Search FNL grants since 1931

Thomas Pitt was amongst the most important of the amateur English Architects of the 18th and 19th centuries. This group of seven drawings largely relates to this period and includes the designs for remodelling Boconnoc's entrance (east) front, which survives, and extending the south front.

The archive of the actress Billie Whitelaw relates to her work with Irish writer and Nobel Prize winner Samuel Beckett. Billie Whitelaw was Beckett's favourite actress. The items join the rest of the University's Beckett Collection, which is the world's largest collection of manuscript materials relating to Beckett.

These are two of the first books printed in Scotland which are, together, of great significance for the history of printing in Scotland and for the evidence they contain about the wider cultural context and history of Scotland at this time. The Aberdeen Breviary, printed in 1509-1510, is the book for which printing was introduced to Scotland. No-one knows what happened to printing in Scotland between the end of Chepman’s work on the Aberdeen Breviary in 1510 and the first surviving printing by Thomas Davidson, which cannot be earlier than 1532. The Compassio is the only witness to the fact that there was still printing in Scotland during these years. The acquisition was made possible thanks to a substantial additional grant awarded by the B H Breslauer Foundation.

The first edition of Humphrey Repton’s An enquiry into the changes of taste in landscape gardening of 1806: Repton was one of the great landscape gardeners of the 18th century, and is often considered the successor to Capability Brown. His commercial success was often attributed to the 'red books' he created for clients, which demonstrated his before and after plans. This book is a follow up to Repton's Observations on the Theory and Practice and looks at historical landscape gardening as well as aesthetic details. In 2013, MERL acquired the library and archives of the Landscape Institute, and has a new focus on garden and landscape design: Repton's book offers an important insight into early developments

The Letters Patent granted the 'Establishment of a Board Society or Body Corporate for the Encouragement of Agriculture’, is dated 23 August 1793.

This collection of six letters, eleven manuscripts and two books provide unique insight into the close friendship between E. V. Gordon and J. R. R. Tolkien, formed at the University.Not only does the acquisition represent an important collection of works relating to Tolkien’s earlier academic career whilst at Leeds and Oxford, along with unpublished manuscripts that reveal the full range of his literary output, but it contains items of personal correspondence striking for their emotional candour.

The collection has been catalogued (MS 1952) and is available for consultation in the Special Collections Reading room at the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds.

The Hulton of Hulton family and estate archive, while relating chiefly to the Bolton and Salford area of the former County Palatine of Lancaster, is also of regional and national importance. It dates from1199 to1947 and comprises over 100 boxes and trunks of documents, correspondence and papers, a good series of estate and colliery plans and a major collection of mediaeval deeds and other material, including the only known surviving document relating to the Augustinian priory at Cartmel in Cumbria.

Brigid Brophy (1929-1995) was an unconventional and experimental author of fiction and a passionate writer of non-fiction that embraced her strong political, cultural and moral views. She was also a dynamic campaigner on issues ranging from public lending rights for authors to vivisection.

This edition of Tacitus’s Orationes Omnes, which once belonged to John Keats, is of major importance to scholars. It brings the number of books known to have belonged to Keats to 28. It also emphasizes just how important classical culture was to the young poet, confirming the evidence of the other books (including works by Roman historians) in his possession during his life. Most of these belong to Harvard University Library or Keats House in Hampstead, the copy of Tacitus being the first Keats-owned book to join the collection in Rome.

This is an unrecorded first issue of Edward Jenner’s first publication which was printed by J. Bence of Wotton-under-Edge in 1783. Jenner was dissatisfied with the preparations of some medicines in common use and made experiments, in particular to obtain a preparation of emetic tartar which would be ‘regular in strength and uniform in operation’. The pamphlet must have been printed in the autumn of 1783, since John Hunter, the surgeon under whom Jenner had trained, acknowledged it in November.