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Duncan Hamilton

@dnhamilton.bsky.social
956 followers 176 following 394 posts

University of Manchester PGR researching radical 19thC literature and politics | National Co-operative Archive volunteer | IHR History Lab+ ambassador (North West England)

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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
Writing a bit about pubs in Chartism (Cooper advocates for them as meeting places in his novel but doesn't mention the whole, you know, drunkenness aspect). Having a fun moment getting to quote from the Chartist Circular's teetotal address that my 3x and 4x great-grandfathers both signed.
Stonehouse: James Hamilton, merchant. James Hamilton, junior, merchant.
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
My Thomas Cooper library grows in size and splendour with an extremely rare first edition of Alderman Ralph. Only the first volume, alas, but there's plenty of indecipherable notes in the back to keep me busy until Volume 2 surfaces!
Old black book cover. The pattern, once ornate, is very worn.Title page to Alderman Ralph by Adam HornbrookPage of handwritten notes. The handwriting is indecipherable.Second page of handwritten notes. The handwriting is indecipherable.
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
Alert
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
Reading some old BBC Schools broadcasting notes because the incredible Thomas Cooper play (WRITTEN BY ALAN PLATER) is featured and - man, the Beeb used to be something, didn't it? Our Tom would have strongly approved of the educational angle.
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
Had a long-overdue haircut this week and made the decision to do a close shave afterwards. This proved to be a mistake but it has, at least, allowed me to complete the Carroll diagram of Duncan's Many Looks Yes, I look good with the scruff and the cropped hair, I'm not ashamed.
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
I am ~15 years into my Europa Universalis V game and I'm blown away. This is a simulation of the ENTIRE world for 500 years (1337-1821), yet still deep enough for me to lose myself in battling Devonian and Cornish tin merchants over their weird local legal system #SmashTheStannaryLaws #EUV
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
Spending most of my time hiding in a crypt and playing dress up, as I usually do in heritage sites
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
You know what time of year it is
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
Three bloody years on this PhD and I still get jumpscared by the low-contrast Thomas Cooper
A low-brightness, low-contrast print of a man identified by caption as Thomas Cooper. The image is unsettling.
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
Style icons
Two dogs in a field. The one on the right is black with a red collar. The one on the left is black and white with a red, orange and yellow jumper.
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 25/10/2025
Is there anything more South Manchester than having a print of your favourite brunch place on the wall
Print of a restaurant. The name 'Saison' is displayed above the facade.
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
Proud to pay my respects to KING DAVID HARTLEY OF CRAGG VALE and also this poet my partner likes I guess
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
Uh, whose Wuthering Heights?
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
Brilliant book but especially essential reading for anyone interested in the history of commons land management
Front cover of 'The Green Ages: Medieval Innovations in Sustainability' by Annette Kehnel
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
Big day - my parents inform me that it is finally the start of Long Dog Jumper Season
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
I think there's another anti-immigration protest going on in my locale tomorrow, which makes it all the more appropriate to be spending this evening reading my grandfather's own immigration paperwork. Yes, his profession is listed as 'hockey player', he was the most Canadian man to ever live
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
"We do not like the nomenclature of this novelist. It is too literally allegorical." Finally, a literary critic with the pluck to call Cooper out on his bullshit character naming conventions (I'm still not over the gardener, Eli Grubroot, and doubt I ever will be).
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
Back in the home of Thomas Cooper for reasons that I will make clear tomorrow... I don't think he would approve of the vulgar gesture but I'm cooler than him, so.
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
Views from the top of Pontcysyllte Aqueduct - built 1805, 126ft up
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
The most Disco of Disco moments in Alix Holt's preface to the essays of Alexandra Kollontai
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Close, but I don't think that's what George Binns's most well-known Chartist poem was called (Yes, I'm reading Chartist poetry at 10.45pm on a Friday night. Party animal, me.)
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
#OTD 1847 was the first day of the General Election held in that year. It ran from 29 July to 26 August and is notable for the return of Feargus O'Connor, who won Nottingham's second seat on an explicitly Chartist platform. (Photo of the Feargus O'Connor statue in the Nottingham Arboretum)
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
My brain whenever anyone asks me to explain what my PhD is about (it's not even that hard to explain)
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
This is promising - Lewes suggesting that Eliot was quite interested in encouraging Herbert Spencer towards a debate with Cooper, in the days following Cooper's reconversion to Christianity. Don't think Cooper ever took on challenge, sadly.
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
Spending Sunday afternoon going through nine (thankfully digitised) volumes of George Eliot's letters looking for any connections between her and Thomas Cooper. Appreciated this quote from George Henry Lewes: "My function in life is to be ornamental". Mood, George, mood.
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
Dril tweet moment
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
Happy birthday Michael Foot - who was a reader of Chartist poetry! I own his old copy of The Poetical Works of Thomas Cooper, used as research for his study of Byron. Foot highlights Cooper's mention of Sardanapalus, which is in part a ref to Byron's 1821 tragedy.
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
Tired: Drinking lager 🤢 Wired: Drinking ale 🍻 Inspired: Drinking SNUFFLY HEDGE GROG 🦔
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 13/07/2025
Few shots from the 'Wonderful World of the Ladybird Artists' exhibition currently in Durham. Didn't know they did a Gaskell one (though it's not as good as the Cromwell, of course)
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
A fab day out at the 139th Durham Miners Gala! Absolutely frazzled now, but great to hear speeches from Jeremy Corbyn, various union leaders, the Durham Miners Association and Husam Zomlot, Palestinian Ambassador to the UK. Extremely motivational all round ⛏️✊
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
Just been alerted to what's happening with the AI assistant on the Old Website
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
Saw Constable's Dedham Vale today at the National in Edinburgh. What a PAINTING that is. 1828? The transient figure in the bottom-centre? The central mill? The dominating church in the top-centre? The thatched cottage middle-right, separated by trees and almost being pushed out of frame? Come ON
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
Greatest socialist this country has ever produced. It's a long-ish excerpt but his attacks on patronising middle-class philanthropy is as scathing today as it was when it was first written:
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Currently sending increasingly panicked messages to my Dutch friend
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
Mam and I have been playing a lighthearted game where she sends me photos of actors from Morse and I have to work out what else they're from. After three days she's starting to realise the level of neurodivergent TV knowledge she's dealing with
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
Doing a bit of organising in the archive, it's always fun when you come up against the Really Weird Bits of Owenism - especially the Hengist and Horsa play 'composed in the Spirit World'
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
AND NOT BEFORE TIME
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
Fact finding mission to a town recently described to me by a friend as 'the centre of the Universe'
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
Normal people: Congratulations on your new baby! Boy or girl? Thomas Cooper: WHAT IS THE GENDER OF THE NEW SOJOURNER IN THE VALE OF TEARS
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Anyone around Manchester Central Library soon, do take a look at our exhibit in the main hall, "I've Never Read Elizabeth Gaskell". These are the outputs from a writers' residency, in which three young creatives developed pieces based on their unique engagement with Elizabeth Gaskell's legacy! [1/2]
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
Sometimes the days are harder and work can only take place beneath the Strawberry Thief duvet
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
Excellent news that at long last, football is finally back
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
Don't like this.
Advertisement from Google Docs reading "University students get a free upgrade of Gemini for 15 months: Prep for exams with our best AI model, plus unlock Gemini in Gmail, Docs and more."
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
Really good crowd tonight for my Zoom talk 'Laughter and Literature: Comedy in the Works of Elizabeth Gaskell' delivered for Elizabeth Gaskell’s House. Managed to shoehorn a good amount of Chartism in there, too, so happiness all round!
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Also nothing has ever gone harder than their tea towels
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
There is an inverse correlation between my resting cortisol levels and the amount of time I spend reading The Idler. Can't understate the mental health value of a regular publication whose ethos is, in their own words, pre-Industrial Revolution idealism mixed with 1990s slacker culture
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
What have they DONE to Mecca
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
Baby Lasagna/Käärijä's joint appearance is more fire than any of the entries this year
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
Bottom line reads 'Printed by W.J Linton, at Brantwood'. I spent a lot of time in front of the sole Linton display on my last visit. Glad it's there, but it would be nice if they made more of the Chartist connection.
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Duncan Hamilton @dnhamilton.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
The harrowing realisation that on the morning of my 26th birthday* I was... editing Thomas Cooper's Wikipedia page. You can go through the edits history and ABSOLUTELY tell which ones are mine *also Feargus O'Connor's birthday if you wanted to draw some extra humour out of it
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