Editor's choice & fun facts Archives

That “old thing found (…) in the clay of the laundy court at Shibden…”.

August 2. 1839 Anne refers to a thing that was found at shibden which reminded me of an object mentioned in pages from the journal that I happened to have previously transcribed. Here is an excerpt from that entry of April 11, 1837 :

Moneys – spending and exchange

On 1. August 1839, Anne takes out (at Grünings & Co) 248 Speciedaler and 40 Skilling at an exchange rate of 4 Species and 116 Skilling to the Pound [or rather 4 Spd. 4 Mrk. 20 Skill.] which would equal 4.97 Species to the Pound, this means she got what looks to be a decent rate from Grünings bank; The exchange rate set by London in 1839 moved from 4.99 at late July to 4.93 by late August.

Botanic Garden

Copper plate by Rathke
Colors by y. Haugen

On 31. July 1839, Anne Lister visited the Botanic Garden in Christiania (Oslo) and noted a list of plants that she found interesting. Many seem to have medicinal uses which seems typical for Anne Lister to notice …

Here is a run-through of the list and lots of links and images to give an extensive idea of what Anne tok note of during her time in the Botanic gardens.

Superior English pencils

“Then to Hoppe’s for pencils English for Ann”
31. July 1839

It’s no coincidence that Anne is specific about the pencils’ origin/type. As you can read in this excerpt from the novel “Woodsburner: A Novel” by John Pipkin (2009) (page 117), the English pencil was clearly always considered superior:

Norse metrics

At the very back of her travel journal for Norway and Sweden (#12), Anne has noted how distance is measured in Norway at the time she is there.

“Tomme or inch of which 12 = 1 fod or foot and 2 fod = 1 alen or Ell
– (Mr Smith) Xtiania Saturday 10 August 1839″