By Michele Leggott There is only one other headstone like it in the whole of St Mary’s Churchyard. Genealogist John Pickering confirms for us that the stone marking the burials of Hugh Corbyn Harris and his sister Frances Emma Harris is unusual in being slate. The other slate marker belongs to the grave of John Read More…
Author: Brianna Vincent
James Upfill Wilson
By Michele Leggott The next morning I went to call upon the Rev S. Poole, the examiner for the BA degree, to ask when I could have the room. He had just gone out but came back while I was talking to Mrs P.. He was in a great hurry to get to the schoolroom, Read More…
Ned’s Dress
By Dasha Zapisetskaya Transcribing a handwritten diary is like doing maths homework; you might whizz through three or four pages before becoming completely stumped by one little problem. This is exactly what happened as I worked through Emily Harris’s account of her visit to a friend in November 1885. ‘I stayed a few days with Read More…
Camping out beyond Happy Valley
By Michele Leggott Emily Harris loved camping. She wrote in her diary: ‘Ever since our very successful camping out party last year, I had determined to go again if possible. So whenever the Wrights mentioned it I always said I wished we could go again and so by degrees another party was arranged for Read More…
Chess, Art, Theosophy: The Studio at 34 Nile St
By Brianna Vincent When I hear the words ‘art studio’, I think of a place filled with peaceful solitude and quiet. But Emily’s studio in the Harris home at 34 Nile Street East was a bustling social space that served a variety of purposes, some of which we can find evidence for advertised in the Read More…
Mr Manby, Professor of Music
By Michele Leggott The inscription on the headstone in Edwin Harris’s pencil sketch reads: ‘Sacred to the memory of Charles William Manby | Formerly of 85 Fleet Street London | Born 8th March 1809 | Died 11th April 1866 | Aged 57 Years | Let everything that has breath praise the Lord | Psalm CL:6.’ Read More…
Playing Snap with Edwin Harris
By Brianna Vincent I thoroughly enjoyed my part of working on Edwin Harris’s sketchbooks, one of the interesting parts of the experience being how it became an exercise in sustained déjà vu. The déjà vu would leave me carefully leafing through the pages and wondering if I had seen this building, this tree, this beach, Read More…
Caroline Screech
So troublesome are the rats that we shake them off our beds and you will laugh when I tell you that Caroline, who lives with me, the same who lived with Mrs Court, has a poultice up to her leg and the rats ate through the bed clothes and cloths to the bread which they Read More…
Cross-Eyed Cross Writing
“I did not hesitate to cross the stile when I found myself in a large fern clearing, the spot I stood on was high ground…” This is the last clear line of an entry from Sarah Harris’s notebook, as she describes getting lost in the forest. The next page is filled with cross-writing, the writing Read More…