An unusual incunable

An incunable is a book that was printed before the year 1500, when the printing press was still a new invention.  Most surviving ones are now in specialist libraries or private collections, but we’re fortunate to have one example here at the Record Office: Lives of the Saints volume II, by Plutarch (D5424/1).  It was …

New Florence Nightingale website

Many people aren't aware that Florence Nightingale, world famous as the founder of modern nursing, came from a Derbyshire family.  Although mostly associated in popular imagination with the Crimea, of course, and London (where she died), Florence came from the Nightingale family of Lea, near Matlock, and retained strong connections with her family home and the people of Lea. Florence's links with Derbyshire are …

Coal and Dialect

For those of you interested in coal mining heritage, there's a great new Coal and Dialect in the East Midlands website created by Natalie Braber and David Amos at Nottingham Trent University. It includes lots of oral history snippets explaining the different terms used by miners.  So if you'd like to know what an overman …

First World War commemorations

Over the next three weekends Barrow Hill Roundhouse will be hosting First World War Commemoration events for all the family. Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st October - 10am-4pm Sunday 28th October - 10am-4pm Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th November, 10am-4pm The end of the First World War will be commemorated with the special pop-up exhibition 'Derbyshire Lives Through …

A father’s letter: update

For those of you who were concerned about the condition of this letter, I have now repaired it as part of the Discovering Franklin project: Eleanor Porden became a poet and married arctic explorer Sir John Franklin in 1823. You can follow project updates on our Twitter feed @FranklinArchive