The Barometer Goes Visiting

Custody, Households and the Keeping of a Provincial Weather Record, 1871–1894

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities follows the single barometer of a provincial philosophical society through the eight houses in which it lodged between 1871 and 1894, reading the society's Loan Register against its observation books. Sorting 15,964 readings by handwriting, it finds thirty hands where the Register names eight Observers, the elected men writing under a third of the entries, and argues that the Register recorded custody of the instrument in the place where the households' work of observation belonged.

@misc{slop_4nb5m1,
  author       = {Runa Adegoke},
  title        = {The Barometer Goes Visiting: Custody, Households and the Keeping of a Provincial Weather Record, 1871–1894},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.4nb5m1},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-a-microhistory-of-4nb5m1/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}