A former Visiting Fellow at Durham found a Royal charter issued by King John. Here's what I found on my next day with the Special Collections

So far in Durham, I've not been inside the Cathedral - though I've walked pretty well right around it - and I've not been into other interesting places such as the Market Hall in the main square which looks inviting. The reason: I've been somewhere else special - a place where discoveries are made, the Palace Green library's Special Collections Barker Room.

I see that a previous library fellow from Bristol University made national and international news when they found a handwritten royal charter of King John from 1200. 

'Cool Find' as reported in the Smithsonian Magazine, March 29, 2019

The discovery of King John's Royal Charter as headlined in The Times, March 26, 2019

Nothing I have found is quite on that scale but I'm buzzing from the glimpses I'm getting into the lives of several generations of the Headlam family from their papers.

What I found today fell into two halves, pretty well before my lunch break - of around 20 minutes - and after it. Other than that, from when the library opened through to closing time at 4.30, I moved my my seat only to return notebooks and folders to the Special Collections desk and swap those for fresh ones.

The afternoon even involved me finding something that left the librarians initially unsure what to do - more on that later.

First though - what I found pre-lunch. I spent the morning with notebooks. Well I actually started earlier, on the commute to Durham from Newcastle, wondering whether I could find the poem by Hartley Coleridge in the little sketchbook I looked at yesterday. Oh yes I did! This will be for a later follow up expect to say that the note is Coleridge's own and that the poem WAS written for Margaret ...

Her namesake Margaret Headlam - letters to whom I've spent several days reading - herself, I found out today, wrote poetry. I spent most of the morning with her poems including ones written when she was young - aged 11 (I think - I must check that). These poems were not classically-themed although, reading as a classicist, I found poems very much focused on imagery of flowers and on young women dying young, their deaths occurring in place of marriage. Reading this poetry, I created my own reception (if it was just mine - perhaps Margaret intended it - I'll likely never know, but I do hope at least to find out more about any classical knowledge Margaret will have had): of Persephone's journey underground to a marriage to death, and one she makes as the flower maiden who dies with the autumn and rises with the spring.

I shall be re-reading the poems in due course - they're unpunished as far as I can tell. They merit a study and I would like to find out how far they are modelled on common 19th-century themes. The same goes for the text - in the one of the notebooks - of a play, an unfinished one, set in Italy.

This play has some classical features. The opening scene is set in:

A garden, adorned with Busts of the Epic Poets. 

The poets in question are a Classical one and one from the 15th-16th centuries:

In the Front of the Scene, that of Virgil to the Right, that of Ariosto to the Left

Up until lunch, the focus of what I looked at was Margaret. Post-lunch it turned to another Headlam family female member - one whose brothers' letters I had read from when they were children. Those brothers were Arthur and Lionel, and this sister was Rose Gladys who, like her Aunts Isabella and Margaret, stayed unmarried and kept up a regular correspondence with her family. 

This included regular letters to her father, Arthur Headlam. I read letters from when she was young until well into the 20th century. Of these, those written to 'dear Papa' when a young girl, mixed everyday details with some colourful ones. In one from Morpeth, dated August 27th, for example, details about who she has had tea with (the Miss Cresswells) lead into an account of finding:

Old Smith with his head on the path and his body and legs on the road.

Another letter, meanwhile  wishes her father a happy birthday and then includes such details as this:

It was so hot I never went to church - I slept with Mama last night and I tumbled out of bed

The letters weren't in chronological order. What I read, for instance, were several that had been put into a much later envelope, after her father's death, perhaps, when Rose might have found her letters to him among his papers. Letters from young Rose were mixed in with her adult correspondence - in a way that was immersive for me and quite jarring. 

She addresses one letter, of August 27 1871 in French - to 'Mon cher Pere' - and in another mentions music lessons. She talks also about her disappointment at opening the shutters one morning to find that it had been showing (!) - although, in another letter, she talks enthusiastically, and in detail, about a snowball fight. 

These letters written as a young girl reveal a strong interest in nature. In a letter of June 16th 1876, for example, she writes:

Have you heard the cuckoo yet [...] There are a great many ferns out of the backs now, and they are very pretty and green [...] The Narcissus are going off now [...]

As the day in the library drew to a close, I made unexpected progress through the final several boxes because they were mostly full of letters of condolence - many, many of them - sent on the death of her father, then, the following year of her mother, and then, decades later of her brother, Arthur. There were letters too from Arthur and from John. 

Of the condolence letters, it was here that I found one that had never been opened - and it was this one  that caused the stir among the librarians that I mentioned at the start of this posting - who did come to update me about what the procedure turns out to be. I can let you know if you're interested!

That was it for the day - I left with my head spinning from all I'd read. 

More asap...

'Meek innocence', 'ancient divines' and a pincushion: what I found next in the Headlam Collection

Here are my discoveries of today, Wednesday 21st February. I mean: they might not be discoveries: others might have found them already. And then there's the librarian who will have catalogued them. I wonder if there is a way to find out who has consulted the materials previously - to find out what they made of things in the same folders I have been working through.

Today, I looked at letters, just as I did on my previous days with the Headlam Papers - but not just letters. In fact I'll start this write up with something that wasn't a letter.

Before I get any further, let me share that when I write 'today', I'm referring to the day when I wrote my account of my day with the Headlam Papers - 21st February as I said at the start. I'm typing up what I wrote several days later, on Saturday, after a day spent at the coast, at Tynemouth. It was a magical day as these photos seek to convey. One is of King Edward's Bay looking down from the castle. The other is of a ship at anchor which turns out to be a Morgana fata. 

And here's a third, of me on the beach:

But to return to the 21st... what I'm starting with isn't a letter, but a poem written out in a beautifully-presented little notebook on the occasion of the first birthday of Margaret Emily Spedding. The poem is by Hartley Coleridge and dated March 30th 1843. I don't know if this means that Coleridge published/wrote the poem on that dater whether that is the date of Emily's birthday. In any case, here is the poem - I wish I could share it as it appears in the notebook but till I get permission (if I get it) here's a typed-up version:

On Margaret Emily Spedding's First Birthday

One year is past with change and sorrow fraught

Since first the little Margaret drew her breath,

And yet the fatal names of Sin and Death,

Her sad inheritance, - she knoweth not;

That lore, - by earth inevitably taught,

In the still world of spirits is untold

'Tis not of death or is that Angels hold

Sweet converse with the slumbering infant thought. *

Merely she is with God, and God with her

And her meek ignorance guiltless of demur

For her is Faith and Hope; - her innocence

Is Holiness. - The bright eyed crowing glee

That makes her leap her Grandsire's face to see,

Is love unfeigned - and willing Reverence

                                                       Hartley Coleridge March 30th 1848

I did a quick search for the poet - and his dates (he's the son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge) are 1796-1849 so it definitely falls within his lifetime.

As a poem about a child, there is a fit with my project - on young people in the nineteenth century - although his young person is way below the age that I'm hear to research. But... on seeing the reference to the 'bright-eyed crowing glee' of the baby, I thought of Athena, whose epithet - and sometimes theonym - Glaukopis signals bright-eyed - or various similar things such as gleaming-eyed, darting-eyed, and owl-eyed. 

Athenian coin with Athena's bright-eyed owl along with the first three letters (A Th E) of both goddess and city, an olive sprig and a crescent moon. Sourced from here

But making this bright-eyed and Athena connection likely says more about me - as someone VERY interested in this epithet - than about the poem or its subject and so it might be a classical reception I'm creating rather than anything intended by the poet. Still: I'll look into the poet and find out how far his work includes classical references.

There is, however, a comment written underneath to given an explanation to this line - hence the asterisk:

Sweet converse with the slumbering infant thought. *

The note reads:

It was an opinion of certain ancient Divines that when Babies smile in sleep their Guardian Angels are whispering to them 

'Ancient divines'?! Which ones might be meant? And what are 'divines'? Divinities? priests?

I did a quick search - it had to be quick as my time in the library was cut short by attending a talk, this time (yesterday as I've said I went to one at the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies) in the Classics department followed by coffee and cake. Again I missed lunch. All was great though, including connecting and reconnecting with classicists from Durham - and Newcastle. 

Anyway, from this search, I saw that there are plenty of people who think that babies smile because they see angles, including because they have only recently left the spirit world. But I didn't find any reference to any 'ancient divines' who held this 'opinion'.

As well as finding out about the poet, I must check the date of Emily's birth.

Among the other things I found was a piece of fabric embroidered with an alphabet, numbers 1-11 (meaning the person sewing was 11?), the name 'John Headlam' and the year 1853. I only noticed the date - which is sewn using light pink thread - when I enlarged the photo I took of the cloth. So here's a lesson - keep taking photos: they might show some things the eye alone misses.

It's accompanied by a note from 'Johnny Headlam' to 'my dear Mama' (at least I think he writes 'Mama') saying that it's a 'pincushion of my making'.

So... nothing classical here - but something lovely.

Also lovely - but including something classical - was one of two letters to 'Uncle John' sent because he is ill.

One - from Arthur - begins by saying how sorry he is that his uncle has been unwell. Then he gives details about his sister Rose's bridesmaid dress and bonnet. Then he says that he is going to collect some violets the following day. Then he says how many lambs have been born. The letter soon ends, but is followed with a PS about a trip to a Magic Lantern show, the health of a baby and a vegetable garden he hopes for. Then he says: 

we do Latin fables on Saturdays. 

Next he says that he is about to freeze flowers and ends the PS with an account of the weather.

What the fables mentioned in the midst of these other bits of news are is not detailed - but the mention them among the various things that he shares with his uncle shows, I guess, just how commonplace a classical subject will have been for a young person - a young boy at least.

So: after sharing my own classical reception, albeit one from me that was at least fuelled by the 'ancient divines' in the note accompanying Hartley Coleridge's poem, I've ended with something classical from the 19th century, and from a young person at that...

More asap!

Another day with Headlam letters including several where people share finding things hard and one where a young man considers something Demosthenes-related to be 'dreadful'

Today, I returned after a several-day break to the Barker Special Collections room. There always would have been a break - I was last there on Friday and the library doesn't open weekends. But I needed to drive down to Surrey for some house buying and selling-related things and spent much of Monday travelling back up to the North East.

Palace Green Library, home of the Barker Room, and a place which really does make everyone welcome just like the banner says

I'd missed the Barker Room. I already have a favourite place to sit and a favourite locker in which to put my bag and coat. But what particularly makes me feel at home are the letters. I've got to know the handwriting of the correspondents, for example - to date those writing to Isabella, and, above all, to Margaret, and I sigh each time I reach a letter from the correspondent who tends to write over their original text at right angles.

Clock I look up at from time to time from my favourite seat. The daydream windows look out over the Wear

What I read today continued to give me windows into what interested the letter writers and/or what they thought that their addressees would like to hear. And - again - what they share continues to be rarely classical-related. A heads-up though: I did read SOMEthing classical today.

[I've been writing 'today', but this is actually we writing several days after what I call 'today' - as what I'm doing is typing up what I wrote long-hand soon after leaving the library seated in a cafe between Palace Green and the train station and feeling in need of refreshment as lunchtime - which fell between reading the two letters from young men doing tutoring - was taken up attending a seminar at the Centre for Nineteenth-Century studies after which I returned to the library for a final hour or so as the Barker room was closing early that day. I hope to share some things about that seminar - but that will need to wait...]

This is not at all classics related - I'm sharing it because it's something that's struck me. Some of the correspondents - all writing to Margaret - shared quite specific details about various ailments. These include her brother [must check who it can have been? Morley who died in 1884?], who on May 5th 1883 wrote at length about what he was suffering, including by sharing that his 'skin is peeling off all over ' and that he has 'a good deal of irritation and am necessarily [not sure if that's the word, but it's my best guess] very weak and rather [word I can't decipher]...'

Another letter, from Ellen Browning Hall (I don't know who Ellen is...),  meanwhile, sent the following year, details how 'Death has been busy' among those she knows, including with a man who had seemed in good health and had been married for only around a year when he died. Then, horribly, Ellen writes, 'his sweet pretty young wife received a letter from him written on the anniversary of their wedding day which only arrived after his death when she was a widow with his newly born son who was fatherless'.

This was far from the first time I'd read letters which included details about illness and suffering. There was that 1841 letter from Francis John to Isabella from Eton for instance - a letter I read on an earlier day spent with the collection - where he gave her updates on his (I think, from memory) blisters. There was also a very moving letter I read yesterday which I didn't write about in that day's blog posting because I wasn't sure how to do justice to it from a woman sharing with Margaret just grief-stricken she is after the recent death of her young daughter. Maybe this was even Ellen - I'll go back and check.

But I'll turn now to what I found that was more relevant my project - namely the letters from young Headlam men who are employed as tutors.

One was from Cuthbert Headlam dated August 30th 1894 when he will have been around 18 - so will have left school. He is writing from Barons Court in Ireland, which he considers 'huge, but extremely ugly' and he writes too about the grounds and the wider environs before turning to its inhabitants, including the one of the most interest to me, namely the boy he is tutoring. He tells his aunt that he doesn't think much about the boy's academic prowess: '[t]he boy is perfectly hopeless about work', he writes. 

As he continues, though, there is both a minus and a plus to this. One the one hand, 'the two hours of lessons [the word 'work' has been crossed out and 'lessons' substituted] are rather a bore, but, on the other, 'I must be thankful we haven't to do more'.

The letter from the other Headlam young man, the one in France, also gave a glimpse into what life was like for him and what he made of his role. 

This letter, to 'My dear Aunt Mar', is not dated, and it was only during the latter that I realised that it was from Lionel (aha - the 'Lion' of the letter I had read previously!). This was thanks to a detail he includes about what he considers a tediously elaborate good-night ritual in the house: 'Going to bed is a serious matter', he writes, continuing. 'You go to the door & say 'Bon Soir' & then there is a chorus of Bon soir, M. Lionel all over, it is really an ordeal.'

Before sharing how he is not enjoying this aspect of his life with the family in France, he has already shared that he is not comfortable with his current task either, namely letter writing. 'It is such a serious matter writing down to write a letter now that I can hardly do it', he begins - this is all quite meta. For,  he continues, '[s]urely one who reads it looks at something, writing, grammar etc, but as I not I could not [that's what he writes, not me garbling it] satisfy all, I will make no one jealous & satisfy none. 

After this glimpse into what Lionel feels as he begins to write, the letter takes a more conventional turn. 'Thank you very much for your book...' he says before sharing information about his life in France and news about the family, As with Cuthbert's letter, there are no details about what he is teaching his tutee - so no classical references are shared - nor indeed are there references to any academic subject. Rather, it's when he gets to news about his own family that the classical stuff comes in. Here, for someone who isn't comfortable with writing letters, or at least who wasn't feeling comfortable with the activity when he stared writing to his aunt, he manages an elaborated image of county the learning journey his brother Jimmy is on:

I have heard from Papa, they seem to be doing Rome well; I wonder if Jimmy will go to tutorage at Constantinople, he will soon be a dreadful specimen, half German & half Turk on a ground work of English, rather like a Naples cake, alternate layers with Brandy (ie English) poured over it all. [note to myself - I must see if there's a way to work out how old Jimmy might have been].

Next comes the classical reference. Referring - I assume - to how his mother is taking a hands-on role in her son's education, he shares that:

It is dreadful to hear Mamma talk of Demosthenes etc as if she had known them all her life

On first reading this comment, I thought that Lionel might be referring to how frustrating it can be when someone new to a subject acts as though it has long been part of their life. If so this resonates - it does my head in. But if so, there looks to be more going on too - for Lionel goes on to convey a sense of distance from his own past, as he does at the start - when he shares how uncomfortable he now finds writing letters. For, he says:

I used to know more than her in that subject, but now...

The three dots are Lionel's.

This, then, is the reason why it was 'dreadful' to have someone 'talk of Demosthenes etc'.

Here then are the key things I found on my first day in the library on week 2.

Drinks, bags etc go in lockers like no. 12 which I've used each time so far

I'll end, now, with some things I ought to try to follow up on:

1. See if I can find out who the 'etc' are likely to be: other orators? Other Great Men of ancient Greece and/or Rome?
2. See, too, if I can find out why Demosthenes is singled out, and what this might say about the work the name of this orator might be doing in the 19th century.
3. Find out which speeches of Demosthenes might have been part of his brother's eduction.
4. Look into what speeches of Demosthenes will have been used for in this education: for language study perhaps? for the study of rhetoric?
5. Consider whether it is the fact that it's Lionel's mother who now 'knows' Demosthenes that has got under his skin. Whether this was the case or not is not - I guess - knowable unless I luck on some other bit of evidence - from his mother for instance, or from a diary of Lionel (I don't know if there will be one in the Collections; it would be wonderful if there was anything like this...).But even if - as is probably the case, this is not knowable, I can still try to find out about how far women of the gentry such as Lionel's mother would generally 'know' classical authors.

That's where I got to - in writing up an eventful day where I didn't really get all that long in the library what with the lunchtime seminar and the early closure. But still: what I did read included some useful stuff. I'll write up I found the next day asap.

On reading further Headlam correspondence including on young people being creative with 'facetious' and a man, likely John Headlam, responding to his sister who'd called his arguments 'vile and vulgar'. There's some classical content too due to how I start off...

A few years back, I had a bit of a setback when an article I'd written on a book about classical myth for young people was rated low because the assessor considered the work of reception I was writing about not to be a very significant one. I was taken aback by this not least as I had written about the book as a moment in reception that opened a window onto Classics as well as in to children's literature and culture at the time when it was written - the 1990s. 

It's also a super book in my view that deserves being more 'out there' - not that this is the point here.

This experience has been in my mind as I have been thinking back to the correspondence I wrote about in my previous posting concerning translations of Cervantes. It's been in my mind, too, as I've gone on to read other things - which I'll be writing about as soon as I have the time - that to the best of my knowledge haven't ever been published. As with the 1990s classical myth book that the assessor graded me down for writing about, I am finding these materials a privilege to look at as windows into what people devoted themselves to at a particular point in time.  

In copying out some of what is written there, I am wondering whether I am the first to do so while also feeling awkward writing out - or even reading - private correspondence... including - here's the segue - what I read next in the Palace Green library.

I began with the letter to Margaret Headlam dated November 1865 with which I'd ended the previous day: the one sent to where she was staying (living?) in Brighton and beginning as follows:

To say that your last letter is the most painful one that I have received would be but a weak explanation for the extreme sorrow that it causes me [...] 

...on what would be a day spent reading letters to Margaret - with one exception, on which more soon.

The author of the letter quotes from Margaret's own letter that has so upset him. So - I found myself looking at her own words for the first time, though not her own handwriting and lacking the context in which her words were written. As far as I could glean, the problem the author has with Margaret seems to be doctrinal. He refers, for instance, to the 'Crown' and the 'Church of England.' And after telling Margaret, 'You are quite welcome to call my observations "vile and vulgar"', he writes on page 3 of his many-paged letter about 'the Royal Supremacy'. 

I don't (yet) know what any of this means...

After this, the correspondence that I spent time with was from several years later, in 1871, consisting of letters of condolence to Margaret and her sister Isabella in Whorton after the death of their brother John. 

Then, later that year, Margaret receives letters of condolence after Isabella's death. Among these, there is one from D C Cumley, with whom she'd had the letters about Cumley's translations of Cervantes a few decades earlier - and which I'd read the previous day. I found out - as I'd suspected, but I didn't want to assume... - that the author is male: he lets Margaret know that his wife 'joins' him in the sentiments he is expressing about how much Isabella meant to him.

I also read a letter sent shortly afterward, from Jane Cumley (the wife in question? their daughter?) where she encloses a letter addressed 'to Captain Cumley' from Isabella, whose writing I therefore got to see for the first time. I wish I could share it here - but as I've said, I'll need permissions. But just seeing this got me excited.

With my head swimming from all this correspondence - I read many letters in a few hours - I had a needed lunch break with my fellow Barker Fellows in St Chad's. St Chad's is a popular college, that students typically want to join, helped by its proximity to the Cathedral. Here's a photo taken from North Bailey, close to the main entrance to the College:

Then, in the afternoon, I looked at letters to Margaret from 1872 onwards, including one from Whorton to Brighton. The envelope, addressed by an adult, contained letters from two young boys to 'Aunt Mar' dated May 9 1872. The boys, Arthur and James, are - I worked out from the family tree - Arthur Cayley Headlam (1862-1947), who will have been around 10 and James Wycliffe Headlam-Morley (1863-1929), who will have been around 9.

The letters are from boys who seem to be being schooled at home, though possibly in connection with boys who are living nearby. Although they might, I suppose, have been written during school holidays... Both letters talk about athletic competitions arranged for them and neighbouring boys and detail who won and who didn't. One final bit of information given by Arthur is that 'we' - I'm not sure who the 'we refers to: all the boys? just himself and his brother? - 'are seeing how many words we can get out of facetious'.

The letters give a window into the lives and interests of these boys. Arthur says that he 'won nothing' and tells Margaret that 'Lion' (a family dog perhaps I wondered - I now know who Lion must be... but I didn't when I read the letter, so I'll share that information further down the road) is very well, and he remembers you'.

James, who like Arthur thanks Margaret for an invitation to stay with her, lists what he is 'most anxious to see' in London - including the Crystal Palace, Windsor, Eton, St Pauls and what looks like 'the Polytechic'. I'm not sure what this would be...

There is nothing said about any lessons - Classical or otherwise.

Likewise there is nothing about Classics in a letter dated May 5 1873 from  The Grange, Wharton, to 'Aunt Mar' from Johnnie, who must be John Emerson Wharton (1864-1945), who will have been around 9 at the time. 

This letter spends a lot of time setting out how busy Johnnie has been with various things that delayed him from writing to thank his aunt for a gift she has sent him: school... his father wanting to spend time with him when he was home from school... He mentions his new baby brother 'a fat, healthy little fellow', concerning whom 'we are all glad it is a boy this time'.

As for the gift, a book, Johnnie states that he not started reading it yet because, he says, he has been reading Tales of a Grandfather, a gift from his uncle. I had a quick check. This is a book by Sir Walter Scott recounting Scottish history for children which was popular at the time and key to making history accessible for young people (young male people specifically?). Here's at least one of the covers - sourced from here (publication date of this edition 'unknown'):

Still concerning Johnnie, there was a letter from his father, Morley Headlam, this time, dated March 30th 1878 which includes some information about his son's letters from school that suggest that he is doing well. Again the focus in on sport, with him showing promise - Morley sets out - in Under 14 athletics. Nothing is said about any academic subject, classical or otherwise.

Then the library closed and I made my way back to Newcastle where I wrote a draft of the above before winding down by cooking dinner.

More soon - including where I aim to unpack the significance of the above after veering I think more towards 'showing' rather than 'telling'...

 

Knowing lots, yet very little, including about the 'most painful' letter ever received and something 'a little obscene' in Cervantes

There have been a few times when I've gone down online rabbit holes to try to work out what some contemporary thing I have heard about - on a podcast, say - is all about. But, as the sources I've found assume knowledge on the reader's part, I've come away at once full of knowledge and pretty bewildered. This was the case for instance when I heard about about the 'Karen' meme a few years ago and ended up finding out about Black Jeopardy on Saturday Night Live without knowing what Jeopardy was and having only a very general knowledge about Saturday Night Live. 

I've added a hyperlink for one of the sites I may well have visited...

Something comparable happened to me on my second day in the Special Collections concerning Cervantes and then - well, I'll explain when I get there.

I started with a set of letters to Margaret Headlam written over a period of months in 1842 and all from someone called D C Cumley who was writing about their (I'm not sure about their gender) translations of Cervantes into English to seek her advice and to let her know that they were not always agreeing with her comments. For instance, at one point, they defend their use of 'basic' language at one point to be as true as possible to the Spanish. 

I'm tempted to do an online search for the translator's name to see whether anything comes up that I could use to illustrate this posting. What I would love to do is share what I can't till I have permissions, namely images of the actual letters. But, because I do want to include an illustration, here is one from a search involving 'Cervantes' and 'nineteenth century' that is in the public domain.

It's Don Quixote and the Dead Mule, by a French artist new to me named Honoré Daumier.  The date given, after 1864, is nicely close to the date of the letters from D C Cumley to Margaret.

I've not given into the temptation to search for Cumley because I want to stick with the knowledge I had - and still have - when I was drafting my day's findings in my notebook. I mean here an old-fashioned paper notebook rather than a laptop notebook...

Among the many things that went over my head, I wondered which passage in Cervantes this comment, in a letter of 3 July 1842, is referring to: 

I think the first/last of the last stanza is little obscene

I wondered, too, how the writer had conveyed the obscenity in their translation. The letter-writer does give sufficient context for the passage to be pretty easily located and I'll follow up at some time. My copy of Don Quixote - not that I'm sure that it is this work that D C Cumley is translating - is packed away ready for the house move I'm hoping to make soon. 

This move is something which, like being in Durham and spending time immersed in Special Collections is contributing to the sense of disconnect I have with usual life just now.

Anyway... then I moved to Margaret's letters from John (her brother I think - I must check) over a period of three months, January-March 1861, where something seems to have happened - will I ever find HER letters back to him? - connected perhaps with a move she had made to Brighton and where he rants with none of the polite lead-ins that are customary in nineteen-century letters.

John's writing is hard for me to decipher. This isn't atypical of the letters, though these letters from John look to have been writing quickly, without any attempt at legibility. The letters - there are many - look to consist largely, or even entirely, of pages of rant made up of very long sentences concerning something Margaret has done, possibly in respect to receiving a gift, and potentially concerning something religious, perhaps something doctrinal.

Here, as an example, is a part of a sentence from the early part of one letter, of January 31st 1861:

I certainly wish you to be alone and it is of far more importance than any direction I can give you for me to become thoroughly acquainted with what is the result of your attempt to fain [or gain?] the confidence & affection of S & E - without [?] you can do this (which however I do not doubt) I do not think that you can [???] me much - I do not want you to try & confute them or argue with them but to exemplify Church principles and teaching - from your conversations, you will be able to tell me what strikes you as points to be especially [sentence continues...]

Having gone through a folder of correspondence pretty much like the above and feeling consistently bewildered, I turned to the next folder of letters to Margaret, this time from 1853 to 1871.

As closing time was approaching, I got to a letter to sent around the time of the correspondence with John. This letter is from Margaret's Aunt Mary and it is a warm letter, with the customary lead-in and praise for the kindness of the recipient. But something has happened concerning her (Margaret's?) brother who seems to be bearing up - the writing gets harder for me to read - despite something he is going though: the death of his wife, I think. 

Could this grieving brother even be John?! It might very well not be...

The final letter I read was a pages-long one that I would have to return to the next day. I could not see who it was from - they might indeed not have signed it - and I've just noticed, from the photo I took and can't share, that it is written from 52 Clarence Square, the same address in Brighton where Margaret was staying when John wrote to her. 

I can't find an image of Clarence Square in the 19th century that's in the public domain so here's an image of Queen's Road from 1855.

The letter, which is dated November 12 1865 - ten years after the image of Queen's Road - must be from John again - I'll check the handwriting later. Here's the start of it: 'My dear Margaret', it begins, customarily enough. But next comes this:

To say that your last letter is the most painful one that I have received would be but a weak explanation for the extreme sorrow that it causes me [...] 

But this 'extreme sorrow' would have to wait until the next day.

I do now know more about Saturday Night Live and so forth and about the Karen meme - and I hope to come to understand, likewise, just what was going on between John and Margaret while also finding out Cervantes in the 19th century to give some context to D.C. Cumley's letters.

And I'm going to have to try to find out whether anyone has consulted, and indeed written about, the letters previously.

None of this has anything to do with Classics or indeed young men's enculturation...

'...or else we do Greek Grammar...': on finding a letter so relevant to my project that it seemed too good to be true

I broke off the previous positing just when I had got to the point where - on my first day with the Headlam Papers - I had found something so relevant to my project that it didn't feel real. 

And on Day One at that, in my second hour in the Collections and in the first folder of letters I had looked at.

A heads-up: I've not found anything so absolutely relevant since - although I have found so many interesting things that the project might end up going in different directions from what I'd envisaged.

Perhaps, I am now finding, if Classics is a marker of a young man's educational progress in the 19th century, then letters might not be the best place to find this evidence. 

I am writing this on Tuesday 20th February - a week on from my first day with the collection. Here is the account of what happened when I found a letter to Isabella Headlam (1818 [or 1815 - see the last posting]-1871) from her brother Francis John (1829-1908) dated May 2nd 1841, when he will have been around 12. 

Could this be a letter from school I wondered as I started reading it - i.e. a letter of the sort that I was in Durham to consult?

Oh yes - it was. Francis was writing to his sister from Eton, where he had just begun his time as a pupil. 

Eton College - 'a very nice place' according to Francis John Headlam in his letter to Isabella - as its gateway might have looked while Francis was a student. Nineteenth-century view, sourced from here (in the public domain)

The handwriting didn't look to me like that of a 12 year-old - it looked as mature as that of any of the other correspondents. But there was one difference. This writer seemed not to have been bothered about how much paper he filled up. The paper he was using was larger than that used for many of the other letters and the writing is quite large. 

More than that, Francis goes onto a second sheet of paper - just for a few lines (no writing over at 90 degrees here, of the kind I'd been faced with earlier in the folder). 

I wish I could share the handwriting here but the photos I took need to be for personal use only - though I shall seek permission to reproduce them.

I plan to give a full summary of the letter at some point, but for now here are some high points. 

Francis begins by telling his sister that Eton 'is a very nice place at least as far as I have seen'. Then he talks about the structure of the school day, starting as follows:

We have always one holiday in the week off not two and also a half one for whole schooldays. We go into school at 7 and come out at half past then we do anything we like till 8 when we go in again and then come out at half past eight we then do not go in again till eleven.

As he continues, he comes to mention just one subject, and it is... Greek!

In the afternoon we have very little to do as we generally say by heart what we did in the morning or else we do Greek Grammar and come out as soon as we have said.

And that's it. Still in the same paragraph he tells Isabella that he has all the things he needs with him before telling her about a problem he has (I think... I'll need to have another go at the handwriting) possibly with blisters. Then he turns to the 'quality of amusements' available at school which include 'bathing'. 

Then he turns to a second subject: Botany. Here, unlike with the Greek, he goes into detail, and sounds really engaged, perhaps because this would be especially interesting to Isabella? Then - this is all in one paragraph - he moves onto something about a statue of George III and then he talks, quirkily, about (I think) two of his Masters, and then about his room, which he doesn't like.

He ends by saying he will write more soon - but there wasn't another letter from him in the folder. Hopefully I'll find others in different folders.

The remaining letters were more like the others and included letters from correspondents whose letters I'd already read. Of these, one stood out, dated February 6th 1885, informing Isabella about the death of 'Dear Mary' who had died very young. Here I felt increasingly as though I was intruding into personal grief. Mary had, the author wrote, died 'an early death...before she has known [word I can't read] sorrow'.

Just when I had reached the final letter in the folder, the librarian came over to tell myself and other remaining library users that our time was up for the day. 

So, on that first afternoon, I had found one letter that was deeply relevant and many others which provide lots of context for the life of the Headlam family as seen though letters to one of its members.

I came away having gone though a range of emotions as I read the words of successive correspondents. One was for sure excitement at having found the letter from Francis where the one subject mentioned in an account of the school day was Greek. 

There wasn't anything said about how he was finding the subject, and the lack of any details could be the point. Greek, it would seem from the letter, was just much as a part of his day as 'coming out' and 'going in' to school. 

I'll write up what I found on my second day in the Collection - which left my head spinning - as soon as I can.

On reaching Durham, trying to read letters to Isabella Headlam including one about basket hunting, and discovering another that got me excited

When I posted yesterday, I delayed sharing my experiences of my first day in Durham in order to provide further information about my project. 

I did this for anyone reading this blog, though I also have found it unexpectedly helpful for me, myself to be revisiting my plans from some months ago.

Here, now, is the typed-up version of what happened on Tuesday. I am writing this on Friday morning, a day after making some discoveries that I am itching to follow up on today when I get to the Palace Green Library...

Here I am, starting to share my progress and its frustrations and discoveries and the bits in between - though I shall try to cut down any boring things.

There haven't been any boring things yet however - at least not for me. A heads-up... I really am only claiming to be speaking for myself here.

Today's research day began frustratingly as I had some issues with the blogging platform that I outlined earlier today in my first posting - though it feels like longer ago that that. 

Having gone live with the blog, I made my way to Durham from Newcastle, initially for a meeting with the Principal of St Chad's College, the College I'll be affiliated with during my time in Durham.

I always feel anxious looking for new places and trying to look at Google Maps in a rainstorm didn't help. I saw two confident-looking young people ahead of me seeming to know where they were going. They turned into a building along a street opposite the Cathedral which turned out to be the door to St Chad's. 

St Chad's College, Durham. Photograph sourced from Wikipedia  - I should take my own and add those at some point

I followed them in and the college staff were really friendly and welcoming, including the Principal, Margaret Masson, who showed myself and my fellow Fellows around. The highlights of the visit - beyond connecting with the other Fellows, all nineteenth-century experts spanning several disciplines - were seeing a sent of prints in the College dining room by Nelson Mandela, one of which in particular I plan to look at whenever I eat meals there.

More of that another time - because I want to get the crux of my first day in Durham - the library. I managed two hours there before closing time, and it felt like longer - or at least as though normal time didn't apply.

I had requested a particular set of papers - not for any reason other than they looked as though they might be more readily available than others. This set contained letters sent to one of the Headlam family members: Isabella Margaret Headlam.

At first I was confused as the information on the front of the folder stated that the letters were from 1855-71 and yet the only Isabella I could see in the handwritten family tree that came with the folder was for an Isabella who died in 1853. 

I tried a Google search for "Isabella Margaret Headlam" and got a hit for a Gravestones site. Here I found that someone of that name died in 1871 at the age of 56 and appears to have been born in 1815. I lucked out, it seems, as the record was added less than two months ago: on 24 December 2023.

Grave monument for Isabella Margaret Headlam in St Mary's church burial ground, Whorlton, County Durham sourced from gravestonephotos.com

The first letter had a date of 1841 which doesn't match what is stated on the cover of the folder, so I should ask the librarians about that...

That first letter got me wondering whether I was cut out for archive researching. I found the handwriting very hard to read though I did manage to decipher the opening, which suggests that it might not be directly relevant to my research, apart for giving context for the people whose lives I am seeking glimpses into via their letters. How it began is:

I have been out basket hunting

...and so suggests that the author has sufficient familiarity with Isabella to jump in with this news.

Continuing to work through the letters, I found several close to impossible to read. The correspondents whose letters I had looked at so far had taken trouble to fill the whole page they were writing on. This one did that by writing over their initial text at right angles.

What this shows is just how far people would go to use as little paper as possible - either because paper was expensive/in short supply or to avoid paying more postage. I recall hearing something about this years ago but can't remember the details, or where I heard it or who I heard it from, except that it may have concerned correspondence from 18th-century travellers to Greece. Something to find out about later...

It also showed me just how difficult reading actual letters in contrast to seeing them printed out. Another thing it showed me is that one thing determining the contents of letters could be the desire for some writers to fill all the available space.

Then I got to the 13th letter: HHM/B14/13. I could not believe what I was seeing - it seemed too perfect for my project to be true.

For the first time, who the author was was clear, as was their relationship to Isabella as it began saying that it was from her 'brother'. 

I looked at the end and the name in the signature was given - but I found the initials hard to read. Then I got it - F.J. Headlam. I looked back at the family tree and saw that this must be Francis John, one of a large number of siblings, whose dates were given as 1829-1908. 

I looked along the list of siblings for Francis John and found - woah, I'd missed this (the family tree is detailed and squished up in places to fit everything on one piece of A4)... Isabella.

Isabella's dates are given as 1818-1871 - so not 1815 then?

As for Francis John - he will have been 12. Now I was excited, wondering whether this could be a letter written home from school - i.e. wondering whether it could be one of the letters I was there to consult.

Oh yes - it was. Francis was writing from Eton, where he had not been for long. 

But continuing this will have to wait - it has got past 8am and I need to get ready to head to Durham for when the library opens at 10.

More asap!

The Headlams and their young men: questions I plan to ask and materials I hope to consult

I ended the previous posting by saying that I would report on my first day in Durham. To give further context though, I've decided first to say something about my project as a Barker Fellow, building on the brief comments I made in my first posting on this blog (on 12th February). 

When I was applying to be a Barker Fellow at Durham last April, I said that part of my dissemination plan was to create a blog - for immediate sharing of my findings. 

I decided to call it 'Adventures in the Palace Green' after the library I would be based in and because I wanted to share what I thought would be an exciting journey - or might not be... That's the thing, surely, with archive work: you don't know where the investigations will take you.

For the application, I presented a plan of what I would investigate, or, better, what I hoped to investigate and here is the jist of it - 'translated' from application-speak into another academic voice, my blogging voice, and moving where appropriate into the present tense, because the application was successful and I actually AM a Barker Fellow!

During my month's stay, I will work on a project called "Elite schooling and young men's enculturation in the Long Nineteenth Century: a case study of the Headlam family'.

Durham in the period I'll be investigating:
mid-nineteenth century image sourced via the National Library of Wales from here.

I'll be spending the month investigating the collections of family papers in the Palace Green Library's Special Collections, particularly those of the Headlam and Headlam-Morley families of County Durham. 

I'll do this with a goal of realising the potential of the collections as evidence for the place of Classics in the lived experience of privileged young men. 

More specifically, I shall seek - via my case study of the Headlam family - to investigate the role of Classics in three key areas: 

• Underpinning elite schooling and the enculturation of young men. 
• Bolstering the British class system. 
• Moulding a curriculum which continues to shape debates into the twenty-first century. 

So it's a project about the Long Nineteenth Century - and it's a project, too, about NOW.

Based on my initial investigations last March and April when I was preparing the application, I am hopeful that the Headlam Collection will be a useful resource for undertaking an examination of the enculturation of young men. This is because the papers include correspondence from successive generations of sons of the family, spanning the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. 

More specifically, from what I have been able to glean so far, the correspondence includes comments from the young men about their experiences with Classics.

In my application, I proposed to ask several research questions. Here they are, with some reflections now that I've got started. It's useful for me to be revisiting these including to help ensure that I do ask them.

• One question is: which aspects of studying Classics were found especially enjoyable (or not I should also be asking) or difficult (or easy I guess) by the Headlam young men?
• Another is: what views are expressed about the value of studying Greek and Latin? - if any I now add.
• I also intend to ask what evidence is provided (if any) about the teaching methods experienced by the boys.
• I won't be limiting what I look for to Classics. I will ask, too, how the young men's experiences of Classics compare with those of other subjects.
• I also plan to ask whether any changes can be detected during specific boys' school careers.
• Moreover, I will be looking for any evidence for how the boys saw Classical learning as a preparation for future studies, such as in Divinity (this was a family of clergymen...), or for their future occupations.

I have some quite ambitious questions to ask as well:

• One is to explore whether any changes can be detected over time in experiences or perceptions of Classics between the 18th and early 20th centuries.
• Another is to look for what responses are given - or what advice is offered - by family members, including the sisters (and maybe aunts?) they corresponded with and, perhaps, fathers recalling their own school experiences.
• Finally, again thinking big, I intend to ask how the experiences of the Headlam young men compare with those expressed or conveyed in the papers of other families in the Collection.

I've talked about 'The Collection' - here is some information about the materials I plan to consult.

The key materials I would consult would be the Headlam and Headlam-Morley papers (GB 033 HHM in the library's catalogue) including the papers of the following family members:

• Arthur William Headlam - notably with his sons Arthur and Lionel and also the school records of Arthur and Lionel, his wife's diaries (interesting that they're among HIS papers) and correspondence between Arthur and Lionel and their sister Roses and their aunts Isabella and Margaret.
• Arthur Cayley Headlam, the son of Arthur William, notably his diaries and travel journals

Arthur Cayley Headlam 1862–1947. Image sourced from here

I also hope to consult the Duff Papers (GB 033 HHM), especially those of James Duff Duff, a Cambridge Classicist and James Fitzjames Duff who was a Professor of Education as well as a Government Commissioner and a Vice Chancellor (the first? I must check) of the University of Durham.

To do all this, I have already begun working in collaboration with relevant colleagues at Durham. These include the Palace Green Special Collection librarians, who have been super so far and academics above all Professor Edith Hall, whose Classics and Class project is inspirational.

As I found that I have quite a bit to say - more than I anticipated when I began this blog posting - about the project at this early stage, I have decided to break now and make this alone the subject this posting. In any case, very long blog posts are NOT a good thing! 

But the next posting will, I anticipate, be about my first day with the Headlams...

Why I'm writing from my base in Newcastle rather than in Durham and what I'll be doing next blogging wise

Today, I had been looking forward to crossing the Tyne to head to Durham for my second day with the Headlam family papers. I got as far as sitting on a delayed train - until it was announced that the train was cancelled. In fact, I found out, due to a tragedy between Newcastle and Durham, there would be no trains for hours. 

So, with my meetings all missed, including with Edith Hall (on whom more soon), I decided to use my time typing up my experiences of yesterday and doing some planning for my next few visits to the Collections. 

First though, before returning to where I'm staying, in Gosforth in Newcastle, I walked from Central Station to the Tyne - and did cross it, by foot, via Millennium Bridge where I took the following photo, of a view I anticipate returning to in as many different lights as possible:

It looks like an eye? 

I have had an email from the very lovely Special Collection librarian at the Palace Green Library reassuring me that the papers I was going to look at today will be kept for me. And so, I look forward to beginning to look at them as soon as possible

Now: to what happened yesterday...

Why I'm in the North East to investigate elite schooling and young men's enculturation in the Long Nineteenth Century

For some years now, I've wanted to be the kind of academic who spends their time in archives. For the most part though (I'll write about the exceptions at some point), the kind of research I do on ancient Greek mythology, religion and culture does not involve archive work. 

Right now, however, I am beginning a project that will involve me consulting materials in the collections of the Palace Green Library at the University of Durham. 

I'll be based in the Palace Green for a month as a Barker Fellow, working on a project called 'Elite schooling and young men's enculturation in the Long Nineteenth Century: a case study of the Headlam Family'.

This project might look like a departure from my usual research which includes:

1. Seeking to diversifying Classics by developing a distinctive research and practice in relation to Classics to social justice, diversification and inclusivity including with a focus on autistic young people
2. Investigating Classics in young people’s culture, as part of a now-completed ERC-funded project: Our Mythical Childhood... The Reception of Classical Antiquity in Children’s and Young Adults’ Culture in Response to Regional and Global Challenges (2016- 2022).

It does, however, grow out of my interests in who Classics is considered to be 'for'.

What I'll be doing is investigating the collections of family papers held in the library's Special Collections, particularly the Headlam and Headlam-Morley Papers. I'll be consulting these to investigate the place of Classics in the lived experience of privileged young men during the Long Nineteenth Century. 

Via a case study of the materials of this particular family, I will examine the role of Classics in 

1. Underpinning elite schooling and young men’s enculturation
2. Bolstering the British class system
3. Moulding a curriculum which continues to shape debates in the 21st century.

As far as I've been able to gauge so far, the Headlam Papers look to offer a valuable resource for undertaking this examination, including as they do, correspondence of/between successive generations of sons of the family – spanning the late 18th to the early 20th centuries – setting out their experiences learning Classics.

This morning I was going to launch a blog about the project over on another platform after spending quite a bit of time setting that up. And this current posting was going to say more about the project and the collection. 

But... the platform I was going to use is not compatible, it appears, with the browser on the pretty old laptop I'm using while here. And so, after trying various things, I'm back in my comfort zone, using the platform I've used since I started my autism and classical myth blog (link above) in 2009. I'm just a bit frustrated. Still, it feels good to have got started.

Before I close, a few more things about where I'm at. I'm writing this in Newcastle upon Tyne where I'll be living during my month as a Library Fellow. I gasped on Sunday evening as I drove over the Tyne. Then, yesterday (Monday), I walked down to the quayside on a beautiful late winter's day which I tried to capture with photos, including these:

I anticipate regular walks along and across the Tyne. What I experienced yesterday moved me.

Once I make this post go live, I'll get ready to leave for Durham to do three things. One is to get a sense of my bearings. Another, more specific, thing is meet the Principal of the College that I'll be a member of. The third is actually to visit this library I've been preparing to spend time in for months.

Here goes! More soon...