Archive news from the Society.

2006

October

In a report for the Curl-Rin Challenge Fund Application, the London Library stated that their Heron-Allen Collection had very largely been added to the on-line catalogue, but had been kept as a separate collection. Edward Heron-Allen (1861-1943) bequeathed his collection of edition of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat in English, Persian and many other languages, together with critical works on the poet (c400 items in total). All books in the collection are post-1850 publications and most have their original bindings. This collection reflects the scholarly interest in Omar Khayyam from the 1890s to the 1920s, and the bound volumes of notes and letters written to Heron-Allen by other translators and authors interested in Khayyam are of especial significance. Details of these have been included in the catalogue records, as have provenance and binding notes when appropriate. The collection also includes Heron-Allen’s own manuscript notes for his edition of the Rubaiyat, as well as a unique collection of ten portfolios of pamphlets, ephemera and cuttings relating to him. Other editions of the Rubaiyat acquired by the Library have been added tro the original collection. Heron-Allen also gave collections – reflecting his other interests as a musician and marine biologist – to the Royal College of Music and the Natural History Museum.

Chichester History, no.22 (October 2006), p.18 includes some reminiscences by Fred Robinson, entitled ‘Edward Heron-Allen, Polymath’, inspired by the Chairman’s talk to the Chichester Local History Society in March 2006.

July
The Society's sixth annual Heron-Allen  Symposium on the theme of 'Edward Heron-Allen and Music' will be held on Saturday 1 July in the Donaldson  Reading Room at  the Royal College of Music,  Prince Consort Road, London. The programme will include talks by Professor Brian Harvey on 'Edward Heron-Allen - Violin Historian and Maker Extraordinary', 'Idly touching your Violin': the Heron-Allen Collection at the Royal College of Music', by Pamela Thompson and Dr. Peter Horton and an exhibition of items from the collection. In the afternoon Garry Garrard will give a talk on Edward Heron-Allen and the Rubiayat of Omar Khayyam.

May
On 26 May, Newsletter No. 8 was published. As well as giving details of the Society’s sixth annual symposium on the theme of ‘Edward Heron-Allen and Music’ to be held at the Royal College of Music, London on Saturday 1 July at 10.30, it included articles on ‘Walter Sickert and Edward Heron-Allen’ by Venetia Jones; ‘E. Heron-Allen’s Sea Chest’ by Jacques Wilkinson and ‘S’Kitakura: or Science with a Sting’ by Timothy McCann.  The issue was completed by notes on the unveiling of the new Heron-Allen Plaque in High Street, Selsey; the Heron-Allen biography and the Society’s web-site together with the regular list of recent publications and accessions to the Society's archive at the West Sussex Record Office in Chichester

George Borrow Bulletin, the Journal of the George Borrow Society, published Timothy J. McCann, 'Edward Heron-Allen and George Borrow's Beer-Jug', in Number thirty-two (Spring 2006), 72-5, with an illustration of the Beer-Jug on the rear cover.

March
At 7.30pm on 8 March, Timothy McCann, the Chairman of the Society, gave an illustrated talk on Edward Heron-Allen to the Chichester Local History Society at the New Park Centre in Chichester.

At 5.15pm. on Friday 10 March, Professor Neil M. Ferguson OBE of Imperial College, London, delivered the Heron-Allen Lecture 2006 on 'Planning for the unpredictable: how modelling can aid preparations for the next flu pandemic' in Talbot Hall, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

February
In the evening of 9 February, Timothy McCann, the Chairman of the Society will give an illustrated  talk entitled, 'Edward Heron-Allen and the Heron-Allen Society' to the Local History Group of the Selsey Society.

Opusculum VIII entitled 'Edward Heron-Allen and Friends' distributed to members.