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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Current highlight of week off: Ellen Terry's cat basket

Shingle beach with a hut on it (black timber walls and red roof). Beyond the hut is the sea. Beyond the stretch of sea is a nuclear power plant.

Ellen Terry's cat basket on a chair. Made out of wicker with a suspiciously loose lid.

Concrete pill box with a doorway looking onto flat marshland. A red roofed house is in the distance.

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I finally cracked after the round of slow blinking and sad 'meep' sounds

Disappointed black, orange and white cat informing me of my deficiencies.

Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Dinner time agitation has begun...

Half a cat peering round a door frame, sitting near a bit of floor where a food bowl should apparently be.

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

18th century name of the week: Essex Gunman (widow)

Two entries from Dover parish registers:
1749: baptism of Christopher, son of Christopher and Essex Gunman.
1788: burial of Essex Gunman, widow.

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

*Coventry enters the chat*

Aerial view of Coventry market, showing a not very full car park.

Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

* paleontological not paleographical (confused archivist post)

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

We had family down there, so it was one of the default four things to do in the '80s

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I was obviously too distracted by the paleographically dubious dinosaurs as a child, I've no recollections of family trips to the Mouth of Hell (South Wight edition) at all

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Used to work with him (in Coventry, birthplace of the other Larkin) and many of us had to make a concerted effort to call him by the right name. He seemed quite stoical about it / resigned to it.

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

He does like to be involved / prominently asleep somewhere!

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Extra and unexpected guest at the Works Pub Trip

Murphy the Old Windmill cat curled up on a chair.

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

The Warwickshire map at the Market Hall in Warwick is worth a view too. As well as the usual 'Shakespeare's County' business it also features derpy bears, embryonic Birmingham, and the first visual representation of the Rollright Stones www.ourwarwickshire.org.uk/content/arti...

Sheldon tapestry map of Warwickshire laid out for cleaning.

Derpy bears on 16th century tapestry map.

The villages of 'Bromigham' and Edgebaston on Sheldon tapestry map of Warwickshire.

Bit of Sheldon tapestry map of Warwickshire, including Warwick and Kenilworth.

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Having plumbing work done and the cat's coping mechanism is currently to inhale catnip in fish form and then vigorously wash her arse. I'm just drinking tea.

Cat picking her toes behind a chair after harassing a catnip fish.

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

That would have been good, traces of 400 years of use!

Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

It was great, all these little details popped out. Seeing the back, where the threads have been exposed to less light, gives a really vivid idea of how strong the colours once were as well.

Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

A while back, I accompanied the Warwickshire map on its spa trip to Belgium. There's some excellent detail in them.

Two textile conservators washing a very large tapestry.

The edge of a tapestry map, with the edges of a couple of IKEA bags just about visible.

Two textile conservators about to start drying a very large tapestry map.

Spectrum of dirt in seven containers of water, going from murky brown to nearly clear. Big tapestry map in a chamber behind them.

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

We missed a trick not attempting a budget recreation for the 50th

Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

The Modern Records Centre have a few online too at cdm21047.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/ . It seems a definite choice to think 'I've seen the commemorative napkins you've done for the Cenotaph and pit disasters, I'd like one for my wedding too. Don't forget to include the battleship'.

Paper napkin souvenir of the Cenotaph in London (online at https://cdm21047.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p21047coll3/id/1260/rec/19)

Paper napkin memorial to the Wharncliffe Woodmoor mining disaster near Barnsley, 1936 (online at https://cdm21047.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/hew/id/633/rec/103)

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Another thing those laundries, tobacco works and toy manufacturers would have had in common was their categorisation as sweatshop industries in the first decades of the 20th century, to the extent of having government-regulated minimum wages proposed through the Trade Board system

Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Here's a #NotMyCat in anticipation and general support

Tortoiseshell cat lying on grass, attempting to wash her upper back.

Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Well that was a good find. Ellen Wilkinson appeared to spot the camera filming shortly before they cut away from her and to then shove someone out of the way by their elbow so that she was more in view. And definite contrasting approaches to a canape by Bevin (lip curl) and Morrison (shovel down).

Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Bar chart in election leaflet levels of accuracy there, though if they are contacting a Registry Office about archival research that gives one explanation for the 'no-one emails me back / wants the archives to be seen' line

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Possibly, though as I'm mostly only let loose on the past 200 years now, this sort of thing increasingly comes under 'fun novelty' rather than 'regularly screaming at minims / random curly bits'

Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

To possibly make things more confusing, there are 2 "too"s there, which would now be spelt as 'two'. The word before is 'daughter' spelt 'dawt' with a squiggle after which is an abbreviation for 'er'. The dawt's are being left a qtr of barli by Mr Boner.

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Reposted by Liz Wood

Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick @mrcwarwick.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Some of the most powerful talks in our conference 'Blood is the Price of Coal' looked at coalfield communities after the pits had closed These and more can be watched in full at warwick.ac.uk/services/lib...

Pair of boots with dates that the owner worked at Kellingley Colliery painted on the toes.

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Also Orgreave. Record keeping and subsequent destruction of evidence are specifically mentioned as areas of interest for the current Inquiry ( www.orgreave.public-inquiry.uk/provisional-... )

orgreave.public-inquiry.uk

Provisional List of Issues – The Orgreave Inquiry

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Congratulations and excellent choice - donated.

Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

At home with the #T20Sweep on TV and a disappointing absence of Tim Tams

The Swaines left behind in Yorkshire for being too young or too female never made it to North America, leaving a family split across two continents Ann Swaine, Thomas' wife, died in 1809. Her West Yorkshire descendents were millworkers, put to work on successors of the machines smuggled by Pollard.

Late 19th or early 20th century photograph of a woman worker in a Bradford textile mill.

Ever on the lookout for a quick buck, William Pollard looked to his old textile haunts in Yorkshire, & smuggled over a copy of Arkwright's spinning machine Pollard's attempt to kickstart a US industrial revolution through industrial espionage failed badly, despite an invite to George Washington...

Extract from the Gazette of the United States, 3 June 1789, reporting on William Pollard's ownership of 'a valuable spinning machine' and warning of risks of the actions of British spies against the industrial interests of the United States.

Transcript of letter to Thomas Jefferson from William Pollard, 26 June 1792. He refers to his spinning machine and his building of a small mill, and rather optimistically invites George Washington to visit.

The letter is included in the Founders Online database - https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-24-02-0127

After serving as a printers' apprentice, "undeviating republican" John Swaine joined up with John Childs, lobbied Benjamin Franklin, and became the US government's first official printer He died aged just 31, in 1794, leaving all his property to his Yorkshire-based mother Ann and brother Thomas...

Obituary notice for John Swaine, printer, aged 31, from the Independent Gazetter, 22 November 1794. It describes him as possessing "a heart glowing with benevolence and genuine philanthropy; steady to every just principle, ... an undeviating republican and well wisher to the rights of man".

George Washington’s copy of the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Acts of the First Congress, published by Childs & Swaine – it was sold by Christies for $9.8 million in 2012.

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When the Revolutionary Wars began, the Swaines and Pollards joined in - against the British government William Pollard joined the Philadelphia Light Horse and served on the Pennsylvania State Navy Board Thomas Swaine's teenage son John joined his local army regiment as a player of drums & fife...

Transcript of letter from William Pollard to Samuel Morris, Committee of Safety, Philadelphia, 23 July 1776, about supply of munitions to the Revolutionary army.

Part of revolutionary war record of John Swain / Swaine, a member of Capt. Carnahan's Company of the 8th Pennsylvania Regiment of Foot, 1778.

A surviving 1772-1774 letter book kept by William Pollard gives glimpses of the pre-revolution life of Thomas Swaine, homesteading in the Shades Valley, Pennsylvania (discover.hsp.org/Record/ead-A...) Tough farming, rows with servants, a stolen dog and selling watered down rum to neighbours...

Page from William Pollard's letter book, open at a letter to Thomas Swaine. The document is part of the collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Advert from Pennsylvania Journal, 28 December 1774. It advertises an 8 dollar reward for the arrest of James Dugan, an Englishman who had worked for Thomas Swaine before doing a runner with his spaniel dog Ranger and some money.

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When Thomas Swaine landed in North America he was amongst Calderdale family-his wife's brother William Pollard was an established Philadelphia merchant, having arrived 9 years earlier Swaine had also brought indentured labourers with him from Yorkshire, including his sister and sister's husband...

Adverts from the 'Pennsylvania Gazette', 15 November 1764. One is for the ship 'Polly', master Peter Byrne, who can be contacted either at the London Coffee House or through William Pollard at his store in Front Street. The other is for goods sold by William Pollard, including 'a neat assortment of woollens', jewellery, buckles, spurs, smelling bottles and buttons.

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A July 4th 🧵 In 1772 Calderdale weaver Thomas Swaine set sail for a new life in North America. He was accompanied by his c.12 and 9 year old sons Sam and John, and brought with him textiles, mustard and crockery to sell His pregnant wife and the rest of his children were left in West Yorkshire...

Coloured engraving of 'An east prospective view of the City of Philadelphia', made in 1778. It looks towards the city across a sea filled with sailing vessels and what appears to be a floating windmill.

Advert put in the Pennsylvania Packet newspaper between 19 October and 9 November 1772 by John Ackroyd and Thomas Swaine, "just arrived in the Polly and Hannah, Capt. Smith, from Hull, with an assortment of goods suitable to the present and approaching season". The goods for sale include textiles (broadcloths, forest cloths, shalloons, calimancoes, durants, camblets and sundry other woollens and Manchester goods), flour of mustard in casks and cakes, and crockery.

Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Less communal singing than there used to be...

Hugh Gaitskell's Shadow Cabinet on a conference platform, linking arms whilst singing Auld Lang Syne.

Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

There's probably a lot of unexpected overlap, once we start looking - parading banners through the streets, pamphleteering / tracts, big halls...

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

As someone usually in the vicinity of a lot of political archives, one of the guides to sources that I wrote was basically just a thousand or so words of trying to find different ways to say '... and then they split'.

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Sounds as though TV agreements are making it complicated - supposedly England will play on Thursday *unless* India go through, in which case they'll play on Tuesday because the afternoon start would fit better with subcontinent timezones (www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricke...)

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Not as such, but I do commend the excellence of the slight cloud cover and very light drizzle that appeared in between bouts of sun

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

An excellent day out, and glad to say that my Irish winning streak is also at the full 100% (1/1) #T20Swéep

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Liz Wood @worsted.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

... going better for @melindahaunton.bsky.social than me at the moment...