Blog

1. 

   Morbid Curiosities: Gothic Stories In The Library

   If you have been on a tour of Chetham’s Library before, you might have heard that the cabinet at the end of the Library’s Mary Wing used to contain a...

   25th January 2024 • Read more

2. 

   An interview with Fergus Wilde, the Librarian

   Librarian Fergus Wilde has worked at Chetham’s Library for close to thirty years and in May he will begin his well-deserved retirement. Before he leaves to start this new adventure,...

   4th December 2023 • Read more

3. 

   ‘Strange Knowledge of a Crow’: A Yeoman Farmer Annotates Holinshed’s Chronicle

   One of the most striking annotated books in the collection of Chetham’s Library is a copy of Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, annotated by a yeoman farmer from...

   30th November 2023 • Read more

4. 

   A Bluestocking Influencer – Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

   A BLUESTOCKING INFLUENCER – LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU One of the most influential English women of the 18th century, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), lives on at Chetham’s library in...

   3rd November 2023 • Read more

5. 

   A Tale of Manchester Life: The City’s Most Famous Literary Woman and Her First Novel

   Recently, this blog has featured several posts about the literary women featured in Chetham’s Library’s current exhibition, A Woman’s Write. However, one figure not included in this exhibition is an individual...

   18th October 2023 • Read more

6. 

   Oldham Coat of Arms

   Recently we were cleaning the gallery space in the Library and came across a painting of a heraldic achievement, generally knowns as a coat of arms. It bears the date...

   8th September 2023 • Read more

7. 

   Matilda Betham: An (un)Celebrated Woman

   Above: Matilda Betham, unknown artist, image taken from Wikimedia Comms. Mary Matilda Betham (known as Matilda to her friends and family) was a diarist, poet and author in the last...

   2nd August 2023 • Read more

8. 

   The Accedence of Armorie: Sixteenth-Century Paint by Numbers

   The top shelf of the last press in Chetham’s Library, press Z, is home to a copy of Gerard Legh’s Accedence of Armorie (shelfmark Z.1.64). Having accessed the book in this remote...

   13th July 2023 • Read more

9. 

   An English Renaissance Feminist: Cancelled

   Above: Portrait by Lady Mary Wroth, by John de Critz 1620. Just before International Women’s Day 2023, there emerged from the shelves of Chetham’s Radcliffe collection a rare copy of...

   22nd June 2023 • Read more

10. 

    A Woman’s Write: Searching For Chetham’s Published Women

    Visitors to the library have been asking the same question for some time “Are there any books written by women”. Whilst the answer has been yes, it has often been...

    11th May 2023 • Read more