July —September, 2019
Quarterly
Events, Exhibitions & Treasures from the Collection Features
4 Note from the Librarian
The Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society 5 Library News
Autumn 2019 Programme Highlights Quarterly 6 Member’s Research July—September, 2019 Nicola Higgins Nicola Kane 7 Exhibition Thursday 3rd October 2019 - RNCM Making the News: Delivering the future: Greater Manchester’s Transport Strategy Reading between the lines Since the industrial revolution and the world’s first passenger railway services, transport has from Peterloo to Meskel Square played a critical role in shaping Greater Manchester and the lives of people living in the conurba- tion. Over the coming decades Greater Manchester’s transport system will face huge challenges, 8 Event Listings such as how to cater for a growth in travel as the city’s population increases to around three mil- lion people. Nicola Kane’s lecture will provide an introduction to TfGM’s ambitious plans. 10 Library Treasures Professor Daniel M Davis Alex Boswell Thursday 10th October 2019 - RNCM The Beautiful Cure 12 Member’s Article Daniel M Davis’ research, using super-resolution microscopy to I remember, I remember study immune cell biology, was listed in Discover magazine as one of Alan Shelston the top 100 breakthroughs of the year. He is the author of the high- ly acclaimed book, ‘The Beautiful Cure’. This talk will present a revelato- ry new understanding of the human body and what it takes to be healthy. 14 Dining at The Portico Library Joe Fenn Image: The University of Manchester Derek Blyth Tuesday 15th October 2019 - RNCM 15 Volunteer Story Ellie Holly No Regrets - The Life and Music of Edith Piaf In a century known for its record keeping and attention to detail, Edith Piaf’s life can read like a fairy tale. Derek Blyth’s lecture will examine the world into which she was born, lived and worked, a time of great turbulence and change encompassing two world wars, great so- cial upheaval and the development of mass communication. The event will be topped and tailed with live music, two songs made famous by Piaf and perfomed in tribute. Professor Trevor Cox Wednesday 13th November 2019 - MCC Now You’re Talking Your voice is integral to your personal identity. We judge others not just by their words, but also by the way they talk: their intonation, their pitch, their accent. Mixing scientific analysis with musical interludes, Trev- or Cox will explore the workings of the voice and how it adapts to differ- ent styles, drawing on his latest popular science book, ‘Now You’re Talking’. Cover Image Saints and their symbols, The Bibliographical Decameron, Thomas Frognall Dibdin, 1817. The Manchester ‘Lit & Phil’ was founded in 1781 by two medical doctors, Thomas Percival and Charles White, and All written material, unless otherwise stated, continues to this day as a focus for 30 fascinating lectures and discussions annually from distinguished experts on a Above is the copyright of The Portico Library. wide variety of topics. Events are held in convenient locations in and near the centre of Manchester and will appeal to Opaque and polarising objects, The Micrographic Dictionary, John Designed by Birthday people of all ages who have an enquiring mind! Please visit our website for further information on becoming a member. William Griffith and Arthur Henfrey, Printed by Jump North 1860. If you would like to place an advertisement www.manlitphil.ac.uk Available to buy at in our next edition, please contact 5th Floor, Church House, 90 Deansgate, Manchester M3 2GP www.theportico.org.uk/shop [email protected] 0161 833 4187 3 NOTE FROM THE LIBRARIAN LIBRARY NEWS
You may have noticed that Manchester to read and borrow many of their titles, Announcing the winners have created opportunities for young is in the process of commemorating The including numerous first editions. To learn of The Portico Sadie people to discover and develop their Peterloo Massacre, which took place 200 more about becoming a member please Massey Awards 2019 literary passions and talents, from prose years ago this August. Positioned only visit our website or give the Library a call. and poetry to comedy and performance. 160 meters from what was then St. Finally it gives me great pleasure to For the last four years The Portico This year the judges Martin Griffin, Peter’s Field, The Portico Library is announce that The Portico Prize has been inviting students from across Jake Hope, Danielle Jawando and Paul one of the last buildings still standing has officially returned to the literary Manchester and beyond to write a Morris have taken joy in reading through in Manchester from the time. By delving landscape. Once described as ‘the persuasive book review or a creative every submission and have been, yet through our archive, which is searchable Booker of the North’, the Prize awards narrative set in the North of England. again, bowled over by the quality of the through our online catalogue, we are £10,000 to the book that best evokes the Each year, judges are on the lookout for entries. We are delighted to announce just beginning to uncover the Library’s spirit of the North of England. We have entries with energy, enthusiasm and an that the reviews and stories of the connections to Peterloo. Some of the a stellar line-up of judges: journalist original perspective. They have not been winning students can now be viewed at results of this research (see page 6) will and broadcaster Simon Savidge; actor disappointed! www.theportico.org.uk/sadie-massey- be displayed in our exhibition, Making Holliday Grainger; writer, broadcaster Students have demonstrated an awards and will be published in the the News, 5 July–23 September and performer Kate Fox; Zahid Hussain, irrepressible love for books and stories Portico-themed children’s book, Time (see page 7). author of The Curry Mile; and Jean and often the quality has been exceptional. Travellers and the Crystal Dome, from One of the great things about putting Sprackland, Professor of Creative Writing The number of entries, too, has been Seven Arches Publishing. together this publication is being able to at Manchester Metropolitan University. staggering. Since 2015 these competitions Congratulations and thanks to everyone call upon our membership to write short Our newly created Society of Readers have received over 1,000 entries and our who entered the competition and shared pieces about their work. This edition is and Writers will also collectively draw up educational work has engaged more their creativity! no exception with Alan Shelston, Honorary a longlist as part of the judging process. than 2,000 young people in the region. Senior Research Fellow in English I can’t wait to see the submissions Our workshops, delivered by some of Aoife Larkin Literature at the University of Manchester, arrive and to attend the accompanying Manchester’s most esteemed Events and Outreach Coordinator providing a fascinating take on Victorian events (see pages 8–9). ambassadors of children’s and YA writing, literature and old age (see page 12–13). Right Throughout the piece, Alan mentions Dr. Thom Keep Matty Thompson, several high profile 19th-century authors Librarian one of last year’s winners, reading and as a Portico member you are able his winning review at The Portico Right Sadie Massie Bookbinding Awards prize workshop giving event 2018. concertina style with Barry Clark, 30th April, 2019.
4 | The Portico Library | Jul—Sept, 2019 5 LIBRARY NEWS EXHIBITION
Sharing The Portico response to Peterloo, including Thomas Library’s Hidden Heritage Potter, who later became the first Mayor Making the News Literate Manchester campaigners of Manchester. Another, less well known, became powerful leaders of both In the process of transcribing one of the indication of an anti-Establishment Reading between the lines, democratic and anti-democratic earliest List of Proprietors (1806–1850) reaction amongst some members is that from Peterloo to Meskel Square movements in 1819, and The Portico onto an electronic database, I have a number, including Benjamin Beddome, Library will display books and artefacts 5 July–23 September 2019 discovered more about the involvement Samuel Pullein, Reverend J. G. Robberds containing examples of their texts and of Portico Library members in the and John Mitchell MD, signed a petition Free public preview: speeches alongside the new artworks. Accompanying Robel’s works and the Peterloo Massacre and its aftermath. which declared that the signatories 4 July, 6–8pm Captain Hugh Hornby Birley, a were “fully satisfied” by “personal Library’s items will be extracts from the manufacturer and member of the observation or undoubted information” This year’s city-wide bicentenary newly published graphic novel Peterloo: Manchester branch of the anti- that the Peterloo meeting was “perfectly commemorations of the Peterloo Witnesses to a Massacre. revolutionary Pitt Club, was an original peaceable”, that “no seditious or Massacre include an exhibition at member. Second in command of the intemperate harangues were made The Portico, one of the only remaining Manchester and Salford Regiment of there”, and that the Riot Act “if read institutions to have witnessed the atrocity. Yeoman Cavalry, and involved in the at all, was read privately or without The Library’s members at the time charging of the crowd, his role was an the knowledge of the great body included Captain Hugh Hornby Birley, infamous one. Other pro-Establishment of the Meeting” and expressed their who led the fatal cavalry charge, and names include the Reverend C. W. “utter disapprobation” of the “unexpected J. E. Taylor, who founded The Guardian Ethelston, who read the Riot Act to and unnecessary violence by which the newspaper in response to press the crowd (although it was a matter of Assembly were dispersed”. misrepresentation of the events. debate whether it was in fact audible!). Artist Robel Temesgen creates hand- Conversely, nine members of the Nicola Higgins written newspapers that confound the Library helped to launch The Guardian in Member of The Portico Library reader, slipping between pro- and anti-establishment messages and exploring the role of printed information in the shaping of democracy. His Meskel Square issue, depicting memories of one of the largest public spaces in Ethiopia, will be on display. At the public exhibition launch its pages will be ‘performed’ by some of Manchester’s Amharic-speaking Exhibition Tours residents, who will interpret the texts in their own words for public audiences. British Sign Language with Whether the texts are being authentically Jennifer Little (no spoken English) translated will remain unknowable for 7 September 2019, 11:30am non-Amharic-speaking visitors, inviting us to consider where power lies in relation Free to language, literacy and printed material. Audio-described with Ann Temesgen will also exhibit a brand new work for Manchester, created in Hornsby of Mind’s Eye Description Services Above collaboration with members of the Manchester Manchester Centre for Place Writing. 16 September 2019, 5:30pm Heroes, George Crookshank, 1819. Free
6 | The Portico Library | Jul—Sept, 2019 7 EVENTS LISTINGS
The Familiars by Stacey Halls Tasting America: Interjectional Exercises Rewriting the North 1 July 2019, 6:30–8:30pm An Edible Literary History 15 July 2019, 6:30–8:30pm 25 July 2019, 6:30–8:30pm Tickets: £5 • Concessions: £4 5 July 2019, 6:30–9:30pm Free Free Stacey Halls’ acclaimed debut novel, Tickets: £18 Artist Rowland Hill presents a new The ‘Rewriting the North’ event series inspired by the Pendle witches, uses A lively lecture and series of tastings that live work incorporating British Sign explores the relationship between writing extensive research into the legendary tells the history of cuisine in the United Language, spoken word and physical and place and celebrates how writers Lancashire trials, and tells the story States, led by Dr. J. Michelle Coghlan. gesture. The piece is a development of are reimagining the North of England. of a young woman facing accusations Delicious culinary highlights will be her previous piece, Visible Speech, Supported by The Portico Library and of witchcraft. Join us for this talk and selected and prepared by The Portico co-created with Manchester Deaf Centre. the Centre for Place Writing. More dates book signing. Library’s chef, Joe Fenn. and speakers to be announced.
Manchester: Ruskin-Free-City ማን እያወራ እንዳለ ይመልከቱ Ruskin Lecture 17 July 2019, 6–8pm Conservation: – Look Who’s Talking Re-enactment: Free from books to bees 4 July 2019, 6–8:30pm ‘The Discovery and John Ruskin said, ‘Manchester can 14 September 2019, 10am–4pm Free Application of Art’ produce no good art and no good Free literature’. Director of Manchester Art For many years, English has been the 8 July 2019, 6:30–8:30pm To mark Heritage Open Days, The Gallery and the Whitworth, Alistair international language of power. This live Free Portico Library holds one day of activities Hudson, Cuban artist and activist Tania celebrating the relationship between performance, based on Ethiopian artist Ruskin’s lecture will be re-enacted at Bruguera and Tunde Adekoya, Director cultural heritage and the natural Robel Temesgen’s invented newspapers, The Portico Library by actor and art of Big People Music, take on this lively environment. The Library also launches considers the balance of power between historian Paul O’Keeffe in one of the debate. Come and have your say! its Endangered Booklist in a bid to publisher, reader, translator and listener most important buildings remaining preserve its threatened collection items. in the age of fake news and ‘alternative from Georgian Manchester. Part of Details to be announced. facts’. the Ruskin in Manchester festival.
8 | The Portico Library | Jul—Sept, 2019 9 LIBRARY TREASURES
Last autumn, two 19th-century logbooks high rainfall was caused by rising smoke were discovered in The Portico’s archives from the city’s factories, and that other – hand-written records of all those who cities would therefore be able to create visited the Library temporarily between rainfall by burning high quantities of the 1830s and the 1860s. At times, they wood or coal. Espy was given the resemble a list of characters from a Boy’s disparaging nickname ‘The Storm King’, Own Adventure Story, with mountaineers, and his theory was widely discredited by palaeontologists, Irish cavalry officers his peers, but would later inspire Austrian and Napoleonic War luminaries all psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich to passing through the old entrance on construct his notorious ‘cloudbuster’. Mosley Street. Several champions of the The entries are fascinating and, from abolition movement are also recorded in our modern perspective, occasionally the books, such as the Massachusetts- amusing (such as the 1837 visit from a born campaigner Parker Pillsbury, and ‘George W Bush Esq.’). Cracked and George Thompson (who later witnessed fraying at the edges, these logbooks the fall of the Confederacy alongside bear the marks of almost two centuries. Abraham Lincoln). The 1857 Art Treasures Written in ornate Victorian handwriting, Exhibition brought 1.3 million visitors they can often be hard to decipher. But, to Manchester; so far, we’ve uncovered as staff and volunteers continue to a coterie of painters, architects and transcribe and research these ‘Stranger literary figures visiting the Library during Books’, we hope they will continue to this period. In 1840, The Library was offer up more of The Portico Library’s visited by the American meteorologist secrets. and pioneering weather forecaster James Pollard Espy, who had come to Alex Boswell Manchester to research his Philosophy Volunteer of Storms. He believed that Manchester’s
The American Civil War Government. The ‘mixed’ crowd – comes to Manchester including ‘friends of the Confederate government’ and unemployed workers The Strangers Book also records a visit – interrupted Denison’s speech with from a Reverend C. W. Denison on 25 cries of ‘humbug’ and ‘no religion’! In Feb 1862. Chaplain to the American relief the ensuing chaos he was struck by a ship ‘George Griswold’, Denison travelled flying loaf of bread taken from the relief to Manchester more than once during the stores and quit the platform just as ‘a Lancashire Cotton Famine, with intriguingly vote of thanks was passed to the people mixed responses from those he met. of the United States for the generous gift An article dated March 29, 1863 places they had sent to the people of Lancashire.’ him at the centre of a ‘turbulent meeting’ in Stevenson Square, organised to Sarah Hill distribute food but accused by its critics Communications Officer of promoting the American Federal
Opposite USS Hunchback crewmen in the American Civil War, 1864-65. Photographed by Matthew Brady. 11 MEMBER’S ARTICLE
I remember, I remember survived into their eighties. What is perhaps problematic however In Anna Marsh Caldwell’s novel of 1861, is that we have only a limited sense from Emilia Wyndham, the heroine undergoes biographies of how these people died. a sequence of misfortune: an unhappy Not only do their biographers lack the marriage, financial disaster and the loss specific terminology, they tend to use of her childhood home. But the worst of cautious glosses in their final pages. these is her responsibility for her elderly Gladstone, we are told, was ‘becoming father who has sunk into terminal decline. confused’, Tennyson ‘would absent She writes: himself from conversation’. Elizabeth Longford writes that Queen Victoria had The state of her father’s intellects was difficulty with speech and mental beginning seriously to alarm her. She confusion. These figures were all very could no longer disguise from herself old indeed, but we rarely get the detail that the weakness of his that would indicate a specific diagnosis. comprehension, his disjointed and Such symptoms would likely be associated almost childish talk, his whining and with dementia, a term that continues peevish temper, and his confused and to be redefined. It’s not just biographers imperfect memory were not merely that struggle either. Henry James, the temporary effects of the debility according to accounts, having suffered consequent upon a long illness. two strokes sent for a thesaurus to find out about his condition. I suspect few people read this novel now, For many 19th-century writers who but this reminds us that while we may reached old age memory appears to have given the conditions of old age their have been a common theme. The title for scientific names, there is nothing new this piece is taken from a poem written about their reality for those who suffer by the popular Victorian poet, Thomas them. Victorian writers were certainly Hood. I have ‘remembered’ it since my intrigued by old age. This might in part childhood and it has always seemed to be because life expectancy in the me that the repetition in the first line, 19th-century was considerably lower than repeated through the poem, acts out the it is now. From the statistics collected way in which memory arrives in the mind. at the time we might wonder indeed ‘I remember – yes, I remember’ as we whether there were many old people might put it. If my discussion in this around at all during the period. Literature piece has a literary bias, that is because and art, on the other hand, tell us a I remember a long university career of different story in which those who teaching literature and the pleasure that survived into old age played a very memory still gives me. prominent part. Carlyle, Ruskin, Tennyson, Samuel Bamford, Florence Alan Shelston Nightingale and Queen Victoria all Member of The Portico Library
Opposite The Issue page from Poems in Two Volume, Volume II, Thomas Hood, 1846.
13 DINING AT THE PORTICO LIBRARY VOLUNTEER’S STORY
A new menu, plus the chance such as toasted sourdough bread with I have been volunteering at The Portico of the Library and the many stories to win a meal for two pan fried salmon or smashed peas, feta Library since January 2019 and every day connected to it. Both the staff and and mint. Weekly specials reflect the is completely different! It is a joy to members are very knowledgeable and Among its many accolades The Portico best of seasonal bounties while our walk into this beautiful building and be passionate about the Library, and after Library can claim to be one of central regular menu is built on a solid basis of surrounded by a wonderful collection spending some time here you will walk Manchester’s longest-serving lunch quality produce sourced locally wherever of books and a great group of people. out with the same knowledge and spots, predated only by a handful of the possible. There is always something new to learn passion, as well as so many new skills city’s oldest public houses. As the city To celebrate our new menu we are here, from how to care for 200 year old and opportunities. The Library’s rich and has changed over the course of the offering a lunchtime deal of soup, books to setting up for exhibitions and varied history makes it so unique and it Library’s long history, so too have the sandwiches and tea or coffee for two events. It is especially exciting being is amazing to be able to keep that history eating habits and preferences of the people for just £15 from 17 June–5 July. involved with the events – the Library going, hopefully for many years to come! population, and the Portico Kitchen, like We will also be announcing more offers often becomes an entirely different place I’m so grateful for the all the experiences any café, has had to consistently change and competitions on our social media at night! which was wonderfully bizarre, I have had here and will always treasure its offerings to respond to these varying channels, including a free meal for two as everyone was in costume, from my time at The Portico Library. tastes. Modern Mancunians are likely lucky winners, so keep an eye on our clowns to ball gowns. to be much better acquainted with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds. It seems like every day you learn Ellie Holly avocados and tofu than cow heel and We hope to see you here soon! Food something different about the history Volunteer chitterlings, and we believe the time is served Monday to Friday, with brunch Left is right to redesign our menu to better available from 10.30am–2pm and lunch A highlight from reflect the surrounding culinary culture. from 11.45am–2.00pm. Drinks and cakes the new menu: Poached eggs Taking inspiration from the dynamic are available from 9.30am until close on with smashed modern café and restaurant scene, and weekdays and 11am–3pm on Saturdays. peas, feta and our rich local, regional and national food mint sauce. heritage, our new menu is based around Joe Fenn Right Ruth Estevez traditional British food with some exciting Catering Manager and Ellie Holly modern dishes and flavours thrown in, at the Fancy Pants Fancy Party, 22 March 2019.
14 | The Portico Library | Jul—Sept, 2019 15 The Portico Library 57 Mosley Street Market Street Manchester N
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