CityLife

Exhibition: Elizabeth Gaskell: A Connected Life

A miniature of Elizabeth Gaskell

John Rylands Library - July 15 to November 28, 2010

The Gothic grandeur of Deansgate’s John Rylands Library has housed an extensive collection of artefacts from authoress Elizabeth Gaskell’s life and career for over 70 years, but in the bicentenary year of her birth they are enjoying a great revival in interest.

Developing a picture of Gaskell, the woman, has been made extensively easier by the large collection of letters she left behind.

A prolific correspondent who regularly instructed the recipients to ‘burn’ her letters once they had read them, Gaskell was a lively, intelligent woman: a fashion conscious explorer and socially aware mother of five.

But this new exhibition at the John Rylands Library is a reminder of how well connected Mrs Gaskell was – both to the upper echelons of society and to the factory workers and worshippers that attended the Cross Street Chapel, in central Manchester, where her husband William was a minister.

Elizabeth Gaskell: A Connected Life brings together letters sent by Elizabeth to friends and family and original manuscripts of her Wives And Daughters novel and Charlotte Bronte biography.

A letter from Charles Dickens inviting Elizabeth to write for his weekly paper, Household Words (dated 1850) also features. The famous watercolour miniature of Elizabeth will be given a rare outing as well as some of Elizabeth’s personal belongings, including her inkstand, passport, collection of autographs, a diary recording her first daughter’s early development (on loan from Leeds University Library), her personal Book Of Common Prayer, and a Wedgwood teapot believed to be from the Gaskell house.

Assistant archivist and curator Fran Baker says the collection has long been a draw for academics from as far away as America and Japan because of the provenance of the collection, which comes from Elizabeth’s daughters, collector John Geoffrey Sharps and also the Jamison family, friends of the Gaskells.

“Elizabeth mixed in very different circles and we wanted to explore that with this exhibition,” she says.

“She came from a religious background, and that drove her social conscience.

“As a Unitarian, she was involved in reform, and as the wife of a minister she would teach in Sunday school.

“She wanted to highlight the problems for people who were living in appalling conditions in Manchester, and she was trying to get the people and the leaders to speak to each other.” The exhibition also offers a unique opportunity for visitors to see some of the Gaskell artefacts up close.

Fran will be leading three tours of additional archived items, including one on Elizabeth’s birthday on September 29.

“The tours are an opportunity for people to see these items without having to look through the glass,” adds Fran.

“I will be taking people behind the scenes to show them the books and explain a little more about Elizabeth’s life and times.”

Opens July 15 at John Rylands Library, Deansgate, until November 28. Free. Curator tours are on July 24, September 29 and November 10, midday-12.45pm. £3 (booking essential: 0161 306 0555, jrul.events@manchester.ac.uk).