18. A Year in the Life of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House
Posted
16th February 2025
in 10 year Anniversary, blog, Blogs & News, Gaskell House Blogs
10-16 February 2025
Love is in the air this week. Our social feed is filled with photos, and quotes from romantic literary heroes and our (sell-out) online talk on Wednesday set hearts racing as we discussed how Elizabeth Gaskell, Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte tackled love and romance in their famous works. We also ran a second/repeat session of the two hour workshop ‘A Man’s World’ about Mr Thornton and Rochester – which had sold out the week before so we could satisfy all those who couldn’t book on last week.
The week started with our Fundraising Working Group meeting on Monday to discuss plans for an event to thank some of our private donors for their support over the years and ways to continue to promote the £10 to support 10 years appeal. We had a good response to the email we sent out in January and we want to make sure we keep up the momentum. Like so many small museums, we are struggling financially to bridge the gap between income and expenditure and it’s vital that we continue to encourage people to support us through donations.
Our Friends newsletter was sent out on Tuesday and included details of this year’s book repair and sponsorship programme, and other ‘behind the scenes’ stories and news from the House. The book sponsorship programme this year includes Sylvia’s Lovers in three volumes, which is in very poor condition, and a copy of Charlotte Bronte’s The Professor. This annual programme has enabled us to repair nearly 30 books from our collection over the past 3 years and we hope our supporters will continue to see value in the scheme.
We also welcomed a private tour of staff and volunteers from the National Trust’s Quarry Bank on Tuesday (who shared a lovely post on Facebook about their visit) and I attended the steering group for Manchester City Council’s plans for International Women’s Day (IWD) in Manchester. Closer to home Lynda confirmed our own event for IWD which will be a joint event with Bronte Parsonage Museum and Chawton House, and tickets went on sale!
On Wednesday we received some sad news that one of our regular volunteers had had a stroke the previous week and was in hospital. After several phone calls we found out he would like visitors and we were able to share his condition with several volunteers, who visited him later in the week.
As it was ‘Student Volunteer Week’ Katy shared some photos and messages on our socials about the wide variety of work our student volunteers do and have done for the House. This includes the placement we currently have with two students from the University of Manchester who came in on Wednesday to continue with the condition reports they are producing on objects within the collection.
Sunday was the start on the half-term holiday, so there was craft activities to set-up (thank you Lynda and her daughter) and reminders to share with the volunteers about what we offer for families. We also reviewed and updated the online information (on the website and the new app) that we have about what families can expect when they visit the House. This also linked in nicely to a new blog about Elizabeth Gaskell and Cats , which Lizzie, one of our volunteers has researched and written for us, which explains why we have our Cranford the Cat trial and who this famous cat was.
Sally Jastrzebski-Lloyd
