Monthly Archives: April 2016

Capabilities

Posted on 29/04/2016 by carolinemmurray

To the auditorium of the Sainsbury Laboratory in Cambridge (the amazingly heavy door of which was clearly not designed for the demographic of the Friends of Cambridge University Botanic Garden). However, we are stalwart types, and having overcome this obstacle, … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Gardens, History | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Pressing Matters

Posted on 24/04/2016 by carolinemmurray

In my view, you can never have too much of a good thing if that thing involves the Cambridge University Botanic Garden, so I was delighted a few days ago to participate in a study session on J.S. Henslow’s influence … Continue reading →

Posted in Botany, Cambridge, Natural history | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Object of the Month: April

Posted on 21/04/2016 by carolinemmurray

This enormous jug was made at the Coalport factory in Coalbrookdale, Ironbridge Gorge, which is usually thought of as the cradle of the Industrial Revolution. It was acquired for the Fitzwilliam Museum by the Friends in 2014, at a sale … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Cambridge, History, Museums and Galleries, Natural history | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Arsenic in the Arctic

Posted on 18/04/2016 by carolinemmurray

It is perhaps surprising that one of the best known U.S. Arctic explorers first felt the Call of the North in land-locked Cincinnati, Ohio. Charles Francis Hall (1821–71) was born in Vermont, and apprenticed to a blacksmith in Rochester, New … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Exploration | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Plant of the Month: April

Posted on 15/04/2016 by carolinemmurray

As a poet (rather than as an academic), A.E. Housman had the occasional lapse (who does not wince at the immortal lines, ‘The goal stands up, the keeper/Stands up to keep the goal’, in a stanza that Vaughan Williams refused … Continue reading →

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The Maker of Devils

Posted on 12/04/2016 by carolinemmurray

I was thinking of calling this piece ’36 Hours in s’ Hertogenbosch’, but some of those hours were spent sleeping, and anyway I then came across the fascinating information that Jeroen van Aken, aka Hieronymus Bosch, was also known as … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Museums and Galleries | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Maria Dundas/Graham/Callcott

Posted on 07/04/2016 by carolinemmurray

Maria Dundas, later Graham, later Callcott, is another of the cohort of women (Fry, Coutts, Nightingale, Marcet, Caroline Herschel …) who give the lie to the nineteenth-century cliché about the angel in the house. Born on 19 July 1785 near … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Biography, History, Literature, Museums and Galleries, Printing and Publishing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

St Lubbock And His Pet Wasp

Posted on 03/04/2016 by carolinemmurray

A mostly self-taught polymath who knew everyone there was to known for two-thirds of the nineteenth century, banker, philanthropist, Member of Parliament, archaeologist, anthropologist, entomologist, geologist, best-selling author, slight eccentric (see pet wasp, and teaching poodle to read, below) and … Continue reading →

Posted in Archaeology, Biography, History, Natural history | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments