Shakespeare’s Mulberry tree box

One of the notable pieces in Lichfield’s collection of curios is a small carved wooden box, believed to have been made from the wood of a Mulberry tree, that was planted by Shakespeare.

See it in more detail on flickr

Nathaniel Hawthorne – visited Lichfield

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Did you know that Nathaniel Hawthorne – the great American Novelist – visited Lichfield. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804 - 1864,  was an American novelist and short story writer. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts as Nathaniel Hathorne (no w). He later changed his name to Hawthorne (with a w) to distance himself from from relatives including John Hathorne, who was a judge during the Salem Witch Trials.

It is said he visited Lichfied in 1855 and he wrote about seeing a group of newly recruited soldiers looking “as if they had had a little too much ale.”!

Elias Ashmole – the city’s first antiquary

Elias Ashmole

The city’s first antiquary (an old fashioned term used to describe a gentleman historian that collected items and artefacts, but specialised in no particular period of study), was Elias Ashmole.

Elias Ashmole (23 May 1617 – 18 May 1692), was a celebrated English antiquary, politician, officer of arms, astrologer and student of alchemy. He supported the royalist side during the civil war, and when Charles II was restored to throne, he was rewarded with several lucrative offices.

He was one of the founding members of the Royal Society, and an avid collector of curiosities and other artefacts. Many of these he acquired from the traveller, botanist, and collector John Tradescant the younger. Ashmole donated most of his collection, his antiquarian library and priceless manuscripts to the University of Oxford to create the very first Ashmolean Museum.