Laurence Talairach
Supported by The Friends of Glasgow University
Laurence Talairach is Professor of Victorian Literature and Culture at the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès, an associate researcher at the Alexandre-Koyré Center, Paris, and a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF) for 2025–2030. Her academic interests span medicine, natural history and British literature in the long nineteenth century. She is the author of 5 monographs, her most recent book being Animals, Museum Culture and Children’s Literature in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Curious Beasties (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). She has also edited several collections of articles on the interrelations between science and literature and the popularisation of science in the nineteenth-century, and is the author of a series of 27 popular science novels for children aged 8–12, which take place in museums of natural history.
Her current research looks at the forms of natural history knowledge produced by British women in the nineteenth century. It aims to examine the relationship between scientific knowledge and popular representations so as to reassess female natural historians’ scientific expertise. It focuses on several ‘case studies’ of Victorian women naturalists. One of them is Jemima Blackburn (1823–1909), wife of Hugh Blackburn (1823–1909), Professor of mathematics at Glasgow University. Jemima Blackburn was a Scottish painter known for her illustrations of nineteenth-century rural life. She also illustrated many books, several of them aimed at children. Less known are her contributions to Scottish ornithology and interest in biodiversity.
During her research fellowship at the University of Glasgow Library, Laurence Talairach will study of the university’s holdings pertaining to both Jemima and Hugh Blackburn. Most of Jemima Blackburn’s books, including her children’s books, were published by Glasgow university publisher James MacLehose, appointed to the University in 1871. She will also try to find evidence of Jemima’s collaboration with her husband, as the woman’s records (both written and visual) show that she shared with him her natural history experiences. Glasgow University holds several specimens of birds donated by Hugh and Jemima Blackburn at different times which may yield evidence of the couple’s mutual interest in ornithology, collections and practice of taxidermy.
I am thrilled to have the opportunity to spend time working on the University of Glasgow’s collections. I am deeply grateful for the support of the University, which will enable me to understand better Jemima Blackburn’s practice of natural history, through her personal ornithological publications, artworks, natural history collections and collaboration with her husband. I hope this research will help raise awareness regarding nineteenth-century women’s work in the field of natural history and promote their scientific contributions.
