About Us: Credits, Acknowledgements, Outputs

Credits

Project Leader / Principal Investigator: Alison Wiggins

AHRC Postdoctoral Research Associates:

Alan Bryson (full-time Oct. 2008 - Sep. 2009; from October 2009: AHRC Research Associate, University of Sheffield)

Daniel Starza Smith (part-time Oct. 2011 - Dec. 2012; from Jan. 2012: Lecturer in English Literature, University of Reading; from 2013: British Academy Research Fellow, Lincoln College, University of Oxford)

Anke Timmermann (full-time Jan. 2010 - June 2011; from July 2011: Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow [European Commission], Medical University of Vienna; from July 2013: Postdoctoral Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin; from Oct. 2013: Munby Fellow in Bibliography, Cambridge University Library)

Graham Williams (full-time Oct. 2011 - April 2012; part-time Jan. 2010 - Sep. 2011; from Sep. 2012: Lecturer in History of English, University of Sheffield)

Web Development: Katherine Rogers, Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield

Project PhD Students: Imogen Marcus (AHRC), Felicity Maxwell (SSHRC)

Advisory Board:

Dr Robyn Adams (Centre for Editing Lives and Letters, University College London)

Jean Anderson (STELLA, University of Glasgow)

David Beaven (Centre for Digital Humanities, University College London)

Prof. James Daybell (University of Plymouth)

Dr Johanna Harris (University of Exeter)

Prof. Jonathan Hope (University of Strathclyde)

Prof. Christian Kay (HTOED, University of Glasgow)

Dr Kathryn Lowe (University of Glasgow)

Prof. Terttu Nevalainen (University of Helsinki)

Prof. Jeremy Smith (University of Glasgow)

Dr Gillian White (Independent Scholar)

Dr Heather Wolfe (Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC)

Funding

UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Research Grants Scheme 2008:

AHRC Research Grants Scheme Award (July 2008, £351,669; this figure includes fec and a PhD studentship; the figure before these is £242,366). Full project title: A Corpus of Renaissance Correspondence: The Letters of Elizabeth Talbot, c.1527-1608, known as 'Bess of Hardwick'. Principal Investigator: Alison Wiggins (100% ownership). Institution: Department of English Language, University of Glasgow.

Additional funding awards 2008-13:

• 2008-13: travel expenses were provided by The Mellon Foundation, New York, The National Archives, London, The Univeristy of Rouen, France, The University of Helsinki, Finland, The Huntington Library, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, USA, and, within the UK, the Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Kent, London, Newcastle, Oxford, Queen's Belfast and Sheffield to enable Alison Wiggins to accept invitations to present project research at these institutions (details below)
• 21-23 June 2012: University of Glasgow College of Arts Postgraduate Research Support Award £300 and School of Critical Studies Postgraduate Research Support Award £250 (flights) to enable Felicity Maxwell to act as co-organiser, co-facilitator and presenter for the workshop Domestic Spaces and Places: Concepts of Femininity and Authority in Early Modernity at the conference Attending to Early Modern Women, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA
• January 2011: contribution from the National Trust towards the cost of the exhibit Unsealed: The Letters of Bess of Hardwick (all items from the exhibit will be on loan to The National Archives, Kew, London, November 2012 - February 2013, and will then return to Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, for future use as required)
• August 2010: AHRC Student Study Visit Grant, £960 (flights and accommodation) to enable Imogen Marcus to spend three weeks at the VARIENG Research Unit to access and interrogate the Corpus of Early English Correspondence (CEEC) database, University of Helsinki, Finland
• August 2010: University of Glasgow Faculty Student Grant, £400 (flights, accommodation, registration) to enable Imogen Marcus to present at The 16th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, University of Pécs, Hungary
• August 2009: University of Glasgow Faculty Student Grant, £400 (flights, accommodation, registration) to enable Imogen Marcus to present at the Historical Sociolinguistics Network (HiSoN) Summer School, Lesbos, Greece
• December 2009: University of Glasgow Strategic Research Allocation Award, £850 (flights) to enable Alison Wiggins and Graham Williams to participate at the Folger Shakespeare Library Teaching Palaeography Workshop, Washington DC, USA
• December 2009: Folger Library Grant-In-Aid Award, $2000 (accommodation and registration) to enable Alison Wiggins and Graham Williams to participate at the Folger Shakespeare Library Teaching Palaeography Workshop, Washington DC, USA
• September 2009: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship (4-year scholarship) and Overseas Research Student Award (Scottish Funding Council and University of Glasgow, 3 years) for Felicity Maxwell
• June 2007: University of Glasgow, Department of English Language, £300 (seed money) for purchase of microfilms and photographs of 150 manuscript letters (award to Alison Wiggins; items property of University of Glasgow)
• August 2007: University of Glasgow Strategic Research Allocation Award, £650 (flights and accommodation) to enable Alison Wiggins to present and to discuss preliminary plans for the project and collaboration with the Corpus of Early English Correspondence (CEEC) team at the VARIENG Research Unit, University of Helsinki, Finland

Acknowledgements

The project team would like to thank:

Robyn Adams, Jan Broadway, Lisa Jardine, Alan Stewart and staff and students at the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters (CELL), University College London (previously Queen Mary), for their formative influence upon this project and for their ongoing positive encouragement.

Terttu Nevalainen, Samuli Kaislaniemi and the Corpus of Early English Correspondence (CEEC) team at the VARIENG Research Unit, University of Helsinki for their academic and technical consultancy and their continued interest and support.

Michael Pidd, Humanities Research Institute (HRI), University of Sheffield, for his invaluable guidance since the early days of the project and for his contribution to the design of the web interface.

Katy Mair for her many expert and practical suggestions and, with colleagues at The National Archives, Kew, London, for hosting and development of the Unsealed exhibition, November 2012 - January 2013.

Nigel Wright, National Trust Property Manager at Hardwick Hall, and National Trust staff, volunteers and visitors to Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, for their insights, support and contribution to the set up and running of the exhibition Unsealed April 2011 - October 2012.

Sonia Preece and the 52 National Trust volunteers who participated in the workshop Reading Bess of Hardwick's Letters, 6 September 2011.

The volunteer cast of the Unsealed podcasts: Catherine Emmott (Frances Cobham), Sophie Holmes-Elliott (Frances Pierrepont), Carole Hough (Elizabeth Wingfield), Kathryn Lowe (Bess of Hardwick), Imogen Marcus (Arbella Stuart), Andrew Prescott (James Montague), Bryony Randall (Elizabeth I), David Simmons (George, sixth earl of Shrewsbury), Jennifer Smith (Mary, Queen of Scots), Jeremy Smith (Richard Topcliffe) and Thomas White (Henry Cavendish).

Vicki and Paul Kirk and the team at Design by Distraction for their contribution to the design and delivery of the Unsealed exhibition materials at Hardwick Hall and the TNA.

The Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, holds 102 of the letters included in this edition, accessible via LUNA. The Project team would like to thank Folger staff who answered questions and provided support to Alan Bryson and Alison Wiggins in the period from June to August 2009 when each spent time at the library undertaking transcription and physical analysis of the letters for the project. Further, to Jim Kuhn and Heather Wolfe who, during 2011-12, provided support for use of Folger Luna materials within the site.

In addition to the 102 letters at the Folger, a further 132 letters are included in this edition. Of these, 2 are in private ownership at unknown locations. The remaining 130 are spread across 16 archives and repositories and the Project team would like to thank staff at those locations: Arundel Castle Archives; Belvoir Castle; The British Library; Cambridge University Library; Chatsworth House; Hatfield House; The Huntington Library, California; Keele University Library; Lambeth Palace Library; Longleat House; Magdalene College, Cambridge; The National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; Nottingham University Library Special Collections; The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; Sheffield Archives; The National Archives, London. In particular, Stuart Band, Clare Brown, Helen Burton, Corinne Fawcett, Peter Foden, Phillipa Granger, Robin Harcourt Williams, Kate Harris, Matthew Hirst, Paul Johnson, Andrew Peppit, Victoria Perry, Mary Robertson and Kirstin Smith have been extremely generous with their time and expertise.

For invitations to speak and for stimulating questions and responses thanks go to: Heather Wolfe, Jim Kuhn and those who attended the Teaching Palaeography Workshop at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC; James Brown, Howard Hotson, Kim McLean-Fiander and the Cultures of Knowledge Project, University of Oxford; James Daybell, Andrew Gordon and those who attended the Cultures of Correspondence Colloquium and Conference at the Universities of Aberdeen and Plymouth; Michael Moss and staff and students at the HATII Research Seminar, 2009-12, University of Glasgow; Richard Beadle, Angus Vine and delegates at the AHRC Scriptorium Project Symposium, University of Cambridge; Steven May, Anne Lake Prescott, Michael Ullyot and delegates who attended the RSA SHARP panel in 2010 and Susan Frye, Sara French and delegates who attended the RSA Bess of Hardwick Project Panel in 2011; Fred Schurink and members of the MEMES Research Seminar, University of Newcastle; Bill Bell, Joseph Marshall and members of the Edinburgh Centre for the History of the Book Research Seminar; Stephen Kelly and members of the Queen's University Belfast School of English Research Seminar; Alice Eardley and those who attended the Reading Early Modern Studies Conference; Catherine Richardson, Pierrick Tranouez and the organisers of the Rouen digital documents workshop.

Many individual scholars have given their time to discuss points relevant to the project, in particular, for their generosity, interest and expertise: Alan Bryson thanks Simon Adams, John Guy, Steven May and Cathy Shrank; Daniel Starza Smith thanks Nadine Akkerman, Jana Dambrogio, James Daybell, Arnold Hunt, Harry Newman and Heather Wolfe; Anke Timmermann thanks Jean Anderson, Michael Pidd and Andrew Prescott; Alison Wiggins thanks Erin Blake, James Daybell, Susan Frye, David Durant, Katy Mair, Andrew Prescott, Philip Riden, Jeremy Smith and Heather Wolfe; Graham Williams thanks Caroline Bowden, James Daybell, Melanie Evans, Andrew Gordon, Susan Green, Terttu Nevalainen and Heather Wolfe.

Colleagues and students at the University of Glasgow have been extremely supportive from the start of this project, in numerous practical and intellectual ways; in particular the project team thanks Brian Aitken, Alison Bennett, Gillian Carr, Flora Edmonds, Katie Lowe, Rob Maslen, Michael Moss, Vicky Price, Elizabeth Robertson, Jennifer Smith and Jeremy Smith.

Project outputs

Web edition

Bess of Hardwick's Letters: The Complete Correspondence, c.1550-1608, ed. by Alison Wiggins, Alan Bryson, Daniel Starza Smith, Anke Timmermann and Graham Williams, University of Glasgow, web development by Katherine Rogers, University of Sheffield Humanities Research Institute (April 2013), [date of access], http://www.bessofhardwick.org

Books

Alison Wiggins, Bess of Hardwick's Letters: Language, Materiality and Early Modern Epistolary culture, Material Readings in Early Modern Culture (Routledge, 2016)

Articles

Felicity Maxwell, 'Enacting Mistress and Steward Roles in a Letter of Household Management: Bess of Hardwick to Francis Whitfield, 14 November 1552', Lives & Letters: A Journal for Early Modern Archival Research , vol. 4, no. 1 (Autumn 2012)

Graham Williams, '"my evil favoured writing": Uglyography, Disease and the Epistolary Networks of George Talbot, sixth earl of Shrewsbury', Huntington Library Quarterly (forthcoming, 2013)

Exhibitions, podcasts, impact and dissemination

April 2011 - October 2012, Unsealed: The Letters of Bess of Hardwick, at National Trust Property Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire (lead curator: Anke Timmermann), download the podcasts, the exhibition postcard and bookmark at: www.bessofhardwick.org/listen

November 2012 - February 2013, Unsealed: The Letters of Bess of Hardwick on loan to The National Archives (lead TNA curator: Katy Mair; original curator: Anke Timmermann)

6 September 2011, workshop for 52 National Trust volunteers in the High Great Chamber, Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire (Alison Wiggins, Graham Williams and Felicity Maxwell). The workshop ran from 10am-1.30pm and gave National Trust volunteers the opportunity to take part in decipherment and discussion of Bess's manuscript letters; afterwards, in the spirit of exchange and dialogue, volunteers invited the project team to join a Living History Tudor dance lesson. In feedback forms, volunteers described how they would use project materials to enhance and enrich the visitor experience at Hardwick Hall.

Newspaper articles after the web-site launch include:

• The Metro, News section, 29 April 2013, page 4, circulation: 1381102
• The Sunday Herald, News section, 28 April 2013, page 9, circulation: 26187. Full page coverage with photographs: Revealed: how new letters show Mary Queen of Scots' jailer in new light: Findings change misogynistic spin on life of 16th-century Bess of Hardwick, by Rachel Loxton
• The Herald, Opinion section, 29 April 2013, page 15, circulation 44445. Headline: Shining a new light on tragic Mary by Rosemary Goring
• The Herald, News section, 29 April 2013, page 9, circulation 44445. Headline: Bess of Hardwick's letters shed light on Tudor society
• The Scotsman, News section, 29 April 2013, page 14, circulation 34127. Headline: 16th century letters to go on display

PhD theses

Imogen Marcus, 'An Investigation Into The Language and Letters of Bess of Hardwick (c.1522-1608)', University of Glasgow (2013)

Felicity Maxwell, 'Household Words: Textualising Social Relations in the Correspondence of Bess of Hardwick's Servants, c.1550-1590', University of Glasgow (2014)

Presentations

30 October 2014, Alison Wiggins, University of Kent Research Seminar

14 August 2014, Alison Wiggins, 'Editing early modern women's letters: problems and prospects', New Directions in Early Modern Women's Letters: Women's Early Modern Letters Online (WEMLO) Colloquium and Workshop (funded by The Leverhulme Trust and the British Academy), Faculty of History, University of Oxford

15 February 2014, Alison Wiggins, 'Bess of Hardwick's Letters and the opportunities and implications of editing women's letters online', Huntington Library / University of Southern California Early Modern British History Seminar, Huntington Library, California 

15 November 2013, Alison Wiggins, 'Bess of Hardwick's Letters: From Script to Screen', keynote talk at From Correspondence to Corpora: A Seminar on Digital Processing of Historical Letter Compilations, University of Helsinki, Finland

29-31 August 2013, Alison Wiggins, contributor: 'Workshop: Women's Early Modern Letters Online', Gender and Political Culture, 1400-1800, a joint conference organised by History and HuMPA at Plymouth University and the Umeå Group for Pre-Modern Studies at Umeå University, Sweden, to be held at Plymouth University

28 May 2013, Alison Wiggins, 'How Do We Build It So That They Will Come? Editing Bess of Hardwick's Letters Online', (Re)Presenting the Archive Symposium, Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield

29 November 2012, Alison Wiggins, 'Reading and Writing Bess of Hardwick's Letters', Public Lecture Series, The National Archives, Kew, podcast available at The National Archives web site.

25 October 2012, Alison Wiggins, 'Manuscript Materiality and Digital Editions', plenary speaker, Historical Documents in the Digital Age Workshop, for the EU DocExplore Project, (University of Kent, University of Rouen, Canterbury Cathedral Archives, Bibliothèque Municipale de Rouen), University of Rouen, France

14 July 2012, Alison Wiggins, 'Bess of Hardwick's Letters Online' on the Editing Women panel, Reading Early Modern Studies Conference, University of Reading

21-23 June 2012, Felicity Maxwell co-organiser, co-facilitator and presenter with Sara French (Landscape Architecture, SUNY-ESF) and Erika Bastress-Dukehart (History, Skidmore College) for the Workshop: Domestic Spaces and Places: Concepts of Femininity and Authority in Early Modernity, at the conference Attending to Early Modern Women, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA

26 April 2012, Alison Wiggins, 'Material Witness: Editing Bess of Hardwick's Letters Online', Cultures of Knowledge 3rd Seminar Series, podcast and summary available on the Cultures of Knowledge events page, University of Oxford

16 April 2011, Felicity Maxwell, 'Enacting Service in the Letters of Bess of Hardwick's Households', Cultures of Correspondence in Early Modern Britain, 1550-1640, University of Plymouth

16 April 2011, Alison Wiggins, 'Bess of Hardwick's Letter Bearers and Enclosures', Cultures of Correspondence in Early Modern Britain, 1550-1640, University of Plymouth

16 April 2011, Graham Williams, 'Theorising Uglyography: The Socio-Cultural Implications of George Talbot's Gouty Hand', Cultures of Correspondence in Early Modern Britain, 1550-1640, University of Plymouth

25 March 2011, Felicity Maxwell, 'In Bess's Service: Language of Service and Letter-writing', Felicity Maxwell, on the panel Bess of Hardwick's Letters, chair/organiser: Alison Wiggins (University of Glasgow), respondent: Prof. Susan Frye, University of Wyoming, Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada

25 March 2011, Imogen Marcus, 'Bess of Hardwick's Scribes', on the panel Bess of Hardwick's Letters, chair/organiser: Alison Wiggins (University of Glasgow), respondent: Prof. Susan Frye, University of Wyoming, Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada

25 March 2011, Graham Williams, 'More than Uglyography: The Social and Linguistic Implications of George Talbot's Gouty Hands', on the panel Bess of Hardwick's Letters, chair/organiser: Alison Wiggins (University of Glasgow), respondent: Prof. Susan Frye, University of Wyoming, Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada

24 March 2011, Alison Wiggins, 'Editing and Unediting Bess of Hardwick's Letters', on the panel Circulating Lives and Texts in Early Modern England, Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada

11 February 2011, Felicity Maxwell, 'Negotiating Service in the Letters of Bess of Hardwick (c.1527-1608)', School of Critical Studies Work-in-Progress presentation, University of Glasgow

3 December 2010, Alison Wiggins, 'The Letters of Bess of Hardwick: Towards an Online Edition', School of English Research Seminar, Queen's University, Belfast

2 December 2010, Imogen Marcus, '"surelye my Lord I wos muche greued": Connectives, Clausal Syntax and Discourse Organisation in Bess of Hardwick's Holograph Letters', English Language Research Seminar, University of Glasgow

26 November 2010, Alison Wiggins, 'Bess of Hardwick's Letters: Material Readings and Editing Online', The Edinburgh Book History Seminar, Centre for the History of the Book, University of Edinburgh

23-27 August 2010, Imogen Marcus, 'Syntactic structure in Elizabeth Talbot's Letters, with reference to the conjunction and', The 16th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, University of Pécs, Hungary

23-27 August 2010, Graham Williams, '"yr Scribe Can proove no nessecarye Consiquence for you"?: The Linguistic Implications of Using a Scribe in Early English Correspondence', The 16th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, University of Pécs, Hungary

24 July 2010, Alison Wiggins, '"take payns to wryt out thes": Bess of Hardwick's Scribes and Bearers', Cultures of Correspondence in Early Modern Britain, 1550-1640, Colloquium, University of Aberdeen

24 June 2010, Alison Wiggins, Digitising Medieval Manuscripts, consultancy meeting, Mellon Foundation, New York City, USA

20 April 2010, Alison Wiggins, 'The History of Reading as a Methodology for Editing Bess of Hardwick's Letters', Medieval and Early Modern Studies Group (MEMS), University of Newcastle

8-10 April 2010, Alison Wiggins, 'Bess of Hardwick's Reading', on the panel Letters of the Rich and/or Famous organised by the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP), Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, Venice, Italy

5-7 March 2010, Imogen Marcus, 'What are the Problems Presented to the Historical Linguist by the Evidence of Manuscript Letters?', Isle of Arran Postgraduate Weekend 2010, Departments of English Language and Scottish Literature, University of Glasgow

20-27 August 2009, Imogen Marcus, presentation at the 3rd Summer School in Historical Sociolinguistics, organised by the Historical Sociolinguistics Network (HiSoN) with the support of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, University of Agder and the University of Bristol, Metochi, Lesbos, Greece

16 July 2009, Alison Wiggins, presentation to the 2009 Mellon Summer Institute in Vernacular Paleography, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, USA

6 July 2009, Alison Wiggins, presentation at the Sustaining Digital Resources in the Humanities Symposium, organised by the AHRC Project Scriptorium: Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts Online, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge

25 March 2009, Alison Wiggins, presentation to the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII) Research Seminar, University of Glasgow

13 November 2008, Alison Wiggins, presentation at The Director's Seminar, Centre for Editing Lives and Letters, Queen Mary, University of London

8-10 August 2007, Alison Wiggins, seminar with the Corpus of Early English Correspondence (CEEC) team at the Research Unit for Variation, Contacts and Change in English (VARIENG), University of Helsinki, Finland