World Friendship Day is Sunday 30th July 2023. To celebrate we asked PhD student Grace Marks to tell us about her research into friendship. You can also view our curated list of books to celebrate online or in the Libby app.
Who am I?
My name is Grace Marks, and I am currently researching friendship in the Nineteenth Century for my PhD at Edge Hill University. As part of my project, I am working in the university archive, exploring the collection to trace the real friendships of the earliest cohorts of students.
By tracing these students, we get a better idea of college life in the late 1800s. But we can also bring back the voices of real women, real friends, from the forgotten depths. One crucial way of hearing the voices of the past students and their friendships is by exploring the Friendship Books, ten exciting and completely unique albums filled with writings, drawings, and inside jokes.
My role at Edge Hill University’s Archive started early 2022 as a researcher. I would use the index cards allocated to students that go as far back as the first cohort in 1885 and investigate their lives using other records in the archive and websites such as FindMyPast, Ancestry, and the British Newspaper Archive. We have uncovered stories such as missionaries in India, an early student that went on to become a pioneering education reformer, and a student who has become infamous in the archive after we found a poem detailing a rebellious midnight feast before the Christmas holidays.
Jessie Reid Crosbie (far left), a teacher and education reformer, who pioneered what would become Parent-Teacher Associations. (Photo courtesy of Christine Mougne)Annie Williams, an early student at Edge Hill College who went to Assam, India, as a missionary.(more…)
