A Wayward Ward

Although much has changed in the last 200 years, some things remain constant, and the troubles of teenagers is one of them. I recently found a wonderful set of letters within the Miller Mundy family archive that tell the tale of a ward of Edward Miller Mundy, whose transition into adulthood didn't go very smoothly! …

The Miller Mundy archive – a lockdown project completed

If you are a regular follower of this blog you will have noticed several posts over the last year featuring the Mundy and Miller Mundy families. This is because one of our projects, which we began in March 2020 during the first Covid-19 lockdown, was to get the box list of the Miller Mundy archive …

Lockdown Stories: Working from Home

From earlier blog posts, you will have realised that I, like my colleagues at the Record Office, am working from home during this period of lockdown. For me, in my modest cottage, this has taken some adjustment. Firstly, child number two, aged 21, arrived home from University with a friend in tow – both with …

A letter from Trafalgar

Part of a very moving collection of letters in the Miller Mundy collection (D517) from October and November 1805, George Miller Mundy wrote an account to his father just two days after the Battle of Trafalgar.  George was captain of HMS Hydra and spent many years patrolling the seas around Cadiz and Gibraltar, engaging in …

Escape from 200 French infantry on the beach in northern Spain using guile, cunning and some fish!

So in my earlier post, we heard how George Miller Mundy managed to be reunited with his ship HMS Hydra after a beach skirmish. However, not all his crew managed to board a fishing boat to do the same. In the letter dated 1st May 1809 written to his father, Edward Miller Mundy of Shipley, …

Perfection in Accounting

Whilst we're in coronavirus lockdown, one of the collections I'm working on is D517, the archive of the Miller Mundy family of Shipley Hall.  I had to nip into the office the other day (we go in regularly to make sure the environmental conditions in the stores are as they should be) so I took …

Explore Your Archive – A Derbyshire Spirit Story

From the Derby Mercury, 26 September 1860: A Derbyshire Spirit Story The following singular story is given in Owen's "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," as being told to the writer by William Howitt and given in Mr Howitt's own words:- The circumstance you desire to obtain from me is one which I have …