Author: buckshistfest

Caroline Lucretia Herschel (1750-1848), was the sister of the astronomer William Herschel. She worked with him in their homes in Datchet and Slough, and carried out important astronomical work in her own right, eventually earning the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society as recognition for her contributions to the field.

In this talk, Dr Emily Winterburn, author of The Quiet Revolution of Caroline Herschel, will talk about this astronomer’s life and achievements. Dr Sian Prosser, librarian and archivist of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), will share key documents from Caroline Herschel’s working papers held in the RAS archives.

Sian manages the library and archives of the Royal Astronomical Society, making them accessible to researchers and working with colleagues to use them in outreach and education activities.

With a background in languages and a PhD in French medieval manuscripts, she became drawn to working with memory institutions, and since joining the Royal Astronomical Society in 2014 has completed the Certificate in Astronomy at UCL to better understand and interpret the RAS collections, and the people that created them.  

http://ras.ac.uk/library

Emily Winterburn is currently a primary school teacher in inner-city Leeds; however, she is also an expert on the Herschel family and women within the history of science more broadly. She is the author of The Quiet Revolution of Caroline Herschel as well as several other books on the history of astronomy.

Emily was curator of astronomy at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich for 10 years, before moving to Leeds to work first as a curator at the Leeds History of Science Museum (part of the University of Leeds) and then as a teacher. She completed her PhD on the Herschel family in 2011, out of which came her book on Caroline, several academic articles and chapters in larger volumes.

She is currently working on her contributions to a book on Women in Science; to a new volume on the life of John Herschel and is in the beginning stages of editing one volume in a series for academics and teachers to support work on gender and colonialism in science.

In the wake of Kate’s 2019 graphic memoir, cum LGBT+ history of the UK from the 1950s: Sensible Footwear, a Girl’s Guide, the illustrator and cartoonist talks to Sue Shave, Director of Discover Bucks Museum, about the importance of telling queer histories.

Kate is a cartoonist and illustrator living and working in Edinburgh, though originally from Barnsley, South Yorkshire. 

Her work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, books, indie comics, exhibitions and electronic media – she’s drawn storyboards for Hot Animation and Aardman Animations; in 2014, ‘Sally Heathcote: Suffragette’ was published by Cape, which she worked on in joint collaboration with Mary and Bryan Talbot.

Kate’s graphic memoir / LGBT+ history of the UK from 1950 (emphasis on the ‘L’) to the 2019, Sensible Footwear, a Girl’s Guide was published by Myriad Editions, 2019.

Sue Shave has been working in the museum and heritage sector for over 30 years, with the last 18 years as a Museum Director of Cold Harbour Mill in Devon, then Chiltern Open Air Museum in Bucks and currently Discover Bucks Museum, formerly known as Bucks County Museum. She is a member of Bucks Pride organising committee and has organised several PRIDE events in local museums including Chiltern Open Air Museum and Bucks County Museum with support from local LGBTQ meet up groups.

Sue was invited onto the LGBTQ National Lottery Heritage Fund LGBTQ advisory group in 2018 to help the funder shape funding for LGBTQ people and heritage in the future. She would like to think of herself as the most famous lesbian in Aylesbury – but its probably not true! But she has featured on Wycombe Sound and BBC 3 Counties radio talking about Discover Bucks Museum’s growing collection of LGBTQ collections that represent our local LGBTQ audiences to finally ensure representation of LGBTQ people in Discover Bucks Museum’s new galleries when they open in the new year.

Stowe House and its Archive parted ways in the early 20th century, with the papers, tracking hundreds of years of the estate’s history, and the stories of the people living there, becoming part of the collection of the Huntington Library in California.

Tonight, via the power of Zoom, we pull together three experts: Anna McEvoy, of Stowe House Preservation Trust; Dr Vanessa Wilkie, curator of the Stowe Papers at the Huntington Library, and Professor Rosemary O’Day, an academic who has researched the Temple family and its lifestyle prior to 1697 via the Temple Family Papers at the Huntington Library. We promise you a unique event.

Anna will take us on a tour through the state rooms of Stowe House looking at the restoration that has been accomplished over the last 20 years, and how research at the Huntington Library has allowed Stowe House Preservation Trust to achieve this.

Dr. Wilkie will tell the story of how this collection came to California, share highlights and stories from the archive, and explain how diverse researchers use the materials today.

Rosemary O’Day (aka Rosemary Englander) is Emeritus Professor of History at The Open University. She taught there for over forty years. Rosemary has written many books, including An Elite Family in Early Modern England: The Temples of Stowe and Burton Dassett, 1570-1656. She is currently editing a substantial selection of the Temple Family Papers from the Huntington Library for the Buckinghamshire Record Society. Rosemary lives in Buckinghamshire with two of her three sons.

Dr. Vanessa Wilkie curates Huntington Library’s renowned collections of medieval manuscripts and British History. She earned her Ph.D. in British history from the University of California at Riverside and was visiting assistant professor of history at the University of Redlands before coming to The Huntington in 2013. Her research focuses on aristocratic mother-daughter relationships in early modern England, and she has published on female editorial practices and death rituals. Wilkie has curated two library exhibitions: “Magna Carta: Law & Legend” and “The Reformation: From the Word to the World.” She currently serves on the advisory committee for the arts initiative /five.

Anna McEvoy came to Stowe in 2005, originally as the only member of staff of Stowe House Preservation Trust – we now have a small house opening team and 60 volunteers. I undertake the restoration research, help to manage the restoration projects and building maintenance programme, and manage the archive and collection. Working along side Stowe School and the National Trust Landscape Gardens, Stowe is a dynamic and beautiful place that I never grow tired of.

George Alexander Gratton, also known as the ‘Beautiful Spotted Boy’, was born in St Vincent and the Grenadines in 1808 and suffered from a skin pigmentation condition. An enslaved child, George was taken from his homeland and bought to England where he was cruelly displayed as a ‘live curiosity piece’ throughout the UK until he died at the age of 4 years and 9 months.

In this talk Jacqueline Roberts of SV2G tells us about George’s life, which she discovered as part of a research project run by the High Wycombe-based community group for local St Vincentian diaspora.

Jacque Roberts is CEO of SV2G.