Early last year, we celebrated the appointment of Julianne Simpson, as Chetham’s new Librarian, with an exhibition entitled ‘Chetham’s Librarians: Lives and Legacies’. As part of the research for this...
On Friday 4 November 1938, the Library Committee of Chetham’s Library assembled – perhaps in the Reading Room – as Chetham’s Librarian prepared to address them. The weather in Manchester...
Browsing through some of the library’s blogs recently, I came across one from May 2016 which featured a new acquisition of an old book – Roger Oldham’s Manchester Alphabet, published...
Chetham’s Library has no lack of books with famous former owners: there is a copy of Plato’s works owned by the early modern playwright Ben Jonson (see our post on this...
On 19 November 1994 seven jackpot winners received around £800,000 each in the first National Lottery draw. In its first year £267m of lottery money went to “good causes”...
Following on from our last blog, here is an example of spycraft from the 17th century. To put a Schedule, or lytle wryting into an Egge, lay an Egge certaine days...
As anyone who has visited recently will know, Chetham’s Library played host this summer to a remarkable assembly of furniture: the original marriage bed of Henry VII and Elizabeth of...
Visitors to Manchester have the rare opportunity to see the original marriage bed made for Henry VII (the first Tudor King) and Elizabeth of York, as well as an infamous...
Birds and bindings More than twenty years ago, in the dark and dusty underground reference stacks of Manchester Central Library, I first came across the two volumes of James Bolton’s...
For as long as there have been libraries, there have been people willing to steal from them; and as a result, book-owners have always taken measures to prevent theft. From...
