In collaboration with
National Library of Wales
Exhibition: 5-9 February 2018, Summers Room
Lunchtime talk: 1pm, 7 February 2018, the Drwm.
Mary-Ann Constantine will explore the highlights of a four-year project on the Tours of Thomas Pennant (1726–1798) and those who followed in his footsteps. A selection of Pennant’s books and manuscripts will be on display throughout the week in the Library’s Summers Room.
Event held in English
Glasgow, September 8th 2023
Programme
Coffee and Welcome (9.45 am)
Session 1: (10am- 11.20am)
Opening lecture by Professor Murray Pittock (Glasgow): ‘Vacant Spaces: British policy and the landscapes of memory after Culloden’.
Nigel Leask (Glasgow): ‘Pennant and the Scottish Enlightenment: The Beinecke Copy of Tour in Scotland 1772’.
Alex Deans (Glasgow): ‘I never met with a finer field for the Zoologist to range in’: preliminary reflections on natural history and editing Pennant’s Tour in Scotland 1769’.
Break (11.20am)
Session 2: (11.40 – 1pm).
Alan Montgomery (Independent Scholar): ‘In the midst of Classical ground”: Thomas Pennant’s Encounters with Roman Scotland’.
Colm Murray (Independent Scholar): ‘Captain Sir William Smith: evidence for a Scottish Sojourn with Cordiner, & Irish military journeys’.
Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart (Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, UHI) ‘Pennant, Johnson, Boswell, and the Hebrideans’.
Buffet lunch in the building (1-2pm).
Session 3: (2 pm- 3.30pm)
Lisa Cardy (NHM) & Luca Guariento (Glasgow): ’Crowdsourcing and tagging Thomas Pennant’s Extra Illustrated Tours of Wales and Scotland’.
Edwin Rose (Cambridge/NHM) ‘Thomas Pennant and the Practice of Natural History’.
Elizabeth Edwards (CAWCS) ‘The limits of the antient’: Thomas Pennant’s Chester and his Tours in Wales.
Break (3.30pm)
Session 4 (3.50pm-5.30pm)
Rhys Kaminski-Jones (University of Wales): ‘Doctor Druid and the “Druids of India”’.
Stephanie Holt (NHM): ‘Gilbert White’s Gibraltar and Pennant’s ‘Outlines of the Globe’.
Finola O’Kane (UCD) & M-A Constantine (CAWCS): ‘Pennant’s Irish Tour Notebooks of 1754’.
For more information contact: curioustravellers2023@glasgow.ac.uk
5.30 pm: Wine Reception, with C18th Scottish fiddle and cello music performed by Claudia Edwards & Joanna Stark
To book, please contact Dr Johnson’s House.
Moses Griffith, Penmaen Bach from Penmaen Mawr Road: from the extra-illustrated Tours in Wales
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Penmaenbach_from_Penmaen_Mawr_road.jpg]
The research team has been focused for the last few months on preparing selections of letters and tours for online publication. We are planning to launch the first batch of these at a conference to be held this November in the Linnaean Society in London (details below). Getting texts ready for digital publication has proved to be quite a challenge, involving technical aspects (such as tagging names) that go well beyond the usual editorial tasks. But this will make it possible to search the material in many different ways: it should lead to some interesting new angles on Pennant’s correspondence, and will help us to understand how later writers and travellers used his work. We are, as ever, hugely grateful to our technical team, Luca Guariento and Vivien Williams, for having made this complex process as easy as possible for us.
The project is in its final year of funding, and we plan to celebrate four very busy years with a series of events in London, centred on a three-month exhibition to be held in the wonderful setting of the Dr Johnson House Museum. Working with Curator Celine Luppo McDaid, we will explore the famous Highland tour made by Johnson and Boswell in 1775 and its relation to Pennant’s own tours. The letters and tour diaries of Hester Piozzi – Johnson’s close friend and Pennant’s neighbour and relation – will also be included. Various events are planned during the course of the exhibition: please note the following dates!
4 October: Exhibition Opens: Curious Travellers: Dr Johnson and Thomas Pennant on Tour
30 October: Dr Mary-Ann Constantine will give a lecture to the Cymmrodorion Society
15 November (evening event): Professor Murray Pittock and Professor Nigel Leask will give talks on Johnson and Pennant.
16 November: Day conference and launch of digital texts in the Linnaean Society, Burlington House
14 December: An evening of poetry and music at the Dr Johnson House with Scottish and Welsh writers Alec Finlay and Ifor ap Glyn.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson#/media/File:Samuel_Johnson_by_Joshua_Reynolds.jpg]
We are already over half way through the project, and behind the scenes work is progressing on transcribing, editing and tagging Letters and Tours with a great deal of help from our systems developer Luca Guariento, and our new project assistant Vivien Williams. We have now added a Research Blog to our website, which, like the Walkers’ Blog is open to anyone who wishes to contribute. Several events are planned for the next few months where members of the team will be talking about their work; and we’re delighted to say that the wonderful exhibition which ran at Oriel Sycharth last year will be moving to North Wales, and then to Aberystwyth this summer. A volume of essays on Pennant’s Tours of Scotland & Wales, edited by Mary-Ann Constantine and Nigel Leask, is due out from Anthem Press this spring.
January 26-27, London: Alex Deans gave a paper on Pennant & Banks: ‘With a facility of communication’: Pennant, Banks and collaborative knowledge-making’ at a National Portrait Gallery Workshop: ‘Science, Self-fashioning and Representation in Joseph Banks’s Circles’. [abstract]
February 17, Edinburgh: Nigel Leask and Alex Deans spoke about mapping the Pennant Tours at the National Library of Scotland.
March 8, Glasgow: Nigel Leask will give a lecture on Thomas Pennant to the Royal Philosophical Society in Glasgow.
April 29 (Edge Hill University): Kirsty McHugh will speak on ‘Leeds, Loch Lomond & the Lakes: the Marshalls, the Wordsworths and home tourism’ at Romanticism takes to the hills.
April 29, Oriel Môn, Llangefni, Anglesey: a Welsh-language day-conference devoted to the Morris brothers. Ffion Jones will give a paper on mutual friends and acquaintances of William Morris and Thomas Pennant. [programme]
May 6 Penpont, Brecon (day-conference, all welcome!): Windows on the World: C18th & C19th Travellers to and from Breconshire. [Programme].
Mid-May – end June: Exhibition: Landscape, Movement, Art at Oriel Brondanw, Llanfrothen. Look out for associated talks and events. We are also hoping the exhibition will move to Old College, Aberystwyth for the month of July – details to follow.
May 12, Oxford (public lecture): Mary-Ann Constantine will give the 2017 O’ Donnell lecture: ‘Curious Traveller: Britons, Britain and Britishness in Thomas Pennant’s Tours’.
June 7-9, Dublin: Mary-Ann Constantine will give a keynote lecture to the annual Eighteenth Century Ireland Society Conference, on C18th Welsh Travellers to Ireland (including Thomas Pennant, who visited as a young man in 1754).
July 10-12, Aberystwyth. Borders and Crossings International Conference, Mary-Ann Constantine will be giving a key-note lecture on Romantic-era travel writing and Coasts, and Liz Edwards will be talking about Hester Piozzi’s Home Tours.
July 29-31, York. British Association for Romantic Studies. Curious Travellers will be offering a panel of three papers by Alex Deans, Kirsty McHugh and Mary-Ann Constantine; Liz Edwards will speak on the tours of Hester Piozzi, and Nigel Leask is giving a key-note lecture on radical pedestrian tours.
October 18 (public lecture): Nigel Leask will be giving the 26th Annual Thomas Pennant Society Lecture at Holywell.
Please do contact us if you have any queries, would like one of our team to talk to your group or society, or if you’d like to write something for either of our blogs.
Walk around Hafod
15/06/16
The day will consist of a leisurely walk of about four miles in total, with frequent stops for talks and performances. Many (though not all) of these will happen during the first part of the day, so participants could leave earlier if desired. We will aim to have a lateish lunch (bring a picnic) about 1.15. We will be following marked paths, but please be aware that some of these are steep and slippery – more so in the afternoon when we head up to the Cascade. There is no charge for the day, but contributions towards Eglwys Newydd and Hafod Trust would be welcome. There is NO mobile phone coverage: nearest landline is Hafod Estate Offices. Bring anoraks, sun-cream and midge-spray!
Times below are very approximate and our progress will depend on the number of people who turn up. Besides the scheduled talks there will be more impromptu readings / songs as we walk. Any further queries please contact mary-ann.constantine@cymru.ac.uk.
10.30: Gather at Eglwys Newydd church: parking and toilet available. The Friends of Eglwys Newydd have organized a small exhibition and are kindly offering tea and coffee. The artist Sarah Byfield may be showing some of her maps.
10.50: Jennie MacVe: welcome on behalf of the Hafod Trust
11.20: Easy walk down (part of the Lady’s Walk) from church to Estates office (20-30 minutes)
11.50 – 12.30: Short talks by Peter Wakelin (the painter John Piper at Hafod) and Peter Stevenson (current film project on stories from the area).
12.30 – 12.50: Outside the ruins of the house: landscape archaeologist Andy Peters on the Treescapes at Hafod.
12.50 -1.10 Easy walk to Mrs Johnes’ Flower Garden. Picnic here if nice, and a chance to explore the work of artist Christine Watkins, who will be making a labyrinth on the grass.
Short talk by Michael Freeman on tourists to Wales.
2.15 pm: Walk (20-30 minutes) from garden, over bridge and loop right, cutting diagonally up to Gentleman’s Walk, and along to the wooded knoll by Pant Melyn.
2.45: Short talk by Mary-Ann Constantine on Iolo Morganwg’s visit to Hafod in 1799.
3pm onwards. From here people can visit the Cavern Cascade (10 minutes’ walk) in small groups – note the path is steep and slippery.
3.30: Option to head directly or indirectly back to Church – the latter route will take in the Chain Bridge and the newly restored Gothic arch, and will probably add 20-30 minutes to the walk.
4-4.30 return to Eglwys Newydd and depart.
