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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Call for papers! “Reading Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Religion and Politics: Marginalia and Manuscripts” @rorymaclellan.bsky.social and I are putting together a panel for next year’s SRS conference in London. Deadline for 200 word abstracts is tomorrow Please get in touch and repost!

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Brilliant time yesterday at @awickenden.bsky.social and @oldfortunatus.bsky.social ‘s “Politics of Rare Books” event @crasshlive.bsky.social talking about/connecting with people working across all things rare books and colonial provenance with academics and librarians.

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Would anyone be interested in contributing a paper to @jemimahubberstey.bsky.social and I’s @bsecs.bsky.social panel on “Literary Persuits: At Home and Beyond”? If you’re interested in how 18th c. women used creative spaces to enable or inspire their work, please let us know! Please repost

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Had a wonderful time the other week teaching a session for @royalholloway.bsky.social ‘s MA Public History students on creative responses to archival materials @thelondonarchives.bsky.social. Highlights included Eleanor Rykener’s deposition and Ignatio Sancho’s voting record

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Had a wonderful time yesterday discussing 18th century marginalised voices @thejohnrylands.bsky.social , and getting a peek at their wonderful collections

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Is that the? The @bodleian.ox.ac.uk manuscript draft of Alexander Pope’s Essay on Criticism as a teatowl? Why yes, it is

An orange tea towel with manuscript text in white hung on a radiator

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Great to show off some off the archival work in progress for the local community at the “Hannah More At Home” pop-up exhibition at Barley Wood this week

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

I spend a lot of my time at Hannah More’s countryside home that she built and lived in between 1801-28. But last night I finally went to her Bristol townhouse in Clifton where she spent her final years and died at 1833. A suitably grand final home for the grand dame of Georgian women’s writing!

Image of Georgian sandstone townhouse with four stories, sash windows, and a blue door

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Why yes, I have bought Margot and I matching drinking vessels for my office— what of it?

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Reading about how 16th century Protestants viewed fasting today for work. It has led to me finding what may be my favourite scholarly quote from Alec Ryrie: “Famously, the tipping point of the Reformation in Zurich was the ostentatious eating of a small piece of sausage on Good Friday 1522.”

static.klipy.com

Barry from Sausage Party: Remember Me?

ALT: Barry from Sausage Party: Remember Me?

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Thought someone had sent me a mystery gift as I had a parcel message from a skin care company. No, of course, they also have a side hustle in books and it was just another tome hiding as skincare 😂

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Dealing with a lot of early modern sources today that describe things as “a mischief”, which I personally think we should bring back

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Fantastic afternoon spent yesterday with the YMCA using some of my work on Hannah More’s woodlands and schools to help early year practitioner students from Weston College learn about how to incorporate nature into pre-school learning

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

Had such a great day talking all things memorialisation, death, and grief @arnosvalecemetery.bsky.social yesterday with colleagues and practitioners. More academic events in historic cemeteries needed please

Image of Victorian obelisk marble monuments in a graveyard

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Had a great time helping to deliver the Skills Training in Archival Research at @thelondonarchives.bsky.social yesterday!

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

A new arrival in the Barley Wood archive— a Minton Parian ware figurine of Hannah More (c.1835). Modelled on the famous portrait of her by William Pickering (that she *hated*), it’s a testament to how popular she was a writer that people wanted figurines of her in their homes!

A Minton Bisque Porcelain Figure of Hannah More, c. 1835, sat on a chair and place atop of couple of More’s works. modelled after the portrait by Henry William Pickersgill

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

This week marks *a whole decade* since I handed in my undergrad dissertation on Anne Finch and John Dryden’s drama. Little did I know I’d still be rummaging through manuscripts and teaching the joys of seventeenth century lit ten years later!

Image of a male presenting person with brown hair in front of the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford holding a large white envelope

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Restoration drama week @bristolunienglish.bsky.social means time to get hands on with some first edition play texts

Image of an unbound and rather dirty printed play text on a white cushion. The text is a quarto of
Love’s Victim or the Queen of Wales from 1701.

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

Had a great time with Bristol Common Press getting inky fingers with the departmental printing press last week @bristolunienglish.bsky.social

Image of a wooden printing press with a forme of type ready to be printed

Two hand printed postcards, one with Bristol Common Press in red and gold, the other an extract from the poem The Political House that Jack Built

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

This was so much fun to do, and wonderful to collaborate with other creatives. Thanks @beinghumanfest.bsky.social for making it possible with their generous funding!

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Perks of my knowledge exchange project? Getting to stay on site at Barley Wood in Hannah More’s bedroom and waking up to these views across the Mendips

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Nerdy highlight of the @nationalarchives.gov.uk.web.brid.gy trip so far— getting to work with documents signed by Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell

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Reposted by Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈

Pam Lock @pamplemoussepam.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

Brilliant news! Watched @benwt.bsky.social presentation on this project today and it looks so awesome. A great example of public centred yet academically rigorous and exciting research. A hard trio to achieve!

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Margot had her first day with me in the manuscript reading room today @thelondonarchives.bsky.social today. As you can expect, she’s a dab hand with secretary hand and civic records!

Picture of a manuscript on a desk with a brown dog below.

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

More good news! I've been awarded funding by the YMCA/AHRC to lead a heritage engagement and knowledge exchange project @bristolunienglish.bsky.social. 'The Remarkable History of Barley Wood' will see me set up a community archive of the manuscripts I've uncovered at the property 1/

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Dr Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (He/They) 🏳️‍🌈 @benwt.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

News! I've started as the early modern Post Doc on the AHRC-funded 'Inclusive Histories' project @royalholloway.bsky.social. I'm working at @thelondonarchives.bsky.social to research the stories of marginalised groups, which will be used to foster a more inclusive approach to teaching GCSE History

Image of the front of the London Archives, a red brick building with red banners outside

Image of the Founders Quad at Royal Holloway. The building is red brick with white stone. The quad is grassed and has a central path leading to a statue of Queen Victoria.

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