LJMU Special Collections & Archives recently contributed to the British Association for Victorian Studies (BAVS) 2026 Conference, hosted by LJMU through the Centre for Modern Contemporary History. Christopher Olive presented a talk on careers for Victorianists, and Emily and Christopher ended the day by facilitating three workshops for participants in collaboration with Tom Dillon from University of Liverpool Special Collections & Archives.

This year’s conference featured mainly non-literature related material, including The Family Doctor, The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, illustrations by Charles Dana Gibson, hundreds of Victorian fashion plates (all found under LH), and student, personnel, and administrative material from the Liverpool School of Art (LJMUH/SA), the Liverpool Nautical College (LJMUH/NC), and F L Calder College of Domestic Science (LJMUH/FLC).

Both the talks and the workshops were very well attended by a wide variety of researchers. Participants travelled to attend from all over the UK, as well as Italy, Spain, Japan, USA, India, and Germany. We’re very excited to have made some excellent links with not only the conference organisers, but researchers who’ve expressed interest in travelling to us again once we reopen in September 2027.

– Christopher Olive, Assistant Archivist 2026