✋ Join us for an evening talk on 27 August at Two Temple Place exploring how making and mending shaped Victorian Britain and why these skills still matter today! Tickets at the 🔗 below. twotempleplace.org/events/makin...

Celebration of Makers Talk: The Hands that Made the Victorian World - Two Temple Place

Two Temple Place, one of London’s hidden architectural gems, hosts exhibitions and events and is owned by the charity The Bulldog Trust.

twotempleplace.org

Back in May, Doireann Ní Ghríofa and @victorianhand.bsky.social came together to discuss how tactility and the symbolism of the hand can bring us closer to history. Listen to a recording of the event now. faber.co.uk/journal/podcast-touching-time-doireann-ni-ghriofa-x-the-victorian-hand-project/

Podcast: Touching Time: Doireann Ní Ghríofa x The Victorian Hand Project

In this podcast episode, Doireann Ní Ghríofa and Helen Victoria Murray use Said the Dead as the basis for their discussion about how tactility and the symbolism of the hand can bring us closer to…

faber.co.uk

📖 Earlier this year, our Research Associate, Helen Murray, was in conversation with Doireann Ní Ghríofa to mark the publication of Said the Dead at @faberbooks.bsky.social! Listen to the podcast of the event to hear about how hands can bring us closer to history. www.faber.co.uk/journal/podc...

I am very pleased to share this article on women in surgery from my good friend John Collins. It is Open Access and well worth a read. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Breaking Barriers: The History of Women's Education and the Training of Female Surgeons

Background and Aims Medicine and surgery have been practised by women since the earliest of times, but as these activities became professionalised, they became excluded by various barriers. The aims...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

🎞️ We are delighted that Manual, the first film by our project filmmaker Lily Ford, is available to watch! Blending Victorian self-help culture with contemporary digital media, the film explores ideas of labour, self-improvement, class, gender and creativity through the hand. youtu.be/LhDyk5G02BY

Manual

YouTube video by The Victorian Hand

youtu.be

🪡 On Friday we explored practices of mending with The Quilters' Guild of the British Isles and textile artist Ruth Singer. We reflected on the meaning of mending, past and present, and tried our hand at repairing nineteenth century textiles!

Tickets are now available for our event celebrating Said the Dead. In this event, Doireann Ní Ghríofa and Helen Victoria Murray of @victorianhand.bsky.social will discuss about how tactility and the symbolism of the hand can bring us closer to history. www.faber.co.uk/product/touc...

Touching Time: Doireann Ní Ghríofa x The Victorian Hand Project

In this event, Doireann Ní Ghríofa and Helen Victoria Murray will use Said the Dead as the basis for their discussion about how tactility and the symbolism of the hand can bring us closer to history,…

faber.co.uk

We are delighted to be partnering with colleagues from Lancaster University for a free workshop at Lancaster City Museum exploring the histories of touch! Tickets: www.eventbrite.com/e/histories-...

Also, stay tuned for the announcement of a PERMANENT post in Late Medieval / Early Modern History.

The second post is Lecturer in Global Environmental History, with a preference for those working in the period 1500-1800. Please contact me if you have any queries. hr-jobs.lancs.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

Job Opportunity at Lancaster University: Lecturer in Global Environmental History

The School of Global Affairs at Lancaster University is seeking to appoint a Lecturer in Global Environmental History. This is a 1.0 FTE post for 12 months starting on 1 August 2026, or as soon as pos...

hr-jobs.lancs.ac.uk

📢 JOB ALERT📢 Please spread the word that there are 2x1-year, F/T (Teaching & Research) posts going in History @ Lancaster: Lecturer in Modern British History (1800-2000), with a focus on the social & cultural histories of the economy, advertising, or consumerism. hr-jobs.lancs.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

Job Opportunity at Lancaster University: Lecturer in Modern British History

Lecturer in Modern British History, c1800-2000 The School of Global Affairs at Lancaster University is seeking to appoint a Lecturer in Modern British History, c.1800-2000 (Teaching and Scholarship). ...

hr-jobs.lancs.ac.uk

We are delighted to be taking part in this exciting event - ‘Touching Time’ - which launches Doireann Ní Ghríofa's brilliant new book Said the Dead. Follow the link to book a ticket for 20 May, 7pm, at The Bindery, London. www.faber.co.uk/product/touc...

Touching Time: Doireann Ní Ghríofa x The Victorian Hand Project

In this event, Doireann Ní Ghríofa and Helen Victoria Murray will use Said the Dead as the basis for their discussion about how tactility and the symbolism of the hand can bring us closer to history, ...

faber.co.uk

✍️ Our Public Engagement Fellow, rosscmrn.bsky.social, sheds light on the origins of our project in the latest Bulletin of The Royal College of Surgeons of England! Read the full article here: publishing.rcseng.ac.uk/doi/full/10....

Our latest blog by Public Engagement Fellow @rosscmrn.bsky.social reflects on the first two Work of Mending workshops, where sewing and surgery were brought into dialogue to explore how identity is shaped through what we do with our hands. Read more here: www.thevictorianhand.uk/gallery/surg...

🫀 On Friday we held the second Work of Mending workshop at @hunterianmuseum.bsky.social, exploring pride in skill across histories of surgery and craft. Thank you to everyone who joined and we’re looking forward to continuing the conversation at our next workshop at The Quilters' Guild in York!

We launched our Work of Mending workshop series at The Quilters' Guild in York, exploring skilled hands from the nineteenth century to the present day. Thank you to everyone who joined and we’re looking forward to continuing the conversation at our next workshop at @hunterianmuseum.bsky.social!

🤝 AI is back in the headlines and still can’t get hands right. In this month’s blog, our Research Associate Helen Victoria Murray looks at Glasgow’s arts community response to a proposed AI-generated mural. Read the full blog to explore the debate: www.thevictorianhand.uk/gallery/ai-s...

We are delighted to invite you to take part in The Work of Mending workshops with @hunterianmuseum.bsky.social at The Royal College of Surgeons of England! This series of creative workshops explores the meaning of hands and handwork, past and present. Tickets: www.eventbrite.com/cc/the-work-...

🎥 In Robert Wiene’s The Hands of Orlac (1924), hands are the protagonists. After a train accident, a pianist receives transplanted hands from a murderer, which seem disturbingly autonomous and reflect early twentieth-century anxieties about prosthetics, fingerprinting, and modern medicine.

We're so excited about these workshops. Stay tuned for more news soon about dates.

The Victorian Hand@victorianhand.bsky.social · 6mo ago

We are delighted to be partnering with @hunterianmuseum.bsky.social at The Royal College of Surgeons of England in our research on hands, craft and haptic skill in the nineteenth century! Stay tuned for news about our collaboration and how to get involved!

We are delighted to be partnering with @hunterianmuseum.bsky.social at The Royal College of Surgeons of England in our research on hands, craft and haptic skill in the nineteenth century! Stay tuned for news about our collaboration and how to get involved!

We’re delighted to announce the first workshops in our Work of Mending series, in partnership with The Quilters’ Guild. These hands-on, research-led workshops explore what hands do and what they mean in historical and contemporary handwork. Tickets: www.eventbrite.com/cc/the-work-...

@victorianhand.bsky.social is running a series of workshops exploring our hands as agents of making & mending in collaboration with the Quilters' Guild & @collegeofsurgeons.bsky.social. You can sign up for the QG workshops here with dates for the RCS to follow: www.eventbrite.com/cc/the-work-...

The Work of Mending

The Work of Mending is a series of research-led, hands-on workshops exploring what hands do and what they mean across histories of making, repairing and caring.

eventbrite.com

🙌 Two weeks on from The Hand: Emotions, Embodiment and Identity conference, we reflect on the stimulating contributions of scholars, artists and makers who explored the hand across historical, cultural and creative contexts. Read our latest blog here: www.thevictorianhand.uk/gallery/conf...

A huge thank you to all our delegates for joining The Hand: Emotion, Embodiment, Identity! Your ideas, questions and conversations made the conference such a rewarding and inspiring event. We are grateful to everyone who contributed and helped make it a success 🤝

✋ This 1845 daguerreotype captured the branded hand of Jonathan Walker - marked ‘SS’ for ‘slave stealer’ after he tried to help enslaved people escape Florida. Intended as punishment, it became an abolitionist symbol, though his story often overshadowed those of the enslaved people he sought to aid.

⚔️ Götz von Berlichingen lost his hand to a cannonball in 1504 and commissioned an iron prosthesis with hinged, lockable fingers for use in battle. He later adopted a more advanced model - one of the earliest functioning mechanical prosthetic hands - which he used across his military career.

🌎 What happens when a travel writer navigates the world through touch? This month’s blog explores the journeys of James Holman, the self-described ‘Blind Traveller’, and how his haptic encounters challenged the visual conventions of travel writing. www.thevictorianhand.uk/gallery/the-...

In 1895 Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered mysterious ‘X-rays’. His image of his wife’s hand - bones and wedding ring visible - captivated Europe. X-rays transformed medicine, revealing the body’s interior without surgery. Early radiologists paid a price, as missing hands became a mark of the work.

🧵 We are delighted to be partnering with The Quilters’ Guild! The Guild aims to give quilt-making the status it deserves as a craft and an art and its Quilt Collection preserves our patchwork and quilting heritage. Stay tuned for more information about our collaboration and how to get involved!