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Category: collections

Open Doors Is Back

by Rhian Waller | Tuesday, 27th August 2024


Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden, Flintshire is taking part in Open Doors 2024, which takes place on Saturday 14th September.

Gladstone, Geology, and Genesis in the 1880s

by Rhian Waller | Thursday, 02nd March 2023

'William Ewart Gladstone, not known for a conspicuous interest in geology, nonetheless starred in one of the period’s last prominent squabbles over the scientific accuracy of the Book of Genesis'.

A blog post by archives researcher Dr Richard Fallon (Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow, University of Birmingham) 

A Glance At the Letters of Lady Mary Glynne

by Rhian Waller | Thursday, 26th May 2022

Gladstone’s Library holds a valuable collection of letters written to Lady Glynne after 1800 that I had the privilege of viewing whilst researching a society that met in Chester in this period [1]. The picture that emerged, brief highlights of which are set out here, made it more than worth the while.  

Mothers in the Archive

by Rhian Waller | Monday, 28th March 2022

I began to reflect on women’s experiences of maternity two hundred years ago: a time when maternal and infant mortality were far higher than today, when women had limited control over how many children they bore, and when difficult births were typically endured with little or no pain relief.

Cataloguing the Anne Ramsden Bennett Archive

by Rhian Waller | Friday, 25th March 2022

The Anne Ramsden Bennett Archive is the first collection that I have catalogued. It has given me the unique opportunity to learn about cataloguing, and to learn more about the role of women in the publishing industry in the nineteenth century.

From the Archives...do you still send Christmas cards?

by Rhian Waller | Friday, 13th December 2019

Before the reign of Queen Victoria no one in Britain celebrated Christmas in the way we do today. There were no Christmas crackers, no one had heard of Santa Claus and no Christmas cards were sent. During the reign of Victoria, from 1837 onwards, the wealth of printing inventions and technologies of the industrial revolution meant that the face of Christmas changed forever.

Remembering John Moorman

by Rhian Waller | Friday, 22nd November 2019

John Moorman (1905 - 1989), Bishop of Ripon, was a leading authority on St Francis of Assisi and the history of the Franciscan Order. After his ordination in 1929, he was curate of Holbeck in Leeds before being appointed rector of Fallowfield in Manchester. During the Second World War, staying true to his pacifist beliefs, he worked as a farmhand in Wharfedale quite literally digging for victory. 

Digital relationships

by Rhian Waller | Tuesday, 08th October 2019

Every few years, there is a gathering of a unique set of clans. In the UK, they are called ‘independent libraries’, while in the US they are ‘member libraries’; in Australia, they are ‘mechanics institutes’. All are libraries that make their own way in the world, with small budgets and even smaller staff numbers.

Fragmentary manuscripts

by Rhian Waller | Friday, 19th July 2019

We are very lucky here at Gladstone’s Library to have access to around 130,000 printed items in total, including around 6,500 books printed before 1800 and some as early as the 15th Century. The majority of these older books come from a very small proportion of our collections: either our pre-18th Century collection, the Bishop Moorman Franciscan collection, or the Glynne-Gladstone collection. Many of these older books are kept in our Closed Access rooms in order to keep them in the best condition possible – but as a result, regular visitors to the library might not be aware of what treasures lie behind closed doors!

De-accessioning in Stephen Gladstone Hall

by Rhian Waller | Tuesday, 09th July 2019

Gladstone’s Library is embarking on a 24-month deaccessioning project on a section of its collections. This is the first review of the Library’s collections since 2008-10. Collection use and user demographic has changed rapidly in the past five years and the Library now has collection use data which can help it make decisions.

New for 1819! Books published 200 years ago…

by Rhian Waller | Wednesday, 15th May 2019

At Gladstone’s Library we rotate our History Room display every month to focus on a different aspect of our collection. This month we’ve dug out some of our best examples of works published in 1819, exactly 200 years ago, to give you a taste of what people were reading during the Georgian Regency period of British history. 

Gladstone and the Romantics: our new April display

by Rhian Waller | Friday, 05th April 2019

Today when we consider the word ‘romantic’ we think of love and sentimentality, but the term ‘Romanticism’ had a much broader meaning, historically. Romanticism was a period which spanned the late 18th and early 19th centuries, emerging as a response to the disillusionment with the Enlightenment values of reason and order in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789. It covered a range of developments in art, literature, music and philosophy and William Gladstone himself would have been witness to its peak during his lifetime.

Tales of the supernatural: the library’s hidden creature features!

by Rhian Waller | Monday, 04th February 2019

At Gladstone’s Library we rotate our History Room display every month to focus on an aspect of Gladstone the man, or our extensive library catalogue. This February I decided to give some of our lesser-known collections a little TLC by presenting a display on 'Tales of the Supernatural: The Library’s Hidden Creature Features!' Additionally, to give you all some extra background on this exciting topic, I’m writing this blog for our website.

Edrychiad i fewn yr gasgliad Cymraeg / Looking into our Welsh collection

by Rhian Waller | Tuesday, 25th September 2018

Although not Welsh himself, in 1894 William Ewart Gladstone decided to found his library across the Welsh border for good reason. The beautiful, remote countryside of Hawarden village, as well as nearby historic areas such as Ruthin and Mold, are steeped in culture and Welsh heritage. With an abundance of hills, forests and, of course, castles, as well as the mountain range of Snowdonia, Gladstone envisaged that rather than the congested streets of London, Liverpool or Manchester, North Wales would serve as the perfectly serene backdrop for his incredible legacy as well as provide the necessary air of tranquillity for study and contemplation.

Gray’s Anatomy: the alien world of the human body

by Rhian Waller | Friday, 08th June 2018

Upon hearing the phrase Gray’s Anatomy, images may come to mind of the popular American TV series set in a Seattle hospital; however a much different medium bears the origin of this name. Within William Gladstone's own collection there exists a 3rd edition copy of Gray’s Anatomy. Not as some might suspect, a novelised version of the TV series, but rather a complete 'descriptive and surgical' look at anatomy.

Gladstone's library of forking paths

by Rhian Waller | Thursday, 18th January 2018

In this blog, library intern Carla Manfredino considers the library used by one of her favourite writers, Argentine author and librarian Jorge Luis Borges, and asks how many of those books could be found on the shelves here in Hawarden... 

The Treasures of Closed Access: Samuel Wesley’s Life of Christ

by Rhian Waller | Monday, 27th February 2017

The Closed Access section of the Reading Rooms contains some of the Library’s oldest and rarest literary works and collections. It includes about 15 Incunabula, texts printed between 1450 and 1501, as well as a collection of books once owned by the Glynne family, of whom Catherine, William Gladstone’s wife, was a member.

One of the books housed in Closed Access is Samuel Wesley’s The Life of our blessed Lord & Saviour. An Heroic Poem.

Flashing at Gladstone's Library?!

by Gladstones Library | Monday, 20th February 2017

Worry not, there’s been no explosion of nudity in the Reading Rooms! But new security measures are in place. Read on as our Director of Collections and Research, Louisa Yates, explains…

Reading Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day

by Rhian Waller | Tuesday, 13th September 2016

Ask someone to name a Virginia Woolf novel and they may well mention To The Lighthouse or Mrs Dalloway. Night and Day, Woolf’s second novel published in 1919 – a copy of which can be found in the Annex – probably won’t come up in conversation unless you are talking to someone who is a dedicated Woolf reader. Night and Day isn’t what you might expect of her. Think of Woolf and the word experimental comes to mind. It’s also somewhat longer than some of her later novels. This is early Woolf, on the way to breaking with convention and doing things differently, but not there yet.

Reading List: Politics of the Mid-Tudor Crisis

by Rhian Waller | Friday, 01st July 2016

A Reading List for Gladstone’s Library.

Bloody Mary, The Life of Mary Tudor - Carolly Erickson (1996)

This biography contains information not only on the early life and the short but ruthless reign of Mary I, but the political manoeuvring which took place after the death of Edward V on 16th July 1553, when, on his deathbed, he named Lady Jane Grey as his successor, despite his father’s Third Act of Succession. This left both of Henry VIII’s daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, without a legal claim.

The book details how Mary then raised an army to take the throne for herself and the turning of the Council of Lords on Jane and John Dudley.

*Available in Gladstone's Library at shelfmark M 27 M1 / 12

Reading List: European dictators of the 20th century

by Rhian Waller | Friday, 01st July 2016

A ‘dictator’ is defined as ‘a person exercising absolute power, especially a ruler who has absolute, unrestricted control in a government without hereditary succession’ (www.dictionary.com).

During the 20th century, Europe experienced some of the most manipulative and cunning dictators in history, including Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin. Below are a series of reading lists relating to this topic, to some of the most brutal dictators Europe has known.

Our New Additions

by Rhian Waller | Friday, 17th August 2012

The Library has added several books to its collection and is also now subscribing to four new periodicals: 'New Statesman', 'Spectator', 'Economist', and 'Prospect'.

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