Blog

1. Baroness Bakewell on whether libraries matter

   As libraries everywhere come under yet more threat from visigoths, polymath, author and now Baroness Joan Bakewell has proved that she is still the reading man’s crumpet. As the Guardian...

   7th February 2011 • Read more

2. Parent’s Hope

   Enrolment certificate for the Juvenile Order of Rechabites dated 1874, belonging to Thomas Jones. The International Order of Rechabites were a temperance friendly society founded in 1835. Friendly societies were...

   28th January 2011 • Read more

3. Four legs are better than one

   This friendly zebra gazes out from the pages of Ulyssis Aldrovandi’s De Quadrupedibus solipedibus, published in Bologna in 1649. This important zoological work illustrates and describes several important hoofed quadrupeds,...

   26th January 2011 • Read more

4. ‘The drollest concern I think I ever met with’

   This image from John Rocque’s 1746 Plan of the cities of London and Westminster shows the church of St Mary’s Whitechapel, where in 1817 John Leech was a guest at...

   14th January 2011 • Read more

5. Voices

   Chetham’s is proud to have developed strong links with Bolton University’s MA Photography course, led by a good friend of the Library, Ian Beesley. For the last couple of years,...

   7th January 2011 • Read more

6. Merry Christmas!

   We would like to wish all our readers both real and virtual a very Merry Christmas and great strides towards success in 2011! This simple folded card is one of...

   21st December 2010 • Read more

7. A terrible night for Manchester

   Next week is the 70th anniversary of the Manchester and Salford Blitz in 1940, when the two cities experienced the heaviest bombing of WW2, killing nearly a thousand people. Recent...

   15th December 2010 • Read more

8. Who do you think they were?

   The Leech family archive is one of the most remarkable collections at Chetham’s Library, and through the use of diaries, photographs and personal ephemera, the exhibition chronicles the story of...

   13th December 2010 • Read more

9. Anyone for chess?

   As the magic of the season begins to fall, we are reminded of the importance of enchantment, deception and curiosities in the making of holidays and special occasions. In this...

   8th December 2010 • Read more

10. Two gentlemen of Manchester

    These two well-dressed gents are taken from the Manchester Scrapbook, a remarkable compilation of sketches, prints, maps and topographical views put together in the early years of the nineteenth century...

    10th November 2010 • Read more