Blog

1. 

   Dame of Dialect

   ‘I have laboured in the field of Lancashire literature for over half my life-time, and have tried to bring forth the pure gold hidden beneath the surface of the people’s...

   6th October 2016 • Read more

2. 

   Seventeenth Century Crowdfunding with Knyff and Kip

   ‘Knyff and Kip’ sound like a nineteenth-century vaudeville act, but were actually artists and engravers from the Netherlands, born in the mid-seventeenth century. Leendert Knyff and Johannes Kip were responsible...

   28th September 2016 • Read more

3. 

   The Bees

   Apiarists are keeping bees on city roofs and the bee is a recognisable Manchester icon that symbolises the industry and vibrancy of our city. We find bee images across the...

   22nd September 2016 • Read more

4. 

   Cats vs Dogs

   The University Library of Leiden was divided into two rows of bookcases for folios, with the smaller books arranged at the back. On the left is mathematics, philosophy, literature and...

   5th August 2016 • Read more

5. 

   Calendar Girls… and Boys

   Whilst it is true that the collections at Chetham’s were built up in a very deliberate, conscious manner, with each book being selected by governors and librarians because it fulfilled...

   3rd August 2016 • Read more

6. 

   Fashionable Amusements

   One of our wonderful Manchester scrapbooks is always referred to as ‘Cambrics’ – a rather curious name which simply describes the original fabric which covered the scrapbook. Within the book...

   21st July 2016 • Read more

7. 

   The Ballad of Chetham’s Library

   We are delighted to announce we have recently been successful in our application to the Arts Council’s Designation Development Fund. The money we will receive means we can now digitise...

   13th July 2016 • Read more

8. 

   Thursday Lates

   We’re open again this Thursday until 8.30… come along and enjoy wandering through the medieval buildings in the early evening light, see some books, relax in the Library. We’d love...

   5th July 2016 • Read more

9. 

   Waste Not Want Not

   The collection of John Byrom, which we acquired in 1870 from a descendant of the poet,  is especially interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, it contains some of the...

   28th June 2016 • Read more

10. 

    Dr. Ferriar or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and See Ghosts

    We are very pleased to announce a new acquisition, John Ferriar’s An essay towards a theory of apparitions (1813), purchased from one of our favourite bookshops, Ken Spelman of York....

    21st June 2016 • Read more