RCSI Heritage Collections

With the scary season upon us RCSI Heritage Collections decided to have a look in the archives and see what Halloween-esque material we could find to share with you. And oh how the archives did not let us down!  The year is 1856.  The town is Rugeley, Staffordshire .  The crime is the..   Poisoning of John Cook by his friend William Palmer! High Street, Rugeley. Palmer's house is in the centre background with the bay window. The crime scene is the Talbot Arms Hotel, to the left foreground.  William Palmer was born in Rugeley in 1824 and was the sixth of eight children. At 17 years old he was apprenticed to a Liverpool chemist but was dismissed after three months for stealing. Palmer travelled to London where he qualified as a physician in August 1846. He returns home and soon people he drinks with (George Abley), he is related to (his mother-in-law Ann Thornton) and who are horse racing acquaintances (Leonard Bladen) start to become seriously ...

Special collections and archives house unique one-off priceless pieces of historically valuable and irreplaceable material. This material can be made out of paper, skin, wood, bone, metal, animal – you name it and it is most likely stored away and cared for in an archive. When you think of these unique and priceless items; the Book of Kells, the Magna Carta, a letter written by Padraig Pearse. These are the types of things that can spring to mind.......not necessarily sweet wrappers. But never fear lovers of all things sweet and  confectionery  related! There is an  archivist or two out there who is  squirrelling away all the  shiny  paper, crinkly bags, plastic wrappings that once covered sweets of any and every sort. Yummy sweets from the 1980s Want to know more about these  confectionery  collectors or indeed why they exist?? Click here and here        H a p p y H a l l o w e e n ...