Research Director: Dr Melissa Hardie BA, PhD, FRSA, FLS, Hon Fellow, Exeter University
Research Associates: Donna Anton, Polly Attwood, Jane Gosney FRSA, FSLL, Nick Harpley, Helen Hoyle, David Philp, Kelvin Hearn, Jenny Scolding, Percy Darukhanawala, Joanne Schofield,

Bibliotheca Cornubiensis Femina
Women writing Cornwall, past & present

In process of formatting data. This will be an on-line bibliography of women writers that mirrors the considerable work continuing on the Cornwall Art Archive below. This project is being underwritten by past funding from the Q Fund (Cornwall Council), Cyprus Well Literature Development Fund (2010-2011) and the Hypatia Research Fund.

Launched in late November of 2011: The on-line CORNWALL ARTISTS' INDEX: fine art & artisans

Input form currently on-line at http://cornwallartists.org

Please visit and spread the word - we are receiving many, many hits, and corresponding with a huge world-wide network of connections.

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.

Files of artists' papers, cuttings, scrapbooks, exhibition catalogues, and the fine art auctions that follow suit, are available for researchers. The objective is to offer a central resource website both for academic researchers, students and family historians who want to know more about the 'Cornish experience' of artists they know, or can contribute knowledge, about 'time spent in the Cornish environs,' by their subjects.

Links are to the West Cornwall Art Archive, Penlee House, Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, University College (Falmouth), The Tate Gallery St Ives, The Royal Cornwall Museum in addition to other galleries, museums and historical archives in Cornwall. Open by appointment.
Editorial team: Malcolm W Dyer (Dyer Collection editor, 18th & 19th century drawings and engravings), Melissa Hardie (General editor), Helen Hoyle (Women's editor), Percy Darukhanawala (Modernist & contemporary), Kelvin Hearn (21st century);

IT team: Nick Harpley, David Philp

Johns-Carrington Archive
A botanical & literary collection

Stemming from the research carried out for the book, A Passion for Nature, 19th-Century Naturalism in the Circle of Charles Alexander Johns (2008), a large collection of books and papers is gathering around the subjects of the Cornish natural environment, guidebooks, botanical illustration (Emily Stackhouse, Ann Catherine Johns, Emily Johns Carrington), photography and the men and women who have recorded the natural history of Cornwall in visual and literary ways. The Rev C A Johns, the author of A Week at the Lizard, and Flowers of the Field, both bestsellers of the 19th century passion for learning about the world around us, also gathered a large circle, including his family, of creative writers and artists around him, one of these the poet NT Carrington, the 'poet of Dartmoor'; Johns's sister Emily was also married to Carrington's son Henry, the editor, printer and publisher of the Bath Chronicle. Family scrapbooks, letters, poems and momentoes have been added to the Archive in 2011 by the generosity of the great niece of Johns, Imogen Thomas of Dorset. We are most grateful to her for this confidence and gift to the Cornish Collections. Melissa Hardie spoke on the topic 'C A Johns, Devonport Botanist: A West Country publishing profile' for the Opening Session of the Diamond Jubilee Congress of the West Country Writers Association (WCWA) held at Plymouth 17-19 April, 2011.

In time & place: inspiration and practice
The Patten People

In a life-time, an individual may develop many passions, sometimes following this in a career path, other times as a side-line of interests. How to document that interest, and to be able to pass it on - in written words, images, or in teaching - and thereby contribute to the universal flow of inspired thought, is the task that all can share. The Patten People series of essays, was devised from 1980 by a circle of friends, sometimes in far-flung places, to document their own inspirations and practices in wide-ranging fields of the arts. The introducer of these essays, Melissa Hardie, remains intent upon publishing the final version of the twelve essays with their illustrations in the near future (date not yet confirmed & dependent upon funding possibilities) as a tribute to the times and places through which the authors have lived.

The authors involved in this project are the following: Mervyn Levy (art critic), Roy Lewis (printer & historian), Frances Partridge (diarist)*, E Lamorna Kerr (artist)*, Gerald Priestland (author), Annette Massie (theatre promoter), Colin Scott-Sutherland (collector & author), Ian Nalder (author & sportsman), Katherine Tait (author), Leslie Kerman (academic & artist), Jessica Mann (novelist), and Jane Gosney (lighting designer, author).
Editor: Melissa Hardie

* abstracted reprints have appeared elsewhere

A collection of historical documents, family files, and photographs about the town of Penzance, and the nearby villages in the West Cornwall area of Penwith, its purpose is to serve as a resource for enquirers on any and all subjects related to the area. A final destination for this Collection has not been located, but it will be conserved to join any future attempt to establish a local heritage centre for Penzance. The publishing archives of two books published by Hypatia Publications in recent years, form the basis for this Archive: 1) Penzance, The town and around (2000), by Melissa Hardie, published by Penzance Town Council to mark the centennial, and given to every pupil in West Cornwall schools, and 2) Even in this Place, 19th-century Nonconformists & Life in the Borough of Penzance (2010) by John Horner, an Holyer an Gof Award winner in 2011. Other material is gathered as gifted, or purchased in bookshops or at auction.