Last Friday I tweeted a thread on behalf of the Herbarium, about some lovely books I’d found in the cabinets while I was searching for 17th century herbals. Those books turned out to be part of a large personal library that was split, on Simpson’s death, between Reading University Herbarium, Cambridge University Herbarium, the Natural History Museum, and Kew.
Twitter certainly seemed to enjoy having a little look at the books – and I’m now in conversation with the Curator of Cambridge University Herbarium about the possibility of going and having a look at some of the Simpson paperwork that’s in their collection.
I certainly wasn’t expecting that to happen, when I went rummaging (gently!) through the bookshelves!