What's on
Current Vacancies 2024
We are seeking a Venue Coordinator to help deliver our next chapter - join us at an exciting time in our history as we undergo redevelopment and open three stunning Georgian rooms with contemporary and accessible facilities in the heart of Exeter.
The Next Chapter project – Vlog 1, November 2021
It's been a busy week at the Institution as we continue with preparatory works for the Next Chapter project. This week we have been working with the team from Oakford Archaeology, to see what lies beneath our courtyard.
Here is the very first video blog (Vlog) of our project.
Francis Stevens (1781-1823) and the Devon and Exeter Institution
The South West Collection includes many rare items that shed light on the history of our region. This lovely pocket sketchbook, bound in leather with a brass clasp, contains pencil sketches and notes by the landscape artist, etcher and drawing master, Francis Stevens (1781-1823).
Early 19th century xylotheks
Xylotheks, or xylotheques, are book-like herbariums, made of wood and filled with wood specimens, including dried leaves, flowers, seeds and bark. They appeared towards the end of the 17th century […]
William Beckford’s travels in Italy (1834)
William Beckford (1760-1844) was an English novelist and travel writer, best known for his Gothic novel, Vathek (1786), and for building the magnificent (but structurally unsound) Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire. […]
William Hogarth’s complete works (ca. 1861)
William Hogarth (1697-1764) was a prolific painter, printmaker and social critic, best known for his often bawdy and satirical comic-strip series of pictures of life in 18th century England. His […]
Burckhardt’s Travels in Syria and the Holy Land (1822)
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt (1784-1817) was a Swiss traveller and geographer from Lausanne who later moved to England and found employment with the African Association. His mission from its President, Sir […]
Henry Nelson Coleridge’s Six months in the West Indies (1826)
Henry Nelson Coleridge (1798-1843) was born in Ottery St Mary, Devon. He was both nephew and later son-in-law of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) and edited his poetry. In […]
David Gregory’s first complete edition of Euclid (1703)
David Gregory (1659-1708) was a Scottish mathematician, best known for his Astronomiae Physicae et Geometricae Elementa (1702) – the first published work to apply the language of Newtonian gravitation to […]
Thomas Young’s course of lectures on everything (1807)
Thomas Young (1773-1829) was born in Milverton, Somerset, in 1773, the eldest of ten children in a Quaker family. Soon after his birth, he was brought up by his mother’s […]
