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Thackray Museum of Medicine

@thackraymuseum

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Helping shape a better tomorrow
⭐️ European Museum of the Year 2023 Shortlist
⭐ Independent charity
📍 Leeds, UK

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It's the season of the witch, so here's a 'Song of Sorcery' from Victorian poet Ella Fuller Maitland.

Is Vervain, Monkshood and Hellebore
Of use in sorcery no more?
Surely some magic still doth lie
In Rosemary or Rue?
In Nightshade and black Bryony,
That once formed witches’ brew?
Can Lunary or Mistletoe
No longer serve for weal or woe?

Fuller Maitland, whose poems emphasise rustic, rural and natural themes and floral motifs, was a previous owner of our copy of Elizabeth Blackwell's A Curious Herbal. The rosemary, bryony and nightshade of Fuller Maitland's witches' brew all appear in the pages of Blackwell and it is easy to imagine the woman of the 1800s viewing her 1700s predecessor's work as a source of inspiration.

Blackwell, for her part, refers to mistletoe as a plant honoured by ancient druids, although on the whole she is scornful of the beliefs of "herb women". Her father-in-law, Reverend Thomas Blackwell, was a noted witch-hunting preacher, but Elizabeth saw herself as belonging to an age of scientific rationalism.

As a first edition from the 1730s, our copy would have had a few owners before Fuller Maitland in the 1890s, but she was probably its last owner to use it practically (it spent the time in between her and the museum as part of large collections). That means that the little sprig of chicory found between the pages likely belonged to the poet.

Chicory, called wild succory by Blackwell, is a plant traditionally used medicinally for digestive problems. And it has culinary uses as a root vegetable or historically as an additive or alternative to coffee (as in Camp Coffee).

In folklore, chicory flowers under the linen shawl of a pregnant woman was supposed to make childbirth easier. Chicory roots could be made into a protective amulet against bad luck and it was even thought to be able to break any curse or enchantment.

Which, if any, of these uses Fuller Maitland sought in the chicory she placed between these pages, we can never know.

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Check out what’s coming up at Cultural Collections & Galleries👇

🎟 Book via ‘Events’ at the link in bio

Exhibition Opening: Quite Shameless. 27.10.2026, 17:30 – 19:30. Free, book a ticket.

Introducing the Irene Manton Archive: Lunchtime Drop-In. 28.10.2026, 12:00 – 14:00. Free, drop-in.

Sketch Club. Every Friday, 12:30 - 15:30. Free, drop-in.

Light Night Leeds: Creatures of the Night. 28.10.2026 & 29.10.2026, 18:00 – 21:30. Free, drop-in. Explore the full Light Night Leeds programme @lightnightleeds.

Liquid Reflections: Liliane Lijn @studiolilianelijn in Conversation with Laurence Sillars. @stageatleeds. 10.11.2026, 17:30 – 19:00. Free, book a ticket.

Get Creative: mixed media artist books with Molly Newham @mollynewham_art. 28.11.2026, 14:00 – 16:00. £15, book a ticket.

Write on Wednesday. Every Wednesday, 12:30 – 15:30. Free, drop-in.

📍And we're looking forward to

On campus: La Polémica – Afro-Cuban Rhythm, Song & Dance. Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall. 27.11.2026. PWYC. Book via @openup.uol

In Leeds: Where Magic Grows @thackraymuseum. Until 03.01.2027. £16 or less.

And Beyond: Farsley Lit Fest 2026 @trumanbooksleeds @oldwoollen. 12.10.2026 - 23.11.2026. Find full listings @leedsinspired.

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#Events #WhatsOn #Gallery #Museum #UniversityOfLeeds White text over a photograph of people looking in glass museum cases reads "Events"

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💙🦉💛 #leeds #yorkshire #england #visitleeds

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Saturday morning service crew visiting the Cashless Cache Machine at Thackray Museum of Medicine (@thackraymuseum).

One jammed coin and a layer of dust removed, and we’re back up and running perfectly. This was my first donation machine to operate entirely on contactless card payments. Tap to play!

Thanks to my youngest elf @sam_smith1503_ for the assistance. Payment was made in pizza 🍕 @doughboysleeds

#KineticArt #KineticSculpture #PublicArt #MechanicalArt #thackraymuseum

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When in Leeds, you should definitely visit the Thackray Museum of Medicine💊 Whether you’re in the field of medicine or not, the museum is a fascinating look at health though the ages!⏳

With interactive displays, video tours and a choose your own character path to follow, there’s loads to do, interact with and learn. A highly fantastic time but not for the faint of heart🫀 Some of it is definitely gross.

#notsponsored #medicine #museum #leeds #darktourism

@thackraymuseum

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Was there really a person called Lady Strange? And did she have a herbal remedy for the plague?

Lady Strange is central to Where Magic Grows's stories of plant-based remedies. But some people have wondered if she is just a character that we made up for the exhibition. She is, however, a genuine historical figure.

Dorothea Helena van den Kerckhove, as she was before her marriage to Lord Strange, is someone about whom actual facts are hard to find. She was perhaps born in Denmark in 1630(ish) and may have been the illegitmate daughter of Dutch diplomat Jan van den Kerckhove. It's possible that she was a mistress of Charles II (but, then, who wasn't?). Her date of death is sometimes given as 1673, even though her published obituary shows it was 1703. And she wrote this notebook of her medical recipes. Probably.

We do know that she was actually only known as Lady Strange for a brief period between her marriage to Charles Stanley, Lord Strange, in 1650 and her husband succeeding his father as Earl of Derby after the latter's execution for treason, supporting Charles II's invasion of 1651. So, for most of her life she was actually referred to as the Countess of Derby. Also it was disappointingly almost certainly pronounced "Lady Strang".

We also know that (according to that obituary) "her charity was extended to the Sickness and Infirmities, as well as the other Necessities of the Body; she not only clothed and fed, but also healed the Poor; [and] by her means restored great Numbers to that Health which they had in vain fought for elsewhere." Her recipe book is a legacy of that charity.

While published medical texts from the 1600s were written by men, the real business of healing was, along with cooking and gardening, part of the domestic sphere of the mistress of the house. There's a wealth of these handwritten recipe books by (mostly noble)women giving a parallel private history of medicine in the period.

Perhaps her most interesting recipe is for "pour people as are not able to goe to the Apotekarie", a cure for the plague from juniper, lovage and wormwood. Ineffective, yes, but no more so than anything that 'apotekarie' could supply for a far bigger fee.

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A fairy's hat or a fox's slipper: If Where Magic Grows has a star then it's the foxglove.

Perhaps one of the better known examples of a herbal ingredient with a clear link to a modern pharmaceutical usage, digoxin - a heart medication - comes from foxglove leaves.

Their traditional usage amongst physicians and apothecaries, however, feels barely less magical than stories connecting the plant to fairies. Nicholas Culpeper's 1652 'Complete Herbal' recommended it for "king's evil" (scrofula) and "the falling sickness" (epilepsy). Modern medicine wouldn't recommend either.

It was not until 1785 and the publication of 'An Account of the Foxglove and Some of Its Medical Uses' by botanist and physician William Withering that its value for regulating heart rhythms began to be understood. The story goes that Withering discovered foxgloves as the secret ingredient of a herbal tea used as a remedy for dropsy (fluid retention, often caused by heart problems). The tea was the invention of a Shropshire cunning woman named Old Mother Hutton. For an exchange of gold sovereigns, Mother Hutton sold Withering the recipe and he made his fortune.

It's a good story that chimes with ideas of the value of traditional herbal folk knowledge, how mainstream medicine doesn't always have all the answers, maybe even of patriarchal control of medical knowledge robbing women of the recognition they are due.

There's just one problem: There never was such a person as Old Mother Hutton. She was invented in the 1920s as a marketing gimmick by the Parke-Davis pharmaceutical company wanting to flog the 'natural' origins of their product. And now her story is widely repeated as a part of real history.

While there was never an identifiable individual like Mother Hutton, we do know that Withering did rely on herbal remedies from unnamed cunning folk in determining foxgloves could treat dropsy.

Our exhibition aims to show the medical truths in herbal folklore. Could that also include corporately mandated, big pharma-authored myths of the recent past?

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Heritage Open Days 2026 Brewery Tour🍺

We had the brilliant Josh from @thackraymuseum join our wonderful tour guide Owen for a special heritage day brewery tour last weekend

From medical remedies in beer, to tasting a variety of beer styles, this tour was full of interesting insights into Leeds brewing history and medical practices within beer.

Swipe to the end to watch a short a snippet from the tour 🍻

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What a location! What a fun session today. I was out on the road at @thackraymuseum using one of their community rooms for another @space2leeds ‘s @thedeadplantssocietyleeds workshops.

We all had a lovely time creating beautiful prints using iron water and rose and sumac leaves. We also made these lovely plaques which are now drying along with the prints back at my garden studio.

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@bramleybaths welcomes @thackraymuseum for Healing Waters heritage talk - a chance to explore Leeds' relationship with water and health and how it has shaped medicine, public health and wellbeing for centuries - on Saturday 26th of September from 1pm to 2.30pm.

Find more info and tickets via Bramley Baths' Instagram account and bio link.

#leeds #heritagetalk #healingwaters #water

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🪡 My lovely Friday embroidery 🧵 group @thackraymuseum have completed their patchwork piece. 🪡
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Hand stitching together their fabrics of meaning and significance. Coming together around one table with tea, chat and stitching!
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Well done everyone involved from @beingyouleedsconsortium @hamara_hlc & @thackraymuseum
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#patchwork #communityembroiderygroup #textiles #leeds

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We really just came to Leeds for Chick-fil-A

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