Author: Lesley Hall

Most notebooks kept by nurses during their training were strictly utilitarian, and doubtless checked over by Sister Tutor – the recently catalogued volumes of Evelyn Warner’s lecture notes (MSS.8492-4), written up in a neat and legible hand during her courses in… Continue reading

An exciting new addition to our existing holdings of Spilsbury papers helps clarify the working methods and interests of this famous (or notorious) forensic pathologist. In July this year the Library was fortunate enough to be the winning bidder at… Continue reading

There has recently been increasing interest in recovering the history of women in science, perhaps as the result of the desire to recruit more women into studying STEM subjects. The Royal Society recently held a group ‘Edit-a-thon’, to improve Wikipedia articles… Continue reading

MS.8826 A recent manuscript acquisition highlights the importance of dance to health provision for women in the 1930s. Not as health-promoting exercise along the lines of the Women’s League of Health and Beauty, but as a means of supporting voluntary… Continue reading

As the Paralympics 2012 commence in London, it seems a good time to commemorate their founder, Sir Ludwig Guttmann, whose personal papers are held in the Wellcome Library. Guttmann had a distinguished career as a neurologist and neurosurgeon in Breslau… Continue reading

The archive of the National Abortion Campaign has recently been catalogued and is now available to researchers at the Wellcome Library. The National Abortion Campaign (NAC) was formed in 1975 and the group defended the Abortion Act 1967 against several… Continue reading

We are pleased to announce that the papers of Roger E  C Altounyan (1922-1987) have now been catalogued and are available for research. Roger Altounyan was a member of a distinguished Anglo-Armenian medical dynasty. His grandfather, born in Turkey, undertook… Continue reading

Archives and Manuscripts has recently acquired a letter (MS.8815) from the writer, critic and journalist Dame Rebecca West [Cicely Isabel Andews, nee Fairfield] (1892-1983) to Sir Weldon Dalrymple-Champneys (1892-1980), Deputy Chief Medical Officer of Health at the Ministry of Health (whose… Continue reading

Norway’s National Day (celebrating the adoption of the Norwegian Constitution in 1814) seems like a good occasion to consider the quite diverse material relating to that country among archival and manuscript collections in the Wellcome Library. Given Sir Henry Wellcome’s interests… Continue reading

We were sorry to note recently the death of Tony Coxon, who was the principal investigator of Project SIGMA, a major longitudinal study of gay men and HIV/Aids which informed government and World Health Organisation policies at the height of… Continue reading