Thomas Pennant’s Tour in Scotland 1769, Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Western Isles 1772 (published 1771–74), and his Tours in Wales (1778–1783) played a foundational role in in the birth of tourism in Britain’s “Celtic fringe”. In addition to these print publications, Pennant compiled bespoke hand-illustrated volumes for his own personal use. These weighty tomes, which include drawings and paintings by Moses Griffith, John Ingleby, and other artists are unique literary artworks created for Pennant’s own library at Downing Hall, Flintshire. The Extra-Illustrated Tours of Wales and Scotland are held at Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru / The National Library of Wales (LLGC/NLW), have been digitised, and can be browsed online for free via NLW’s IIIF Viewers. But because the illustrations do not have any associated metadata to describe what they depict, it is not possible to search and discover the people, places, plants and animals drawn or painted in these rich resources.
That’s where you come in. Our newly launched crowdsourcing project, run in collaboration with the NLW’s crowdsourcing team and project partner the University of Glasgow, will link the text in the digital editions of the Tours in Wales and Scotland to the related illustrations in the digitised Extra-Illustrated Tours, providing new research data for the editorial team and greatly enhancing the NLW’s existing digitised resource. We have run tests to generate these links, and you can see the proof of concept results by searching for ‘Basingwerk Abbey’ in the Places index in the Curious Travellers editions Indices (see below, left), then clicking ‘See in the viewer’, which will take you to the relevant illustration in NLW’s IIIF Viewer (see below, right).
We would LOVE your help to create more of these links and connections, a crowdsourcing project which we have called Picturing Pennant. This is not just a job for experts (although they’re very welcome to join in). Anyone who has an interest in Wales and Scotland, travel literature, history, geology, nature and natural history, the eighteenth century, local knowledge of the areas Pennant visited, or just an unexpected enthusiasm for the project will have something they can contribute. Follow this link to see our pdf guide, which shows just how easy some of the tagging jobs can be, and follow this link to access the project website and sign up for your free tagging account (which is accessible in both English and Cymraeg).
Thank you all in advance for helping to make the history of enlightenment travel more accessible!
Lisa Cardy (Library and Archives, the Natural History Museum, @lisacardy.bsky.social)
