Historian needs your help in search for Bloomsbury connection

Do your ancestors have Bloomsbury connections? If so, we d like your help in creating an archive of nineteenth-century literary, medical and scientific Bloomsbury (1800-1904), a period which saw its metamorphosis from swampy rubbish-dump to centre of inte

Do your ancestors have Bloomsbury connections? If so, we'd like your help in creating an archive of nineteenth-century literary, medical and scientific Bloomsbury (1800-1904), a period which saw its metamorphosis from swampy rubbish-dump to centre of intellectual life.

The Leverhulme-funded Bloomsbury Project is a University College London initiative that will trace the foundations of many diverse local institutions including Great Ormond Street Hospital, the British Museum Round Reading Room, the Swedenborg Society and Mudie's Circulating Library. It will also feature many of the individuals who made significant contributions to learning in the area. A website will be launched in Spring 2008 and added to as the project progresses over three years.

However, we're also keen to receive information about the ordinary professional and working people of Bloomsbury - the writers, journalists, publishers, librarians, hospital employees, doctors, dentists, scientists - who contributed to this increasingly vibrant and unique area of London. Bloomsbury is defined as the area of central London bounded by Euston Road (north), Gray's Inn Road (east), New Oxford Street / High Holborn (south) and Tottenham Court Road (west).

If you'd like to become involved in the project, please contact:

Dr Carole Reeves

Outreach Historian

The Wellcome Trust Centre

for the History of Medicine at UCL

183 Euston Road

London NW1 2BE

Tel: 0207 679 8135

Email: c.reeves@ucl.ac.uk