Given the astonishing range of talents possessed by writer, artist, and designer John Leighton, it’s almost reassuring to know that even he was capable of an occasional oversight.  Can you spot the mistake in his design? Fortunately, it wasn't carried over into the final binding!*

Design for upper cover and spine of Marmion by John Leighton

Trade ticket (used by Leighton’s family workshop) from lower cover of Marmion.

Leighton came from a long line of bookbinders (see binder’s ticket above) who worked in London from 1764 until 1920.  He himself was a prolific cover designer, widely admired for his intricate detail and characteristic humour.

Enlargement of spine of Marmion  - note John Leighton’s intertwined initials beneath the blade.

Although he signed his covers with the initials ‘J L’, he also adopted the pseudonym Luke Limner.  When journalist George Augustus Sala was mistakenly accused of being Limner, he replied that he only wished he had been!

Column written by George Augustus  Sala in Bristol Times and Mirror - Saturday 8 March 1890 p.13. British Newspaper Archive

The Library’s legal deposit copy of this edition of Marmion lacks its original covers, making this acquisition in excellent condition an important addition.  Moreover, the survival of the original drawing for the spine and covers is a rarity.  These were frequently destroyed in the process of creating the brass blocks, used to stamp the design onto cloth or leather.

Leighton’s talents extended well beyond book design.  He served on the 1851 Great Exhibition Commission, designed banknotes, stained glass, and bookplates, and contributed to magazines including The Gentleman’s Magazine, The Graphic, and The Sunbeam.  His own publications showcased his wide-ranging interests, from graphic novels to a pamphlet on the reform of the London Underground system.  His involvement in local government and his attempt to stand as a Liberal Unionist MP suggest a strong social conscience.

One wonders how Leighton’s bohemian leanings would have resonated with the electorate.  A keen observer of fashion, he wrote Madre Natura; or, the Moloch of Fashion, a critique of the frills and furbelows apparently favored by women.  On one occasion, after being stopped by a policeman in Regent Street for wearing women’s clothing, Leighton explained that he was simply conducting research for a new edition of Madre Natura.

Upper cover of recently acquired copy of Scott’s Marmion (shelf mark pending).

*The lettering on the design omits the ‘d’ in ‘field’

P J M Marks
Printed Historical Collections

Further reading;
The Book Cover Designs of John Leighton, F.S.A. by E. M. B. King features photographs of Leighton and some of his covers.
Leighton also appears in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and Wikipedia.

In February 1861, the India Office received a communication from the Foreign Office forwarding a letter from G M Dallas of the Legation of the United States, dated London 6 February 1861.  Mr Dallas stated that the President of the United States had awarded a silver medal to Captain John L Gillet, a Custom’s Officer at Bombay, for the special efforts he had made in assisting the distressed crew of the American ship Squantum, which had been wrecked off the coast of Bombay in June 1860.

'Wreck of the Peacock' from Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition ... 1838-1842 (1844) British Library shelfmark 10001.d volume 4 BL Images Online

Launched in December 1849, the Squantum was an American cargo ship owned by Messrs Thomas B Wales & Co of Boston.  Commanded by Captain Miller, she left Boston on 18 February 1860 on a routine voyage to Bombay carrying 925 tons of ice and 50 tons of general cargo.  The journey went smoothly until 14 June when she experienced difficult sailing conditions with high seas and cloudy squalls.  Shortly after 9pm near the coast of Allybaugh, she struck in 5 fathoms of water, and with heavy seas pouring over her decks, she parted with her port anchor and was swept ashore onto a sandy point.  Her masts were cut away, and with the sea making complete breeches over her, the captain, his family and the crew sheltered in the top-gallant forecastle for safety.

In the morning, an attempt was made by the mate and two crewmen to launch the lifeboat, but it was immediately struck by a heavy sea, splitting the bow open and rolling it over.  Light rafts were then constructed from spars but none of the crew were prepared to try them after seeing what had happened to the lifeboat.  The captain then knocked a panel out of a door which was lying on the deck, and asked his young son to have a go, to which he cheerfully and bravely said yes.  Being a good swimmer and bound to the panel with rope, he was able to reach the shore, although not without some terrifying moments.  Inspired by this heroic action, the rest of the crew consented to try the rafts, and in groups of two and three they eventually reached the shore.  After the last crewman had gone, Captain Miller tied his wife to a plank, and they pushed off the ship.  The turbulent sea rolled them over repeatedly, but they were able to keep their heads above water, and reached the shore safely .

Tragically, the cook got caught up in the ship’s rigging and, becoming exhausted, drowned.  It was also later discovered that the carpenter and another member of the crew were missing, having perished in the attempt to reach shore.  The crew were taken to Bombay, and housed in the Sailors' Home until arrangements were made for them to return home to America.  Only three of the crew required hospital treatment, and Mrs Miller suffered with exhaustion and dysentery.  Captain Miller praised his crew for obedience to orders in pumping the vessel and undertaking other necessary measures to keep her afloat after she was first struck.  But for their efforts, a tragic event could have been much worse.

John O’Brien
India Office Records

Further Reading:
Award of a silver medal to Captain John L Gillet, Custom’s Officer at Bombay, for aiding the distressed crew and passengers of the American ship Squantum of Boston, Feb 1861, reference IOR/L/PJ/2/157 File 22/1.
British Newspaper Archive:
• Glasgow Herald, Monday 23 July 1860.
• Bombay Gazette, Friday 28 December 1860.

 

The 17th and early 18th-century manuscripts among the Harley Collection are rich in theological, legal, historical, political, scientific and literary manuscripts.  But very few of them were written by women.

One exception is a notebook kept by Anne Harcourt during the 1640s (Harley MS 6028).  At the beginning is her prominent ownership inscription - ‘Anne Harcourt her Booke’.

Ownership inscription of Anne Harcourt (Harley MS 6025, f. 1v)

The main part of the text is written in the same cursive, round hand, with idiosyncratic spelling, filling almost all the space on the page.  It consists of notes on sermons, many given by a Mr Park, others by better known preachers, such as William Bridge, Samuel Bamford and Edmund Calamy.  Dates, where present, are 1640-1642.  They were preached in London, and other parts of England, but also in Delft and Rotterdam, Holland, where nonconformist ministers in exile met relative tolerance.  Towards the end of the manuscript another hand appears, and the content changes to scripture notes and theological arguments with dates in the late 1640s (ff. 105v-122).

‘Notes of Mr Bridges sermon preached at Roterdam the 5 day of August’ 1641. On Galatians 1:20 (Harley MS 6025, f. 2v)

Who was Anne Harcourt?  Most likely she was the wife/widow of Sir Simon Harcourt (1601-1642), heir to the financially burdened Stanton Harcourt estate.  Anne was born around 1605 to William Paget, 4th Baron Paget (1572–1629), and his wife Lettice Knollys (died 1655).  She had a religious upbringing, which she described in her diary as ‘strickt’.  In her mid-twenties she married Harcourt: as a professional soldier, he was often abroad, in the Low Countries, and later in Scotland and Ireland.  Surviving correspondence between the couple (printed in The Harcourt Papers) indicates that the relationship was an affectionate one, and that Anne was adept at managing practical affairs in her husband’s absence.  But in 1642 Harcourt died in Ireland of wounds received in a military engagement.  Anne was left a widow with two young children, solely responsible for Stanton Harcourt estate.  A decade later, she married Sir William Waller (1598-1668), former parliamentarian army officer.  Life was still fraught with difficulties both financial and political (Waller was imprisoned for a time in the Tower of London), their three children died young, and the family was beset with ailments.  In her journal (now at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington), Anne looked for evidence of God’s divine assistance in delivering her and her family from ill, and for comfort in the face of misfortune.

‘Not[e]s of Mr Parks sermons in the after-noon.' On Psalm 141 (Harley MS 6025, f. 3)

While at Stanton Harcourt, Anne had hired a parish preacher at her own cost, and after moving to Osterley Park with Waller she paid for a lectureship to minister to the spiritual needs of the parish there.  In her funeral eulogy, Edmund Calamy noted her piety and concern for the spiritual nurture of others.  We cannot tell whether the sermon notes in Harley MS 6028 were made when the sermons were delivered, or copied long after.  Were they written as a spiritual consolation during the years of Anne’s widowhood?  Or were they a life-long form of religious practice for this 17th-century woman?

Tabitha Driver
Manuscript Cataloguer, Modern Archives & Manuscripts

Further reading:
Anne Waller, Spiritual journal and notebook, 1646-1660 [manuscript]. Folger Shakespeare Library, V.b.376. 
The Harcourt Papers, ed. E W Harcourt. 14 vols. (London, 1880–1905). Volume 1 includes Extracts from letters from Sir Simon Harcourt to Anne (pp. 136-162) and Extracts from Anne’s journal and notebook, now at the Folger (pp. 169-199)
Gateway to Early Modern Manuscript Sermons gives a list of the sermons in Harley MS 6028 
Julia Gasper, ‘Waller [née Paget], Anne, Lady Waller [other married name Anne Harcourt, Lady Harcourt] (d. 1661)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004) 

Post-1600 Harley Manuscripts are currently being re-catalogued as part of the British Library's Unlocking Hidden Collections cataloguing programme.

 

When working with the India Office Records, it is not unusual to come across unexpected items.  One such example is within a volume of Public & Judicial Home Correspondence.  In the middle of a volume of correspondence and associated papers relating to the administration of India is a large poster of regulations for two coal mines in Scotland, the Titwood and Corkerhill Collieries: General & Special Rules for the Conduct and Guidance of the Persons Charged with the Management and of the several Workmen employed in and about this Colliery.

'The man engine at Cook's kitchen mine' from J C Burrow, 'Mongst mines and Miners (1893) British Library: C.194.b.213 plate 2 British Library Images Online

Dating from around 1861, the copies of the poster would have been pasted up around the sites making it clear what was required of anyone employed in the Collieries, and what they could expect in their working environment.  Both mines were located on the southwest of Glasgow and at the time of this poster were owned by Sir John Maxwell (1791-1865), a Scottish landowner and politician.  The Titwood mine in Pollock was worked from 1854 to 1875, and the Corkerhill mine was worked from 1860 to 1875.

'The man engine at Dolcoath mine' from J C Burrow, 'Mongst mines and Miners (1893) British Library: C.194.b.213 plate 2 British Library Images Online

The General Rules section of the poster covered such health and safety issues as ventilation, use of safety lamps, communication between the surface and the bottom of the mine shaft, and measures to prevent flooding of the mine.  The Special Rules section details the responsibilities of each occupation in the mine, the names of which are not always obvious:
• Brusher: responsible for maintaining the roof, sides and pavement of a passageway, usually done by an experienced miner.
• Bottomer: loaded and unloaded the cages at the bottom of a mine shaft and regulated the number of men ascending in the cages, making the signals which controlled the safe working of the cages.  In this case, only a maximum of 4 men at a time were allowed to ascend in a cage.
• Colliers were the underground workmen in a coal mine.
• Drawers took the coal from the working face to the mine shaft.  A Drawer might be assisted by a Putter to take his hutch (small wagon) past a difficult section of a drawing road (underground passage).
• Fireman: responsible for the supervision for the ventilation of the works.  He inspected the pit before each shift to make sure it was safe for the miners to work.
• Pitheadman: responsible for unloading the cages and weighing the coal at a pithead (the landing at the top of a shaft).
• Oversman: responsible for the underground operation of the Colliery and reported to the Manager.

Everyone working at the Collieries were issued with a set of the Rules, and pulling down or defacing the poster brought a fine of 40s.  A violation of the Special Rules brought a fine of £2 or three-months imprisonment.  The poster was sent to the India Office by Sir John Maxwell, with a covering letter, dated 15 February 1861, for the consideration of the Secretary of State for India.  Unfortunately, no reply, if any was given, was kept on file.

John O’Brien
India Office Records

Further Reading:
Titwood and Corkerhill Collieries on the Estate of Pollok, General & Special Rules for the Conduct and Guidance of the Persons Charged with the Management and of the several Workmen employed in and about this Colliery, 1861, reference IOR/L/PJ/2/157 File 23/1.
‘A Glossary of Scotch Mining Terms’ on the Scottish Mining Website

 

Amongst the Legal Adviser's Records in the India Office Records is an intriguing case which details the origin of a lease granted in 1852 for the village of Ghuthiwari.  The village was near Barwadih, Jharkhand, and it was given to Sri Raghavendra Guru in exchange for a daily service of reciting one chapter of the ‘Srimadbhagwat’ before the god Shaligram, one of the Hindu God Vishnu’s forms believed to manifest in fossilized stones.  The ‘Srimadbhagwat’, more commonly known as ‘Bhagavata Purana’, is one of the most Sacred Hindu texts.  The terms of this agreement were detailed in a ‘sanad’ (certificate) confirming the above terms which also stated that the lease could be passed down to the heirs of Sri Raghavendra Guru.

Shaligram - Fossilized stone or ammonite collected from the riverbed or banks of the Kali Gandaki, a tributary of the Gandaki River. Image from  Wikimedia Commons.

Case No.6 Kumar Kamakhya Narain Singh, (Appellant) Vs. Abhiman Singh; Jago Singh and others (Respondents) was heard by the Privy Council in 1931.  The Respondents were the heirs of Sri Raghavendra Guru.  Records of proceedings dated 1927 from the court in Hazaribagh detail the arguments presented by the appellant and respondents, as well as testimony given by three witnesses who lived in the nearby surrounding area.  They gave evidence that the daily recital ceased in 1920.  Key testimony and evidence for the case included written documents dated 1909 confirming the initial verbal agreement and a 1859 document amending the agreement to include an annual rent payment in addition to restating the condition of daily recital of the ‘Bhagwat before the God Saligram’.

A page of a Bhagavata Purana illustrated manuscript in Devanagari, supposedly prepared for Maharaja Pratap Simha of Jaipur (1779-1803). Image from Wikimedia Commons. 

The judge ruled in favour of the original landowner, highlighting the key fact that according to several key witnesses the daily recital of a chapter from the ‘Srimadbhagwat’ was no longer taking place and that a shrine to ‘Saligram’ was not present in the defendant’s house.  The case was appealed to the Privy Council which was the highest court of appeals for British occupied overseas territories.  The Privy Council considered the case concluding that ‘the performance of the said service was a condition of the grant, and that inasmuch as the said service was discontinued in May 1919, the plaintiff became entitled upon such discontinuance to obtain possession of the said village’, ultimately ruling in favour of the appellant.

Case documents in IOR/L/L/8/893.

Court documents also include a survey conducted in 1912 offering details about village life and the type of produce that was cultivated.  It lists the castes of the 20 inhabitants, the presence of several wells, fisheries, the growing of sugar cane and lac resin.

Approximate location of Ghuthiwari village from Wikimedia Commons.

Nathan Silver
Cataloguer, Modern Archives and Manuscripts

Further reading:
IOR/L/L/8/893 - P.C. No. 2 of 1933 between Kumar Kamakhya Narain Singh, minor, through the Courts of Wards (Appellant) Vs. Abhiman Singh; Jago Singh and others (Respondents) regarding a land dispute.
IOL.1947.b.68 - Account of a legal dispute between the Maharaja of Bikaner and Raja Jeoraj Singh of Reri, concerning an exchange of villages
Verma, Gaurishanker G. 1922-1923.

 

Since cataloguing of the extensive Maggs Bros. archive started in October 2024, we have begun to uncover many fascinating stories about the global antiquarian book trade and the lives of those involved in it.  The Correspondence series is a particularly interesting window onto the business transactions between Maggs and its international clients, spanning both World wars, and The Great Depression of 1929-1939.

Maggs primarily deal in rare books and autograph manuscripts.  However, their dealings occasionally strayed into artifacts, should their owner be someone as illustrious as Napoleon Bonaparte I (1769-1821).

Whilst re-housing correspondence from the 1920s (the golden era of book-collecting) we found a 1926 letter from Ernest Maggs (1876-1955) to Dr Ludwig Pollak (1868-1943), an Austro-Czech archaeologist and antique dealer, regarding an anonymous delivery they initially refused from him as it had been sent without warning.  This turned out to be the ‘Bibliotheque Portative’ (travelling bookcase) of Napoleon I – although for bookdealers, it lacked its more prized contents!  This curious acquisition had been made with the help of Arthur Rau (1898-1972), who managed the Maggs Paris house from 1925 to 1931.

Maggs’ letter to Pollak 4 November 1926 [Add MS 89311/1/1240 Carbon Files]; Pollak’s letter to Maggs 27 October 1926 [Add MS 89311/1/897 Continental Files]

In the letter to Pollak, Maggs agree to stump up the £75 for it (roughly £4,000 today) but comment on its missing contents: ‘The case interests us very much, but what would interest us more is to find the books that were once in the case. Can you help us?’.

Napoleon was known to be a fervent book reader. He commissioned his librarian Antoine Barbier (1765-1825) to create a small portable library of one thousand volumes in duodecimo (a book size similar to Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit) to accompany him on his military campaigns.

Further investigation into the archive suggests that Pollak remained silent on the matter, possibly neglecting to answer. However we have been able to piece together a small chain of events, beginning with an earlier letter from Pollak regarding Maggs’ initial rejection of the delivery.

A week after receiving the case, Maggs attempted to sell it on for £250 to the Swiss bibliophile and leading book collector Martin Bodmer (1899-1971).  In this correspondence the wonderful detail of its opulence is glimpsed:
‘A morocco book shape case, bound by Doll [a book binding company] in crimson morocco, with Napoleon’s crown shield in gold on sides, having in the centre his initial N.  The sides have an elaborate gold border.  The back carries the title, as given, and top and bottom panels have his favourite emblem of the Bee 46 times repeated, with centre panel of floral decoration and another panel with his crown initial N...  The edges are gilt to resemble a book.  The cover is lined green with a very charming dentelle border of flowers...’.

An engraved portrait of Napoleon I by Henri Buguet depicting his crown initial and bee emblem cloak design [Egerton MS 3717, detail from f. 31] Images Online

Research suggests that this travelling library (owing to a section titled Russian customs) was perhaps created in preparation for Napoleon’s failed 1812 Russian campaign – where it probably perished. However, the Emperor was also notorious for throwing undesirable books out of his carriage windows or into fireplaces – so maybe this is why few of them survive today!

Detail from Maggs’ letter to Bodmer 12 November 1926 describing the French sections of the bookcase. [Add MS 89311/1/1241 Carbon Files]

Sadly, Bodmer turned down the offer of the case; so many questions remain.  Where or from whom did Pollak obtain the case? Did Maggs manage to sell it on?  And where is it now?  Perhaps further cataloguing will reveal something?

Bodmer’s reply to Maggs 15 November 1926 [Add MS 89311/1/898 Continental Files]

Jasmine Churcher
Library Information & Archives Apprentice, Modern Archives and Manuscripts

 

Today is the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, which marked the official ceasefire on 8 May 1945 following Germany’s unconditional surrender.  VE Day saw jubilant celebrations in Britain.  The Clay and Baylis Papers, which were featured in a previous blog post, contains an account of these celebrations in London. 

Betty Clay was born in 1921, the youngest daughter of Sir Joseph Miles Clay (1881-1949), Indian Civil Service 1904-1937, Adviser to Secretary of State for India 1937-1942.  In 1945, she was working in London as a physiotherapist.  After the War, she went to India to work in military hospitals, first in Poona, then Jullundur, and finally to the Delhi Indian Military Hospital.  Tragically, she was killed on 2 October 1946 in a landslide while out walking in the hills around Naini Tal.

View of the crowd in front of the Ministry of Health building in Whitehall, 8 May 1945. The Prime Minister addressed the crowd from the balcony. Image:  IWM (TR 2876)

Betty wrote about the day’s events in her diary, and later wrote to her sister Audrey in India describing the celebrations in London.  The day began with a visit to church, then an afternoon spent at the cinema where she saw the new Warner Bros film Hotel Berlin.  At about 8.30 that evening she travelled with friends from her flat in Chelsea to St James’s Park, then walked to Buckingham Palace where a vast crowd had gathered.  It was a warm evening and, as they wriggled through the crowd, people fainting became a common sight: 'It was a sultry evening, which I suppose accounted for the fact that the ‘weaker sex’ were going down like nine-pins all round – I’ve never seen so many women faint, in such rapid success, it was a regular battlefield'.  She heard one ambulance worker comment: 'Oh this is just hopeless! It beats Cup Finals at Wembley'.  The Royal Family came out on the balcony at 9.30pm, and the King’s speech was relayed by loudspeaker all over the square.  The huge crowd listened in silence: 'you could have heard the proverbial pin drop'.  Betty was too far back to see much detail, but noted that 'the King was in naval uniform, the Queen in white, Princess Elizabeth in A.T.S. uniform and Princess Margaret in blue'.

Once the Royal Family went back inside, Betty and her friends walked down the Mall.  Bonfires were burning in the park, fireworks were being let off, and all the main buildings were floodlit.  They wandered onto Westminster Bridge.  At one minute past midnight a solitary gun in the distance fired once, then all the boats on the Thames sounded their sirens.  They wandered along the Embankment to Trafalgar Square where 'people were vying with each other in climbing lampposts', then to Piccadilly where she described the lights as 'magnificent, & made London seem quite a blaze of light'.  On the walk back home, 'any form of conveyance had long since packed up', they saw a huge bonfire outside St George’s Hospital, with a crowd of medical students dancing round it.

Men and women dance the conga around a bonfire in East Acton, London during the evening of VE Day, 8 May 1945. Image:  IWM (EA 65881)

Of the night’s events Betty noted: 'It was the crowds that impressed me the most, they were completely care-free & happy & profoundly good natured.  I expected to see drunkenness & hysterical excitement, but there was none …… just an atmosphere of infinite good-will & renewed pleasure in life'.  She arrived home at 2am, foot-sore and weary, but for her it was 'a night that will live in one’s memory for life – a never to be forgotten spectacle – the fitting climax to London’s long ordeal by fire & high-explosive …. We seemed to be going forward, out of darkness, into the light again'.

John O’Brien
India Office Records

Further Reading:
Letters written by Betty Clay to her sister Edith Audrey Baylis, 1936-1946, British Library shelfmark: Mss Eur F765/4/5.
Diary of Betty Clay, Jan 1945-Jan 1946, British Library shelfmark: Mss Eur F765/4/1.

 

With the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day approaching, it is a fitting time to revisit one of the British Library’s lesser-known treasures: Children in War-time: Stories and Drawings Printed by Boys and Girls [1941], a two-volume publication created by students at Hay Currie Emergency School in Poplar, London.

Title page for part I of Children in War-time: Stories and Drawings Printed by Boys and Girls. Poplar: The Hay Currie Emergency School, [1941].  BL shelfmark: Cup.410.f.1193.  Featuring a vignette picture attributed to William Reeves (age 11).

Unlike the ever-popular children’s classics Carrie’s War (1973) and Goodnight Mister Tom (1981), which offer fictional accounts of children and their evacuation, Children in war-time is a scarce record of children's firsthand impressions of war.  In the preface, Headmaster E.G. Porter claims to serve only as a 'compiler' of the volumes, with the children responsible for 'the writing, drawing, printing, reproduction, and book-binding'.  The result is a beautifully crafted collection of vignettes and illustrations that offer a window into the wartime lives of children in London’s East End.

A 1947 study described Poplar as 'probably the most universally poverty-stricken borough of London in the inter-war years'.  While the war brought greater employment stability, proximity to the Docks exposed the area to sustained bombing during the Blitz.  Children were evacuated and later returned, creating unprecedented challenges for the emergency schools tasked with remaining open.  In her contribution to the collection, 'Schools I've Attended in War Time', Dorris Brooks captures this instability, recalling frequent school moves, changing teachers, lessons spent sheltering during air-raids, and the bombing of local facilities.

A playful tone shines through Children in War-time, with students celebrating novelty amid hardship.  Fred Smith writes with pride about a homemade Morse-code buzzer; Alice Conroy recalls differences in wartime Christmases; John Page writes of singing songs while collecting salvage; and Edna McDonald fondly remembers watching Paul Robeson in The Proud Valley (1940), 'a mining picture', after her arrival as an evacuee in South Wales.

Page opening from part II of Children in War-time: Stories and Drawings Printed by Boys and Girls. Poplar: The Hay Currie Emergency School, [1941].  BL shelfmark: Cup.410.f.1193. Features a story 'My Kitten' by Joan Hunt (age 11) and a linocut titled 'Fire fighting' by Ronald Bowyer (age 13).

The Blitz looms over their writing.  One child remembers scavenging tins from the rubble of a bombed house; another writes about the fortunes of a tabby kitten her brother discovered 'on the debris' and saved.  Several children describe their Anderson shelters—the difficulty of building them, their smell and discomfort, how they distracted themselves and passed the time.

With neat layouts, striking linocuts, and the delicacy of private press production, Children in War-time is a feat of craftsmanship produced under unprecedented constraints.  The project speaks to the ambition of Hay Currie Emergency School’s staff.  Historian Stephen Hussey notes disruptions to typical classroom practice from the exigencies of war necessitated improvisation and innovation.  He argues it fostered far more creativity and student collaboration than was present in prewar classrooms.  The meticulous care shown in the book’s production seems designed deliberately to lend authority to the children’s writing and suggests a respect for their impressions.  It reminds me of the British Library’s call for children to make mini books during the pandemic.  Participation in the project clearly stayed with the students; one submitted her memories of making the book to the BBC’s People’s War Archive.

As VE Day approaches, Children in War-time is perfect item to revisit.  A text that stands as testament to educational ingenuity, children's wartime creativity, and the art of bookmaking—brimming with resilience, craft, heart.

Hannah Graves
Curator, Printed Heritage Collections, 20th century

Further Reading:
Children in War-time: Stories and Drawings Printed by Boys and Girls. Poplar: The Hay Currie Emergency School, [1941]. BL shelfmark: Cup.410.f.1193.
Barnett House Study Group. London Children in War-time. London: Oxford University Press, 1947. BL shelfmark: 8367.b.51.
Nina Bawden. Carrie’s War. Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, 1974. BL shelfmark: H.74/127.
Stephen Hussey. 'The School Air-Raid Shelter: Rethinking Wartime Pedagogies'. History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Winter, 2003): 517-539. BL shelfmark: Ac.9234.ry.
Michelle Magorian. Goodnight Mister Tom. London: Puffin, 1983 [c.1981]. BL shelfmark: H.2004/413.