Norwich Technical College 1889 Young Lady’s Keepsake Album With Inscriptions From Fellow Female Students

A charming album which starts with an inscription on the front endpapers “To Lissa With Love & Best Wishes From Her Fellow Students Norwich Dear. 11th 1889”, followed by an inscription from the original owner laying out her book rules:

Come look in my album, but mind ere you look

That all are expected to add to my book.

You may quiz, if you please, but the penalty is

That you leave something in for the others to quiz

Yrs truly

Lissa Cater

Around 56 pages of poetry and ditties, drawings and other keepsakes generally all written or drawn during 1889 (except for a few later entries). Quite a few of the entries are signed with “NTC” (Norwich Technical College), and an entry by Nellie Gatrell (depicting a strange looking root vegetable?!) notes “In remembrance of the Science Examination at Norwich College 1889”. Also a few of the entries have areas within the college noted (“Step-room…South room…Long Corridor…Quad Vista…short corridor”), possibly where their boarding rooms were situated? Additionally, a few entries in June 1889 are noted as being at “Lands End”, so the girls obviously made a trip to Cornwall, though whether this was with the College or a private visit is unknown.

I mentioned that there were just a few later additions to the album, which include a page of botanical specimens collected in Las Palmas in 1891, and (quite touchingly) a page with a few crumbling fragments of tiny poppies enclosed behind yellowing plastic, with a note alongside in biro “Flanders Poppies August 1961”. Could she have lost a son in the Great War and the flowers stuck-in by one of her children after a visit to the battlefields?

Approx. 160x200mm., original blue calf binding with gilt titles to cover. Small loss to the leather at upper edge of spine, also some rubbing/scuffing. Internally in good order.