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Curious Travellers
@curioustravellers.bsky.social
‘Curious Travellers 2: Digital Editions of Thomas Pennant’s Tours of Wales and Scotland’. An AHRC-funded research project (CAWCS, University of Glasgow, Natural History Museum London)

Histories of Enlightenment Travel

https://curioustravellers.ac.uk/en/
Pinned
Curious Travellers 2 is creating digital editions of Thomas Pennant’s Welsh and Scottish tours—but don't forget our existing open access Curious Travellers editions!

Correspondence and tours by Pennant, Anne Lister, the Ladies of Llangollen, Hester Piozzi, and more

editions.curioustravellers.ac.uk
Reposted by Curious Travellers
I had no chance to post about Friday’s fantastic Curious Collections conference for @curioustravellers.bsky.social, but suffice to say these chairs were full as we welcomed nearly 60 guests to @nhm-london.bsky.social for a packed programme on Thomas Pennant and the work (and future🤞) of the project.
November 11, 2025 at 7:42 AM
Reposted by Curious Travellers
The importance of the owl in Welsh tradition @mxfrankduffy.bsky.social
Followed by Liz Edwards from @yganolfangeltaidd.bsky.social telling us about the possibility that this illustrated owl - found by Pennant in a collection at Bryn-y-Pys - might have been one of his favourites, thanks to repeated appearances in his extra-illustrated books
November 7, 2025 at 11:16 AM
For our first talk today, Alex Deans from @uofglasgow.bsky.social tells us about Thomas Pennants rather disappointed reaction to Caithness in 1769 - an "immense morass", though at least with "a few rows of tolerable trees" (!)
November 7, 2025 at 10:45 AM
Reposted by Curious Travellers
A conference in London on 7 November explores the scientific legacy of Thomas Pennant (1726–1798) from Holywell, Flintshire - an internationally renowned naturalist whose specimens form a core part of the Natural History Museum’s collections. Read more here:
www.uwtsd.ac.uk/news/confere...
Conference Reveals Welsh Naturalist’s Major Contributions to London’s Natural History Museum
The upcoming ‘Curious Collections’ conference at the Natural History Museum, London (November 7th) will shed new light on one of the oldest collections in the museum’s archives and explore the scienti...
www.uwtsd.ac.uk
November 5, 2025 at 10:41 AM
We're looking forward to our conference at the Natural History Museum (@nhm-london.bsky.social) on Friday - read our press release to find out more!
Conference Reveals Welsh Naturalist’s Major Contributions to London’s Natural History Museum
The upcoming ‘Curious Collections’ conference at the Natural History Museum, London (November 7th) will shed new light on one of the oldest collections in the museum’s archives and explore the scienti...
www.uwtsd.ac.uk
November 4, 2025 at 2:49 PM
"Pennant’s great auk reflects...a paradigm shift precipitated by the realisation that a species could vanish; and therefore that a ‘resource’ could in fact become exhausted and disappear altogether"

Artist Sean Harris on extinction and animation for our blog

curioustravellers.ac.uk/curating-the...
October 31, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Reposted by Curious Travellers
Too busy having fun to post - and @gillianobrien.bsky.social took better pics in any case - but great to catch up with @curioustravellers.bsky.social and other colleagues in North Wales last week #plasnewydd #llangollen #wales #research #ladiesofllangollen #HolyheadRoad
October 28, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Come join us at @nhm-london.bsky.social on November 7th for a day conference on the connections between natural history collections and enlightenment travel writing.

For more information, programme and registration details, follow the link!

curioustravellers.ac.uk/curious-coll...
October 21, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Reposted by Curious Travellers
Back to history today and a lecture for the Oxford History Faculty Environmental Humanities group on @curioustravellers.bsky.social and our Curious Minds: Thomas Pennant and Gilbert White exhibition. #HistoricalResearch #DigitalHumanities #ThomasPennanr #GilbertWhite @ox.ac.uk
October 16, 2025 at 7:36 PM
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Thoroughly enjoyed attending @curioustravellers.bsky.social ECR Day yesterday. Enjoyed listening to some amazing and thought provoking papers and presenting on Maria Graham’s South American travel writing
September 26, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Two members of the Curious Travellers team will be launching books including Thomas Pennant at the Gorwelion Conference this week!
📢Cynhadledd GORWELION Conference
🗓 17-19/09/2025
📍Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru @librarywales.bsky.social
🗣Prif siaradwyr / Plenaries: Mererid Hopwood, Barry Lewis, & Ian Stewart.
🔗Rhagor o fanylion / Further information: www.wales.ac.uk/cy/canolfan/...
September 15, 2025 at 10:33 AM
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Very excited and grateful to have been given the chance to present at the ‘Journeys of Curiosity’ symposium, where I’ll be chatting a bit about curiosity, the sublime, and imperial anxieties in Romantic travel accounts of the Himalayas. Really looking forward to hearing all the other papers as well!
Curious Travellers are delighted to be partnering with the long-running Liverpool Travel Seminar to host an Early Career Symposium dedicated to ‘Journeys of Curiosity’

Bluecoat, Liverpool, 25/09. Free (including lunch), registration by September 19th

curioustravellers.ac.uk/journeys-of-...
‘Journeys of Curiosity’ Early Career Symposium – 25/09/2025 | Curious Travellers
curioustravellers.ac.uk
September 10, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Curious Travellers are delighted to be partnering with the long-running Liverpool Travel Seminar to host an Early Career Symposium dedicated to ‘Journeys of Curiosity’

Bluecoat, Liverpool, 25/09. Free (including lunch), registration by September 19th

curioustravellers.ac.uk/journeys-of-...
‘Journeys of Curiosity’ Early Career Symposium – 25/09/2025 | Curious Travellers
curioustravellers.ac.uk
September 10, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Thomas Pennant's writings shed light on Welsh aspects of this "workhouse-plantation nexus" - in the Greenfield Valley in north east Wales, Pennant gives a whitewashed account of the conditions of child labourers, sent from distant parishes to work in the plantation-supplied cotton mills of Holywell
September 8, 2025 at 11:37 AM
Reposted by Curious Travellers
Had a wonderful visit to @nhm-london.bsky.social Tring last week to examine some of the bird collection compiled by the naturalist Thomas Pennant (1726-98) - a very rare surviving 18th century ornithological collection. @curioustravellers.bsky.social
August 29, 2025 at 8:46 AM
In a new entry on our research blog, Glasgow's Alex Deans reflects on how Thomas Pennant's tours of Scotland are haunted by absent, ancient trees - and the possibility of enlightened reforestation

curioustravellers.ac.uk/thomas-penna...
July 17, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Read our Principal Investigator Mary-Ann Constantine's blogpost 'Black Country Blues: A Welsh Bard Walking', on bardic radical Iolo Morganwg's (rather testy) encounter with the Industrial Revolution at Ironbridge

writingindustry.leeds.ac.uk/essays/black...
July 14, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Join some of our Curious Travellers team at the FREE Early Career symposium "Journeys of Curiosity", in Liverpool on 25th September 2025.

Propose your papers by 15th August!
July 14, 2025 at 12:07 PM
Reposted by Curious Travellers
And just like that our exhibition Curious Minds: Thomas Pennant and Gilbert White is over 🥲.
I’ve loved the whole process of exhibition design, installation, and events, and I’m so proud of what we created for @curioustravellers.bsky.social
June 23, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Tune in tomorrow to hear more about our work on Skye!
June 18, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Two Curious Travellers events coming up on the Isle of Skye!

First, on June 19th, an afternoon of discussion and song @sabhalmorostaig.bsky.social, reflecting on Thomas Pennant's 1772 visit to Skye and his interactions with Gaelic culture
Ships, Songs, Shielings: Thomas Pennant in the Isle of Skye - Sabhal Mòr Ostaig
In the summer of 1772, the Welsh naturalist and antiquarian Thomas Pennant (1726–98) embarked on a Voyage to the Hebrides. His lively, detailed account of the
www.smo.uhi.ac.uk
June 14, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Still time to register to see this talk by @edwinrose.bsky.social!

Either online or in person at the National Library of Wales (@librarywales.bsky.social)

www.library.wales/visit/things...
June 11, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Two books coming out this summer from the Curious Travellers team!

1) Yn gyntaf, llyfr newydd Ffion Mair Jones (@ffionmjones.bsky.social) ar gysylltiadau Cymreig Thomas Pennant (Awst 2025, @gwasgprifcymru.bsky.social)

www.uwp.co.uk/book/thomas-...
Thomas Pennant | UWP
www.uwp.co.uk
June 10, 2025 at 11:15 AM
A wonderful, glowing review (by travel writer Julie Brominicks) of our Principal Investigator Mary-Ann Constantine's recent book on Romantic-era Welsh tourism

Order it to your libraries!
June 10, 2025 at 9:50 AM