Category Archives: Uncategorized

The man with many faces

1 September 202319th century, Archives and Modern Manuscripts, Oxford University Archives, Spotlight, UncategorizedArchives and Modern Manuscripts, Oxford Universityannapetre

Is there anyone who doesn’t like to doodle? This is clearly not a modern trait. As ‘Doodle Day’ 2023 approaches in September, it seemed timely that we should come across some rather charming drawings by one of the examiners signing his name in two ‘Registers of Examinations’ held by the University Archives.

Frederick York Powell (1850-1904) was a law lecturer and examiner (he later became the Regius Professor of Modern History, 1894-1904) whose duties included lecturing and examining on political economy for the Pass School. The Pass School was introduced in the second half of the nineteenth century for those students who did not seek honours and offered the opportunity to study a different combination of subjects (see this previous blog for more details on the The Pass School)

Powell was an examiner for Pass School Group B (which included political economy) from 1877 until at least 1888, but he did not examine every term or every year. It is through his records of examinations that we meet his doodles.

Whenever Powell was the one to write the list of names of successful candidates, he bracketed together the names of the three (or sometimes four) examiners, who signed their names underneath, and drew a face as part of that bracket. Powell had extremely neat and legible handwriting, which was not always the case of examiners at this time.

Signatures of examiners for Pass School Group B, 1883 (from OUA/UR/3/1/27/1)

One of the fascinating things about Powell’s doodles is that whilst he consistently draws faces, they are all different. It’s tempting to wonder whether these drawings were actually caricatures of his fellow examiners or other academics in Oxford. The pictures are not always kind, sometimes showing exaggerated features:

Signatures of examiners for Pass School Group B, 1883 (from OUA/UR/3/1/27/1)

It is important to remember that these registers were administrative records and were the official record kept by the University. As such, it’s all the more striking that Powell doodled so frequently – it wasn’t a momentary slip in an instance of absent-mindedness, but something he did consistently across several years. It is tempting to speculate as to whether his fellow examiners approved of such decorations or rather disapproved of his flamboyant style.

The second register featuring Powell’s doodles is the Register of Examinations for Modern History, 1872-1913, where he was an examiner from 1886 onwards. The examples in this volume are typical Powell style but the faces are different. The one below looks rather like Voldemort in Harry Potter!

Signatures of examiners for Modern History, 1887 (from OUA/UR/3/24/1)

Of all the faces drawn by Powell, of which these are only a selection, my favourite is shown below. The face looks rather elegant and distinguished with quite a head of hair:

Signatures of examiners for Modern History, 1888 (from OUA/UR/3/1/24/1)

Details of face drawn by Powell as examiner for Modern History, 1888 (from OUA/UR/3/1/24/1)

There are no other examples of examiners doodling or drawing like Powell in these two registers. If Powell was hoping to inject a little light heartedness or fun into a serious administrative record and perhaps encourage others to do the same, it does not look like this happened. It would be interesting to discover whether Powell continued to doodle once he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History in 1894. I could find no further examples of doodles by Powell from this date onwards within any records held by the University Archives.

According to his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (subscription required), Powell seems to have been a rather original yet disorganised character, not necessarily renowned for his scholarship but for his generosity of his time and sense of fun. I rather suspect that Powell may have continued to doodle no matter what position he held.

For other examples of drawings and doodles on records in the University Archives see Notes in the margin | Archives and Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library (ox.ac.uk)
For further information on Frederick York Powell, see his Wikipedia entry.

Uncovering Histories of Humanitarianism: the Aborigines’ Protection Society 1837-1866

24 August 202319th century, Archives and Modern Manuscripts, Humanities, Modern, Spotlight, UncategorizedAborigines Protection Society, Anti-Slavery Society, Archives and Modern Manuscripts, Bicentenary of the Anti-Slavery Societylucymccann

By Zoë Laidlaw, University of Melbourne.

This is the fifth in a series of posts by researchers drawing on the archive of the Anti-Slavery Society, part of the Bodleian’s We Are Our History project.

The Aborigines’ Protection Society (APS) and the Anti-Slavery Society merged in 1909, formalising a history of engagement and occasional rivalry stretching back to the 1830s. The APS had long argued that concern for the welfare of Indigenous peoples in Britain’s empire was a logical extension of anti-slavery activism. But, while key personnel moved between the two societies, public support for the APS remained much more muted. Not least, this was because the APS struggled to explain its remit. In 1847, a decade after starting work, the APS acknowledged that many still asked ‘Who are the Aborigines, and who is their Friend?’ but struggled to address these basic questions:

“Government documents and other publications have given a currency and acceptation to the word Aborigines, which, however, is not so general as to render explanation unnecessary … When the overflowing or restless population of a civilized country quit their homes, and seek a country where a wider space is open before them, they often find the land imperfectly occupied by a race of men greatly differing from themselves. These are the so-called Aborigines of the country; and the interests of both races are involved in the character of the intercourse which ensues between them.”

As this comparative and pejorative definition of ‘Aborigines’ suggests, the APS was both Eurocentric and paternalistic. Its leaders recognised that British colonialism led to Indigenous peoples’ dispossession and exploitation, but they argued for the radical reform of colonialism rather than its eradication. In the utopian future they envisaged, colonisers and colonised alike would be more civilised, Indigenous rights recognised and protected and Britain’s empire more economically productive.

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Oxford University and Photography

16 August 202319th century, 20th century, Archives and Modern Manuscripts, Modern, Oxford University Archives, Photography, Spotlight, UncategorizedArchives & Modern Manuscripts, Oxford Universityalicemillea

In honour of World Photography Day, on 19 August, the University Archives blog looks at some of the photographs that we hold here and how the University used photography to record its people and its activities, and to present itself to the outside world.

Photographs are so commonplace today that it’s easy to forget that for many decades the taking of photographs was a much less frequent event. It often surprises users of the University Archives how few photographs we hold. But for many years, the University did not have its own photographic studio or photographers and so any photographs that were taken were done by outside firms at considerable expense. Photography was, as a result, used sparingly by the University, reserved for special occasions only, and did not form part of its day to day activities until the late 20th century.

The University took very few photographs of its students, for example. Where these were taken and where they have survived, they tend to be found in college archives rather than in the central University’s records. Colleges had a different, much closer, relationship with their students than the University, and their photographs span both formal teaching and informal social activities.

But despite the paucity of photographic material in the Archives, it is possible to identify trends and themes in the University’s relationship with photography. The examples below highlight just a few of these.

Photographs as gifts

Something of which we have a few examples of here is the commemorative album of photographs. From the late 1800s to the mid 20th century, there appears to have been a custom of presenting a very senior or long-standing member of staff on their retirement with an album of portrait photographs of their colleagues. It shows the precious and special nature of photographs in more distant decades.

One such case from a relatively early date is the gift given to Henry Stephens, University Marshal and Bellman, who retired in 1913, having been in post since 1888. In 1914, his colleagues (former and past) put together a beautifully-inscribed album comprising portrait photographs of every single one of the many University Proctors with whom he had worked over that period.

Title page from Henry Stephens' photo album

Title page of the commemorative album of photographs presented to Henry Stephens, Marshal and Bellman in 1914 (OUA/PR/1/25/1)

Stephens worked with fifty Proctors during his 25-year career. Each academic year saw the admission of two new Proctors (Senior and Junior) and each page of the album contains, in a variety of styles, their photographic portraits.

Photographs of the Proctors of 1888-89 from the album presented to Henry Stephens in 1914 (OUA/PR/1/25/1)

It must have been an expensive and time-consuming gift to create. At what point it was returned to the University by Henry Stephens or his family, we don’t know, but it made its way back to the Proctors’ Office and was transferred to the Archives along with their records over 50 years later.

Departmental posterity

Another developing use of photography, from the late nineteenth century onwards, was the custom adopted by certain University departments of taking photographs of their students: each year’s intake for example, or those attending summer schools or conferences.

One department which was very careful to record its activities in this way was the Department of Continuing Education, the adult education arm of the University. Its predecessor, the Delegacy for the Extension of Teaching beyond the limits of the University (or Extension Delegacy for short), was a pioneer in the field of adult education from its origins in 1878 and it appears there was already an awareness, in its early days, of how ground-breaking its work was. It wasn’t long before it was photographing its activities for posterity, one very early example of which was the biennial Summer Meeting.

The Summer Meeting first took place at Balliol College, Oxford, in August 1888. It was a summer school open to all extension students of Oxford, Cambridge and London Universities. Students stayed in lodgings in Oxford and attended a full programme of lectures and classes. A significant development in the availability of university-level education to adults, the Summer Meetings attracted students from all around the UK.

An album of photographs of the early Summer Meetings survives in the University Archives, including its earliest photograph which is identified as the very first Summer Meeting of 1888.

The first Summer Meeting at Oxford, 1888 (from OUA/CE/5/1)

As the photograph shows, the majority of the students were women. The Extension Delegacy was one of the first University departments to offer a university-level education to women, long before they were allowed to matriculate as full students. The Summer Meeting was only one of a number of pioneering activities which the Delegacy undertook and it led to the formation of other important adult education movements such as the Workers Educational Association (WEA), launched at the Summer Meeting of 1903.

Letting the outside in

A key way in which the University began to use photography in the twentieth century was to present itself to the world outside Oxford. Most of the photographic prints which we have in the University Archives here were not taken by the University itself, but by the press. It appears that from the early 1950s onwards the University began to be asked more and more by the national and local press for its permission to photograph its activities and events.

Generally-speaking at this time, the University was reluctant to let the press in and many of the requests it received from photographers were refused. Although aware that the outside world was interested in what went on at Oxford, the University resisted the intrusion; self-promotion, in particular, was seen as anathema to many within it. On the rare occasions when it did agree to filming or photography by outside agencies, the University demanded a high level of editorial control over the images produced.

One significant example of this was a visit in the early 1950s from the Central Office of Information (COI). The COI was, from 1946 to 2011, the UK government’s marketing and communications agency. It produced public information materials (such as leaflets, posters and short films) on a range of public issues such as life in Britain, health and education, often for the promotion of Britain overseas. In April 1952, the COI’s Photographs Division wrote to the University asking to create a ‘picture set’ illustrating life at Oxford University intended for overseas distribution. The University agreed and the COI’s photographers visited in May that year.

The Archives contains a set of about 25 photographs taken by the COI with the working title ‘The University of Oxford – Life in Britain’s Oldest Seat of Learning’. They show a carefully-curated view of student life in Oxford including shots of the city, undergraduates in colleges, libraries and tutorials; a degree ceremony; the Proctors; punting and other sports; and a debate in the Union. These were sent to the University for its approval and each bears a descriptive text on the back written by the COI. Some of these have been heavily annotated and corrected by an unnamed University official.

Photo of the High Street by Central Office of Information

View of ‘The High’, taken by the Central Office of Information. Undated (1952) (from OUA/VC/3/5)

It appears that the project then led to an even more ‘intrusive’ request from the COI just four years later. The COI wrote again to the University in 1956 asking, this time, to create a short film about it. The Foreign Office and Commonwealth Relations Office had asked the COI to produce a film for the Overseas Information Services about life in a British university and Oxford was chosen. The University agreed to co-operate officially, despite opposition from some senior. The COI’s appointed production company, Greenpark Productions, visited in 1957 to take more photographs and to film.

From the surviving correspondence about this, it appears that the COI’s request was the only one of several received at the time with which the University was prepared to co-operate. And it continued to demand a high level of control over the finished product. The COI was obliged to send the University a copy of the proposed voiceover script for the film which it edited enormously. The finished film, entitled ‘Oxford’, which ran for 15 minutes, was released in 1958 and shown in a special screening in the city at the Ritz Cinema.

More requests to photograph and film at Oxford followed and the University appears to have been rather less dismissive of these in the years after the COI film. As photographs began to give way to the filming of University events, the University started taking over from ad hoc visits from the outside press, recording its own events and managing its public face itself. The University not only became more aware of the financial advantages of doing this, it was also part of a realisation in the late 1960s that it needed to exercise more control over its brand and manage its relations with the outside world on its own terms, rather than through the lens of the external press.

Photography and filming of University activities and events is now run by the University’s Educational Media team (formerly the Media Production Unit). Not only do they produce content but they also provide advice and expertise to others creating their own University-related content.

The print archive of the Central Office of Information is held by the British Library at Central Office of Information Archive – The British Library (bl.uk)

Its business records are held by the UK National Archives and the films they produced are preserved and made available by the British Film Institute at BFI National Archive | BFI

Further information about the history of the Department for Continuing Education and its predecessors, including the Summer Meetings, can be found at The history of continuing education at Oxford | Oxford University Department for Continuing Education

‘Probable Prospects’: Richard Hill and Black Activism in The Archive of the Anti-Slavery Society

21 July 202319th century, Archives and Modern Manuscripts, Humanities, Modern, Spotlight, UncategorizedAnti-Slavery Society, Archives and Modern Manuscripts, Bicentenary of the Anti-Slavery Society, Haiti, Richard Hilllucymccann

By Olivia Carpenter, Department of English and Related Literature, University of York.

This is the fourth in a series of posts by researchers drawing on the archive of the Anti-Slavery Society, part of the Bodleian’s We Are Our History project.

Afro-British writer, politician, and activist Richard Hill was born in 1796. Hill was born in Jamaica but spent much of his youth in England, where some of his earliest efforts on behalf of Abolitionism and the rights of free Black people in the British Empire took place when he agreed to act as an agent of the London Anti-Slavery Society in 1830. A series of several letters exchanged between Hill and the Society’s President and Secretary are among the Bodleian’s collection of the Society’s papers. These letters, exchanged over a period of just over two years, allow us to trace Hill’s experience of traveling to Haiti on behalf of the Society. The Society sent Hill to ascertain the condition of this first and only new Republic created by formerly enslaved people who had fought and won a war to become a free, independent nation. Reading Hill’s correspondence with Thomas Pringle can help us gain a greater understanding of Black British anti-slavery activism in the early nineteenth century and what Haiti’s unique sociopolitical history meant for Black organizers like Hill, who hoped to establish Black freedom in the British Empire. The letters also give us unique insight into the day-to-day successes and struggles of a nineteenth-century Afro-British activist as Hill worked to earn a living in precarious circumstances while remaining committed to developing his career.

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Oxford and Japan – 150th anniversary of the admission of the first Japanese student at Oxford

20 June 202319th century, Archives and Modern Manuscripts, Modern, Oxford University Archives, Spotlight, UncategorizedArchives & Modern Manuscripts, Japan, Oxford Universityalicemillea

2023 is a significant year for anniversaries in the University’s progress towards the diversification of its student body. The year 1873, 150 years ago, saw not only the admission of the University’s first known black student, Christian Cole of Sierra Leone, it is also believed to be when the first Japanese student attended Oxford: Tats (aka Tomotsune) Iwakura.

Iwakura was admitted to the University (‘matriculated’) on 29 May 1873. The information he gave the University on his matriculation form, written in his own hand, stated that he was born in Miako, Japan. Aged 19, he was the third son of the Prime Minister of Japan, Tomomi Iwakura.

Matriculation form of Tats Iwakura, 1873 (from OUA/UR 1/1/5)

Iwakura came to Oxford during a time of great change at the University, and his arrival reflects a number of movements by the University in later nineteenth century towards opening itself up to a greater range of students.

Under ‘college’, Iwakura has written ‘Unattached’. This refers to the Delegacy for Unattached Students (later known as Non-Collegiate Students). This was a University body set up in 1868 in order to allow students from a wider social range to attend the University by reducing the cost of their time here. Membership of a college or hall was expensive and it was this which put an Oxford education out of the financial reach of many. Membership of the Delegacy for Unattached Students, this new alternative means of being a student, was cheaper, and therefore became a possibility for people who had been hitherto excluded.

At about the same time, another major change took place at the University. Until 1854, every person matriculating at the University had to declare their agreement (by subscribing) to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. This effectively barred from the University all those of any other faith, or none. The Oxford University Act of 1854 had abolished subscription at matriculation and at graduation as BA, but it wasn’t until 1871 that the Universities Tests Act abolished subscription for all degrees and for all offices (except, somewhat understandably, degrees and professorships in theology). Catholics, Jews, Muslims and members of other faiths, or none, were now able to become senior members of the University.

A result of both the Unattached Students scheme and the 1871 Universities Test Act was that the student body at Oxford slowly began to become more diverse. And it’s into this new climate at the University that Iwakura arrived.

Tomotsune, or Tats, Iwakura (Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iwakura_Tomotsune.jpg)

It’s clear, however, that a student from Iwakura’s background did not need the financial assistance which came from being an Unattached Student. So why did he come to Oxford in this way, and not as a member of a regular college? A clue may be the fact that once he was here, the archives are silent on what Iwakura did, apart from recording his migration (ie transfer between colleges) to Balliol College in January 1874. It was not uncommon for Unattached Students to transfer to a regular college after they had arrived at the University. In these records, Iwakura is now known as Tomotsne, no longer Tats.

There is also no record in the Archives here of Iwakura passing any examinations or of receiving a degree. This suggests that he was not here to study as a traditional undergraduate, working his way to a BA. In fact it appears that, despite the aim of the Unattached Students scheme being to attract students from poorer social backgrounds, it actually also enabled wealthy mature students to come to study in a private capacity. Unattached Students were often, like Iwakura, older than regular undergraduates, from overseas, and already graduates of other universities. What isn’t recorded on Iwakura’s form is that he had already spent time studying at Rutgers College in the United States alongside his brother Asahi in 1870.

Generally speaking, it is very difficult for the University Archives to identify the first person from a particular country to matriculate. The reason that we are able to do this, albeit tentatively, in the case of Iwakura, is that he and number of students from other parts of Asia and the Middle East are listed separately in Joseph Foster’s Alumni Oxonienses, a published register of all those admitted to the University between 1715 and 1886.

The Alumni Oxonienses (and, to some extent, the University itself at that time) had difficulty dealing with personal names that were not of Western European origin. As a result, in the back of the Alumni are separately listed all those students whose names fell into that category, under the heading “Indians, etc”. Although it is a highly disrespectful categorisation, it does enable us to more easily identify those students coming from countries such as Japan, India and Thailand. Many, it’s interesting to note, are the sons of high-status individuals such as princes and government officials.

There is no record here of how Iwakura found being a Japanese student in 1870s Oxford. He appears not to have suffered the cruelty of racist caricaturisation in the popular press that Christian Cole had to endure, but as his student experience is unrecorded in the University Archives, we don’t know what life would have been like for him here.

Iwakura’s matriculation marked the beginning of a long association of the University with Japan. It has an international office in Tokyo and over 1500 alumni currently in Japan. More about the University’s links with Japan can be found on its website at https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/international-oxford/asia-east/japan

For more on Iwakura’s time at Rutgers, see the interesting article on the College’s ‘Rutgers Meets Japan: early encounters’ website at https://sites.rutgers.edu/rutgers-meets-japan/iwakura-brothers/

Further information about Christian Cole, the first known black student at Oxford, can be found at https://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/archivesandmanuscripts/2021/10/18/the-first-black-student-at-oxford-university/

The Gall of It!

15 May 2023Early modern, Learning and teaching, Medieval, Modern, Uncategorizedfayemcleod

For a long time I’ve been curious about iron gall ink. It’s a term that gets used a lot by archivists, which is unsurprising when it’s the name for the favoured ink used in Europe from the middle ages into the twentieth century, with its use spreading around the globe. It’s the ink used on the oldest document in the University Archives that mentions the University as a corporate entity (dated 1214) and it’s likely to be the same type of ink used in some of the records of the University in the 1800s.

A document, written in Latin, in black ink, on parchment

OUA/WPBeta/P/12/1 – The 1214 Award of the Papal Legate

As well as its rich colour and permanent quality (it is remarkably resistant to water), the ink is also known for a less positive aspect – over time it may “eat” through the paper. I vividly recall seeing a photograph of piece of sheet music which had been written using iron gall ink. After 200 years, the corrosion of ink had left the sheet looking like a pianola roll.

Two pages of a paper booklet, written on with black ink. In places, the ink has burned through the paper, leaving blank spaces.

MS. Rawl. D. 869 – volume one of the papers of Philip Henry Zollmann, showing the damage caused by iron gall ink

I decided, in order to appreciate the ink a little better, the best thing to do was to make some, using an original recipe, and reading secondary sources to understand the process. The recipe I settled on (as guided by this video) was that of Ugo da Carpi, Thesauro de Scrittori (Rome, 1535), reproduced in Renaissance Secrets: Recipes and Formulas (Wheeler, V&A Publishing, 2009). The recipe reads

“Take an ounce of gallnuts crushed into little pieces. Then put into a linen cloth. Tie it up, but not too tightly. Leave to soak for at least six days in 12 ounces of rainwater. Next boil until it reduces down to 8 ounces. Strain and add a quarter ounce of German vitriol, ground to a fine powder and half an ounce of gum arabic, steeped in vinegar[…] And you will make a wondrously good ink”

Gallnuts can be found on a variety of vegetation, but are perhaps best known on oak trees, where they are often called oak galls or oak apples. They are formed after certain types of insect (often a gall wasp) lay their eggs on a tree. When the eggs hatch as larvae, the larvae secrete chemicals which irritate the tree, causing it to produce gall tissue. The gall tissue acts as both a food source for the larvae, and a protective structure in which the larvae can pupate into a wasp. Last year, I asked my family and friends to gather any galls they might see and I noticed they brought back two types – one smooth and round, and the other rather wrinkly.

On a white background are two natural spheres. They are both brown in colour. One is smooth and mottled, the other is wrinkled and darker.

Thought to be an oak apple gall (left) and an oak knopper gall (right)

A Google search reveals that the wrinkly type are caused by the oak knopper gall wasp, and I think the smoother kind are from the oak apple gall wasp (although they are rather small for this type). I wasn’t sure if I could use the wrinkly type in making ink. Most of the YouTube videos showing ink making seem to show the smoother kind, and so I discounted the wrinkled type. Initially, the galls gathered were rather green, and so I left them to ripen to the brown colour that seemed in popular use. By January, they were ready. Unfortunately, I did not have the ounce required by the recipe and so (keen to get going) I bought some galls online. This provided yet another kind of gall. Given their size and their spiky surface, I believe that these may be Aleppo galls. I also purchased Iron II Sulphate (the modern name for German vitriol, or Copperas) and some Gum Arabic.

A see-through plastic pouch containing a number of brown spheres

Bag of oak galls, purchased from an online retailer, thought to be Aleppo galls

With a sudden wealth of galls, I decided to make two batches of ink – one with primarily “home gathered” galls, and one solely made with the purchased galls.

The first stage of the recipe is to crush and steep the galls in rainwater. Typically, early January was one of the very few periods in the UK with absolutely no rain. Feeling frustrated that I had nearly all the of the ingredients I needed, I turned to Assistant Keeper Alice Millea, who had previously mentioned she had water butts in her garden. Alice kindly agreed to the (admittedly odd) request, and brought in a flask of rainwater.

I measured out two jars of 12 ounces of rain water. Next, I set to crush the two sets of galls, using a pestle and mortar, starting with the batch primarily gathered nearby. However, the pestle and mortar did not work well on this batch, as the galls were rather spongy and could best be torn apart by hand.

In contrast to this, the purchased galls were extremely hard and took quite some work with the pestle and mortar to reduce to a reasonable size. From da Carpi’s use of the word “crushed” in the recipe, I would presume he was most used to working with Aleppo galls, given their hardness.

Two images, side by side. The image on the left shows a cross section of a pale beige sphere. The image on the right shows a cross-section of the inside of an orange-brown sphere

The purchased galls (on the left) had to be crushed, whereas the local galls (right) were softer and could be ripped apart.

I placed the ripped and crushed galls on squares of muslin (usually used for my jam making!) and tied them into what I can best describe as giant tea-bags. I carefully lowered them into the jars of rainwater, and left them to steep for six days.

The purpose of this process is to leech out gallotannic acid from the galls, which will react when further ingredients are added at a later stage of the recipe.

After six days the liquid had turned a strong tea-like colour, and there was a small amount of growth on top of the liquid.

Thus, I strained the liquids again, after removing the galls, through another square of muslin, before boiling each of the liquids until they were reduced to 8 ounces in weight. Whilst the liquid was boiling, I prepared the other ingredients. I was especially struck by the beautiful pale green colour of the Iron II Sulphate.

I wasn’t sure what the recipe meant by “steeping” the Gum Arabic in vinegar, so I decided to make a reasonably thick paste. I used red wine vinegar, as I thought this might have been the most readily available vinegar accessible for most of the period in which the ink was in use.

Eventually the liquid was sufficiently reduced, and an even deeper brown colour. I decanted this into clean jars.

The first ingredient to add was the Iron II Sulphate. The reaction was immediate and impressive.

The change from transparent brown to dusky black was striking. What’s happening is a chemical reaction. When the tannin (from the gallotannic acid) interacts with the iron sulphate, it forms a “ferrous tannate complex”, essentially a dusky-coloured pigment.

The addition of Gum Arabic serves a number of practical purposes. It acts as a suspension agent for the pigment particles present in the liquid, keeping them distributed throughout the ink. It controls the thickness and flow of the ink, ensuring it is the right consistency for writing. It also controls the absorption of the ink into the writing surface, keeping it “on the top” for a little longer, before allowing the ink to be absorbed into the paper or parchment, making for sharper, cleaner writing marks.

Vinegar isn’t present in all iron gall ink recipes, but it is credited with slowing down the settling of pigment particles to the bottom of the ink, and with inhibiting mould growth during storage.

I could hardly wait to try out the ink (having a new dip-pen ready and waiting) but I restrained myself and waited the suggested 24 hours. Both inks when opened smelled of vinegar, but not overwhelmingly so. It’s a very thin liquid, easy to overload the pen. One noticeable difference between the two inks is that the “home grown” gall ink was black the moment it hit the page, but this could have been partly due to an overabundance of ink on the pen.

In contrast to this, the bought gall ink was rather pale when first applied. However, this colour darkened within a few minutes to jet black. The reason for this change in colour is that the iron ions in the mixture oxidise with the air, producing (from the ferrous tannate complex) a ferric tannate pigment with a darker colour, and thus a darker ink.

Furthermore, whilst the ferrous tannate complex is water soluble, the ferric tannate pigment is not, making the ink water resistant.

One final piece of curiosity was, unfortunately, not to be satisfied. I have often wondered what made different varieties of the same ink act so differently. Why do some versions of the ink “eat through” parchments, whilst others affect no damage to the surface? An obvious component is the acidity of the ink, and given that the galls are a variable source of gallotannic acid, I wondered whether different batches of galls would produce different amounts of acid. The Bodleian Conservation department very kindly provided me with some pH testing strips. Unfortunately, the ink simply turned them black, preventing any readings from being taken!

A small warning to those who intend to experiment for themselves – do remember to tighten the lid before shaking the ink…

Sources, Further Reading and Watching

Wheeler, Jo, and Katy Temple. Renaissance Secrets: Recipes and Formulas. London: V&A, 2009.

https://irongallink.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_gall_ink

https://www.rhs.org.uk/biodiversity/oak-gall-wasps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo9rbRRCBv8

Horsing around – students and their horses

5 April 202318th century, 19th century, Archives and Modern Manuscripts, Oxford University Archives, Spotlight, UncategorizedArchives & Modern Manuscripts, Oxford Universityalicemillea

As the horseracing world gets ready for this year’s Grand National on 13-15 April, the University Archives’ blog this month looks at the relationship between horses and students at Oxford in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

The life of an undergraduate student at late-eighteenth-century Oxford was not what we would call arduous. The University had become rather (in)famous by this date for its narrow and undemanding curriculum, and lax examination standards. Its academic reputation was poor, seen as a place where the sons of aristocracy could spend a few years in a kind of finishing school, enjoying themselves before going out into the adult world. Lectures were not compulsory and as there were no written exams, and only one final (oral) examination which no-one failed, there was little pressure on students to study hard. No wonder, then, that students had free time on their hands.

For some students, horses became a big part of this free time. Horses had a variety of uses: both as providing entertainment and sport, and as a means of transport and travel, enabling students to leave the confines of Oxford and get out into the countryside (and into the country pubs) around it.

Most students, if they needed a horse, simply hired one from one of the many stables in Oxford which had grown up to support this thriving market. Famous stable keepers of the the time included Charley Symonds in Holywell Street (whose stables, at one point, could accommodate 100 horses) and Samuel Quartermaine in St Aldates (who apparently owned a Grand National winner). The more well-off students kept their own horses in Oxford, however, and paid these stable keepers (at great expense) to look after their horses so they could use them whenever they wanted to.

In order to keep a horse at Oxford, students needed the permission of both the Vice-Chancellor and their college. Keeping a horse without permission was not permitted by the University authorities. This was to try to enable the University to control the keeping of horses by its students, and to limit the damage that the students could do with them.

The University Archives holds a small number of records concerning the keeping of horses and the means by which students secured permission to do so. A parent, usually the student’s father, wrote to the Vice-Chancellor personally to request that his son could keep a horse. The request also had to be approved by the student’s college. The records here include a number of these letters from parents and colleges. One student in 1788, Thomas Bartlam of Worcester College, almost literally had a note from his mum.

Letter giving permission for Thomas Bartlam, Worcester College, to keep a horse, 1788 (from OUA/MR/8/1/2)

As expected, these students were of the richer variety: those who could afford to pay someone else to keep their horse for the duration of the term. They were also rich enough to apply, in the same way, to keep their own servants at Oxford. Rather unfortunately, the keeping of both horses and personal servants was administered by the University in the same manner. The records in the Archives include a register, arranged by college, of the names of students who successfully applied for permission (‘veniam impetravit’) to keep either a horse or a servant. Next to the names of the students were two columns – one for horses (‘Eq’, short for ‘equus’ the Latin word for horse) and one for servants (‘Serv’) giving the numbers kept of each.

Names of students of Merton College given permission to keep horses and servants, 1786-1808 (from OUA/MR/8/1/2)

As time went on, the register also began to be used to record permission to keep vehicles (ie carriages to go with the horse). Horse-drawn vehicles caused the University authorities great consternation as they tried to stop students driving a range of carriages (gigs, tandems and ‘phaetons’) fast and furiously around the city.

When applying for permission to keep a horse, many students claimed that their doctor had recommended riding for their ‘health’. The city of Oxford was probably not the cleanest place in the late eighteenth century, and a ride out into the fresher air of the Oxfordshire countryside was no doubt of benefit, but there is reason to be cynical about the truth of all of these claims. The University’s statutes governing undergraduate behaviour (De Moribus Conformandis) made only one exception to the general rule of no horses, and that was for students in poor health. As a result, it appears to have become a bit of a loophole, exploited as a convenient way to guarantee that permission would be granted.

Apart from the freedom to travel, which a horse would give, the most likely (and coincidentally most illicit) reason why a student might want to keep on in Oxford was for sport. The undergraduate sporting scene at this time was very different from today. Organised sport did not exist – neither the University nor the college provided facilities for it – and sports clubs did not start to emerge until much later in the second half of the nineteenth century. Instead, student sport was very much based on individuals’ personal wealth and the conspicuous use of it.

Having managed to get their horse to Oxford, the students then used it to indulge in expensive luxury pursuits such as hunting and horse riding in the countryside nearby. Nearly all such pursuits were prohibited by the University, its statutes specifically forbidding students from pursuing most horse-related activities. As well as outlawing the driving of certain horse-drawn vehicles, the statute De Moribus Conformandis banned students from indulging in pastimes which involved money, or which could cause injury or a spectacle. The one sport which flouted nearly every one of these rules was horse racing.

Taking part in horse racing, or even just spectating, combined many of the worst excesses of student behaviour, the University thought, and it fought against it. Although the arrival of the railway in Oxford in the 1840s had made it easier for students to get to racecourses (despite the University trying to prevent them from getting there by banning the use of stations such as Ascot), students made their own entertainment closer to home, holding horse races in and around the city.

The University responded by putting up notices warning students not to take part. Posted on college walls and doors, these printed notices were the chief means of communication by the University to students at the time, usually reprimanding them for bad behaviour. Issued under the name of the Vice-Chancellor or Proctors, they described the offending behaviour before threatening punishment under the relevant part of the statutes. Punishments were usually in the form of fines, but could involve expulsion for serious or repeat offenders. Some notices even threatened the townspeople who aided and abetted the students.

Notice concerning horseracing, undated (c1848-52) (from OUA/WPγ/26/2)

A small number of these notices survive. One reports the practice of horse racing in Port Meadow and comes down hard on both those taking part as well as those simply watching. Another mentions an upcoming steeplechase which seems to have been widely publicised. Taking pre-emptive action, the University threatens those planning on participating with removal from the University (‘amotionis ab Academia’).

Notice concerning steeplechasing, undated (c1848-52) (from OUA/WPγ/26/2)

By the second half of the nineteenth century, things were changing. Steeplechasing became respectable in the 1860s when it gained ‘blue’ status (ie formal Oxford-Cambridge steeplechasing contests were established). Relations between students and the University authorities improved as sports clubs began to be established and organised team sports (such as cricket and rugby) replaced private activities. And the number of idle gentry amongst the student body decreased as the academic rigour of the University’s curriculum and examinations increased. The respite for the University authorities was brief, however. Within a few decades, the motor car had replaced the horse as the students’ vehicle of choice and the University had to deal with a brand new and much more dangerous problem.

Equestrianism continues to thrive at the University today, although it mostly focuses on showjumping and dressage, and not on steeplechasing across Port Meadow. Further information can be found on the University Sport equestrian website at https://www.sport.ox.ac.uk/equestrian

Armenian Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library: Carnegie Foundation Digitisation Project

8 December 2022UncategorizedAlasdair Watson

Armenian Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library: Carnegie Foundation Digitisation Project

by David Zakarian

Among the many treasures of the Bodleian Libraries there are several precious gems from medieval Armenia. The first Armenian manuscripts were donated to the library by William Laud (1573 – 1645), the Archbishop of Canterbury, shortly after it opened its doors to scholars in 1602. Since then, the collection has steadily grown to include 140 manuscripts and thousands of printed books.

In 2021, thanks to the generous funding of The Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Bodleian began a digitisation project of the most fragile and important, from the scholarly perspective, manuscripts of this collection. To this date, 14 manuscripts and one early printed book have been fully digitised and are available to readers worldwide on the Digital Bodleian website.

The earliest Armenian manuscript of the collection, John Chrysostom’s Commentary on Epistle to Ephesians (MS. Arm. d. 11), dates to the 11th century and is one of the oldest surviving copies of this work. The manuscript is very fragile and damaged by humidity and physical harm. Folios 1-6 have been perforated by something sharp and perhaps hot: it is not unlikely that it was deployed to protect someone from being pierced by an arrow or a spear.

Bodleian Libraries, MS. Arm. d. 11, fol. 2r

Five of the digitised manuscripts – MS. Arm. c.1, MS. Arm. d.3, MS. Arm. d.13, MS. Arm. d.22, and MS. Arm. d.25 – contain well-preserved beautiful illuminations, representing a whole range of biblical motifs and scenes. The authors of the illuminations in MS. Arm. d.13, MS. Arm. d.22, and MS. Arm. d.25 come from a prominent monastic school of illumination of Xizan (today’s Hizan in Turkey) of the Vaspurakan province of historical Armenia.

There are 24 full-page illuminations at the beginning of the MS. Arm. d.13 on folios 1v-24r. Each image has a brief note inserted at the bottom of the page, which provides information about the scene depicted in it. The author of these beautiful illuminations is the renowned Armenian artist Mesrop of Xizan (c. 1560–c. 1652), who primarily lived and worked in New Julfa in Isfahan. Mesrop’s style is quite distinct, with images full of bright colours, including portraits with simple yet clearly-defined features.

Betrayal of Judas. Bodleian Libraries, MS. Arm. d. 13, fol. 12r

Another representative of Xizan, whose work has been preserved in the Bodleian MS. Arm. d.22, is the miniaturist Sargis Mokac‘i. Sargis is one of the better-known artists of the Vaspurakan / Xizan school of artists, who was a native of Mokk‘, a province south of Lake Van bordering on the province of Xizan, and was active from 1588 to his death in 1602. The MS. Arm. d.22 contains 14 full-page miniatures on folios 3v–10r and a large number of beautiful vignettes found in different parts of the manuscript.

Birth of Christ. Bodleian Libraries, MS. Arm. d. 22, fol. 4r

From amongst the printed Armenian books that form part of the Bodleian’s large collection, the 1638 edition of the Psalter stands out (Vet. Or. f. Arm. 1). According to the colophon, vardapet Xač‘atur Kesarac‘i printed this volume “in the city of Šōš in the desert of J̌uła [New Julfa of Isfahan, Iran] in the year 1087 [= 1638 CE]” with the help of his students, “master Hakobčan, tēr Yovhannēs the priest, and tēr Mik‘ayel, and Yovsēp‘”. It has been suggested that this book could be the first ever printed book in Iran and the Middle East (Nersessian, Vrej. 1980. Catalogue of Early Armenian Books: 1512-1850. London: The British Library, pp. 41 and 49).

Bodleian Libraries, Vet. Or. f. Arm. 1, p. 157

The Bodleian’s digitisation project has created new opportunities for scholars to access several significant sources for the study of rich Armenian heritage. In the future, our team of specialists hope to secure more funding to digitise the remaining Armenian manuscripts and make accessible other hidden treasures for scholars and manuscript enthusiasts around the world.

Radcliffe Square before the Camera

7 December 202215th century, 18th century, 19th century, Oxford University Archives, Spotlight, UncategorizedArchives & Modern Manuscripts, John Radcliffe, Oxford Universityalicemillea

This month’s University Archives’ blog looks at a small and rather battered plan which we hold showing the area between St Mary’s Church and the Old Bodleian Library. It shows the outlines of the buildings which used to exist in Radcliffe Square before the Radcliffe Camera was built.

Plan of site of the Radcliffe Camera, showing properties which occupied the site before the Camera was built. undated (OUA/UD 28/33)

The plan shows which buildings used to stand along Catte Street, together with the names of the individuals or colleges who owned and occupied them. Superimposed on them is the familiar circular outline of the Camera. Catte Street was originally a narrow street running from the High Street up to New College Lane, occupied by houses, shops and businesses which filled much of the open space that we’re used to today. These buildings even joined directly onto the Old Bodleian Library, known then as the University’s Schools quad, and marked ‘Schools’ at the top end of the plan. Duke Humfrey’s Library is indicated by ‘Library’. The plan shows the surrounding colleges: All Souls and Brasenose, the latter of which has much detail including the chapel, woodyard and the rather alarmingly-named ‘Bogg House’. St Mary’s Church is shown at the bottom of the plan.

We know that the plan was kept and used for many years by the University as part of its collections of plans and drawings of University buildings. It bears the marks of two former plan referencing systems in its bottom right-hand corner. What we don’t know is when the plan was made, by whom, or why.

The Radcliffe Library (as the Radcliffe Camera was originally known) opened in 1749, the brainchild of Dr John Radcliffe, physician, politician and former student of the University. A wealthy man, he bequeathed to the University, in his will of 1713, a large sum of money (£40,000) for the building of a new library. Radcliffe not only decided exactly where he wanted his library to be, he also made provision in his will for the purchase and demolition of the houses on Catte Street which were, at that time, in the way.

Architect Nicholas Hawksmoor began drawing up plans for the new building in 1714. Grand plans were afoot to make the area south of what is now the Old Bodleian Library into a ‘forum universitatis’, an impressive central space and focal point of the University. Certain people were rather sniffy about the houses on Catte Street, Charles I remarking in the previous century that the houses there ‘take off from the lustre and dignity of the University’. It sounded like the plans for the Radcliffe Library were just what was needed to realise the vision and clear away the occupants of the Catte Street properties at the same time, whether or not they wanted to move.

A circular library was planned from the outset, but despite Radcliffe’s will stating precisely where the building should be, early aborted plans played around with its location. One proposal suggested joining it onto the west end of the Old Bodleian from Selden End of Duke Humfrey’s Library, sticking out into – and taking up rather a lot of – the gardens of Exeter College. Another located it in what is now Radcliffe Square, but stuck directly onto the south side of the Old Bodleian. Neither was aesthetically very satisfactory and the final location, mid-way between the Old Bodleian and St Mary’s was eventually settled upon.

Radcliffe died in 1714 leaving his estate and the plans for the new library to his executors, the Radcliffe Trustees. The Trustees began the long and tortuous task of acquiring the properties they needed. Despite Radcliffe’s foresight in his will, it still took many years for the Trustees to navigate through the complicated freeholds and leaseholds on each property and negotiate with all the different property owners. As well as private individuals, they had to deal with the five colleges who owned and leased out some of the houses. Brasenose College, for example, had several properties on the site including student lodgings, a coach house and a brewery. In 1719 the college brokered a deal with the Trustees: in exchange for their Catte Street properties, they wanted the Trust to purchase them houses to the south of their quadrangle. It’s said that in order to facilitate this, a plan was drawn up in 1720 by the Trustees, showing the various properties and their owners, with, superimposed on top, the outline of the proposed circular library.

This sounds very much like our plan, but ours is not as old as 1720 – the handwriting, for example, is not from that period. A version of the 1720 map which was apparently, at the time, kept in the Radcliffe Library itself, was later engraved and published in James Skelton’s book Oxonia Antiqua Restaurata of 1843.

Plan of Radcliffe Square from ‘Oxonia Antiqua Restaurata’ by Joseph Skelton (1843)

Legal obstacles further complicated things and an Act of Parliament had to be created in order to allow the sale of some of the properties to go ahead and the Trustees to acquire the last of the properties. In the end it took nearly 20 years to acquire all the properties on the site and have them demolished. The very last one, the house and garden adjoining the south side of the Old Bodleian, was demolished in 1733, leaving the Library with the familiar appearance which it has now.

In 1736, John Radcliffe’s last surviving sister Hannah, who was looked after by his will until her death, passed away, meaning that the funds for the new library could finally be released. The long years of negotiation over, work to construct the library began. Hawksmoor had died in March that year, before building work had even begun, and James Gibbs took over the commission. The foundation stone of the new Library was laid on 17 May 1737 and Radcliffe Square was born. The building work was completed in 1748 and the Library officially opened on 13 April 1749.

The Radcliffe Library became known as the Radcliffe Camera in 1861 when its collection of scientific books moved out to the newly-created University Museum, the new science hub of the University. To differentiate the Radcliffe Library from this collection of books (now housed in what was called the Radcliffe (Science) Library), it was renamed the Radcliffe Camera (‘camera’ being the Latin word for ‘room’) and officially became a reading room of the Bodleian Library.

The Camera finally passed from the ownership of the Radcliffe Trustees to the University in 1927. As part of the property acquisition, the University also acquired a large number of deeds and documents relating to the houses which the Trust had purchased and demolished to build the Camera. These deeds came to the University Archives at about the same time, and we think that the plan arrived along with the deeds.

Many of those deeds were several hundred years old and told the stories of the people who had lived and worked in those properties over the centuries. One of the earliest relates to House number 10 on Catte Street. Dated 6 February 1425, it is a grant of the land (a tenement with shops) from John Whytewonge to John Dolle, bookbinder, and Jane his wife.

The oldest surviving deed for House no 10 on Catte Street, 6 Feb 1425 (OUA/UD 27/7/1)

Unfortunately we still don’t know much more about our plan. It certainly appears to be much later in date than the information it is showing, maybe a copy of part of the 1720 plan, but it’s difficult to say when or why it was made. Perhaps it was compiled at the time that the University acquired the Camera site. Maybe it was compiled by the Radcliffe Trustees to help them identify the many deeds and documents they were transferring to the University along with the property. Perhaps it was the University’s attempt to understand things from its side. Whichever it is, it is a fascinating plan which shows a very different Oxford than the one we’re used to.

For more information about the Radcliffe Camera and its history, see Stephen Hebron’s 2014 history, Dr Radcliffe’s Library: The Story of the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford. For an interesting chronological journey through the buildings of Brasenose College, see the College’s website at College buildings – Brasenose College, Oxford

A wooden model of Hawksmoor’s early plan for the Camera was given to the Bodleian in 1913. A short blog was written about it in 2008 at Radcliffe Camera model by Nicholas Hawksmoor – The Conveyor (ox.ac.uk)

Fancy things: Cataloguing the Tercentennial Collection

8 November 202220th century, Archives and Modern Manuscripts, Cataloguing, Uncategorizedstringerr

What do you get a library for its birthday? Especially if it’s a big birthday?

An unusual question, perhaps, but one which was faced by institutions in both Europe and North America when the University of Oxford announced that there would be a celebration of the Bodleian Library’s 300th Anniversary in 1902.

The answer, as evidenced by the Tercentennial Collection, was fancy things…

A folio-sized “book” in a teal felt-lined box; the cover is in brown leather with darker brown leather borders, with an ornate gilt eagle within a decorative border in the centre and gold-coloured “furniture” in the corners.

Tercent. b.5, which was sent by the governing body of the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen

As part of an ongoing project by the Rare Books team, my colleagues and I have been upgrading the records of collections which will be moved to offsite storage.

These are all items which have been in the library for some time, and most of them are on what we call Pre-1920 records, which were very minimal and transcribed from index cards. My remit is to deal with “recent” books which, in the context of collections that go back to the 15th century, means anything published after about 1850.

The Tercentennial collection had been sitting quietly in a corner of the bookstack ever since it was moved back in when the Weston Library first opened. Largely on records which described it as “[Miscellaneous papers relating to the tercentenary of the Bodleian library, 1902]” there was nothing on the catalogue to suggest the actual content, which was quite unusual.

There were boxes, in some cases very elaborate boxes, which contained salutations in a number of languages from institutions across Europe, often in very fancy bindings (pictured above Tercent. b.5, which was sent by the governing body of the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen) and also quite often printed on parchment, with wax seals and signatures from the various senior members of the institutions.

Some institutions, perhaps deciding that flat parchment was less interesting, sent scrolls, which make up the Tercentenary Rolls collection.

a blue library trolley with flat wooden shelves containing a collection of telescopic tubes and one square box. The tubes are mostly red and blue leather, with one of brass and another of cardboard. The box for the image above is furthest to the left of the tubes on the top shelf.

Scrolls making up the Tercentenary Rolls collection

This one, Tercentenary Rolls 9, came from the Universität Göttingen, and is the only one which is presented as a box, rather than a telescopic tube:

A roll of paper within a long, tube-shaped box which is covered with brown leather and lined with gold-coloured silk. The box has brass fasteners which are visible on both sides.]

Tercentenary Rolls 9

Aside from the interest of the lengths people went to to present their letters, including a lot of crushed velvet and gold, the textual content of these items is fairly similar: wordy congratulations on the anniversary of the library in a range of languages, and if this were all that the collection held it would be fairly boring. What makes this an interesting snapshot of the library’s history are the scrapbooks.

Tercent. b.9 is a collection of papers relating to the celebrations which was compiled by Falconer Madan, an assistant librarian at the time. It is a comprehensive record of the activities of the University, beginning with a letter dated 1 March 1901, proposing a committee to arrange events for the Tercentenary celebration. In chronological order, the scrapbook contains reports of the committee, announcements from the Curators confirming that the celebrations would take place, and then an official announcement of the celebration, in English and Latin.

Madan was extremely thorough in his collecting and this scrapbook contains a wealth of ephemera including proofs of invitations, lists of the guests who were coming and the people who would be hosting them, copies of a “Lady’s ticket” to the reception (most of the guests being men, of course), plans of the Ashmolean, where the reception was to take place, and seating plans and menus for the dinner in the Hall in Christ Church, which was held on October 9th, 1902.

The scrapbook concludes with press cuttings about the celebration from a wealth of British and foreign newspapers and journals.

Another scrapbook, Tercent. c.5, holds similar material; both now have extensive content notes in the catalogue records, listing everything.

A published work, Pietas Oxoniensis was also produced by the Oxford University Press, and there is evidence in the Tercentennial collection of the painstaking work which went into it. There are several versions of the book in the collection; Tercent. c.6-c.12 are different iterations including proofs which were sent by the Press to the Librarian, Edward Nicholson, who annotated them in his distinctive spidery handwriting in bright red ink.

This example, Tercent. c.6, also shows a few annotations by Madan in black ink. A copy of the finished book can be found at Tercent. c.13.

Two pages of a folio-sized book, printed with a list of the librarians of the Bodleian Library. The text has been heavily annotated in red in the hand of Edward Nicholson, with a few annotations in black ink, and two blue-ink stamps of the Oxford University Press top and bottom

Tercent. c.6

This collection of disparate not-books represents a snapshot of a particular event in the history of the library and is all the more valuable for that. If it had not been for the diligence of the librarians at the time, these items might have been separated into different collections, or lost entirely.

Someone – presumably Falconer Madan – had the foresight to collect all the materials and gifts together, and it is our good fortune that they have been largely undisturbed for the last 120 years.

Everything has now been boxed and sent offsite (with the exception of Tercent. Rolls 11, which is printed on very friable paper and is awaiting repair), from where they can be ordered to the Weston Library by anyone who is interested.

This year marks 420 years since the opening of the library, and, while there will be no big celebrations (or fancy scrolls) to mark that birthday, it seems fitting that the celebrations of 1902 are now recorded in a way that makes them more accessible.

Katie Guest
Senior Library Assistant
Rare Books,