March’s Social Media Digest

To get off on the right note for March, which is Women’s History Month, our Archive of the Week thread turned to the Arts. In our Strutt Library, bequeathed by Frederick Strutt (1843-1909), you’ll find a cornucopia of literary, artistic, and scientific works, including musical compositions by Frances Crawford Kemble (1787-1849) a.k.a. Mrs Robert Arkwright of Sutton Scarsdale.

Then World Poetry Day, our thread profiled Monica Peveril Turnbull of Ashbourne (1878-1901).

Following her passing at the age of 20, her poems were published posthumously as ‘A Short Day’s Work’.

This original poem in Monica’s handwriting reads:

I will walk no more on the hills / Where Midsummer flowers grow / I will wait till the loud wind fills / The valleys with crying snow; / Then forth at last I go Whence flow the darkened rills –  / (Each inky-black + slow / Through the white land distils) / And here where no lark thrills / With a voice of long ago, / And here where winter wills / That never a stem should blow / I will yet go bending low, / As if for flowers that grow / At Midsummer on the hills

Elsewhere in our posts, we also celebrated the ‘Poet of the Peak’, Joseph Waterfall. Born in 1840 without the ability to walk and with limited use of his hands, he lived latterly in a Bakewell almshouse.

He ‘wrote’ his poems by cutting out letters from old papers and sticking them on a sheet to be printed.

On to a more visual media, and Derby Women’s Arts Club was founded in 1922
to encourage and support women to practice arts and crafts.

 

Activities included painting, sketching, embroidery, lacework and leatherwork. The club merged with Derby Sketching Club in 1995.

We received more material from the Sketching Club in March! 

This includes minutes, newsletters, details about exhibitions, correspondence, and previous members details.

Whilst on the subject of new arrivals, we also received more records from the Parish of Christ Church, Belper, which also included records for old St Faiths Mission Church at Belper Lane End.

And also a new collection for the Chevin Group of Parishes. This was a group of churches within Belper and the surrounding area that worked together to organise events and look for new ways to engage with mission, evangelism and discipleship across the Chevin Group.

While we care for paper documents, we also care for digital records.

We recently took in the accounts for Parish of Horsley St Clement, which were all digital.

So, if you have any digital records relating to Derbyshire that should be preserved, we would love to hear from you!

Next to the theatre. To celebrate Shakespeare Week in SocialMedialand, our Local Studies staff pulled out this programme from The Village Players of Great Hucklow. To commemorate their 25th anniversary this local theatre company revived the first play they ever performed back in 1927 – The Merchant of Venice …

… which features one of Shakespeare’s most fully formed female characters, Portia.

Then, in 1930, architects Norah Aiton and Betty Scott designed the office building for Aiton & Co, pipe manufacturers of Derby.

It was a milestone building of the modernist movement in Britain, and one of the first to be designed by a female partnership.

Also straddling the Arts and a more practical work of work was Nellie Kirkham, artist and illustrator, poet and published playwright. This accomplished woman went on to become a notable historian and industrial archaeologist, specialising in the history of lead mining in the Peak District.

This page from a notebook shows her brief handwritten notes in blue ink with basic sketch line drawings of a bridge and its balustrades.

Admittedly some were referred to as ‘wife’ ‘maid’ or even ‘wench’ but most were referred to by name.

Did you know that women worked in lead mines? An account book of 1737 for Miners Engine Mine at Eyam Edge lists 17 women who worked hauling ore to the surface.

If you saw our blogpost on Kirkstead Board School, you’ll be interested in another new accession: a Pupil Teacher’s Training Record for, and photo of, Elizabeth Kirkman who trained at Ambergate Council School. As no other records for the school have survived, we were especially pleased to receive this.

A double page inside the book from February 1907, recording: Class Teaching and Management; Observing or Assisting an Adult Teacher; Model Lessons; Criticism Lesson; Private Study; and Instruction by Head or other approved Teacher. There are various comments in some columns, such as: Marking Written Exercise Books”; with notes by the Head Teacher at the bottom of each page. They have also signed and dated each page.

This early twentieth century school photograph shows three rows of children, flanked on the left-hand side by a male teacher and on the right-hand side by Elizabeth Kirkman

On to The Great War, and here’s a short extract from the diary of Maria Gyte, innkeeper and “farmer’s wife”, on the day in 1914 the UK declared war on Germany, describes both international and local history in one.

This diary entry reads:
“Aug 4^th Mr. & Mrs. Ball & family went home.
Rather gollmy at times. Men working in the hay (Waterlands) W[ilia]m mowed croft heads. Nothing can be talking about but the “ war This has come on as suddenly. 1^st  Austria & Servia [West Macedonia, Greece] Then Russia mobilises This does nor please Germany & she invades France before war is declared. England has forfeit for peace buit it is feared that she will have to fight as Germany is proving very aggressive.
Sir Edward Grey’s speech in paper this morning.
W[ilia]m also moved Little Butts
England declared war on Germany”

For over 80 years the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service has encouraged people to give the gift of time to their local community.

Our records of the WRVS show all the great work the women of the Derby branch were involved in.

And Finally

For Mothering Sunday – and for Mothers everywhere …

We love the fact that an adult drew lines on this mid-19thC letter so that a child could write neatly to their mother

#WomensHistoryMonth