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curioustravellers.bsky.social
Curious Travellers
@curioustravellers.bsky.social
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‘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/
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Curious Travellers @curioustravellers.bsky.social · Nov 11
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
'Caernarvon' (Caernarfon) castle and town, with boats in the foreground, and a mountainous landscape to the rear. Watercolour. An image from Thomas Pennant's extra-illustrated Welsh tours, held by the National Library of Wales / Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru.
Reposted by Curious Travellers
stephholtnh.bsky.social
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
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cathaguamia.bsky.social
The importance of the owl in Welsh tradition @mxfrankduffy.bsky.social
curioustravellers.bsky.social Curious Travellers @curioustravellers.bsky.social · 6d
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
Illustration of a small owl in the margins of an eighteenth century book, staring out at the viewer in profile with large yellow eyes
November 7, 2025 at 11:16 AM
curioustravellers.bsky.social
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
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yganolfangeltaidd.bsky.social
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
curioustravellers.bsky.social
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
curioustravellers.bsky.social
"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...
A sequence of upright great auks, a black and white bird depicted in silhouette, are projected within eggs in a darkened room
October 31, 2025 at 3:07 PM
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claireconnolly.bsky.social
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
curioustravellers.bsky.social
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...
Curious Collections: Day Conference at the Natural History Museum Curious Travellers is a collaboration between the University of Wales Trinity St David, the University of Glasgow and the Natural History Museum, London, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. It studies the world of C18th travel and natural history through the works of Flintshire naturalist Thomas Pennant (1726–1798), whose multi-volume British Zoology, and Tours of Wales and Scotland helped shape public understanding of the habitats, cultures and histories of the British Isles. We are currently preparing digital editions of the Welsh and Scottish Tours and examining the valuable Pennant collections held at NHM. On Friday 7th November we are holding a day conference in the Natural History Museum exploring the connections between Pennant’s writings, the art-works he commissioned, his vast correspondence network and his specimen collections. We would like this to be a springboard for future cross-disciplinary, cross-institutional collaborations, so please join us for an invigorating day of presentations and discussions! Places are limited so please book by 30 October: a.elias@cymru.ac.uk (01970 636543) Short papers from the Curious Travellers research team and NHM curators, pairing specimens and archive material with research stories drawing on Pennant’s correspondence, travel writing and commissioned art-works. A session exploring intersections between natural science, cultural history and the digital humanities. A chance to see specimens from the Pennant Collection with items from Library and Archives, to talk to the team, and to see panels and creative work from the recent Curious Minds exhibition held in Selborne. A Future Directions panel exploring strategies for research development. Free lunch and a drinks reception (5.30pm-6.30pm).
October 21, 2025 at 12:38 PM
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stephholtnh.bsky.social
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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eleanor-19thc.bsky.social
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
curioustravellers.bsky.social
Two members of the Curious Travellers team will be launching books including Thomas Pennant at the Gorwelion Conference this week!
yganolfangeltaidd.bsky.social Canolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd / CAWCS @yganolfangeltaidd.bsky.social · Sep 2
📢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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sophiecairns.bsky.social
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!
curioustravellers.bsky.social Curious Travellers @curioustravellers.bsky.social · Sep 10
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
curioustravellers.bsky.social
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
curioustravellers.bsky.social
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
Pennant, who leased land to one of the Greenfield companies and was himself an entrepreneur with mining interests in the area,46 devotes a full page in the History of the Parishes of Holywell and Whiteford (1796) to the excellent work and living conditions of the 400 children working for the Holywell Cotton Twist company. They have clean, whitewashed, and ventilated purpose-built accommodation; a good dinner of soup, beef, pork, or herrings and potatoes, milk, bread, and porridge; access to a doctor; and regular Sunday school. This information, he notes, comes directly from ‘one of the partners’, Mr Christopher Smalley, the eldest son of the late founder. Mention of the factory in a recent study of child labour, however, suggests that this may not have been the whole story. In 1792 an agent to the Holywell cotton mills had to explain to the parish board of St Clement Danes in London (which had supplied the child workers): ‘that of the children bound to that company, seven out of nine had run away. He admitted that they were worked from 7 in the evening to 6 in the morning that they were not relieved during the night’. The common practice of factories sourcing children from distant parishes adds another thread to this story of interconnected dislocations.
September 8, 2025 at 11:37 AM
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edwinrose.bsky.social
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
curioustravellers.bsky.social
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...
Monochrome illustration of a huge, split yew tree, with two leafy outgrowths on each side of a rent and serrated trunk. Subtitled "Yew tree at Fortingal".
July 17, 2025 at 1:26 PM
curioustravellers.bsky.social
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...
Wash/watercolour image of the bridge at Ironbridge in 1785, the metal structure in hazy colours played across boats on a river
July 14, 2025 at 1:02 PM
curioustravellers.bsky.social
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!
Poster image for "Journeys of Curiosity" Early Career One-Day Symposium, Bluecoat, School Lane, Liverpool, L1 3BX, 25 September 2025: Free Event Shows a Romantic-era illustration of the "New Bridge and Aqueduct, Rhiwabon" The Liverpool Travel Seminar is a collaborative and interdisciplinary research forum launched jointly by Liverpool Hope University, the University of Liverpool, and Liverpool John Moores University in 2007. It provides a constructive environment in which colleagues with interests in travel and travel writing discuss the latest developments in their fields and reflect on future directions. The Seminar enables cross-institutional dialogue and research collaboration at national and international level. This year, we are collaborating with the AHRC-funded ‘Curious Travellers’ project, a partnership between the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies (CAWCS), Glasgow University and the Natural History Museum, London. Curious Travellers explores C18th-C19th travel writing, creating digital editions of previously unpublished tours of Wales and Scotland, and focusing on the journeys of naturalist and antiquarian Thomas Pennant (1726-1798). We invite PhD candidates and early-career scholars working in the fields of travel and travel writing to share their own journeys of curiosity. The event is free to attend and limited funding for bursaries is available. We welcome papers from diverse disciplinary perspectives, theoretical frameworks, cultural contexts and historical periods. Papers can be either 10 or 20 minutes: please send enquiries and abstracts of 300 words and a bio of 150 words to the conference organisers: mary-ann.constantine@cymru.ac.uk and e.edwards@wales.ac.uk by 15 August 2025.
July 14, 2025 at 12:07 PM
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stephholtnh.bsky.social
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
curioustravellers.bsky.social
Tune in tomorrow to hear more about our work on Skye!
June 18, 2025 at 5:32 PM
curioustravellers.bsky.social
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
curioustravellers.bsky.social
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...
Poster for an event held online and in the National Library of Wales today (Tuesday June 11th): Dr Edwin Rose, "Reading the World: Thomas Pennant and the Practices of Natural History"
June 11, 2025 at 11:27 AM
curioustravellers.bsky.social
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
curioustravellers.bsky.social
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!
Two centuries ago they came in their multitudes, on horse on foot and by boat. Enquiring, measuring, painting, thinking, writing, drawing, and map-making. Crawling into coal mining huts. Falling off waterfalls. Motivated by scenery or science, they carried sketchbooks or magnifying glasses, scrutinized rocks and plants, and Welsh language and customs too. Mary-Ann Constantine has unearthed 162 published tours from this period and a further 470 accounts in manuscript form, 17% of which are by women. These writings reanimate the landscape their authors saw, and by turn I see them more clearly; my peers of two centuries ago.
June 10, 2025 at 9:50 AM