The blog for the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York.
Written by Diana Wallis, research associate at the University of York’s Centre for Medieval Studies, this is the second of two guest blogs focused on the archive of the Company of Merchant Adventurers of the City of York. You can also listen to the companion podcast. As outlined in the previous blog, The 1478 Petition … Continue reading The Response to the Mercers Petition of 1478
Written by Diana Wallis, research associate at the University of York’s Centre for Medieval Studies, this is the first of two guest blogs focused on the archive of the Company of Merchant Adventurers of the City of York. You can also listen to the companion podcast. In early 1478 ‘the mercers of the city of … Continue reading The 1478 Petition of the York Mercers
Written by Helen Watt, Honorary Fellow, Department of History, University of York On Wednesday, 25 March 2026, the enthronement or installation of the new Archbishop of Canterbury will take place in Canterbury Cathedral. This will be both a solemn and truly momentous ceremony, as the Rt Rev. and Rt Hon. Dame Sarah Mullally will be … Continue reading Welcoming the new Archbishop of Canterbury
Written by Simon Batchelor, BA (Hons), MA, MA (Res), Customer Services Assistant at the University of York Library. One item in the rare books collection has recently caught my attention; drawn in the corner of the an endpaper is the picture of a youth, standing on one leg, he is holding a horse collar up … Continue reading Gurning and the art of face pulling.
Written by Neil Adams, Archives Assistant ‘Not a dry eye was to be seen, and the dreadful shrieks and sobs of the bereaved widows and the fatherless, in passing the habitations of the sufferers, were such, as to beggar all description – truly it was the scene of desolation’ (Yorkshire Gazette) Shortly after one in … Continue reading The Stillingfleet Tragedy
The author of this post is anonymous. A few days ago, I was rummaging through a box of wills when I noticed something odd. Amongst the wills of those who died in 1703, and unusually high proportion had died aboard a ship. Closer inspection revealed that each of the thirteen Yorkshire men who died in … Continue reading The Great Storm of 1703
A guest post by Dr George Redmonds, author of the Yorkshire Historic Dictionary. If I were accused of eavesdropping I might be mildly embarrassed but I would certainly not expect tobe punished for it. The truth is that we use the word loosely these days, not stopping to consider that the eavesdropper was once the … Continue reading Eavesdroppers
The author of this blog is anonymous. In 1902, seventeen year-old Winifred Rowntree noted that there was nothing for teenage girls in York to do in the evenings . Inspired by the local evening school for adults, she decided to establish a club that would aim to entertain and educate girls from the area around … Continue reading Honesty Girls Club: Educating the Girls of York
Written by Alexandra Medcalf, Project Archivist for the Yorkshire Historic Dictionary Interactions between Scotland and Yorkshire were clearly, from the surviving terms in the dictionary, many and common-place. Those words which explicitly reference Scotland seem mostly to do with trade between the two areas, as Scottish men brought wares down from their home country to … Continue reading For Burn’s Night, Scotland in Yorkshire
The author of this blog is anonymous Walking through the strongrooms within the Borthwick, you never know quite what you will find. There is a Crown of Thorns, an ostrich egg, and a box simply labelled ‘Hair cuttings (family).’ So I was not surprised to learn that within the archive of the Wood family (later … Continue reading Food in the Archives