The Special Collection: Collections

George Fullard

George Fullard was born in Darnall, Sheffield in 1923. As a teenager he enrolled at the Sheffield School of Art where he studied until he was eighteen. He then enlisted in the army and was seriously wounded fighting in Italy. He never fully recovered his health and died in 1973, just as he was gaining a substantial reputation as an artist.

Before leaving the School, he completed a portfolio of drawings which were inspired by the scenes around him in the aftermath of the Sheffield Blitz of December 1940. The work consists of a series of 17 completed drawings and a large sketchbook. This was part of his application for a place at the Royal College of Art in London, which he took up after the war. The value of the drawings as a precursor of Fullard's later work is clear and the form of much of his sculptures can be traced back to these youthful sketches.

You can access more images of Fullard's work in Sheffield City Centre by selecting this link

Fullard in Sheffield Map

A map of George Fullard's artwork in Sheffield showing the location of each sculpture or artifact and a walking route. Click on each marker for a picture & description..

Archives of The Sheffield School of Art

Established in 1843 as the Government School of Design, the School changed names and locations several times until becoming part of Sheffield Polytechnic and subsequently Sheffield Hallam University. The School is now known as the Sheffield Institute of Arts.

The archive includes annual reports, prospectuses, student records, correspondence, photographs and examples of student work, as well as books, cuttings etc. on former students; for example, C. S. Jagger, Frederick Varley, Arthur Lismer, Omar Ramsden, Godfrey Sykes, John Hoyland and George Fullard.

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Popular Culture and Literary Taste Collection 1900 - 1950

This collection of books reflects the wide range of literary tastes during the first half of the 20th century. These long-forgotten lending library favourites are rarely preserved systematically elsewhere: university libraries have never collected this type of fiction, while public libraries disposed of such books once they fell out of fashion. 

The collection consists of over 1200 novels by 229 different authors. It's located in its own pod on level 2 of the Adsetts Library. You can find out more about the project and the collection in this essay How it all Began: the Popular Culture and Literary Taste Special Collection by Professor Chris Hopkins.

You can also search the collection through a dedicated page on the library catalogue or read reviews of the books on the collection blog.

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Sheffield Theatres Archive

Sheffield Hallam University is proud to be partnering with Sheffield Theatres to act as home to their archive, which contains records relating to the three principal theatres, plus a host of other historical venues.

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The Roy Hattersley Archive

In 1968, Roy Hattersley became a junior minister and served on the front bench – either in opposition or government – for the next twenty-five years. He joined the cabinet, as a Secretary of State, in 1975. In 1983 he was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. The archive contains documents produced by or used by Roy Hattersley in researching his publications, correspondence, minutes, reports, etc, press cuttings, Cabinet papers, and first editions of Roy Hattersley’s own books.

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John Widdowson folklore collection

The John Widdowson folklore collection includes more than one thousand books and pamphlets, a card index and interlinked paper archives and some audio and visual materials. The materials cover a range of folkloric topics including custom and belief, folk narrative and contemporary legend including many regional folklore collections.

 

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The Festival of Britain

In 1947 King George VI's Government decided that the centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851 should be marked by national displays in the Arts, Architecture, Science, Technology, and Industrial Design.

The 1951 Festival of Britain was a showcase of British contributions to art, design and industry and a chance to celebrate and raise the nation's spirits after the austerity of the war years.

In the 1970s we acquired a box of Festival items. These included press releases, letters, and some official guides. Building on this, the library began to acquire a wider range of Festival literature and commemorative ephemera - such as posters, postcards, teapots, toys, glassware, and medals. The collection now comprises about 2000 items covering not only the main South Bank exhibition but also numerous regional events as well.

Find out more about what remains of Sheffield's contribution to the festival: Sheffield & The Festival of Britain.

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The Sheffield School of Art Library

This collection is the remainder of the library salvaged from the School of Art building, then on Arundel Street when it was struck by an incendiary bomb in the Sheffield blitz of December 1940.

It represents the holdings of a typical art college library of that time.

Highlights of the collection include catalogues from the Great Exhibition of 1851 where the school had won a number of prizes, a number of volumes of engravings by Piranesi including Vedute di Roma and Carceri d'invenzione. A 1766 edition of George Stubbs' The Anatomy of the Horse, 138 plates from Eadweard Muybridge's Animal Locomotion published by the University of Pennsylvania, 1887. Sir William Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum and The History of St. Paul's Cathedral as well as publications by Palladio and Robert Adam.

The oldest item in the collection is part of a Latin Dictionary, dating back to 1561 -  Dictionarium latinae lingust. Vol.3. (1561) by lexicographer Ambrogio Calepino, an Italian Augustinian monk.

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David Morgan Rees Collection

David Morgan Rees worked in Industry before he became an academic lecturing in PR Studies. As a photographer and freelance writer, he concentrates on rural subjects. He has contributed to BBC Radio and publications such as 'Yorkshire Life', 'The Dalesman' and 'Yorkshire Journal'.

Yorkshire crafts and craftspeople

This collection of photographs of Yorkshire craftsmen and women were taken during the 70s to create a visual record of traditional skills before they were forgotten.

It comprises 50 framed photographs as well as negatives, contact prints, information boards and leaflets about the archive. A selection of David's photographs has been exhibited under the title: 'Privileged people' in several venues across Yorkshire.

Some of the photographs from this series are on permanent display in the Quiet Study Area on Level 4 of the Adsetts Library.

More information about David and this collection can be found on the Yorkshire crafts and craftspeople website.

In the Palm of a Dale

This is a collection of photographs and negatives from David’s book and subsequent exhibition - In the Palm of a Dale: A Portrait in Words and Pictures of a Yorkshire Dales Village.

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IFVPA - Independent Film, Video and Photography Association

The Special Collection also holds the records and papers of the Independent Film, Video and Photography Association (IFVPA), first established as the Independent Filmmaker's Association (IFA) in 1975. The IFA/IFVPA worked closely with Channel 4 from their launch in 1982.

This collection covering the period c. 1975-1987, includes literature on cultural policy and the development of specific independent media projects.

Alongside the SIF archive, provides a valuable insight into regional and independent filmmaking in the UK.

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SIF - Sheffield Independent Film

The Special Collection holds the archives of Sheffield Independent Film (SIF), set up in the mid-1970s by ex-Sheffield Polytechnic filmmaking students Peter Care, Russell Murray and David Rea. These records were acquired following the liquidation of the company in 2013.

The aim of the organisation was to establish a regional filmmaking base in the North of England, away from the UK industry locus based in and around London.

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16mm Student Films

In the late 1960s Sheffield Polytechnic was one of the first higher education institutions in the UK to teach filmmaking. The tutors, Barry Callaghan and Paul Haywood nurtured several generations of student filmmakers. Many of the graduates have gone on to have successful careers in the film and television industry.

The Special Collection contains over 60 pieces of student work shot on 16mm film, dating from the 1960s - 1990s, and spanning several genres including experimental film, drama, documentary and animation. These include an animation with an unreleased soundtrack by The Human League (whose first live concert was held at Psalter Lane's Wham Bar in 1978) and early experimental work by Nick Park.

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Peter Wall Archive

Peter Wall was born in Nottingham. He worked on the Nottingham Evening Post before gaining a degree in English Literature at Hendon College (now Middlesex University). After graduating, he took up a teaching post at Wakefield College.

Peter became a leading figure in establishing Media Studies as an academic discipline in the UK, fighting to make it accessible to young people from non-traditional backgrounds. He set up a media centre in the 1980s, and established links with Sheffield Hallam University in the 1990s, allowing mature students to study the first year of a Media degree in their home city (with the second and third year taught in Sheffield).

Peter wrote more than 30 key textbooks, and combined teaching and writing with working for examination boards. He held several senior positions throughout his career, including chair of examiners for Media Studies for the AQA exam board.

He retired in 2013 and died in 2017.

The archive that Peter left includes over two hundred and forty important and rare items by Simon Cutts, Ian Gardner, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Patrick Eyre, Jonathan Williams, Stuart Mills, and Karl Torok amongst others and spans Coracle, Tarasque, Blue Tunnel and New Arcadian presses. The collection includes journals, booklets, posters, boxed texts, postcards and several letters

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Undermined?: Britain and the miners' strike

Photographs by Martin Jenkinson, John Harris and John Sturrock (1994). 43 photographs, catalogues and captions originally forming an exhibition shown at The Crucible and then Kelham Island Museum in Sheffield.

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Penguin Specials

The collection can be found on level 2 of the Adsetts Library. You can search the collection through the library catalogue.

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