Juliette Lichman working on Lyell digitisation assessment

In November 2019 the Library excitedly welcomed Sir Charles Lyell’s two hundred and ninety-four notebooks into its Special Collections. With support and funding from leading institutions, groups and donations pledged from over 1000 individuals, this tectonic acquisition meant the notebooks were able to stay in the UK and join the Library’s existing collection of Lyell-related materials. As part of the DIU team, I was lucky enough to photograph Lyell’s notebooks, working with the world’s finest quality cameras to digitise a previously private collection into the public sphere and beyond.

Before I dig a little deeper I would like to share a quote from Charles Withers, who we filmed late last year talking about Lyell. He captures the essence of these notebooks perfectly in his description;

“They contain, in a sense, the emergence of thought of one of the world’s leading Earth scientists. But Lyell is much more than that. Lyell was a leading geologist but he was also a geographer, an antiquarian, an archaeologist. He writes with literary references, he writes with a lawyer-like precision, and he’s in touch with very many people whose names, along with Lyell’s, inform our understanding of the emergence of 19^th century science.”

Professor Charles W J Withers, Ogilvie Chair of Geography,
University of Edinburgh, Geographer Royal for Scotland

 

We’re very lucky that Lyell was such a great organiser and essentially catalogued his notebooks for us. With a robust system of pagination and a glossary, he was able to quickly reference information when needed. These small, unassuming notebooks accompanied him everywhere, and in his regular ‘Memoranda for Town’ (a.k.a. to-do lists) there are mentions of particular notebooks which he wanted to pack for later reference, as seen in no.4 below. Very conveniently the locations he visited are neatly labelled on the front of the notebooks. The writing within, however, can be difficult to decipher in some cases, especially where Lyell used his own form of shorthand and references, or if he was in the field resisting against the elements and pressure of the wind.

I find that to-do lists are a simple and yet revealing insight into our every day lives and passing thoughts; little reminders which help us to achieve a larger goal or shape our daily lives. Without having to read a whole passage as you would in a journal, we are able to get a sense of Lyell’s day to day life.

My favourite list is for items to take on an upcoming voyage. There is a glimpse of ‘Lyell the husband’, as he mentions a hat box and a bonnet box, separately, and again, a parasol and an umbrella, alluding to his wife’s presence with him. Indeed, this notebook is from 1837 and the catalogue description indicates:

I came across an example of ‘Lyell the brother’ in this simple note. His sister, Marianne was a keen lepidopterist, and enjoyed collecting and naming insects. This was especially popular in Scotland, where much of the flora and fauna had no official name. He writes, ‘Curtis –  No. 1. Did he not find a spider’.  Maybe it was of personal interest, but there is no doubt he would have had illuminating conversations with his sister about entomology and the natural world, perhaps describing foreign insects he encountered in the field, to her delight!

Lyell was well acquainted with the notable entomologist, John Curtis which is evident in this letter he sent to his sister in 1827;

“Dear Marianne, Curtis sends me a note to say that there are good things among the Spring insects, and says the Miss Lyells will do wonders in Scotland. He hopes you will get some general knowledge of botany, as a little knowledge even of Scotch plants, would, he says, double the value of your entomological information. “

Another favourite find of mine was this illustration of what I assume to be a bovine tooth, with a sketch of Southwold Sea and the beach where he found it. After walking back and forth along the beach, looking intently at the sand for specimens, he stops and notes sadly “no shells”, only teeth!

My most recent find in the notebooks was the most exciting by a landslide. We often come across interesting and unique watermarks in our department, but we found one in the notebooks which was very sweet and ornate. This was found in a loosely bound section that Lyell added to the start of a notebook, acting as a preface. The watermarks in the corresponding volume do not bear the same image, so it’s likely that he needed extra paper while travelling and bought some directly from the supplier.

The ‘Beehive’ watermark originated with a family of Dutch papermakers by the name of Honig [honey], who owned mills in Zaandyk (1675–1902). The coat of arms of the Honig family (incorporating the beehive motif) became a watermark extensively copied throughout the Netherlands and abroad in places such as Russia and Scandinavia.1 The ‘Beehive’ watermark became a common motif for Dutch papermakers and those who wished to allude to Dutch papermaking. Eventually it also came to represent a particular paper size.

National Gallery of Australia
https://nga.gov.au/whistler/details/beehive.cfm

Here are a few examples of watermarks and branding from C&J Honig. Note that ours is very similar to the first watermark, with the exception of larger bees.

We’re thrilled that this second batch of notebooks is now digitised and available online for all to enjoy. I photographed Lyell’s notebooks for the majority of the year, and with the added lockdown and social distancing restrictions, for a time it was just myself and the notebooks in the DIU. I will certainly miss seeing Lyell’s familiar scrawling hand and pencilled field sketches – intimate notes that he likely never anticipated sharing with anyone.

It’s been just over a year since our acquisition of these notebooks and it feels as though we have only scratched beneath the surface of the treasures contained within. They are a rare and fascinating glimpse into this famed geologist’s daily life, and like many others I shall be eagerly awaiting the transcriptions and new discoveries from this most beloved rockstar!

Juliette Lichman
Photographer

Useful Links:

• To see the digitised notebooks visit the Geology and Geologists Collection
• Keep up to date with the Lyell blog Through Lyell’s Eyes
• More information about this project on the University of Edinburgh website

We are excited to offer a new opportunity to experience this collection, a Zoom presentation by the Lyell Project staff on 10 December 2020 at 1pm GMT. This event reveals the ongoing work  at the University of Edinburgh with the geological collection of Sir Charles Lyell, a rich corpus of material including his notebooks, family papers, and geological specimens.

Elise Ramsay, Project Archivist, will introduce Lyell and show several key pieces of the collection using the Centre for Research Collection’s new innovative visualizer technology. This collection includes specimens collected by Charles Darwin, letters between Lyell and Darwin, and notebooks in Lyell’s own hand during his fateful tours to France and Italy. Dr. Gillian McCay, from the Cockburn Geological Museum at the Grant Institute, will connect Lyell’s legacy to modern scientific perspectives. Each will discuss adapting working practices over the past year to continue opening up this rich collection of earth science material.

You can find out more about the Sir Charles Lyell Collection here in this blog, and at https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/library-museum-gallery/crc/the-sir-charles-lyell-collection

This talk is part of the Carlyle Circle 30th Anniversary online exhibition. The Carlyle Circle was formed in 1990 and in 2020 it celebrates three decades of impact, highlighting the many ways legacy giving has supported opportunities for world-leading teaching and research.

Instructions to join this free talk will go out to all attendees in advance of the online event. We welcome any who are interested, and look forward to seeing you.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mapping-a-remarkable-life-a-virtual-introduction-to-the-lyell-collection-tickets-129715619911

Elise Ramsay at work in the stores

Progress in the Lyell project has taken a giant leap these last two weeks thanks to two developments. Firstly, physical work in the stores where the collection is secured at the University Main Library has been deemed safe, if approached with new procedures, which has meant I have been able to access the collection in person for the first time since March 10th. This has meant the first stage of rapid capture and transcription of Lyell’s indexes has begun. This level of detail will make for rich metadata in the catalogue, and eventually allow researchers to search across the notebooks by subject matter. Thus the need for a new series of blog posts, released each week on Tuesday, where I can highlight all the discoveries I made in working with the collection!

Secondly, I am so excited that Nicky Monroe, a former History of the Book student, has agreed to volunteer on the project remotely. He will be transcribing these indexes and researching Lyell’s life for extra context in the catalogue. We will hear about his progress and discoveries in the collection in the coming weeks!

From my time in the stores last week, I captured this fantastic packing list, inscribed by Lyell in the earliest notebook we have of his, from 1825. During this time he would have been balancing his fondness for geology with his law work, which is reflected in the organisation of this notebook. The first half is brief notes on cases, mainly tenancy law and divorce cases. The second half begins from the back of the notebook, and reverse orientation compared to the first half, where Lyell writes notes from a Geology lecture he attended April 29 1825.

It is during this time, while he struggled with his law practice and his eyesight, that he invested more in geological field trips, often with visiting gentleman scientists. In the early summer of 1824 Lyell and Prevost travel from London to Bristol and Land’s End, ending up at Lyme Regis when Mary Anning made her great discovery of two complete Ichthyosauri. (Bailey, 1962) In the autumn, Lyell focuses on his Scottish roots, living at the Kinnordy estate and hosting William Buckland (his geology tutor from Oxford) to venture to Stonehaven, Aberdeen, Elgin, and Inverness to Brora; then back to Inverness and, after a quick jaunt to Brora, south by Blair Atholl, Glen Tilt, Perth, and Kinnordy to Edinburgh. Throughout these journeys, they were  “comfortably interlarded with breakfasts and dinners without end”, stopping to see Sir James Hall near St. Abb’s Head, and twice at the Jameson’s. (Lyell and Lyell, 2019) I would bet that this packing list would have been in preparation for any of these foundational field trips. Stay tuned for Tuesday next week when another installment will be published!

References

Bailey, E., 1962. Charles Lyell. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd.

Lyell, C. and Lyell, K., 2019. Life, Letters And Journals Of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart. Alpha Editions.

During this lockdown, the Lyell Project has been able to continue enhancing metadata, despite having no access to the Lyell notebooks, thanks to some quick digitisation done by the amazing team at the DIU prior to lockdown. We’ve been working quite a bit with Notebook No. 4, from 1827, when Lyell was balancing his two callings; the law and geology. In 1825 his eyesight was no longer ailing him as it had been years previously, and following his father’s wishes, he was called to the bar and joined the Western Circuit for two years. But during this time, as we can see from the Notebook, he also maintained fervent correspondence with fellow geologists, read the works of George Poulett Scrope, and Lamarck, and thereby fostered a great curiosity for the volcanic Auvergne region in France. In 1825 he joined Scrope as a Secretary to the Geological Society, and contributed frequently to the Quarterly Review (published by John Murray, the archive of issues are available with EASE access here).

This notebook is a fascinating look into this dichotomy Lyell was facing; pages constantly change between matters of law and geology. He expresses great passion and opinion on both, but his notes concerning law and society are often tinged with a sense of discontentedness, whereas his entries on geology are mostly “Queries” about the properties of geological phenomena, or discussions on how he disagrees with a recently published position.

Another curious element in this notebook is the inclusion of citations to works by Dante, namely Dante’s Inferno. These appear often among entries on other subject, and without explanation. Clearly, this an excellent area of research, as we know Lyell’s father was a great scholar on Dante.

That’s all for today’s update! Explore Notebook No. 4 for yourself here!

For more information about the Lyell notebooks, see Lyell Rocks! Saving & Sharing the Charles Lyell Notebooks