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Richard Aspin

Richard Aspin

Dr Richard Aspin is Head of Research in the Wellcome Library. An archivist and manuscripts curator by training, he has spent many years working with the Library’s collections, as both custodian and researcher. His main motivation for studying the past is to help rescue forgotten lives from the enormous condescension of posterity.

  • Spotlight: Welcome to Wellcomeville

    19/05/2014

    In 1911 Henry Wellcome was at the height of his powers. Burroughs-Wellcome & Co. was trading at a healthy profit and had overtaken Allen & Hanbury’s to become the UK’s leading pharmaceutical firm, with its manufacturing base at Dartford. The… Continue reading

  • Spotlight: General Gordon’s Tree of Life

    17/04/2014

    Welcome to Spotlight, a regular series of blog posts that shine a light on some of the treasures in the Wellcome Library. You’ll be able to explore our ever-growing range of digitised materials, hear more about our new acquisitions and… Continue reading

  • A Lady of Masculine Appearance

    29/01/2014

    In late 1889 and on into the following year the European and American papers were agog at the antics of Count Sandor Vay, a young Hungarian man about town, who had been arraigned before magistrates at Klagenfurt in November 1889… Continue reading

  • A much travelled book

    22/07/2013

    It is a truism to say that most libraries are composed of the disaggregated parts of their predecessors. The Wellcome Library is no different, containing as it does the fragments of a myriad vanished collections assembled then disassembled over a… Continue reading

  • The very model of a modern major-general

    10/04/2013

    Sir Henry Wellcome’s deep interest in the archaeology, history and wellbeing of the Sudan is well known. Undoubtedly the event that did more than anything else to spark such fascination – in Wellcome’s mind as in that of so many… Continue reading

  • A book fit for a queen

    11/12/2012

    In the winter of 1559/60 Pierre Boaistuau, a French popular writer, set off for England bearing a book that he hoped to lay before the young Queen Elizabeth, newly installed on the throne of England. This book, later entitled Histoires… Continue reading

  • Digitising the archives: the Wellcome Library approach

    24/09/2011

    Like most research libraries and archives repositories, the Wellcome Library is currently planning to digitise quantities of its unique holdings and provide remote access to the digitised content over the Web. Among the many challenges that such plans present, perhaps… Continue reading