The 8th March is International Women’s Day and the theme for 2026 is “Give to Gain”. This campaign theme aims to improve gender equality through generosity, collaboration and reciprocity via the sharing of resources, knowledge or time. In the spirit of this, a woman from Middleton Hall’s history stands out: Ernestine de Hamel (née Donovan). Ernestine was born on 20th July 1857 in Brighton, Sussex. She was the daughter of Alexander Donovan, Deputy Lieutenant, and Ellen Poulett

The 5th January is National Bird Day! Birds are a very important historic topic at Middleton Hall and in 2026 they are especially so because it is also the 350th anniversary of the first publication of Francis Willughby’s Ornithologia. In 1672, John Ray made a deathbed promise to Francis Willughby to finish Willughby’s work on natural history. With the publication of Ornithologia (Ornithology), which he compiled whilst still at Middleton Hall, Ray fulfilled part of his promis

The 16th December 2025 is the 250th anniversary of the birth of the novelist Jane Austen, who was born on that day in 1775. Jane Austen had a connection to the Willoughby family of Middleton Hall and her knowledge of this connection is recognised as being evident in her novels. Memorial to Jane Austen in Poets Corner, Westminster Abbey, 2022. Photograph by Maggie Jones, PD, via Wikimedia Commons . Emma Barnard was the wife of Francis Willughby FRS. Her sister Elizabeth marrie

The 26th September 2025 is European Day of Languages and we thought this a very opportune day to mark the 350th anniversary of the publication of John Ray’s Nomenclator Classicus or Dictionariolum Trilingue or, in English, Trilingual Dictionary. This was a comparative dictionary between English, Latin and Greek. John Ray developed this dictionary in order to teach Francis Willughby’s three children their languages and he first published it in 1675. At this time, the childre