Search FNL grants since 1931

This plan is a unique, contemporary representation of a property then known as Upper House Farm. The farm sits within the ancient parish of Basildon, which is to the west of Reading and bordered by the Thames. The plan shows the farm buildings in elevation, field names, acreages and the state of cultivation.  It was drawn for its owner, William Rawstorn, a London merchant. 

Rowlandson's satire on the experience of visiting the Royal Academy's exhibition at Somerset House is very well known and has been reproduced in all major publications on the history of the Royal Academy, but the hand-coloured etching itself is very rare. The only impression in a UK public collection is held by the British Museum, and the only public collections in the US to own impressions are the Metropolitan Museum in New York and Princeton University. The original watercolour by Rowlandson is at the Yale Center for British Art.

The book, sold by a private collector, has been added to the existing collection for Swindon Town Football Club at the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre. The book complements official reports and accounts for the Club. The purchase was important for several reasons. While it appears at first glance to cover a few years of accounts several decades after the Club’s founding in 1879, the accounts in fact cover a significant episode in the life of the Club: the election into the Football League (now the English Football League) in 1920.

Several lots relating to the Eyre-Matcham family of Newhouse, Whiteparish and Downton were brought to the attention of the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre by The National Archives. Upon further research it transpired that the items were the last pieces from the sale of the family home of the depositor of a which had been deposited with the History Centre in 1976 along with informal confirmation that more documents would be deposited in due course. Unfortunately, the depositor died before the transfer of the remainder of the documents, and owing to lack of an official bequest they were auctioned in May 2023, along with some others not of relevance to Wiltshire.

It is a joy finally to have these items reunited with the rest of their collection.

An important collection of manuscripts, typescripts and artefacts related to the Herschel family. It includes unique correspondence with Sir John Frederick William Herschel FRS (1792-1871) and his wife, botanical artist Margaret Brodie (Stewart) Herschel, including scientific and personal correspondence from many other Fellows of the Royal Society of the likes of Charles Lyell, William Henry Fox Talbot, William Henry Smyth, William Whewell and others. the majority leans strongly towards the ‘next generations’ of family scientists: the surveyor and astronomer Colonel John Herschel FRS (1837-1921), his brothers Sir William James Herschel (1833-1917) judge and fingerprinting pioneer, and the astronomer Alexander Stewart Herschel FRS (1836-1907); with letters from JFW Herschel’s and Margaret’s daughters and granddaughters.

The Library’s most significant modern literary acquisition of 2024 was that of former Makar (Scottish poet laureate), Jackie Kay. One of the most acclaimed and noteworthy figures in contemporary Scottish and UK culture, Kay’s writing explores and interrogates intersecting characteristics of race, sexuality and nationality. Her archive ranges from her school years, to personal notebooks which record daily life, relationships with friends, social events, theatre rehearsals, literary festivals, public events, readings, teaching, travel, her thoughts on art and history, all intermixed with working drafts of published and unpublished writings. Together they offer a detailed and intimate map of Jackie’s life and writings, her personal journey and the development of her distinctive vision and powerful voice.

Although this is a small collection of deeds, it is noteworthy. The deeds relate to the Whitton and Vennington estates, in the parish of Westbury and their descent through the Topp family.

In medieval period, Whitton was part of the Caus Castle holdings of the Corbet family.  It passed to tenants who took their name from the lands they held at Whitton.  On the death of John de Whitton, it descended through the marriage of his daughter to the Lingen family.  In 1594 Elizabeth Lingen married Alexander Topp of Wiltshire.

The survey was made for Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn who was the largest landowner in North Wales at that time.  He was the 5th Baronet of Wynnstay and married Lady Henrietta Clive, daughter of Edward Clive, 1st Earl of Powis. As this record clearly illustrates, his holdings extended over the border into Shropshire.  Every map is accompanied by a table detailing the extent and use of the various plots shown, as well as naming the occupiers and neighbouring landowners.  This means the information content will be valuable to a range of researchers – from academics and those studying land use and field names to genealogists and house history researchers.

The FNL continues to be most generous to Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery and The Edward Thomas Fellowship as we add manuscript and signed books to the collection of the late Tim Wilton-Steer held in the Edward Thomas Study Centre at the Museum and Gallery. Edward Thomas was a literary critic, writer and, ultimately, poet who was killed in the First World War at the beginning, literally, of the Battle of Arras on Easter Monday, 9 April 1917. A look at the Daily Chronicle archives shows that between 1900 and 1913 barely a day passed without a review by Thomas and one of those, in March 1902, was of Polyphemus and Other Poems, by R C Trevelyan, and this is the copy Thomas reviewed. 

Peggy Guggenheim, a world-renowned art patron and collector, began her lifetime commitment to art in the 1930s when she lived for five years at Yew Tree Cottage, Petersfield, between 1934 and 1939. During this period, Guggenheim opened her first gallery Guggenheim Jeune in Cork Street, London, which held exhibitions by European artists, including Jean Art and Yves Tanguy, alongside modern British artists, including Henry Moore and Julian Trevelyan. Guggenheim had an ambition to open a modern art museum in London, but these plans were interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War.