Social Media Digest for January

Welcome back to our (rather delayed) Social, Media highlights for last month. Our Archive of The Week thread started 2024 with a religious leaning and an undated photo which we had very little information about. But having somewhat accidentally seen a different view of the same event in a booklet in a Diocesan church buildings …

‘Bryan Donkin – the man and his machines’ online exhibition

Here’s a question – have you at any point today handled a piece of paper, written with a pen or opened a tin can?  If so then your activities have been influenced by one of the most important, if little known, British engineers of the 19th century. Those of you who read our blog will …

Finding Derbyshire Business archives

A guide to finding the archives of Derbyshire businesses. Derbyshire Record Office holds nearly 1000 collections for businesses and trades across the county and city of Derby, primarily for the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, although some date as early as the 16th century.  Amongst the largest of these collections are: D1851 Bryan Donkin and …

Bryan Donkin on the BBC (again)

Previous posts about Bryan Donkin have included links to television programmes that give him a mention. Now Richard Donkin has let us know of a recent episode of BBC2's Inside The Factory, which includes a segment on the history of the tin can, and Donkin's role as an innovator in this field.  If the BBC …

Bryan Donkin book launched

There was a great turn-out at Chesterfield for the launch of Maureen Greenland and Russ Day's new book, "Bryan Donkin: The Very Civil Engineer, 1768-1855". The town is rightly proud of the company that Donkin created, and the legacy of technological innovation that it leaves us. There was a slide show, the screening of a …

Bryan Donkin book launch at Chesterfield Library

Genius deserves to be celebrated. So please do join us in celebrating the genius that was Bryan Donkin by coming to the launch of a ground-breaking new biography of the man, written by Maureen Greenland and Russ Day. The book draws heavily on the archival legacy of Donkin and the company he founded, which was based …

Derby University History Students help us find new ways to fundraise

Over the past few months, five second year history students from Derby University have been undertaking a module called Contemporary Issues in the Creative and Cultural Industries.  This has required them to tackle a real life work challenge which has been posed for them by the Record Office: how can we raise money to catalogue the …

Treasure 29: Bryan Donkin’s day book

This treasure has been nominated by Maureen Greenland, on behalf of the Bryan Donkin Archive Trust, of which she is Secretary.  Maureen writes: The many letters, diaries and records held in the Donkin Collection (D1851) throw light on both the personal and the working life of the brilliant engineer Bryan Donkin. Born in 1768, he …

Bryan Donkin on the BBC

You may remember (how could you forget?) our blogpost about Bryan Donkin back in June: https://recordoffice.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/bryan-donkin-article-the-tin-can/ It was just a link to a BBC web article about Bryan Donkin's invention of the tin can, but I did also point out that Donkin's experimental work on this is recorded in his series of diaries (D5029/1), held here.  …

Bryan Donkin article – the tin can

Here is a fascinating article about Bryan Donkin and the invention of the tin can: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21689069 If you are interested in the journals mentioned, you might like to know that the reference number for the series is D5029/1.