Dr Cherish Watton-Colbrook
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cherishwatton.bsky.social
Dr Cherish Watton-Colbrook
@cherishwatton.bsky.social
230 followers 320 following 8 posts
📦 Archives Assistant, Churchill Archives Centre 📚 PhD in the history of scrapbooking in Britain during the twentieth century. 🚜 Founder http://womenslandarmy.co.uk

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Reposted by Dr Cherish Watton-Colbrook
simonjones.bsky.social
I've been reading in the papers about Land Girls during the First World War enjoying the practicality of their uniforms in the British weather (Beachcomber in the Daily Express agreed with them), but there were fears that they would want to wear such clothes all the time.
Newspaper cartoon showing four women on pavement in various forms of trousered uniform or outfit. Caption reads: ‘Many war workers have discarded skirts when on duty: now they want to discard them in their hours of ease. Here are some suggested trouser costumes for the unfrocked brigade.’ (Weekly Despatch, 3/9/1916, p. 2.) Newscutting: The only really happy people I have seen are the women in uniform. For the first time in their lives they have been able to face rain without the horror of bedraggled skirts and soppy furbelows. The new experience has obviously been thrilling. I saw eleven land girls in Regent-street. They were booted, breeched, cloaked, and merrily in-different to the rain. Their skirted sisters, huddling in shop doors waiting for the taxi that would not come, gazed at them with undisguised envy. (Daily Express, Beachcomber, 2/8/1917, p. 2.)
October 14, 2025 at 7:43 AM
cherishwatton.bsky.social
Officially Dr Cherish! 🎓

Thank you to everyone who has supported me on my PhD journey…whether during my first forays into History at Northgate High School & Dereham Sixth Form College, as an undergraduate at @lucycavendish.bsky.social, or as a postgraduate most recently at Churchill College.
Cherish in academic dress holding a copy of her PhD certificate and thesis.
July 27, 2025 at 8:42 PM
cherishwatton.bsky.social
Wonderful to present on a panel on scrapbooking between the generations alongside @janehamlett.bsky.social & Lucy Brownson, chaired by @zoethomas.bsky.social. Fascinating discussions in the Q and A after.

Thanks to everyone who joined us and to the @socialhistsoc.bsky.social for a fab conference.
zoethomas.bsky.social Zoe Thomas @zoethomas.bsky.social · Jul 9
I was only there for the day, chairing the wonderful panel on scrapbooking, but completely agree with this! Thank you so much @socialhistsoc.bsky.social @simonbriercliffe.bsky.social for organising such a great conference. There was such a lovely intellectual and friendly buzz! #shsconf2025
luciejones83.bsky.social Lucie Matthews-Jones @luciejones83.bsky.social · Jul 9
At a time when life in HE feels tough #shsconf2025 has been truly joyful. I’m leaving with a notebook brimming with notes & new ideas. It’s been lovely to natter to so many history peeps. Thank you to @socialhistsoc.bsky.social & @simonbriercliffe.bsky.social for your hard work! BCLM was perfect!
July 10, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Reposted by Dr Cherish Watton-Colbrook
chuarchives.bsky.social
🌟It's Open Day time here in Cambridge!🌟

👋If you're around in Cambridge, then do visit our Archives Centre stall in the buttery at Churchill College.

🔎You can explore highlights from our scientific collections with our rummage box and help yourself to our Archives Centre goodies too.
A member of the Archives Centre team sat behind a table hosting research guides and other Archives Centre goodies, including a lightbox spelling @chuarchives. A @chuarchives lightbox surrounded by Archives Centre pin badges, postcards, pens, leaflets, bookmarks, and research guides. Archives Centre research guides and games.
July 10, 2025 at 10:13 AM
Reposted by Dr Cherish Watton-Colbrook
chuarchives.bsky.social
📦Happy #InternationalArchivesDay!

🌍 The theme of this year's #InternationalArchivesWeek is #ArchivesAreAccessible.

📸To celebrate, we’re sharing a few photos available on our Access Portal from the papers of Clementine Churchill & Robert Edwards.
Clementine Churchill sorting letters, c.1940s CSCT 5/4/99 Mary Churchill holding her poodle Sukie, 1941, CSCT 5/4/20 IVF pioneer Robert Edwards, sitting at a microscope, in Bourn Hall, c.1980s, EDWS 18/5/18
June 9, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Reposted by Dr Cherish Watton-Colbrook
chuarchives.bsky.social
Hi BlueSky!

We're Churchill Archives Centre & we provide a home to the papers of politicians, civil servants, social scientists, campaigners, journalists, military leaders, & scientists from the Churchill era & beyond.

Follow us to find out about our collections, events, projects, & more.
A photo of some members of the Archives Centre team celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Churchill Archives Centre.
February 3, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Reposted by Dr Cherish Watton-Colbrook
satisfactory20.bsky.social
Today was my last day researching at the Schlesinger Library @rad-institute.bsky.social - sad to leave but what a joy to find a Votes for Women bluebird and a photo of Emmeline Pankhurst in Boston in 1909! From the papers of Mary H Page 🗃️
A tin blue and yellow bird resting on white cotton wool with ‘Votes for Women’ written on it A sepia photograph of 6 women, all with big hats, high collars and smart jacket coats. Emmeline Pankhurst in the middle.
January 31, 2025 at 12:50 AM
Reposted by Dr Cherish Watton-Colbrook
lauracking.bsky.social
Amongst the bleak news from every which way, I'm celebrating my book coming out digitally today 🎉

Living with the Dead interrogates family histories and the way they shape our present.

It's totally free to read/download academic.oup.com/book/59440?s...

#skystorians #familyhistorians #genealogy
Living with the Dead: Memories, Histories, and the Stories Families Tell in Modern Britain
Abstract. The dead are everywhere in family life. From a great-grandmother’s recipe made time and again, to a dog-eared black-and-white photo of a family o
academic.oup.com
January 29, 2025 at 10:17 AM
Reposted by Dr Cherish Watton-Colbrook
liberatinghistorys.bsky.social
To find out more about Liberating Histories, tune into our podcast series 🎙️

It explores the last 50 years of feminism through the campaigns, communities & controversies sparked by some of its most cherished magazines ✨

Listen wherever you get your podcasts: liberatinghistories.org/podcast-seri...
January 22, 2025 at 4:23 PM
cherishwatton.bsky.social
It was lovely to spend Wednesday evening with Great Chesterford WI exploring the history of the WI’s 1965 scrapbook
competition.

I also had the chance to look through the branch’s own competition entry, filled with beautiful illustrations & vivid accounts of rural life in mid-1960s Cambridgeshire.
Cherish, standing in front of a slide titled ‘Our Village Today: the WI’s 1965 Jubilee scrapbook competition’ by Dr Cherish Watton-Colbrook. The slide shows the front covers of several scrapbooks. A large brown book, with the words ‘Great and Little CHESTERFORD 1965’ embossed in bold on the cover. Cherish standing with an open scrapbook.
January 17, 2025 at 7:22 PM
cherishwatton.bsky.social
Love it when people reflect on the process of scrapbooking in the scrapbook itself. 📚📖
bucksarchives.bsky.social Buckinghamshire Archives @bucksarchives.bsky.social · Jan 14
Keep seemed well aware of the importance of his work to future historians, writing his notes on compiling the scrapbook. He's even annotated maps that we'll share later, writing that they'll 'help anyone to follow some of my tramping around the battlefield'.
Walter Keep's notes on the scrap book, written in 1938.
January 14, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Reposted by Dr Cherish Watton-Colbrook
bucksarchives.bsky.social
Recently we received a new donation of a scrapbook once belonging to Mr Walter Keep. This is a fantastic record of his experiences in the First World War, and we'll be sharing some highlights on our pages! He kept a great record of his service and has filled the scrapbook with lots of annotations.
The front cover of Walter Keep's scrapbook, showing a man pasting up the word 'scraps' over a fence.
January 14, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Reposted by Dr Cherish Watton-Colbrook
jameselder.bsky.social
Looking forward to reading this, about the carte de visite craze of the 1860s, which I got for Christmas.

Thames Rowing Club has an 1869 album full of cartes de visite, which provide the only images of the earliest members.

Will be good to better understand this phenomenon.
A copy of ‘Cartomania: Photography & Celebrity in the Nineteenth Century’ by Paul Frecker
January 11, 2025 at 6:03 PM
cherishwatton.bsky.social
Finished for Christmas ✨
A photograph of a Christmas tree topped a star, with the background of a bar.
December 20, 2024 at 5:57 PM
Reposted by Dr Cherish Watton-Colbrook
mrcwarwick.bsky.social
A pair of #Bells for today's #ArchiveAdventCalendar

In the 1890s Arthur Clive Bell compiled two huge scrapbooks, recording his travels by bicycle across France. His travel diaries include photos, notes, bills & other ephemera collected on his journeys.

cdm21047.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/coll...
Page from one of the very large travel journals / scrapbooks of Arthur Clive Bell, recording his journey from Calais to Monte Carlo in 1895. This particular page includes pasted in photographs of shipping at Boulogne and Calais, two telegrams and a bill from the Brighton & Marine Hotel at Boulogne. Some notes about his journey from Calais to Boulogne and then on to Abbeville are written around the pasted in items. Page from one of the very large travel journals / scrapbooks of Arthur Clive Bell, recording his journey from Dieppe to Monte Carlo in 1898. This particular page includes photographs of Arles, a bill from the Hotel du Forum at Arles, and photos of Bell's bicycle being mended after the chain snapped (with accompanying notes).
December 3, 2024 at 10:11 AM
cherishwatton.bsky.social
Looking forward to sharing some of my PhD research on Royal scrapbooking and family archiving tonight at the @ihr.bsky.social's Life-Cycles seminar at 5:30.

Do register and join if you're around :)

www.history.ac.uk/events/scrap...
December 3, 2024 at 10:15 AM