Happy New Year! And welcome back for the last of the Twitter Digests for 2022!
Our Archive Of The Week stream was its usual diverse assortment. We began with the Parish of Doveridge, which includes this 1721 agreement for repair of the church clock, by a Uttoxeter blacksmith named Lewis Shutt…
… paid £1.40 up front, followed by seven yearly payments of 12.5p.
We don’t just have official coalmining records, we also have personal documents such as this book that coalminer Henry Moorley (1870-1934) used to keep his financial records and other useful info.
He handily gives a list of all the pits he worked at.
Following with the mining theme, we also featured this mid #19thcentury solution for storing coal receipts, from Granville Colliery, Swadlincote.
Next the Archive of the Week moved onto Ferodo Ltd, clutch and brake lining manufacturers of Chapel-en-le-Frith. Within their collection we found these great winter photographs from the 1920s.
We aren’t sure why they are in the collection, perhaps they were considering brakes for skis! 🤭
We found a similarly interesting array of memorable dates to round the year off.
The 7th of December was Letter Writing Day, so we went back to one of our favourite subjects, Sir John Franklin.
Here he’s getting scolded by Eleanor Porden for not writing often enough. She writes that she believes people can get to know each other better from “unrestrained epistolary intercourse” than being together in person.
We’ve also had a go at translating this French Napoleonic-era letter from the Neapolitan Minister of War
Can you help improve our effort and perhaps work out the name of the author?
The 13th was the Day Of The Horse, here is a beautiful specimen, ready to take Miss Airmyne Crewe from Calke Abbey anywhere she’d like to go.
Meanwhile, our conservator was renumbering a bundle of photographs in the Calke Abbey archive, and noticed several of a very old crashed plane.
Intrigued? Find out more in our blog post about Gustav Hamel’s 1911 crash.
If you followed these posts in recent months, you’ll know that we love taking part in Twitter themes, and in the run up to Christmas, the Archives & Records Association for Scotland were at it again. Of course, we participated in the 12 Days Of Archives.
And on the First Day today Of Archives, ARA Scotland sent us the theme of #Tree. So here is a Victorian Christmas card with an angel bringing a highly decorated tree.
On the 4th day of Archives we presented illuminated #decorations in the 1990s on a snow-covered Hall Leys Park in Matlock
The December health advice from this 1830 diary is very concerned about ‘convivial meetings’.
Temperance and regular hours are, apparently, essential. Of course we agree – don’t you? 😉
With festive gatherings back on the agenda we enjoyed imagining this engagement from our dance card. Who’s free for our sixth dance?
And Finally
In case you were wondering about the header image for this post, we do like coming across marbled paper endleaves. Those above are from around 1840 and were used in a large accounting ledger. #Searchroom Surprise!
Derbyshire Record Office 