Tim Jerrome

The British Newspaper Archive is such a brilliant resource for finding queer histories, even if the word recognition software sometimes leads you down the wrong path...

These look amazingly helpful; I'll definitely be coming to the session on absence in collections and maybe a couple of others too! 🙂

Two students look at objects in the reading room at The Museum of English Rural Life.

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Very kind of you - will have to screenshot this and send it to potential publishers when the time comes!

ie. If a letter indicates a same sex relationship, but does not 100% confirm it, should this be highlighted on the archive catalogue as material related to LGBTQ+ history?

Genuine pleasure to be an absolute unit once more! Curious to hear listeners’ opinions on the speculatory nature of this research, and how that might clash with archival neutrality.

Could I ask why? My focus is on the other side of their lives - their rurality - and I've found Grant's letters to be a great source of rural reflections.

Is it just that they've occupied too much of the narrative when it comes to queer histories of London?

Not qualified to speak about the worlds of fashion and decoration, but I know that we still have a lot to learn from Bloomsbury. I've been going through the archives of Bell and Grant and they have so much to tell us about English queer history!

Absolutely! Let me know when you are next coming to MERL and I'll see if I can be there 🙂

That's lovely to hear - a major inspiration for doing this research is so that LGBTQ people living in rural areas today know that there is, and always has been, a place for them in the countryside

Never before has a comment on Bluesky caught my attention so quickly... the search for the queer lumberjack has defined my life for far too long now! Curious to see what you can find.

That's very kind of you to say - most of it is just patience and perseverance (but an appetite for finding gossip also helps!)

Thank you to the eternally wonderful Joe and Ollie for guiding me through my first time on a podcast - if intense ramblings about finding queer snippets in rural archives is your thing, give it a listen! @themerl.bsky.social

If there's one thing I've learned it's that marriage to someone of the opposite sex does not preclude queerness in this time period! There must be a reason why he shares a headstone with Morris rather than his wife.

Wow, thank you, what a marvelous find. I shall have to do some digging on Ancestry to try and find out more about them. I'm no expert on gravestones but I expect it's very rare to see two men named together in this time period

Given that this was written in 1930, it's the earliest instance I've seen in archives of two men being described as "boyfriends". I wonder if anyone has seen anything earlier than this? Bonus points if it's rural!

(Archive ref for this diary is TGA 8317.7.2.4)

A page from Arthur Lett-Haines's diary, dated 29th March 1930. It states "To Oswald Balfour's for tea". In the bottom corner it also reads "Oswald, Jack Webb, Boyfriend".

Earlier this year, I visited Tate Britain to explore the archive of the artists Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines, a same-sex couple who lived in rural Suffolk from the 1930s onwards. In Lett's diaries I found this entry which describes two friends of theirs, Oswald and Jack, as "boyfriends".

Thanks for the recommendation and glad you enjoyed the talk - hopefully there's some decent gossip... I mean historical findings in there!

(Sorry for taking so long to reply!)

Cedric, Lett and queer histories of the English countryside with Tim Jerrome. – The Maltings

I'm giving a talk on queer histories of rural England in July! If you're in the Berwick area and want to find out more about how I'm using archives to explore this under-researched topic, please do sign up and/or share with anyone else who may be interested

www.maltingsberwick.co.uk/whats-on/ced...

Amazed that the cloaking device still works after all these years - looks like a classic example! (I assume, I've never actually seen one)

You deserve the credit for the photo of the Flying Fordson... by legitimately finding it in the archives of course

The Tractor Whisperers (an April Fool’s) - The Museum of English Rural Life Its members were known as the tractor whisperers, achieving feats of tractor mastery well beyond the human ken. But what was the Order of Credulum?

Four years ago today, I somehow got away with uploading this utter nonsense to the @themerl.bsky.social website:

Can highly recommend this as something to listen to whilst sat in a reading room, going through countless ledgers on mine administration, seeing the word "boring" on every page

I'm pretty sure I'm still the undisputed MERL Grade Up to Elite Cow champion, which is definitely because I'm unbeatable, and not because no one wants to play it with me (including my mum)

Thank you Warhorse, Tom McKay and of course @lukedale.bsky.social

I wouldn't normally post about this sort of thing, but just had to say that the romance scene in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 between Henry and Hans is one of the sweetest things I have ever seen in a video game. Beautifully acted as well. Will no doubt stay with me for a long time.

Poem written by the author of this farm diary, warning people against reading it. It is dated January 1st 1868, and reads: Touch not this book for fear of shame, For here you see the owner's name, And if he catch you by the tail, You may be sure of Aylesbury Goal

My first time being threatened by the author of a 19th century farm diary... I hope Aylesbury Gaol has good Wifi!

(Found at @themerl.bsky.social under archive reference FR BER 40/1/1)

Hello! Thanks for your interest in the article and appreciate the repost 🙂

Sounds like a presentation I would want to see! I'm looking at sources from 1800 onwards, so would be really interested to know how the availability of sources differs for an earlier time period

It does make you wonder, doesn't it. For every person we find evidence for in the archives, there are hundreds more who didn't leave a trace. Thank you for the good wishes!