationalist and early campaigner for gay rights. Cataloguing this collection has been challenging because the papers arrived in a very disordered state and decisions had to be made about the degree of reordering to impose, or reimpose, on different areas of the Collection.

It is Dyson’s identity as a gay rights campaigner which is the focus of a display in the Crawford Room at the Library, running until June. Items from the Collection have been selected for the display which reflect Dyson’s engagement with religious and political leaders between the 1950s and 1970s, as well as examples of publications he was involved with. It has been difficult to select just 10 items to reflect such a complicated story.

Tony Dyson was the driving force behind the establishment of the Homosexual Law Reform Society and Albany Trust (for researching psychological wellbeing of gay men), both in 1958. In the 1970s, he was editor of the periodical The Christian, which argued for gay rights and was involved with the Open Church Group, which campaigned for gay recognition within the Church.

During the early 1970s, a backlash against the ‘permissive society’ occurred, led by Mary Whitehouse and her conservative evangelical Festival of Light. Partly in concern over the successful prosecution of the magazine Gay News for Blasphemy in 1977, Dyson established the Campaign for Reason in 1978, following a conference. He also published the pamphlet Towards a Charter of Homosexual Rights, where 174 public figures put their names to a document calling for the equal treatment of homosexual men in society. Below is an image of the front cover.

One of my favourite items in the Collection is a letter from Margaret Thatcher to Dyson from 1978, written in reply to a letter Dyson had sent. This dates from before Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, when she was Leader of the Opposition and Dyson was concerned that a future Conservative government would roll back the degree of legal rights which gay men gained in 1967. Thatcher’s reply is ambiguous. I have made sure that this letter is included in the display because it is striking to see a letter written by such a powerful and controversial figure from the recent past and from my childhood, written at a time just before she came to power as Prime Minister. As such, it encapsulates a very specific time in history.

As soon as the catalogue of the Dyson Collection is complete, it will be available via ELGAR.

Matthew Schofield