Jack Hayes
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Jack Hayes
@jack-hayes.bsky.social
Collections @brunelmuseum.bsky.social | IHR Fellow @ihr.bsky.social
Map of Guadeloupe — and La Réunion? Slightly odd choice, until I spotted the little note: 'Although this Island is about 3,000 Leagues from Guadeloupe, I have put it here to fill the big Gap which remained' (Georges-Louis le Rouge, 1753)
November 26, 2025 at 7:57 AM
Reposted by Jack Hayes
Monday 10 November 2025 is the 198th anniversary of an extraordinary dinner, held under the waters of the River Thames in the Thames Tunnel!

But it was by no means the only one...

Read now on our blog: vist.ly/4dm6y
November 10, 2025 at 6:42 AM
Reposted by Jack Hayes
We're looking forward to participating in Open House 2025 on 20 and 21 September, part of @opencity_uk!

Book now at: vist.ly/3zr3g
July 30, 2025 at 10:59 PM
This has been a brilliant project to work on with Arran — to catalogue & completely reinterpret the centrepiece of the Museum's collection.

The drawings are palimpsests! Brunel's signature doesn't mean he drew it! These drawings were shown as evidence Parliamentary Committee 30 years later!
June 25, 2025 at 6:35 AM
Reposted by Jack Hayes
Here’s our Object of the Week, an 1835 watercolour which offers a glimpse into Brunel's vision for the Thames Tunnel.

This image helped promote the Tunnel as a completed project to investors, especially after damaging floods.

Find out more on our website: vist.ly/3m23isi
April 17, 2025 at 8:59 AM
Reposted by Jack Hayes
Was he a genius, or the Industrial Revolution's biggest nepo-baby?

Whatever the case may be, today's his birthday: Happy Birthday, Isambard Kingdom Brunel!

(spot here one of our newest objects - a £2 coin, produced for the bicentenary of Brunel's birth in 2006, now LDBRU:2025.2)
April 9, 2025 at 6:59 AM
Reposted by Jack Hayes
'Material masculinities: men and goods in eighteenth-century England' is out with @manchesterup.bsky.social today! A book on the materiality of men's lives 1660-1832 covering the significant changes in what it meant to be a man & what it meant to own 'things' during the time. Thanks to follow below:
April 8, 2025 at 7:42 AM
This was great! And thanks to those from @costume-society.bsky.social who made it along - an ideal audience for the whole thing
Recently, we were really pleased to welcome Prof. Matthew McCormack <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ugxyynd6x5dlnixqiywscme4" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-link="bsky-mention">@historymatt.bsky.social to the Museum to give a talk on his research into shoes and boots in Georgian Britain.

You can read a great blog about the talk and visit to the Museum here, written by Matthew: vist.ly/3mzc3ix
April 8, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Reposted by Jack Hayes
📣 now out in paperback 📚 Small Things in the Eighteenth Century: The Personal and Political Value of the Miniature, co-edited by yours truly and the amazing Beth Fowkes Tobin from @cambridgeup.bsky.social
April 3, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Reposted by Jack Hayes
🚨If you missed the Wills Project Webinar yesterday the recording is now available:

🙋 Progress towards transcribing 25,000 wills
🧀 Objects found
🎵 Collaboration with musician
📜 What happens once the wills are transcribed?

#EarlyModern #MaterialCulture 🗃️ @leverhulme.bsky.social

youtu.be/XnNF9j1HfKU
Wills Project Webinar 2: An Update on Our Progress, March 2025
YouTube video by The Material Culture of Wills Project
youtu.be
March 20, 2025 at 7:50 AM
thought this was v good
Colin Burrow · Ogres are cool: Grimm Tales
The only rule of a tale is that everything gets used, even apparently superfluous details – though you’re allowed...
www.lrb.co.uk
March 15, 2025 at 7:14 AM
Reposted by Jack Hayes
I've just learned about kumu.io, and I am really liking it! Browser-based, clear documentation, intuitive UI, easy annotation and metrics. A quick google turned up an easy way of doing dynamic time slices. Here is an example with the networks in Venetian spy reports🕵️ #digitalhumanities #dh 🗃️
February 20, 2025 at 10:51 AM
Reposted by Jack Hayes
If you enjoyed Thief At The British Museum, BBC Radio 4 have another series on ancient artifacts and modern skulduggery — this time on the Museum of the Bible and the Hobby Lobby papyri scandal.
Intrigue - Word of God - Word of God: 1. In the Beginning Was the Word - BBC Sounds
How the world's top Bible museum became embroiled in a scandal over thousands of artefacts
www.bbc.co.uk
February 19, 2025 at 10:34 AM
Anne Lister both a queer icon and a West Yorkshire icon!

This was fun to do
February 18, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Reposted by Jack Hayes
Here's a brief round-up of the online accessiblity of 19th-c. letters. With a few bright exceptions (Darwin, Carlyles, Brownings, Collins) the situation is not good. In fact it's a real mess. www.victorianresearch.org/other.html#l...
VRW Guide to Exploring Victorian Resources
www.victorianresearch.org
February 15, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Reposted by Jack Hayes
Exhibition at the Capitoline Museums in Rome of the collections of the Farnese family, some of the greatest collectors and patrons of the sixteenth century #earlymodern #arthistory
Ai Musei Capitolini di Roma ha aperto la grande mostra sui capolavori della Collezione Farnese
A Villa Caffarelli di Roma ha aperto la grande mostra dedicata alla Collezione Farnese: in esposizione più di 140 capolavori
www.exibart.com
February 13, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Reposted by Jack Hayes
This week's #OnlineArtExchange theme is Valentines and 'palentines' — look at this happy couple!

But what is it? It's not for flowers, though that may be romantic. It was actually used to keep homes brightly lit (or for perfect mood lighting).

Learn more on our blog: https://vist.ly/3muvgya
Why doesn't this vase have room for flowers? - Brunel Museum
Tucked amongst the collection of Thames Tunnel memorabilia on display in the Brunel Museum is a small ceramic vase depicting a couple and their countryside cottage. It has a single, thin hollow stem, formed from a tree growing behind the cottage. Unlike all the other examples of Tunnel memorabilia at the Brunel Museum, it does …
thebrunelmuseum.com
February 13, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Today with staff and volunteers at St Alfege’s in Greenwich finding out how they ran their award-winning, volunteer-led social history project on the 1718 Pew List - lots of great ideas for how we @brunelmuseum.bsky.social could do similar with our lists of Thames Tunnel investors
February 11, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Reposted by Jack Hayes
The novelist Mary Shelley died #OnThisDay 1851. She was a friend of Daniel Gaskell, MP for Wakefield, and made use of his parliamentary perks to receive her letters for free. There’s more on what she thought of Gaskell in our blog: victoriancommons.wordpress.com/2016/06/27/m...
MP of the Month: Daniel Gaskell (1782-1875)
Our Victorian Commons project is shedding new light on the increasingly important role played in the behind-the-scenes business of the post-1832 House of Commons, particularly in the committee-room…
victoriancommons.wordpress.com
February 1, 2025 at 2:16 PM
in amongst the versailles exhib at the science museum, particularly liked these one page bulletins printed and distributed daily to provide updates on the progress of the royal family’s smallpox
February 1, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Reposted by Jack Hayes
Did you know you can now find lots of information about our collection via the new Museum Data Service (MDS)?

It allows users to search multiple museum collections at once, strengthening links between museums and researchers.

You can find our records on the MDS here: https://vist.ly/3mtqsc7

January 30, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Have to assume I will never convene a seminar series somewhere quite so dramatic as this for the rest of my life!
January 30, 2025 at 9:22 AM
Reposted by Jack Hayes
Robespierre speaks: Colin Jones (QM London/U Chicago) on the revolutionary’s writings and political theory — Wednesday (29 Jan), 5pm, Magdalen College. All welcome! www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/home/researc...
January 28, 2025 at 7:56 AM
Reposted by Jack Hayes
Totally brilliant work on deciphering #Handwriting in #C18th & #C19th from Edinburgh Uni — bitl.to/3nYn

It draws mainly from #Scottish sources, but I've relied on it for transcribing an early C19th English diary.

Just look at the range of examples, and the careful detailing of differences.
January 27, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Lots of exciting research and other work in this from colleagues internal and external (utterly shameless self promotion because I am in this and I did write it)
January 27, 2025 at 3:45 PM