Newsletter

Wagner Collection Catalogue Now Available Online

The Wagner Collection of American History and Literature was presented by The Hypatia Trust to the University of Bonn in 2007. You can read about the presentation by clicking here.

The collection has now been catalogued and an online bibliography is available. You can access the bibliograghy by clicking here. When you get to next page you will need to click 'hier' in the second paragraph.

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HYPATIA NEWSLETTER

Summer - Autumn Issue - September, 2009 - Volume 12 Issue 1

A QUIETLY EXCITING YEAR

Since last summer's newsletter, much has carried on as usual - despite the global downturn and recession. Situated as we are in a part of the United Kingdom that has traditionally 'lived on the edge' in more ways than one, in some sense, perhaps, we in West Cornwall have not had so much to lose. Our natural environment is both rich and inspirational, and our current industrial state almost non-existent, hence there are not many large factories to shut down, nor jobs to lose.

Individual arts and crafts have long been a sustaining feature in Cornwall, alongside the fishing, farming and mining communities. Increasingly, of course, Cornwall has become a retirement haven for the affluent.

At least in the past year, the normal seasonal tourism has been boosted significantly by the establishment in 2006 by UNESCO of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape as a World Heritage site.

There is much to visit here, and the Hypatia Trust shares in helping to welcome the influx.

Maintaining a public profile, while getting on with productive research, meets with significant difficulties, in light of our small working staff of 2 ½ people (all part-time) plus occasional volunteers. And, quite naturally, we are also ageing. So much for the apologies for non-communication!

Trevelyan House at work

Regular use of our various rooms has gradually increased since the closure of The Lime Tree Restaurant in January, 2009 (a victim definitely of the recession, as it was Michelin star quality!). Miki and Justin Ashton continue with their Lime Tree motif, however, and have established a successful catering events agency, alongside Justin's success as Head Chef of The Beach Restaurant at Sennen, nearby.

Others meeting in our rooms include:

The Poetry Society (London) - monthly workshops led by Alice Kavounas. [See below, for her newly published collection]

Cornwall Dyslexia Association - for parents and teachers of dyslexic children.

Art workshops - weekly sessions for people who are blind or disabled, and for cancer patients, led by Tessa Garside.

Knatty Knitters Group - monthly meetings led by Susan Hoyle.

Photographic One-to-One Study Days - Nik Strangelove in the basement darkroom.

Psychotherapy - independent practitioner, Martin Rouse, and other counsellors, by appointment.

The Breakfast Club - Nick and Katie Lennon produce wonderful and healthy Sunday breakfasts on Sunday mornings from 10-2, with friendly chat, newspapers, and other related activities. Dates as posted (not every Sunday, but check in to see if visiting.)

The Penzance Archive - Aside from his historical journalism, Peter Waverly doubles his archival work, with answering the phone for the Trust from Tuesday - Friday, 9:30-12:30. At other times, during the week it may be on answerphone. He represents our Trust on various archival committees in the county, and answers many queries from visitors and researchers into the history of Penzance and its related families.

West Cornwall Art Archive - Through the generosity of our patron, George Bednar, an on-line art archive is about to emerge onto the internet, with data collected for our major Art Dictionary [see following] together with material collected to bring that database up to date. More of this soon. It takes longer than one thinks to iron out the links, and we have been working on this steadily for many months. Tim and Jean Jones have volunteered to take on the heavy job of collecting the more modern and current information so that we can fit it into the framework.

A Passion for Nature, 19th-century naturalism in the circle of Charles Alexander Johns & the Project Team

Launched just before Christmas 2008, this jointly-authored monograph about the Victorian world of plant-hunters and educators mainly in south-west England (with forays to Scotland, Ireland and London's Chelsea), has been a new and exciting base for a range of activities that promise much for the future. The reviews have been universally good, and productive of new friends and projects.

Deirdre Dare represented the Trust at the award ceremonies for the annual Holyer an Gof (Cornish Gorsed) awards in June, where she received the certificate for our 'Highly recommended' volume, though not the overall winner of the heavily-subscribed section.

Chelsea Lecture

Melissa was introduced by Curator, Rosie Atkins

Melissa Hardie was invited to speak in the hallowed halls of the Chelsea Physic Garden in July, in the summer series of talks celebrating Darwin. She spoke on the general topic of 'Popular Science in the Time of Darwin', and explored for the packed audience, the life of the author of Flowers of the Field, Forest Trees of Britain, and A Week at the Lizard. His friends, many of whom were women, like Emily Stackhouse, and his talented sisters, received attention for the first time.

The lecture as followed by a delightful al fresco dinner in the garden, accompanied by family members and friends, including Hypatia Trusted Friend, Joanna Hines.

Set for Dinner

Set for Dinner

Tessa, Peter and Helen

Peter Kiernan with Tessa Taylor and Helen Gibson

The book is for sale and you can order a copy by clicking here.

An offprint of the lecture at Chelsea, is available on request. You can ask for a complimentary copy by clicking here. This is the first in a series of papers designed to describe the place of Cornwall (environmentally) and the people who took inspiration from it.

Peter Kiernan, with an excellent background and expertise in botanical and gardening activities and research, is joining his own interests in C A Johns, Gertrude Jekyll, and other naturalists, with ours, to lead in the creation of a Johns-Carrington Environmental Archive here in West Cornwall. The main store for this will be at the Jamieson Library, Newmill, where a new office is being set up currently. Planned walks and week-long stays for the purposes of botanical illustration will be part and parcel of this project, now in its planning phases.

Clifford Evans, in California is gradually recovering from illness, which has held him back from planned visits to the UK, to be a more integral part of our project planning. His essay on Emily Stackhouse (botanical illustrator & botanist in Victorian Cornwall) was appended to the Johns book, and has been inspirational in generating interest in the vast quantities of women engaged in plant-hunting and cataloguing that has gone on, mostly unrecognised, both in the past and present. Cliff was responsible for collecting the majority of the Johns' books that we currently have in the Archive, and upon which we will build in future. He is in regular contact, and hopes to be able to travel next year.

The Art Dictionary & the West Cornwall Art Archive

Overdue from the publishers Art Dictionaries Ltd., but nonetheless well worth waiting for, we are pleased to announce the very recent launch of ARTISTS IN NEWLYN and West Cornwall, A Dictionary and Source-book.

You can read a comprehensive review of the book in Bristol Review of Books by clicking here and another on the Art Cornwall website by clicking here.

Certainly 'a labour of love' as described by the Cornishman reviewer, Frank Ruhrmund, the work for this massive volume has been underway for about six years, and finally completed about two years ago. But overload (and family illness) at the Bristol-based publishers have meant delays, and naturally, it has been launched at a time (unforeseen) when big, expensive books are not really the name of the game! Nonetheless, if you are keen on the subject, or have relatives who are, this historic volume is just the thing for Christmas or birthdays, or for your local art institutions and libraries. This can be purchased directly from the Hypatia Trust, thereby benefiting our West Cornwall Art Archive funds as well. [We are still seeking dedicated premises.]

Important Legacies & Gifts 2009

John Ryton Andrews, a long-time supporter and patron of the Trust, died in February of last year (2008). This year, the main part of his gift to us arrived at Trevelyan House, in the form of a filing cabinet filled with historical family papers related to West Cornwall. Sorting these was a delight, and some of these materials will be given to the Cornwall Studies Library, Redruth, to expand their section on West Cornwall.

However, accompanying the filing cabinet was a most marvellous piece of furniture, known in the Andrews family as 'The Treasure'. And this is now part of our Seminar Room furnishings. The original owner of this magnificent lady's writing desk, was Cecile, the wife of the composer, Felix Mendelssohn.

It will become the archival chest to hold the literary remains of her talented descendants and friends.

Phoebe Atkins, a friend to the Trust since the establishment of the Jamieson Library in Newmill in 1986, has died (summer, 2009). She and her late husband, Dr Guy Atkins, of London University's Oriental and African Studies Institute, have donated numerous books from their outstanding library to Melissa Hardie over the years. They were amongst the first to do so and are responsible for an early interest in the Cornish weaver and nurse, Violetta Thurstan, which resulted last year in the contribution of her biographical entry in the Dictionary of National Biography (DNB), now up on the net. Now their daughter, Zenna Atkins, current Chairman of Ofsted, has given a substantial number of interesting books from their library to ours. Cataloguing will proceed.

New Publications from Members and Friends

Godrevy Light

Hypatia Trusted Friend, Jessica Mann and her husband, Charles Thomas, have recently written a celebratory book about Godrevy Lighthouse, entitled Godrevy Light.

Hardback with dustjacket, 84 pages, 85 illustrations. £18.00

Published by Twelveheads Press. ISBN 978 0 906294 70 3

http://www.twelveheads.com

http://www.godrevy.com

Publisher's Information -

The jagged reef of rocks off Godrevy Point, on the north eastern headland of St Ives Bay, lay right across the natural navigation course for the harbours of Hayle and St Ives. The reef claimed a succession of victims culminating with the loss of steamship Nile with all souls in 1854. This tragic incident caused a national outcry and prompted Trinity House to build a light at Godrevy. The resulting lighthouse is a beautiful and iconic structure, the inspiration of artists, photographers, poets and writers, including Virginia Woolf.

Charles Thomas and Jessica Mann met at an archaeological dig at Godrevy over fifty years ago and the Golden Anniversary of their marriage coincides with the 150th anniversary of the first lighting of Godrevy Lighthouse. To mark both anniversaries Charles and Jessica have recorded both its history and its representation in art and literature, illustrated in works of art from their collection.

The collection includes works by artists and craftsmen of the nearby art colony at St Ives: Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Trevor Corser, Garstin Cox, Sir Terry Frost, Andrew Lanyon, Daphne McClure, Jane O¹Malley, Bryan Pearce, Robert Borlase Smart and Francis Raymond Spenlove. Paintings by Rose Hilton and Julius Olsson have also been loaned for the book.

Other artists from Cornwall include: Kurt Jackson, Jeremy Le Grice, Margo Maeckelberghe, John Miller and David Rust. Many other artifacts, photographs, maps and souvenirs illustrate the book. Professor Charles Thomas CBE, DL, Dlitt, FBA, FSA., an archaeologist and historian, is a leading figure in Cornish affairs. He is the author of numerous books and articles on a variety of subjects. Jessica Mann is a well known writer, critic and journalist. Her published work includes twenty crime novels and two non-fiction books.

Ornament of Asia

Alice Kavounas Taylor, one of our Trusted Friends, and leader of London Poetry Society's poetry workshop in Cornwall, has just published her third volume of poems, entitled Ornament of Asia.

Paperback, 80 pages. £8.95

ISBN 9781848610613

Publisher's Information -

In Ornament of Asia, Alice Kavounas engages us with daring personal stories, as well as quotidian moments, expressed in vivid, precise language.

Following on from The Invited (Sinclair-Stevenson), with its "brilliant lyrical style" (Alan Brownjohn), Alice Kavounas has deepened and widened her range. She writes from an unusual perspective: a New Yorker whose father escaped from his idyllic birthplace in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire to build a new life in America.

Ornament of Asia refers to Smyrna, her father's city, the richest and most cosmopolitan in the Ottoman Empire. In 1922, it would burn to the ground. Beginning with her poem 'Road to Ithaca', we're taken on an intimate, international journey which crosses continents, evokes physical as well as psychological landscapes, and confronts the defining issues of our time: forced migration, the immigrant experience, the elusive idea of 'home'.

These richly textured poems are punctuated by twelve episodes of compelling narrative, 'The Red Sofa', which dissect with a sharp wit the emotional truth of what it means to be a child anywhere, but especially of 'foreign' parents in '50s America.

Her new collection closes with 'A Writer's Beach, in which the poet encounters '...these birds, oceanic/birds on the wing-each lending me a pen'.

"These poems of displacement and loss, of estrangement and, finally, of reconciliation, go deep. Alice Kavounas uses a language which is unadorned, sometimes almost stark, to present her affecting narratives in a manner both clear-eyed and unsparing. History and geography become irrevocably personal and emotionally-charged. You feel that the story this collection records is one the poet could neither avoid nor leave untold." - David Harsent

"A striking clarity of diction and perception distinguishes this long overdue and most welcome second collection from Alice Kavounas. Her work is sharply-focused, intent on and successful in describing and comprehending self and world. In a poetry adept and adventurous both in form and imaginative scope, she explores personal history within the context of the world's wider history as it wounds and heals us; her language is poised yet rich with poignant depth and detail." - Penelope Shuttle

UK trade orders via Bertrams Books or Gardners Books.

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HYPATIA NEWSLETTER

Summer Issue - July 2008 - Volume 11, Issue 2

BUILDING ON ACCOMPLISHMENTS

On the premise that if you don’t write it down, there is no possibility of anyone reading it [the original aphorism of the Hypatia Trust was ‘no documents, no history’] we are once again taking to paper, in parallel with our on-line Newsletter here, for the benefit primarily of those who do not use the computer on a regular basis.

The cost of printing and postage of this newsletter had reached £500 an issue, so we are now only mailing a paper copy to those we think don’t see the website version. If, in fact, you do have internet access but still receive a paper copy, please let us know at info@hypatia-trust.org.uk.

We are definitely alive and well and moving forward on several fronts. We are especially grateful to our loyal supporters, who continue to remember us, not only with financial contribution but also with thoughtful deeds of time and effort. As we approach our 13th birthday as the Hypatia Trust, and our 23rd birthday at the Jamieson Library Collection, we are not simply sitting on our assets, but allowing and pushing these to grow together with other communities of interest.

With only three of us working in the office on a part-time basis, it is difficult to slice the time needed from other more pressing, daily callers & duties. Maintaining the offices is naturally a costly affair in itself with computers, photocopier and other necessities including recent rises in utilities putting even more of a strain upon our charitable resources.

A main source of our income is the publication list that we maintain, and to which we add 3-4 titles each year. Some of these are runaway successes, and sell relatively quickly. Examples of this were recent studies of Balmaidens (women who worked in the mines of Devon and Cornwall) by Lynne Mayers), and of the Women's Land Army in Cornwall, Digging for Memories, edited by Melissa Hardie. Others are produced for individuals or organisations who undertake the distribution and advertisement themselves.

Subsequent to Balmaidens (out of print), Lynne Mayers has just published (2008) A Dangerous Place to Work!, available at £7.95, from her website at www.balmaiden.co.uk.

Much in demand as a speaker, Lynne’s dedication to her subject is formidable, and her additions to our knowledge of women in the history of British industrial heritage greatly valued. Not least of its rewards has been the interest raised in the American west and Australia where many Cornish families still reside.

Digging for Memories has not only contributed to the recent announcements from DEFRA that a badge will finally be awarded to those Land Army girls from the Second World War still alive today, but is about to enter its third printing.

Angie Butler and Di Ayres who carried out the interviews with the ‘girls’ and Barbara Santi who produced the film (a prize-winner!) have all been active in speaking to groups and schools all over the county. We have also distributed the DEFRA forms from our offices.

Frequently we still hear from our Land Girls, and recently Joy Micallef from Germany where she now lives, called into the office. So good to have become friends through the written word.

New Appointments to the Hypatia Council of Trusted Friends

Dr A E L Davis achieved her original honours degree in mathematics from Oxford, and her PhD from London University in the history of mathematical astronomy. Until recently she was an Open University associate lecturer in History of Mathematics, and is now an Honorary Research Associate at the Centre for History of Science, Technology and Medicine at Imperial College, University of London. Previously a part-time Fellowship awarded by the Open University for the compiling of a historical bibliography of women in mathematics, and this work provided the framework for the creation of the Philippa Fawcett Collection of books. In April, she presented this remarkable collection to the London Mathematical Society, with Professor Lisa Jardine initially a mathematician and now an outstanding scientific historian as the primary speaker. Melissa Hardie was present for the event, in recognition of Hypatia’s important place in the history of mathematical women. Dr Davis’s primary research is on Kepler and she has published a number of scholarly articles on his mathematical astronomy.

Professor Pamela Gerrish Nunn was in the past year promoted to ‘full professorship’ of Fine Art at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. Her early education was in England, and university qualifications gained here too: University of Leicester (BA Hons) and University College London (MA, PhD); her visiting academic roles have been undertaken in the USA (Yale & Washington DC- National Gallery), England (Courtauld), and Australia (Canberra-ANU). Long known on paper as the distinguished author of works on women artists and issues of gender [Problem Pictures, Women and Men in Victorian Painting, Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists and, most recently, From Victorian to Modern: tradition and innovation in the work of Vanessa Bell, Gwen John and Laura Knight], she first called in on the Hypatia Trust in 2000, the year of the Penlee House major exhibition of the work of Elizabeth Adela Armstrong Forbes. She complimented our work on the book, Singing from the Walls, The Life and Art of Elizabeth Forbes, and has since returned to lecture at Penlee, and to further her research into several women artists who spent time working in Cornwall during their arts careers. She will visit again to speak on 9th September 2008 at Penlee House, and also at the St Ives Festival, staying as our guest in the Jamieson Library, Newmill.

Dr Adeline Johns-Putra began her teaching career as a tutor at Monash University, Australia, where she received her PhD in 2000 in English. Following lecturing in Finland, she was appointed Senior Lecturer in the Department of English of the University of Exeter in 2001. With the opening of the new university campus in Cornwall, she is now teaching and supervising post-graduate candidates within the School of Arts, Languages and Literatures, University of Exeter (Cornwall Campus) at Penryn, near Falmouth, and is lead academic in the English Studies Department. Her books to date include Heroes and Housewives: Women’s Epic Poetry and Domestic Ideology in the Romantic Age (1770-1835) Bern: Peter Lang, 2001, and The History of the Epic, Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2006, as well as numerous journal articles and papers. She is working directly with the Hypatia Trust, to garner library resources for the students, and to encourage post-graduate study in the fascinating topics of ‘literature and landscape’ so appropriate to Cornwall.

Professor Dr Sabine Sielke is Director of the North American Studies Program, and Director of the Women’s Forum and Gender Studies at the University of Bonn (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Bonn). She was introduced to the Trust, when the Paul and Vera Wagner Collection of American Studies was presented by Melissa Hardie, in memory of her grandfather and mother, in November, 2007. Her genuine enthusiasm for her work within the Institute for English, American and Celtic Studies, and her extensive education in Germany (Berlin) and the United States (Duke), are clear in her distinguished curriculum vitae (www.nap-uni-bonn.de/facultystaff). Currently she is also a Non-Resident Fellow, W E B Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Studies at Harvard University. We welcome this delightful lady to the fellowship of Hypatia and hope to see her and a few of her colleagues here in Cornwall soon.

Important Legacies and Gifts 2008

John Ryton Andrews, a long-time supporter and patron of the Trust, died in February of this year. John was a writer and a former librarian at Exeter University and the proud descendant of a West Cornwall family, who owned both ‘Eagle’s Nest’ and the ‘Poor House’ (Zennor), in addition to swathes of land extending down to Cape Cornwall, known as Bosigran.

Keen to remember his family and their roots here, he determined from the set-up of the Hypatia Trust (1996) to ensure that his novelist ancestor, Marian Andrews (née Hare) who wrote 30 historical novels mainly under the pseudonym Christopher Hare, should have a special place in our Collections. To this end he presented an entire collection of her work, her scrapbook of reviews, and an enormous antique framed map of the northern side of the Cornish peninsula, showing the land his family occupied.

At the same time he provided a permanent endowment fund to initiate the Andrews-Westlake Archive, to which he has now added by residual legacy in his Last Will. We are most grateful to John, for his remembrance of our work in this generous way.

Partou Zia was an extraordinarily talented young artist and writer, born in Tehran, Persia, having emigrated with her family to England in 1970. She died recently (March, 2008) after living with cancer for some years.

After studying Art History at University of Warwick, and then Fine Art at the Slade, she settled in Cornwall in 1993. By then, she had already participated in a number of mixed shows, such as Young Contemporaries, Whitworth Gallery, Manchester (1989), and her Cornish debut was at the Salthouse Gallery, St Ives.

Solo exhibitions quickly followed as her very poetic treatments of archetypal images were brought to canvas, Partou herself virtually a messenger bringing a crescendo of light to her story-pictures.

As a result of being selected as the first recipient of the Tate St Ives residency programme, she presented Entering the Visionary Zone (exhibition and catalogue) in 2003 as the solo artist.

Previously she had already mounted solo exhibitions at Saltram House, Devon, Newlyn Art Gallery, Royal Cornwall Museum and Art Space Gallery, London, and her group exhibitions were numerous, ranging from Liverpool to Hastings to Exeter University.

Despite intensive attention to her painting, she completed a PhD in 2001 at Falmouth College of Art. Thought Paintings was her solo presentation at Art First, London in 2004 and The Grey Syllable also at Art First, London in 2005.

A discerning and prodigious reader (and writer), Partou’s library numbers in the hundreds, containing a wide-range of books and papers on art, philosophy, psychology, gender and women’s studies, mythology & mystical religion, poetry and classical texts, including a substantial number in Persian.

This legacy from Partou, and her husband, the artist Richard Cook, makes a unique contribution to the Hypatia Collection.

A personal bookplate will be designed to mark her collection within the associated libraries, and a presentation evening is planned at the completion of the cataloguing.

Shorter Booknotes from Hypatia Friends and Members

Jane Potter’s excellent book, Boys in Khaki, Girls in Print (Women’s Literary Responses to the Great War 1914-1918) published in hardback in Oxford English Monographs (OUP) in 2005, has proved so popular that it this year to be issued in paperback.

In 2006 it was the joint Winner of Women’s History Network Book Prize, and an excellent documentation of the female narrative at such a fraught and anguished time in our history. Dr Potter is the Senior Lecturer in Publishing, Oxford Brookes University and Assistant to the Archivist at Wolfson College, Oxford.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography plans a new release of entries about women who contributed to the war effort from 1914-1918.

One of the women, also referenced in some detail by Jane Potter in her book, is also the subject of one of our early monographs and one of our larger archives – Violetta Thurstan, A Celebration (1993) by Muriel Somerfield and Ann Bellingham.

Because of our archive about Violetta, who died in Penryn in 1978, after living in Cornwall for the final 28 years of her life, Melissa Hardie was invited to write her DNB entry. This will be published later this year.

Nicola Beauman, the founder-publisher of Persephone Books was interviewed by Leonie Cooper for the Guardian on 8th February about the mainly female writers whom she so elegantly reprints. Nicky is a delightful hostess in her Bloomsbury den at 59 Lamb’s Conduit Street (chocolate brownies – serious yum!), and in the new bookshop at 109 Kensington Church Street.

She has just returned from a whirlwind book tour and set of cream teas in the USA (DC, LA and NYC) and has an enormously busy schedule of events to cover throughout the summer season (www.persephonebooks.co.uk).

Perhaps you will catch up with her somewhere around the UK. One of the latest three issues of her quarterly round-up, was a welcome reprint of own her excellent work, A Very Great Profession: The Women’s Novel 1914-1939.

HYPATIA IN THE WOODS Shelton, Washington

Since opening its doors last September, the Hypatia Arts Residence – Holly House - on Puget Sound has been well occupied by women writers and artists.

A recent residency was awarded to a distinguished poet, Judith H Montgomery to work on her latest collection of poems. Elspeth Pope sent not only a charming photo of Judy at her desk upstairs in Holly House, but reports that she intends to return in summer from her home in Oregon’s High Desert to offer a writers’ workshop for the benefit of Hypatia.

Her chapbook, Passion, received the 2000 Oregon Book Award for poetry, and her first full-length collection, Red Jess appeared in 2006. A new chapbook, Pulse & Constellation (2007), has just appeared from Finishing Line Press.

Here we have a new poet/friend well worth the read. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and periodicals such as The Southern Review, Poetry Magazine (Featured poet 2007-08 Winter issue), The Bellingham Review and many others.

Decidedly Cornish and Good 'For One and All'

'Building on our assets' means attempting to bring our authors into the public eye, and demonstrating the high quality of our research and production work. Because of the Annual Awards made by the Cornish Gorsedd to publishers small & large, this is made easier for those of our titles that are Cornish-connected.

Presented each year in a ceremony held at Waterstones' (formerly Ottakars') bookshop in Truro, certificates representing the judges' commendations, are bestowed by the Grand Bard to the publishers and authors of the selected winning titles. Cash awards are also made to the winners in each of the nine categories, donated by the Eden Project (St Austell), that then revert to Cornish charities as chosen by those winners. Certificates are also presented to a second level of 'Commendations'. There is also a literary salver presented to an outstanding work of literature, and an overall 'Holyer an Gof' trophy presented to the considered best book of all for the year.

Each year the competition, now in its fifth year, gets tougher, and the choices more difficult. Also the entries are more and more professional and mainstream in their production - showing that Cornish printers are upping their game, and that designers and editors are ever more learned in their craft. In the current year of 2008 (for books published in 2007) there were 78 book entries adding to our knowledge of Cornwall and its cultural life.

Though no publisher wins with every book each year, Hypatia Publications has had a goodly share, of prizes and commendations. And naturally the publishers offer books on subjects other than Cornwall, that are not eligible for these awards. The on-going record of the Hypatia prize-winning books is the following:

In 2005, the Holyer an Gof Trophy winner was Balmaidens by Lynne Mayers. This was not only a well-deserved prize for the hardworking author, but also for the editor and lay-out designer, Phil Budden.

This is the story of the women and children who worked in mining throughout Cornwall and West Devon as rock breakers, carriers and all manner of surface workers.

For a whole year the beautiful silver cup adorned the Hypatia Offices and was much admired.

In 2006, a commendation was awarded to the Trust in the adult non-fiction category for the well researched and well written book by Barbara Eaton, described in her article above.

Letters to Lydia, dearest Persis broke new ground, revealing for the first time the love story between the world famous missionary-thinker, Henry Martyn and his Cornish sweetheart, Lydia Grenfell, daughter of the famed family of Grenfells of Marazion and West Cornwall.

Tim Eaton, Barbara's husband was the designer of this fine book.

In 2007, Digging for Memories, The Women's Land Army in Cornwall, edited by Melissa Hardie based on interviews with Land Girls undertaken by Angie Butler and Diana Ayres, received a commendation in the same category as in 2006.

This was an extremely popular book, selling out of two subsequent editions.

The designer for this attractive and eye-catching production was Donna Anton, who deserves full credit for her careful attention to detail, and stylish lay-out work.

Here we are in 2008, and two awards have come our way for the only two books we entered this year. A first prize in the Poetry/drama category was presented to John Gordon's inventive and often lyrical book of verse, Violets Unfold in My throat. He was much surprised as he says he never wins anything!!

Violets cover

The cover of this book was painted by John Garrihy, who is also responsible for the mural in the Trevelyan House hallway. And Donna Anton worked tirelessly to choose the Celtic designs within the text. A joint effort to produce a book of beauty & interest.

A commendation was awarded to Susan Hoyle for her masterly history of the Church of St Levan.

This was high praise indeed because the category in which the book was entered, local and organisational histories, was one of the most prolific. Her writing style was especially complimented, and her keen historian's eye.

Again Donna Anton was the designer and lay-out editor, and this work was commended.

Hypatia, Lydia and Lulu
- the Publication of Letters to Lydia: ‘beloved Persis’
by Barbara Eaton

In southern India in 1994 I came across a small paperback biography of Henry Martyn (1781-1812) of Truro, Cornwall, published by The Henry Martyn Institute for Islamic Studies in Hyderabad.

Back home in Cornwall his story led to intriguing research. In 19th Century biographies Martyn had been acclaimed as an evangelical missionary although in fact he appears to have made few if any converts on his travels in India, Persia and Turkey. His main work was the translation of the New Testament into ‘Hindoostanee’, Urdu, Farsi and Arabic. What had not been revealed was an account of his love affair with Lydia Grenfell of Marazion, Cornwall. Their letters took up to 16 months for delivery and reply by return of post. Some were lost at sea. Transcripts of seventeen of Henry’s letters and his diaries survive and Lydia left a long and often anguished diary.

In getting Letters to Lydia: ‘beloved Persis’ published I found great joy when Melissa Hardie of Hypatia Publications in Penzance offered to publish it with a print run of 500. The Hypatia Trust supports writing by and about women in Cornwall. After the printing cost and wholesale discount the price at £12.50 gave an author’s royalty of 81pence but did not allow for marketing and distribution so in November 2005 I set about giving talks to library and book groups, and visiting the bookshops of west Cornwall, always with a book box in the boot of the car, on the road like the medieval mercators with their bundles of books. The royalties did not cover the petrol.

Interestingly, most copies are sold by the village post office at Mullion and Waterstones in Truro, both using a front cover display with ‘local author, signed copy’ labels. The market beyond West Cornwall remained largely inaccessible although a good review in The Church of England Newspaper produced a batch order from an American seminary.

The runner-up award for adult non-fiction of the Cornish Gorseth’s 2006 Holyer An Gof Literary Awards was a triumph and not too disappointing; the winner was a handsome biography of A. L. Rowse from Exeter University Press.

By the summer of 2007 copies were down to the last box and it was time to consider how to reach the wider audience. A second edition was prepared for an American publisher specialising in book printing on demand (PoD) and internet downloads. Lulu provides rapid single and small order printing in the USA and UK and supplies both direct sales through www.lulu.com and wholesale orders for bookshops and online distributors. The author uploads formatted print-ready .pdf files as to a book printer. Within a few days lulu.com places the book on the lists of major distributors and booksellers in the US and the UK. It also provides advice on formatting, pricing, marketing and engaging search engine potential. A retail price of £12.50 gives the author a royalty of £1 for sales through wholesalers and about £4 for lulu’s direct book sales.

Although avid readers might not imagine that books would be read on a computer, lulu.com also provides a book download service for e-books for which there is a rapidly growing market, rather like audio-books. Readers download books from www.lulu.com to read or print from their own computers or on a book-sized e-reader, an electronic device like a notebook computer to take on the beach or train.

Letters to Lydia: ‘beloved Persis’ is downloaded from lulu.com for £5 of which the author’s royalty is £4.

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HYPATIA NEWSLETTER

Winter Issue January 2008 Volume 11, Issue 1

PRESENTATIONS

Many Students to Benefit at ‘New Homes’ for Collections

In May and June of 2007, two major Collections left Trevelyan House and the Jamieson Library, Newmill respectively, to be catalogued and settled into new venues.

Tremough Campus, Penryn-Falmouth, Cornwall: The CUC

A collection of approximately 600 volumes, combining Women’s Studies with Women’s Literature was presented to the new University Project in Cornwall: Exeter University, University College Falmouth, and their partners. The University Library at Penryn serves all of the students attending the ‘Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC)’. These volumes mainly will be on general access shelves, rather than preserved within a Special Hypatia Collection as they are at Exeter University Library in Devon. Many are duplicates of material already at Exeter, and have been accumulated from donations and purchase since the launch of the Special Collection a decade ago. Doreen Pinfold, the University Librarian, expressed her pleasure at the gift, coming at the time of a new stage in the development of learning resources for the Combined Universities.

Remaining at Trevelyan House, is the Elizabeth Treffry Cornish Collection, with its extensive and growing archival deposits of women writers and artists related to Cornwall. The concept behind this Collection remaining in Penzance is to work together with other libraries and collections – such as the Morrab Library, the Penzance Public Library, Penwith College and the West Cornwall Art Archive – providing a research facility at post-graduate and general public educational levels. Trevelyan House has opened its doors for the first in a series of post-graduate seminars together with the English Department of the Exeter University sector. Of special importance in the building of this centre will be the ‘putting up’ of the Bibliotheca Cornubiensis Femina as an on-line academic resource for those researching women in Cornwall’s history. All will be welcome to contribute to this major learning tool.

Meantime, the ‘mother collection’ at Exeter did not miss out, as several recent purchases of rare finds have also been sent there to join the Hypatia Collection of documents by and about women.

Peter Waverly, Andrew Symons and Melissa Hardie are the curators working on these developments. The curator of the Elizabeth Treffry Collection is currently Peter Waverly, who has been building his Penzance Archive database for over a decade. Our previous curator, Andrew Symons, continues to work with us on the creation of a Quiller-Couch Family Archive. Complementing all of the above is a rich collection of documents related to the arts and artists in Cornwall, past and present that may in time be contributed to the West Cornwall Art Archive. These also offer a major learning tool for students and researchers.

PENZANCE TO BONN .....

..... the wonders & delights of the internet!

When Melissa Hardie met Dr Heiner Gillmeister on the internet in 2006, little did she suspect the outcome. They were both researching an artist [Alfred Pazolt], Melissa for a short entry in the coming dictionary Art and Artists of Newlyn (scheduled now for spring 2008, Art Dictionaries Ltd., Bristol), and Heiner for his coming book on the Irish-born Olympic star, John Pius Boland (scheduled for spring publication 2008, by Bonn University publications). Beginning to correspond on AskART’s index blog, the two discovered each other’s special interests – books, odd quotations, intricacies of language both German & English, and not least, cats!

heiner and Anya

Dr Heiner Gillmeister and his partner, Anya

Paul Wagner

Paul Wagner

Melissa had been collecting books for an American Studies Collection for over 30 years and had named it in honour of her journalist grandfather, Paul Wagner (1889-1937), and her mother, Vera Wagner (1917-2000).

Vera Wagner

Vera Wagner

Heiner introduced Melissa to Professor Sabine Sielke, again via the internet. Sabine is the Director of the English, North American and Celtic Studies Programme at Bonn. The question put was ‘whether or not Bonn University could make a home on their shelves for the collection?’ Naturally, she needed a catalogue of what we offered, so several months were spent with Esmé Stanford, Dr Elspeth Pope (visiting from Washington state, USA) and Melissa, bringing this together for the University’s perusal.

Melissa and Sabine

Melissa with Sabine and a small part of the
Paul & Vera Wagner Collection

The Paul & Vera Wagner Collection was transported from the Jamieson Library to Germany in June 2007, where it is still in process of cataloguing and sorting.

Formally it was received in November by Professor Sabine Sielke at a very enjoyable occasion, held also to celebrate 25 years of the University Women’s Studies Programme. Trustees Melissa Hardie and Phil Budden travelled to Germany for the champagne event, where in addition to speeches (only a little one from Melissa!) new seminar rooms were opened to house the main part of the Collection. The English Department at the University benefited also with some volumes.

HYPATIA-in-the-WOODS .....
... The Holly House at Puget Sound, Washington state, USA, is open

For more than ten years, Dr Elspeth Pope has been working toward the opening of a retreat/residence for women artists and writers, at her lovely home on Puget Sound in Washington state, a short drive from Seattle.

In August 2007, The Holly House was opened, named after her late husband Jim Holly, who always supported women’s causes for equal opportunities of all kinds. It is a beautifully-fitted wooden house, in the Scandinavian style, set in the 15 acres of private wood with water frontage which make up Elspeth’s home. No more beautiful location could be wanted for inspired creativity.

Elspeth and Jim had signalled this desire to be part of the Hypatia movement since the formation of the Trust in Cornwall in 1996. Elspeth attended with Melissa the first major occasion and presentation of the Hypatia Collection at Exeter University in November of that year.

Melissa & Elspeth

Melissa Hardie and Elspeth Pope

To mark this very special occasion for ‘Hypatia International’ Melissa Hardie took the good wishes of the Trustees in Britain to join those of the equivalent Guardians of the new Holly House. It was a memorable week of making many new friends, and visiting some that have also been here.

A founding friends scheme has also opened for those who would like to contribute to the new adventure.

Check out the Hypatia-in-the-Woods website for details – and also apply to visit there. It is simply wonderful.

FELLOWSHIP FIRST for HYPATIA

Hilary Orange has been selected to be the first post-graduate Research Fellow associated with the new Hypatia Fellowship programme. Her Ph.D. fieldwork is to be part supported by the Trust, and her residency in West Cornwall will be at the Jamieson Library, Newmill (March 2008).

Currently in her 2nd year at University College London (UCL), her research topic is Public Perceptions of Cornish Mining Landscapes, with a subsidiary focus on the new status of World Heritage Site. Her general research interests lie in public archaeology and cultural heritage, especially in the ‘sense of place’.

Hilary currently works part-time at the British Museum as a Treasure Assistant, and previously lectured in archaeology at Truro College. In Cornwall she has had field experience with the Time Team at Gear Farm, Helston, and with the Iron Age settlement at Truro College sports ground, amongst other sites. She has an MA in Public Archaeology (Distinction & Master’s Award), awarded at UCL in 2006, and is a member of the Cornwall Archaeological Society and the Council for British Archaeology.

THANKSGIVING CELEBRATION for NORNA JAMIESON - OUR JAMIE (1910-2007)

The Jamieson Library, an important part of the Hypatia Trust activity base, was named, in 1986, in honour of ‘Jamie’ (pronounced Jimmy). Lucy Norna Jamieson was Melissa’s senior nurse tutor at St Thomas’ Hospital (1967-71) where she was in charge of the experimental Graduate Set, devised by the General Nursing Council, to draw university-qualified women into nursing.

She was herself a graduate of Edinburgh University before training as a nurse under the legendary Dame Alicia Lloyd Still (selected by Florence Nightingale to head up the nation’s first nursing school) at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, and the Rotunda Hospital (Midwifery), Dublin.

At the outbreak of WWII she volunteered as a nurse and worked widely throughout the Middle East, Far East and Northern Africa before returning to teach nursing for the rest of her career. Retiring from Tommys in the late 1970s, she determined to live out her years working in her ancestral islands, the Shetlands. And what an adventure that was – as she was eagerly taken on as a relief nurse on the off-islands! Melissa has collected her letters, photographs, etc. and visited her there a number of times, for festive times like Up-Helly-A, and in 2000 for her 90th birthday.

Jamie, in one of her magnificent Shetland sweaters, at the opening of the Jamieson Library in 1986

This picture shows Jamie being invested with the British Empire medal in 1991.

On Sunday 25th November 2007 about 60 friends of Hypatia gathered at Newmill to celebrate Jamie’s life.

This picture is of an exhibit about her life, in the library which carries her name.

ANN KELLEY WINS 2007 COSTA CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARD

Hypatia member, Ann Kelley, from St. Ives, has won this prestigious award, and a £5,000 prize, for her book The Bower Bird.

The book is the second in a trilogy that tells the story of Gussie, a 12-year-old who needs a heart and lung transplant. She suffers from the same condition that Ann’s son, Nathan, died of, 22 years ago.

Ann is also the author of Poetry Remedy, published by Patten Press and available from Hypatia Publications.

You can visit Ann's website by clicking here.

There is a very good article about Ann and The Bower Bird on The Daily Telegraph website. You can access it by clicking here.