‘Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change’. This quotation from Thomas Hardy could aptly be used to describe many people’s reaction to the change to roller milling, surprise. Before starting my internship here at the archive, I never thought I would be finding a connection between a Victorian novelist…
Author: Hannah Pomeroy
William Cornwell and Sun Flour Mills
One of the categories that will be in the new roller milling webpages will be ‘Stories from the Archive’. Within this section, as may be expected, stories from the Archive will told. This will revolve around the collections that have a connection to the world of roller milling. This will include specific mills, individuals, milling…
Building a mill, without the twiddly bits
This week I have started to write up sections about the process of building a roller mill and have stumbled into a world of architecture I barely knew existed. Having the rescued Gelder and Kitchen files here at the Archive meant that I knew a bit about Sir Alfred Gelder, Gelder and Kitchen and the…
The Great British (and American) Bake Off!
In today’s day and age, if you turned on the television, it would not take you long to find one of the plethora of cooking or baking shows that are available. Whilst the dishes created on these shows can cause us to salivate, or turn our nose up in disgust, we often forget the first…
Bowled over by our latest finds!
With the Premier League having just started, England’s women progressing to the semi-finals of the Rugby World Cup and the cricketers embarking on the unknown of the day-night test, there is no shortage of sport around at the moment. However, what has surprised me is just how many references to sport I am coming across…
The mill with a confused identity
Taking a leaf out of Lydia’s book, I too have been looking through the John Munnings Collection again this week! This collection is of interest to me and my project given the number of small, country mills that he drew which are described as having installed roller machinery. Most of these mills only installed small…
WWI’s personal effects on 2 roller mill dynasties
103 years ago today, Britain declared war on Germany after the ultimatum to withdraw from Belgium expired. The lives of those in Britain would alter over the course of the next four years and those involved in the roller milling world were no exception. Imagine what that day would have been like to a widow,…
Ötzi the Iceman
Those of you who have read Lydia’s blog will know that we visited Reading Museum this week to see the display currently on view with items from the Mills Archive. We brought back a couple of items that related to our projects. For me, this was a book of clippings from the Cornwell collection that…
‘One dark night in France whilst on sentry duty’…
Hello again! It’s been a productive and enjoyable second week at the Archive, as I’ve spent time getting acquainted with different collections related to roller milling. As a part of my internship, not only do I wish to highlight the history of roller milling through key individuals and mills but I also wish to highlight…
5 lesser known figures of the Industrial Revolution
Hello everyone. My name is Hannah and I’m yet another intern at the Mills Archive this year! Unlike many previous interns, I have not come from Reading University nor their internship scheme. Instead I am a Reading girl, just returned from the wilds of the West Country. I was studying a Degree in History and…