By Jeremy Dibbell

Last Thursday, the MHS hosted sixteen members of the Martineau Society, a group based at Manchester College, Oxford and devoted to the “preservation, study and publication in the public interest of material relating to the Martineau family of Norwich in the 19th century and the principles of freedom of conscience advocated by Harriet Martineau and her brother, Dr. James Martineau.” Librarian Peter Drummey displayed manuscript materials from our collections related to Martineau and her works, while curator of art Anne Bentley showed paintings, medals and other artifacts.

Among the items shown was a Harriet Martineau manuscript, a long letter to an unidentified recipient about a trans-Atlantic voyage, in the form of a journal, 3-25 August 1836. This letter, from the George E. Nitzsche Unitariana Collection, 1778-2007 (collection guide) was printed in edited form as an appendix to Martineau’s Autobiography (1877). The manuscript copy in the Nitzsche collection contains several drawings by Martineau, and also includes the names of those discussed in the letter (which are changed in the printed version).