Search FNL grants since 1931

Derby Museums already holds the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of work by Wright, including works on paper and oil paintings, and a small selection of archival material including some correspondence. The collection of ten publications enhances and complements these holdings, providing as they do a window into Wright’s friendships with numerous poets and writers of the late 18th century, many of whose works in turn influenced some of the choice and treatment of the artist’s paintings.

Robert Baxter, Senior Archivist, writes: The family was extant at Huddleston, Yorkshire in the mid 13th century.

Euclid, The Elements of Geometrie.  Translated into English by Sir Henry Billingsley, with a preface by John Dee (London: John Day, 1570).

Pantglâs Hall was a splendid 19th century country house with landscaped gardens, located near the parish of Llanfynydd to the north-east of Carmarthenshire. In 1850, the 7,854-acre Pantglâs estate was purchased by David Jones (MP for Carmarthenshire, 1852 – 1968) where he built a large house there at the considerable cost of £30,000. What is particularly interesting about this document is that visitors who called at Pantglâs Hall were measured for their height and weight with the results (including their age) written into this specially-made book.

Any document relating to the Cook voyages is now extremely rare.  Imprest documents are unusual and only two others survive from those issued by Captain Cook on this voyage, neither of which are held in this country.

John Wickins was a friend, collaborator and amanuensis of Isaac Newton. The notebook contains transcripts of letters and other writings by Newton, including the longest example of Newton’s writing to be found in the past 50 years.

Joanne Fitton, Associate Director Special Collections and Galleries, writes: The Brotherton Library holds a signifi

The collection comprises 36 boxes of scripts and files of agency contracts and correspondence which document Howerd’s career between the late 1940s and his death in 1992. Previously unseen, the archive tells the story not only of the career of one of our best-loved performers and charts the craft and development of modern stand-up comedy as we know it - the journey from 1940s gag-tellers to observational storytelling.

A rare copy of Hachiman Tarō Ichidaiki, a work of popular illustrated fiction published in the second half of the 18th century. This set is complete in five volumes, each preserving its original cover and pasted title slip. The book comprises twenty-five leaves of woodblock-printed text and images, with later hand colouring added to the illustrations by a contemporaneous reader.

The letter exemplifies Dickens’ perhaps surprising but consistent link with Aberdeen. The novelist visited the ‘Granite city’ twice on his famous lecture tours. John Thomson Gordon, variously High Sheriff of Aberdeen and Edinburgh and one time Rector of Marischal College, one of the University's two antecedent institutions, was among his closest Scottish friends.