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Goodbye to Volume H!
Some of the Library’s rarest printed items are ephemeral publications, pamphlets, broadsides and single sheet circulars, ranging from the 17th century to the present day. Their survival is unusual, and...
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A little treasure trove for a Monday: some highlights from our latest display
Our latest display in the reading room is something of a salmagundi. We decided to pick out a selection of the items donated to the Library’s visual resources collection over the past twelve months,...
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The Ploughshare, voice of Quaker Socialism
Bound volume II of The Ploughshare (1917) The Ploughshare was a quarterly, later monthly, journal published by the Socialist Quaker Society (SQS) between 1912 and 1919. It was edited by William Loftus...
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Football with the Foxes
Mention ‘Quakers’ to the average football fan and the response is likely to be something to do with Darlington. Darlington FC, founded in 1883, received its nickname because of the importance of...
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The Macaroni Jester – an antidote to melancholy
To mark April Fool’s Day, we’re not going to spin a yarn about Quakers and kilts or how George Fox invented porridge while in jail. Instead, here’s part of the true tale of an 18th century joke book...
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Playing with shadows: silhouette portraits and how to make them
Richard Dykes Alexander (1788-1866)by Samuel Metford(Pic. Vol. II) Silhouettes – solid profile images – have long been a popular form of portraiture, though the name itself only dates back a couple of...
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Commonplace books: collections of precious gems
Have you ever kept a scrapbook, jotted things of interest in a notebook, or clipped extracts from webpages? Then you have been “commonplacing”. For centuries, writers, philosophers, theologians,...
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A glimpse into the strongrooms
Way back in May 2012, commenting on the blog’s very first post, a reader asked “how about a picture of what the strongrooms look like today?” Perhaps rashly, we promised a peek. One year on, at last we...
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A life of Quaker service in England and Germany from World War I to II:...
We’re pleased to present a guest blog post from Hannah Ratford, who recently spent two weeks at the Library as part of her archives and records management training. As part of the M.A. course in...
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Readers’ stories: 18th century London – a foreign country
The third in our series of readers’ stories comes from Esther Sahle who is currently researching early modern Quaker merchants for a PhD at London School of Economics. I have been asked to write about...
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Howzat: some cricketing Quakers
While summer and the cricket season are still in full swing, you may enjoy some of these photographs from the records of the Falcon Touring Club, a Quaker cricket team. Dating back to 1902, the club...
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Artists inspired by worship
Linda Murgatroyd of the Quaker Arts Network writes about a selection of images of Quaker worship that she researched for the 2014 Quaker Arts Network calendar, Inspired by worship My recent researches...
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Quakers, relief and rescue in 1930s and 1940s Europe: a collaborative...
Since 2006 the Library has been involved in a collaborative microfilming project with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). The Museum, based in Washington DC, is the most comprehensive institution...
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Chinese translations
Work to add all the Library’s printed materials to our online catalogue continues, reaching into some less visited corners of the collections. In the angle of the reading room gallery sits a collection...
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Some new fruits of research in the Library’s collections
Over the past year the blog has focused on both well used and less known parts of the collections and reported some of the work we do to preserve and make them better known. We highlighted a few of the...
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Readers’ stories: researching the India Conciliation Group
The fourth in our series of readers’ stories is from Sue Smith who has recently completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Historical Studies at the University of Oxford. Sue is a member of Oxford Quaker...
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Horses – bits and bots: the writings of Bracy Clark, F.L.S.
It’s the Chinese Year of the Horse – not much Quaker material there you might well think. If you were researching horses and equine veterinary practice, our Library would hardly be your first port of...
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Library resources for researching World War I
The horror of the First World War made such a profound impact that responses to it a century later are still powerful. Historians, journalists and members of the public are engaging in passionate...
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Library resources for researching World War I: Friends Peace Committee
The first of our World War I resources blogposts focuses on the Friends Peace Committee, a committee of Meeting for Sufferings (the standing representative body of Quakers in Britain) that had already...
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Library resources for researching World War I: prison experiences of...
Most of the men who found themselves imprisoned for conscientious objection during World War I were characterised as absolutist objectors. These men were not willing to participate in the war effort to...
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