@kentarchives.bsky.socialNow on view: 'Every Day's a School Day: Learning and Literacy in Bygone Kent and Beyond'
From books owned by the illegitimate daughter of #LordNelson to a treaty bearing the pictorial signatures of #IndigenousAmericans, discover our latest document display just outside the Search Room.
![Shown here is the right-hand display cabinet outside the Search Room at Kent Archives, Maidstone.
It currently contains a mini exhibition titled 'Every Day's a School Day: Learning and Literacy in Bygone Kent and Beyond', including:
· A letter from Fanny Austen, aged ten, to her ex-governess Miss Dorothy Chapman, 1803 [ref. U951/C102/4]
· Books formerly owned by Horatia Nelson, the illegitimate daughter of Lord Nelson, early 19th century [refs. U4254/1-4]
· ‘The Smeeth Cricket Chronicle’ by Eva Knatchbull-Hugessen, 1875 [refs. U951/C232/1-2]
· Marriage Bonds signed with autograph marks, 1660 [refs. DCb/PRC/24/1 and DCb/J/X/11/3]
· A printed bill and letters written by Matthias Buchinger – a German calligrapher, artist and magician who was born without hands or feet, 1733 [ref. U120/Z10]
· Copy of 'Transaction of a Congress held with the chiefs of the Ottawaws and Chippewaw Nations with several others' bearing their pictorial signatures, 1764 [ref. U1350/O48/4]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:o3vof7rjobhzoxvub42zxtot/bafkreib77h35dxkxbtg24r6wbrfyjv7m6gatn3b3sak4gsmwaz55wno5ie@jpeg)
![Shown here is the left-hand display cabinet outside the Search Room at Kent Archives, Maidstone.
It currently contains a mini exhibition titled 'Every Day's a School Day: Learning and Literacy in Bygone Kent and Beyond', including:
· A memorisation activity from the “Welbent” Reading Scheme designed by teacher Augusta Monteith, c.1930 [Local History Collection]
· A volume titled 'An Illustrated Vocabulary for the Use of the Deaf and the Dumb' by Thomas James Watson, head of the London Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, 1857 [ref. Ch192/T1/3/1]
· Loose Pages from a Sunday School lessons book, 18th century [ref. P152/12/3]
· Photographs showing open air reading at Mayplace Road Council School in Crayford, 1937 [ref. KHLC-IMG/AL/2/30/1]; children collecting books from the County Mobile Library, c.1930-1940 [Local History Photographs Collection]; and students reading whilst using audiological equipment at the Royal School for Deaf Children in Margate, 1957 [ref. Ch192/S11/1/5]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:o3vof7rjobhzoxvub42zxtot/bafkreid3oc6s7qrmwjzfh7poh5svhm2nkxdsef3556bmw7qjkem2qsxu4e@jpeg)