Digital Content on Archives Hub

As part of the Archives Hub Labs ‘Images and Machine Learning’ project we are currently exploring the challenges around implementing IIIF image services for archival collections, and also for Archives Hub more specifically as an aggregator of archival descriptions. This work is motivated by our desire to encourage the inclusion of more digital content on Archives Hub, and to improve our users’ experience of that content, in terms of both display and associated functionality.

Before we start to report on our progress with IIIF, we thought it would be useful to capture some of our current ideas and objectives with regards to the presentation of digital content on Archives Hub. This will help us to assess at later stages of the project how well IIIF supports those objectives, since it can be easy to get caught up in the excitement of experimenting with new technologies and lose sight of one’s starting point. It will also help our audience to understand how we’re aiming to develop the Hub, and how the Labs project supports those aims.

     Why more digital content?

  • We know it’s what our users want
  • Crucial part of modern research and engagement with collections, especially after the pandemic
  • Another route into archives for researchers
  • Contributes to making archives more accessible
  • Will enable us to create new experiences and entry points within Archives Hub
  • To support contributing archives which can’t host or display content themselves
The poet Edward Thomas, ‘Wearing hat, c.1904’

The Current Situation

At the moment our contributors can include digital content in their descriptions on Archives Hub. They add links to their descriptions prior to publication, and they can do this at any level, e.g. ‘item’ level for images of individually catalogued objects, or maybe ‘fonds’ or ‘collection’ level for a selection of sample images. If the links are to image files, these are displayed on the Hub as part of the description. If the links are to video or audio files, or documents, we just display a link.

There are a few disadvantages to this set up: it can be a labour-intensive process adding individual links to descriptions; links often go dead because content is moved, leading to disappointment for researchers; and it means contributing archives need to be able to host content themselves, which isn’t always possible.

Where images are included in descriptions, these are embedded in the page as part of the description itself. If there are multiple images they are arranged to best fit the size of the screen, which means their order isn’t preserved.

If a user clicks on an image it is opened in a pop out viewer, which has a zoom button, and arrows for browsing if there is more than one image.

The embedded image and the viewer are both quite small, so there is also a button to view the image in fullscreen.

The viewer and the fullscreen option both obscure all or part of the decription itself, and there is no descriptive information included around the image other than a caption, if one has been provided.

As you can see the current interface is functional, but not ideal. Listed below are some of the key things we would like to look at and improve going forwards. The list is not intended to be exhaustive, but even so it’s pretty long, and we’re aware that we might not be able to fix everything, and certainly not in one go.

Documenting our aims though is an important part of steering our innovations work, even if those aims end up evolving as part of the exploration process.

Display and Viewing Experience

❐ The viewer needs updating so that users can play audio and video files in situ on the Hub, just as they can view images at the moment. It would be great if they could also read documents (PDF, Word etc).

❐ Large or high-resolution image files should load more quickly into the viewer.

❐ The viewer should also include tools for interacting with content, e.g. for images: zoom, rotate, greyscale, adjust brightness/contrast etc; for audio-visual files: play, pause, rewind, modify speed etc.

❐ When opened, any content viewer should expand to a more usable size than the current one.

❐ Should the viewer also support the display of descriptive information around the content, so that if the archive description itself is obscured, the user still has context for what they’re looking at? Any viewer should definitely clearly display rights and licensing information alongside content.

‘Now for a jolly ride at Bridlington’

Search and Navigation

❐ The Archives Hub search interface should offer users the option to filter by the type of digital content included in their search results (e.g. image, video, PDF etc).

❐ The search interface should also highlight the presence of digital content in search results more prominently, and maybe even include a preview?

❐ When viewing the top level of a multi-level description, users should be able to identify easily which levels include digital content.

❐ Users should also be able to jump to the digital content within a multi-level description quickly – possibly being able to browse through the digital content separately from the description itself?

❐ Users should be able to begin with digital content as a route into the material on Archives Hub, rather than only being able to search the text descriptions as their starting point.

Contributor Experience

❐ Perhaps Archives Hub should offer some form of hosting service, to support archives, improve availability of digital content on the Hub, and allow for the development of workflows around managing content?

❐ Ideally, we would also develop a user-friendly method for linking content to descriptions, to make publishing and updating digital content easy and time-efficient.

❐ Any workflows or interfaces for managing digital content should be straightforward and accessible for non-technical staff.

❐ The service could give contributors access to innovative but sustainable tools, which drive engagement by highlighting their collections.

❐ If possible, any resources created should be re-usable within an archive’s own sites or resources – making the most of both the material and the time invested.

Future Possibilities

❐ We could look at offering options for contributors to curate content in creative and inventive ways which aren’t tied to cataloguing alone, and which offer alternative ways of experiencing archival material for users.

❐ It would be exciting for users to be able to ‘collect’, customise or interact with content in more direct ways. Some examples might include:

  • Creating their own collections of content
  • Creating annotations or notes
  • Publicly tagging or commenting on content

❐ Develop the experience for users with things like: automated tagging of images for better search; providing searchable OCR scanned text for text within images; using the tagging or classification of content to provide links to information and resources elsewhere.

Image credits

Edward Thomas: Papers of Edward Thomas (GB 1239 424/8/1/1/10), Cardiff University Archives / Prifysgol Caerdydd.

Servants of the Queen (from Salome, c1900): by Dorothy Carleton Smyth. Art, Design and Architecture collection (GB 1694 NMC/0098F), Glasgow School of Art Archives and Collections.

‘Now for a jolly ride at Bridlington’: Claude William Jamson Archive (GB 50 U DX336/8/1), Hull University Archives.

‘Things for children’: Design Council Archives (GB 1837 DES/DCA/30/1/13/25), University of Brighton Design Archives.

Archiving Art Deco: The Podolsky Collection at the Goldsmiths’ Company Library and Archive

Archives Hub feature for October 2022

In 2027 the Goldsmiths’ Company will celebrate 700 years since it received its first royal charter, which formalised the company’s existence as a craft guild.

To mark this anniversary, a programme of cataloguing and digitisation is underway to make the archives more widely accessible. Sharing the catalogues on public forums – such as the Archives Hub – is a vital aspect of this project.

The archives of the Goldsmiths’ Company date back to the 14th century, with the earliest minutes recorded in 1334. The company prides itself on the breadth of its archival collections; with records covering not only the broad administrative past of the company, but also the history of making and retailing in precious metals. The variety in the archives reflects the strong ties between the craft and the company that remain to this day.

The Podolsky Collection is an excellent example of a maker’s archive, recording all aspects of jewellery craft and trade; from design, to the promotion and sale of wares. Spanning from 1920-2010, the series also offers insight into the resilience of the trade and the evolution of style across the decades.

Paul Podolsky, liveryman of the Goldsmiths’ Company.

Most of the collection was donated to the archive by Paul Podolsky, a liveryman of the Goldsmiths’ Company with a career in jewellery spanning over 70 years. Throughout his career he worked both as a designer, then as an executive, dedicating himself to the company set up by his father Eyna Podolsky.

Eyna Podolsky, a Ukrainian immigrant and the son of metalworkers, began his career with an apprenticeship with a jeweller at just 12, eventually becoming a skilled diamond mounter, setter and engraver.

He was able to start his own business in 1920 and was so successful he employed around 40 people. Originally diamond mounters and watchcase makers, the firm was first known as The British National Watch Case Co.

Eyna Podolsky was the first man in Britain to go into mass production of platinum and diamond-set wrist watches, which were mainly sold to wholesalers.

AC/4/1/3/107: designs for diamond-set wrist watches.

The company also had orders for other pieces of jewellery and commissions from some private clients. In total there are over 130 design drawings in the collection, many of which are from the 1920s and 1930s and so are excellent examples of Art Deco work.

AC/4/1/3/26: design for a brooch or double clip.
AC/4/1/3/93: design drawing for a bracelet, showing annotations to design.

Paul Podolsky’s childhood was spent in and out of his father’s workshops, learning techniques from craftspeople long before he officially joined the firm. Despite this upbringing, Paul didn’t initially want to be a jeweller; he left school at 16 to join a commercial art studio in 1939. The outbreak of war soon closed this down, and Paul joined his father’s studio as an apprentice diamond mounter, by which time the business was thriving in its Hatton Garden premises.

AC/4/2/1: Business card, in 1938 the firm became known as E. Podolsky & Co., Ltd.

The markets depressed during the war and many young jewellers joined the army, leaving an aging workforce. These gaps were supplemented by an influx of Jewish refugees to Hatton Garden leading up to the war. Paul Podolsky recalls craftspeople from all over the former British Empire coming to work in London at this time, including a German-Jewish refugee named ‘Margot’ who joined the Podolsky workshop.

AC/4/1/3/18: design drawing for a brooch, reportedly designed by ‘Margot’ a German-Jewish refugee named Margot working at the company during the war.
AC/4/1/3/19: design drawing for a brooch by Paul Podolsky, inspired by ‘Margot’s’ design.

Like many jewellers E. Podolsky & Co. Ltd. switched to supplying for the war effort – using their small tools to create objects such as fuses. Production at times was 24 hours a day with Paul and his colleagues working night shifts.

After his own service in the army (1944-1947), Paul Podolsky took control of the business, and one of his first actions in charge was to acquire the jewellery subdivisions of Birmingham firms Blanckensee and Albion Chain who had decided to concentrate on engineering work after the war. 

This new venture had to pivot away from the fine work produced between the wars to produce cheaper 9ct items. Many of the initial designs were drawn by Paul Podolsky himself as he was unable to afford a professional designer. It was a gamble, but his economy paid off, with the company still producing commercial jewellery well into the 1980s.

AC/4/1/3/136: designs for more economical brooches in the post-war market.

Further information

The listings for the Paul Podolsky collection are available on Archives Hub: https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb1990-ac/4

The archive is also available to view by appointment at the Goldsmiths Company Library and Archive:
https://www.thegoldsmiths.co.uk/craft/library-research/

Listen to the Goldsmiths’ Company Librarian, Eleni Bide’s talk on Paul Podolsky here: https://vimeo.com/674581225

For further information on the history of the Goldsmiths’ Company:
https://www.thegoldsmiths.co.uk/company/history/history-of-the-company/

Sophie Leverington
Archivist
The Goldsmiths’ Company
Goldsmith’s Hall

Related

Browse The Goldsmiths’ Company Library and Archive descriptions to date on the Archives Hub

All images copyright The Goldsmiths’ Company. Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.

Establishment of the East London Mosque Archives

Archives Hub feature for September 2022

About the East London Mosque Archives

Mosque, referred to as a place of worship for Muslims is probably not something that would jump to our minds when we think of archives. It is not surprising then that people are often intrigued to learn that the East London Mosque, which is one of London’s oldest Mosque has its own archive repository located in its complex; the Maryam Centre in Whitechapel. Established as an archive service in 2015, the ELM Archives as it is commonly called, has unique and rich archive collections documenting the various aspects of British Muslim-related history, which is housed in a purpose built Strong Room. At the moment, it is the only mosque in Britain with such facility.

Strong Room, November 2017. Section of the mobile roller racking within the new purpose built Strong Room with some of the East London Mosque archives on the shelves.
Strong Room, November 2017. Section of the mobile roller racking within the new purpose built Strong Room with some of the East London Mosque archives on the shelves.

The ELM Archives Project

The ELM Archives holds the institutional records, dating from 1910 onwards of the East London Mosque Trust, which is responsible for the administration and management of the Mosque. What is perhaps not widely known is that the Archives came into existence from a campaign initiated by the Mosque to preserve its own heritage. This all begun in 1995, when the late Muhammad Suleiman Jetha who was a former Chairman of the East London Mosque rediscovered and bequeathed the documents he had taken during the World War II bombings for safekeeping back to the Mosque. The deposit contained the London Mosque Fund Minute Book and collection of letters, which provided wealth of information on the creation and shaping of the East London Mosque. Realising the value, this led to the start of an effort, later to become recognised as the ELM Archives Project, to professionally organise and store the Mosque archives.

The London Mosque Fund Minute Book, 1910-1951
The London Mosque Fund Minute Book, 1910-1951. Part of the East London Mosque Trust archive collection, the London Mosque Fund Minute Book records a great deal of information right back to the first meeting in 1910, including how the London Mosque Fund raised money; how it invested the funds when they were established; the search for property; and how the fund helped other organisations in the interim period before it bought the premises for the Mosque. The minutes are written in a beautiful handwriting for the first 150 pages and from 1930s onwards there inserts of typewritten sheets.

Not much was done until 2012 when the Mosque secured the help of a qualified Archivist to carry out a two day scoping study of the existing materials to identify the work required for long term protection and management of the archives. The report compiled at the end offered recommendations on how to classify, catalogue, preserve and provide access to the archives.

Further progress was made as the Mosque submitted a successful application for The National Archives’ Cataloguing Grants programme in 2013. This secured a grant to recruit a temporary Archivist for 1 year to catalogue the archives. At the same time, an Archives Steering Group was formed, comprising of different individuals with relevant expertise within the Mosque and externally from the Religious Archives Group to deliver strategic guidance for the Project. By the end of 2014, the archives were appraised, sorted and catalogued accordingly to best practice in archival standards onto the Archives Hub. Moreover, all the archive materials were labelled, repackaged into acid free folders and put into acid free boxes.

Transition to Archives Service

Inside of The London Mosque Fund Minute Book, 1910-1951.
Inside of The London Mosque Fund Minute Book, 1910-1951.

The success of the cataloguing meant that the archive collection of the East London Mosque Trust went live on the Archives Hub in September 2014, and for the time it was made available to the public for online browsing. To accommodate enquiries and facilitate requests to access the archives, 9 volunteers were recruited. They were given training on how to retrieve and put away documents, supervise researchers and assist with basic queries by the Archivist.

The Reading Room service and the online catalogue were officially launched in January 2015. Since then, the Archives has been hosting both internal and external researchers. Access to the Reading Room is free and open to everyone. The Reading Room currently operates on a part time basis and researchers are requested to book an appointment in advance before their intended visit. Further details of the opening hours can be found on the Archives repository homepage within the Archives Hub.

For the long term storage of the archive materials, the Archives Steering Group researched and developed specifications and requirements to build a purpose built Strong Room in the Maryam Centre. Standards relevant at the time, such as PD 5454:2012 Guide for the Storage and Exhibition of Archival Materials and The National Archives’ Standard for Record Repositories, which gave recommendations for storing and keeping archives within best practice and incorporated factors such as repository construction, storage environment, fire protection and prevention and temperature and humidity parameters were taken into consideration. The built also took into account archival storage needs for the next 50 years. Soon after, fundraising for the necessary construction and equipment began. The building of the Strong Room, equipped with mobile shelving, monitoring system for humidity, humidifiers and extractors, fire proofing and fire alarm system and water drainage arrangements was accomplished and inaugurated on 22 November 2017 by Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.

Launch Day, January 2015. The event celebrated the completion of cataloguing of the East London Mosque Trust archive collection and launch of the online catalogue on Archives Hub and opening of the Reading Room service. Photograph shows Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, Simon Hughes, Former Minister for Justice and Civil Liberties, Eilís McCarthy, Project Archivists with Archive Volunteers.
Launch Day, January 2015. The event celebrated the completion of cataloguing of the East London Mosque Trust archive collection and launch of the online catalogue on Archives Hub and opening of the Reading Room service. Photograph shows Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, Simon Hughes, Former Minister for Justice and Civil Liberties, Eilís McCarthy, Project Archivists with Archive Volunteers.

The ELM Archives Now

It has been a long journey and the ELM Archives has now transitioned from a Project to a Service. In 2018, a part time permanent Archivist was employed by the Mosque to manage the growing archive collections. The Archives started with the intention of just preserving the history of the East London Mosque but now endeavours to create a repository for all and any records relating to British Muslims in Britain.

With the collecting remit broadened, at present, the Archives has the following archival collections in its holdings:

Due to a backlog, not all these collections have been fully catalogued and made available on the Archives Hub yet. Please contact the East London Mosque Archives for further information.     

Further Information 

Browse all the East London Mosque Archives collection descriptions on the Archives Hub.

Ways to connect with the East London Mosque Archives:

Email: archives@londonmuslimcentre.org.uk

Website: http://eastlondonmosquearchives.org.uk/

Twitter: @ELM Archives

Instagram: ELM_Archives

To discover the history of the East London Mosque, from the formation of the London Mosque Fund in 1910, the opening of the first Mosque buildings in 1941, making of the Mosque in Whitechapel to the present day, browse the following links:

https://www.eastlondonmosque.org.uk/history

https://www.ourmigrationstory.org.uk/oms/the-east-london-mosque

https://surveyoflondon.org/map/feature/954/detail/

The London Mosque Fund Minute Book from the East London Mosque Trust archive collection has been digitised and a copy can be accessed here:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/royal-historical-society-camden-fifth-series/article/london-mosque-fund/800E27BBC9A990B01C1AB43B7515A079

Shahera Begum, Archivist
East London Mosque & London Muslim Centre

All images copyright East London Mosque Archives. Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.

Larkin with archives

Archives Hub feature for August 2022

Preserving a literary legacy…

‘I feel the only thing you can do about life is to preserve it, by art if you’re an artist, by children if you’re not’ (PAL, letter to Monica Jones)

Self-portrait taken by Larkin whilst on a beach in Sark with Monica Jones, 1961 [RefNo. U DLV/2/5/49]

The 9th of August 2022 marks the centenary of the birth of poet and librarian Philip Arthur Larkin.

His approach to life as represented in the above quote will resonate with anyone involved in archival work and research. It speaks to the core function of the archivist in preserving the surviving evidence of past thoughts, beliefs and events.

Although not born in Hull, Larkin was intimately connected with the city. Appointed to the post of Librarian at the University of Hull in March 1955, he spent half of his life in the area, living first in Cottingham, then in Hull’s Pearson Park, and finally in the well-to-do area of Newland Park near the University. Some of his most famous works were inspired by the experience of living in, travelling from and returning to the city. During his time at the University, he guided the library through a period of significant development, helping to transform it from a small operation in a series of makeshift spaces, to a purpose built and sector-leading academic library. Through his collaboration with academic colleagues, he promoted the growth of Hull University Archives from a small selection of manuscripts to an internationally significant repository for archive collections. So, it is fitting that his surviving archive is held at Hull as part of the University Archives.

Creative process of a poet…

‘[T]o construct a verbal device that would preserve an experience indefinitely by reproducing it in whoever read the poem’ (PAL, definition of the purpose of a poet, from Required Reading)

Self-portrait taken by Larkin whilst in Oxford, 1941 [RefNo. U DLV/2/1/14]

One of the most important of the Larkin related collections held at Hull is his personal archive which contains, amongst other things, his manuscript poetry workbooks.

Draft of poem ‘Fiction and the reading public’, 19 May 1949 [RefNo U DPL/1/2/56]

Written in pencil, they contain manuscript drafts of poems written by Larkin, and provide evidence that he drafted and redrafted individual poems over several days or weeks, even returning to them months later. The pages sometimes feature small doodles or comments, giving us an insight into his feelings and state of mind in a given moment. Thus, the workbooks are a vital and unique record of Larkin’s creative process.

Capturing a view on life…

‘I feel the only thing you can do about life is to preserve it, by art if you’re an artist, by children if you’re not’ (PAL, letter to Monica Jones)

Spring Bank Cemetery taken by Larkin, c.1960s [RefNo. U DLV/3/249/14]

Aside from writing poetry, Larkin was a keen and skilled amateur photographer and the evidence is preserved in his photographic archive [RefNo. U DLV]. Having shown an interest in photography from a young age, Larkin was given a camera to use by his father, a Houghton-Butcher Ensign Carbine No.5. In a letter dated 1947, addressed to a childhood friend, he notes that he has spent a large amount of money on a camera of his own, believed to be a Purma Special. From this point there was no looking back, and later on he became known for his use of a professional quality Rolleiflex camera with timers, lenses and filters.

Gull streaked mud flats along the banks of the Humber River, taken and marked up for enlargement by Larkin, c.1957 [RefNo. U DLV/3/91/4 and U DLV/2/5/32]

His approach to photography seems akin to that of his writing. His photographs skilfully capture the experience of everyday life according to fundamental principles of photographic composition. His subjects regularly include self-portraits, rural landscapes, church yards, and the friends, family and women in his life. His surviving photographs often show evidence that he marked up prints for enlargement to create a better composition.

Communication is key…

‘Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself’ (PAL, This be the verse)

Self-portrait of Larkin and Monica Jones, taken by Larkin, c.1950s [U DMA]

In an age of emails, texts and social media, we perhaps forget how important letter writing was to communication in the mid-20th century. Larkin was a prolific letter writer, maintaining contact with friends, acquaintances, and family on a regular basis. There are many collections of his correspondence at Hull.

Letter from Larkin to James ‘Jim’ Sutton, 1940 [U DP174/2/9]

Highlights include letters sent to Monica Jones, his life-long partner [RefNo. U DX341], which reveal their close and frank relationship, along with aspects of Larkin’s character and life views. Another highlight is the correspondence between Larkin and his childhood friend James Sutton [U DP174 and U DP182]. The two friends discuss home life, friends, jazz music, and their current creative endeavours, which provides opportunity to explore Larkin’s formative years at home, school and university.

Further information…

In this centenary year we’ve been busy working to enhance access to the Larkin collections, improving catalogue descriptions, producing a new source guide and creating an online exhibition.

To access the source guide: https://libguides.hull.ac.uk/archives-at-hhc/published-guides

To explore the online exhibition: https://libguides.hull.ac.uk/larkin100/home

Claire Weatherall, Archivist
Hull University Archives

Related

Collections at Hull University Archives relating to Philip Larkin – letters, papers and more

Browse all Hull University Archives descriptions on the Archives Hub

Previous features on Hull University Archives

For those in peril on the sea – Seamen’s Missions archives at Hull History Centre (2019)

Papers of the Association of Chief Police Officers – the National Reporting Centre (2016)

Liberty, Parity and Justice at the Hull History Centre (2010)

All images copyright Hull University Archives. Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.

Archives Revealed: the Devonshire Collections at Chatsworth

Archives Hub feature for July 2022

CS8/2861 – Telegram informing SCC (Spencer Compton Cavendish, Lord Hartington), in his capacity as Lord President of Council, of the death of Queen Victoria.

In April 2021, work began to catalogue key collections of the Cavendish family papers in the Devonshire Collection Archives at Chatsworth House, funded by an Archives Revealed Cataloguing Grant.

At the completion of this project, the collections listed below will be searchable using the item-level catalogues on Archives Hub:

Rather than regurgitating the Scope and Content of the catalogues in this blog (which you can read if you click on the links above), I’d like to highlight ten thoughts/statements prompted by items I came across when cataloguing.

It must be acknowledged that this material was largely created and collected by the upper echelons of privileged British aristocratic society, and so the view provided by the material relates to people who were, on the whole, white, wealthy and powerful. Glimmers of other peoples’ stories can be ascertained sometimes, but usually as a by-product of the record creation and retention process rather than directly from those individuals.   

1. School-aged children will always doodle in their exercise books

A number of 17th century exercise books belonging to the 2nd and 3rd Earls of Devonshire are part of the Hardwick Manuscripts (HMS) and Hobbes Papers (HS). Many of them are covered in griffonage on the flyleaves, just as one might expect of a schoolbook today.

Figure 1 HMS/4/34
Figure 2 HS/D/1 c. 1630s and cover of HMS/4/34

They include the 3rd Earl practising his new name “William Devonshire” When, aged 9 ½ he lost his father, the title of Earl of Devonshire passed to him, therefore entitling him to sign himself with the surname Devonshire rather than Cavendish.

Figure 3 Back inside cover of HMS/4/34
Figure 4 HS/D/9 Scribblings of the 2nd Earl? And the Ovid hexameter “Hei mihi quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis” (Hey me! Love cannot be cured by herbs)

2. Financial account books are a window into daily life

The Hardwick Manuscripts include some astonishingly well-preserved 16th– and 17th-century financial account books from across the Devonshire estates. Some of the most fascinating for the study of daily life in an English aristocratic household are those that record the grocery shop!

Here is an example of Bess of Hardwick’s household spending recorded by her steward for one Thursday in February 1552:

two poteles of claret wine for dinner; eggs; apples to roast; items to make fritters; ale to make fritters; an item delivered to a person for his “bele”; a pint of “momse” for when her ladyship was sick – totalling 4 shillings, 1 ½ pence.

Figure 5 HMS/1/2 fol. 66

As well as listing provisions (food bought from tenant farmers on the estates) and achats (food bought from town), the kitchen accounts for the 3rd Earl’s household for the years 1640-1678 note the guests dining on particular days. Names include: Lord [Henry] Clifford; Lady Windsor; Lady Salisbury [mother to Elizabeth, Countess of Devonshire]; Lord Cranborne [brother of Elizabeth] and Sir Ed Caple [possibly Cappell, a known Royalist family].

Figure 6 HMS/1/22/ An extract of a kitchen account book, showing items bought and used for one week in December 1640, with names of guests staying along the top of the record.

3. Death was still upsetting even though it was common

Losing a family member or friend during one’s own lifetime may have been more common in the 17th and 18th century, but letters in these collections suggest it was not any less of an emotional event because of its regularity.

The letters of Rachel, Lady Russell (c. 1636-1723), show how the execution of her husband – in 1683 for his involvement in the treasonous Rye House Plot – affected her for a long time afterwards. She put on a public show of composure to most of her correspondents. However, her innermost sorrow and grief she shared with her chaplain, Dr Fitzwilliam.

Even three years after her husband’s death she writes:

“…desiring to know the world no more, [I] am utterly unfitted for the management of anything in it, but must, as I can, engage in such necessary offices to my children, as I cannot be dispensed from, nor desire to be, since ‘tis an eternal obligation upon me, to the memory of a husband, to whom, and his, I have dedicated the few and sad remainder of my days, in this vale of misery and trouble.”

Figure 7 Rachel, Lady Russell Engraving by John Cochran, after Samuel Cooper, 17th century (public domain*)

4. Women held power

Despite Lady Russell’s deep sorrow that lasted most of the rest of her life, she continued to engage a network of acquaintances through her letter writing. Reading her letters provides a picture of a woman who used the position of a wealthy widow to her advantage in the advance of her estates and her daughters’ positions in society. There are many letters between Lady Russell and her lawyer, John Hoskins (CS1/34); and her cousin Henri de Massaue, 2nd Marquis du Ruvigny (CS1/97). They present an example of how aristocratic women engaged with the management of their estates as much as – and sometimes more than – male landowners, when their widowhood provided them with the opportunity to take control.

Another example of this is Dorothy Boyle (nee Savile), Countess of Burlington (CS1/164), who like Lady Russell, was responsible for the preservation of large groups of inherited family letters, which make up the Cavendish Family and Associates: 1st Correspondence Series, 1490-1839 (CS1) collection at Chatsworth. The archive is a place of power, and the stewardship of family papers ensured these two women could assert theirs.

5. Archival sources and scholarship don’t always align

In most scholarship, the portrayal of Dorothy, Lady Burlington’s influence and legacy is almost non-existent. Eclipsed by the reputation of her architect husband, Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, Lady Burlington has been a footnote or a minor character in repeated anecdotes. Her letters illuminate a more significant role as a facilitator of the Burlington circle and in 18th-century artistic society. You can read more here.

6. Mental health illness isn’t a modern issue

Many references are made to ‘low mood’, ‘upset humours’, ‘delirium’, ‘nerves’, ‘nervous cases’, ‘hysterics’ in the 18th century letters. Whilst some of the language used is different to how we would describe illnesses such as depression and anxiety today, the references do show that mental health was a case for comment just as much as peoples’ physical health.

Elizabeth Biddulph (nee Bedingfeld) wrote to Lady Charlotte, Marchioness of Hartington in 1754 (CS1/378/1) of her prolonged “illness of the nerves” that began after the birth of her last child. Could she be describing what we would nowadays identify as post-partum depression?

Figure 8 Extract from CS1/378/1 Elizabeth Biddulph describing her “disorder” after her last childbirth to Charlotte, Marchioness of Hartington

7. Fresh air and exercise were known cures for illness

As with the above letter where we see that fresh air and exercise aided Elizabeth Biddulph’s recovery, the 4th Duke of Devonshire’s brother, Lord Frederick Cavendish, in December 1761, advised his brother to partake of the same. The 4th Duke, having suffered from a bout of poor mental and physical health, was given the following warning by his brother:

“if you set in that room in London and fret yourself about our damned politics, you’ll kill yourself. Go down to Chatsworth look at your works, and keep yourself out in the air the whole day, I don’t joke… if you was to sleep once or twice a week on the top of Lindop [woods near Chatsworth] I believe it would be better than all the physic that doctors can give”. (CS4/1565)

8. It’s possible to draw out historically overlooked people in fleeting remarks

A passing reference to three black children arriving on a French cargo ship into Waterford 1756 in one of the letters of Lord Frederick Cavendish led me to research who they were and what might have happened to them. You can read the full story here.

9. Lord Hartington visited Confederate lines and it changed his opinion of the South

Spencer Compton Cavendish, Lord Hartington (1833-1908), visited North America in 1862/3, during the American Civil War. He wrote to his father, the 7th Duke of Devonshire, that seeing the Confederates and their earnestness at Richmond had caused him to begin to support their view. He described himself as becoming more “Southern” as the trip progressed and believed the Southerners to have a lot of “dignity”.  This was around the time of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (1 January 1863) that “all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states, “are, and henceforward shall be free”, which would have the biggest effect on some of the Southern states.

Hartington admitted he had not seen enough plantations to be a judge of “the state of things”. However, he wrote that “the “Negroes” hardly look as well off as I expected to see them but they are not [different?] or more uncomfortable looking than Irish labourers” (CS8/184) – a damning indictment of the state of conditions for 19th century Irish labourers!

On the 21 January 1863 he wrote to his father from Charleston, South Carolina, that the Emancipation Proclamation hadn’t seemed to make “the slightest difference” and “even in the Sea Islands [Georgia] in the possession of the enemy, they hear that the “negroes” are doing their work just as usual under the overseers”.

Figure 9 CS8/184 Letter from SCC to his father, William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire, written from Charleston 21 January 1863

These changed views were clearly private ones as, in another letter to his father, he acknowledges his constituents would not approve of his Southern persuasions (CS8/186).

10. British concentration camps existed before Nazi ones

A reference in a letter from Sir Lawrence Oliphant to Louisa Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, February 1900 (CS8/2824), mentions his arrival in South Africa and the capture of Boer weapons, women and cattle. He mentions a group of “Freestater” women [from the Orange Free State] who were “delighted not to be taken to the camps”. A reminder that the British used concentration camps for Boer women and children in the South African Boer War – a generation before the Nazis.

Figure 10 CS8/2824 Letter from Sir Lawrence Oliphant to Louisa, Duchess of Devonshire, 18 February 1900

I hope that these ten points have shown what wide-ranging material is featured in the Cavendish family papers catalogued in this project and the benefit of having the full catalogues available online on Archives Hub!

Frankie Drummond Charig
Project Archivist, Chatsworth

Related

Browse all Devonshire Collection Archives, Chatsworth descriptions on the Archives Hub

Previous feature on The Devonshire Collection Archives, Chatsworth (2019)

* Portrait of Rachel Wriothesley, Lady Russell. Engraved by John Cochran after a portrait by Samuel Cooper. Image in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

All other images copyright The Devonshire Collection Archives, Chatsworth. Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.

Assessing Machine Learning Outputs

One of the challenges that we face with our Labs project is presentation of the Machine Learning results.  We thought there would be many out of the box tools to help with this, but we have not found this to be the case.

If we use the AWS console Rekognition service interface for example, we get presented with results, but they are not provided in a way that will readily allow us and our project participants to assess them. Here is a screenshot of an image from Cardiff University – an example of out of the box use of AWS Rekognition:

Excavation at Stonehenge, Cardiff University Photographic Archive

This is just one result – but we want to present the results from a large collection of images. Ideally we would run the image recognition on all of the Cardiff images, and/or on the images from one collection, assess the results within the project team and also present them back to our colleagues at Cardiff.

The ML results are actually presented in JSON:

Excerpt from JSON showing ML output

Here you can see some of the terms identified and the confidence scores.

These particular images, from the University archive, are catalogued to item level. That means they may not benefit so much from adding tags or identifying objects. But they are unlikely to have all the terms (or ‘labels’ in ML parlance) that the Rekognition service comes up with.  Sometimes the things identified are not what a cataloguer would necessarily think to add to a description. The above image is identified as ‘outdoors’, ‘ground’ and ‘soil. These terms could be useful for a researcher. Just identifying photographs with people in them could potentially be useful.

Another example below is of a printed item – a poem.

Up in the Wind, Papers of Edward Thomas, Cardiff University

Strange formatting of the transcript aside, the JSON below shows the detected text (squirrels), confidence and area of the image where the word is located.

Detected word ‘squirrels’

If this was provided to the end user, then anyone interested in squirrels in literature (surely there must be someone…) can find this digital content.  

But we have to figure out how to present results and what functionality is required. It reminds me of using Open Refine to assess person name matches.  The interface provides for a human eye to assess and confirm or reject the results.

Screenshot of names matching using Open Refine
Screenshot of names matching using Open Refine

We want to be able to lead discussions with our contributors on the usefulness, accuracy, bias – lack of bias – and peculiarities of machine learning, and for that a usable interface is essential.

How we might knit this in with the Hub description is something to consider down the line. The first question is whether to use the results of ML at all.  However, it is hard to imagine that it won’t play a part as it gets better at recognition and classification.  Archvists often talk about how they don’t have time to catalogue. So it is arguable that machine learning, even if the results are not perfect, will be an improvement on the backlogs that we currently have.    

AWS Rekognition tools

We have thought about which tools we would like to use and we are currently creating a spreadsheet of the images we have from our participants and which tools to use with each group of images.

Some tools may seem less likely, for example, image moderation. But with the focus on ethics and sensitive data, this could be useful for identifying  potentially offensive or controversial images.

blanked out image
Blanked out image

The Image Moderation tool recognises nudity in the above image. 

confidence scores for nudity
The confidence scores are high that this image represents nudity

This could be carried through to the end user interface, and a user could click on ‘view content’ if they chose to do so.

image of nude
Art Design and Architecture Collection, Glasgow School of Art (NMC/1137)

The image moderation tool may classify images art images as sensitive when they are very unlikely to cause offence.  The tools may not be able to distinguish offensive nudity from classical art nudity. With training it is likely to improve, but when you think about it, it is not always an easy line for a human to draw.

Face comparison could potentially be useful where you want to identify individuals and instances of them within a large collection of photographs for example, so we might try that out.  

However, we have decided that we won’t be using ‘celebrity recognition’, or ‘PPE detection’ for this particular project!

Text and Images

We are particularly interested in text and in text within images.  It might be a way to connect images, and we might be able to pull the text out to be used for searching.

Suffice to say that text will be very variable. We ran Transkribus Lite on some materials.

Transkribus on a handwritten letter
Letter from the Papers of Edward Thomas at Cardiff University

We compared this to use of AWS Text Rekognition.

Transkribus on a handwritten letter
Letter from the Papers of Edward Thomas at Cardiff University

These examples illustrate the problem with handwritten documents. Potentially the model could be trained to work better for handwriting, but this may require a very large amount of input data given the variability of writing styles.

Transkribus on a typescript letter
Poem from the Papers of Edward Thomas, Cardiff University

Transkribus has transcribed this short typescript text from the same archive well.  One word ‘house’ has been transcribed as ‘housd’ and ‘idea’ caused a formatting issue, but overall a good result.

Transkribus on a poster
Poster from the Design Archive, University of Brighton Design Archives

The above example is Transkribus Lite on a poster from the University of Brighton Design Archives.  In archives, many digital items are images with text – particularly collections of posters or flyers. Transkribus has not done well with this (though this is just using the Lite version out of the box).  

Rekognition on a poster

We also tried this with the AWS Rekognition Text tool, and it worked well.

Another example of images with text is maps and plans.

Lambeth Palace map of London
19th century map of Clerkenwell, Lambeth Palace Archive
JSON output showing place name
JSON output showing place name

Above are two examples of places identified from the plan output in JSON. If we can take these outputs and add them to our search interface, an end user could search for ‘clerkenwell’ or ‘northampton square’ and find this plan.  

Questions we currently have:

  • How do we present the results back to the project team?
  • How do we present the results to the participants?
  • Do we ask participants specific questions in order to get structured feedback?
  • Will we get text that is useful enough to go to the next step?
  • Which images provide good text and which don’t?
  • How might they results be used on the Archives Hub to help with discovery?

As we progress the work, we will start to think about organising a workshop for participants to get their feedback on the ML outputs.

Thanks to Adrian Stevenson, one of the Hub Labs team, who took me through the technical processes outlined in this post.

The Edge Hill University Archive

Archives Hub feature for June 2022

Edge Hill University’s history dates back to the 1880s when a committee was formed in 1882 to establish a teacher training college for women in Liverpool. Students would be instructed “in the Christian Religion upon a Scriptural but undenominational basis.”

The minutes of the first meeting of the Edge Hill Training College Committee, February 1882. Ref: EHU/GOV/1/12.

The College was opened on Durning Road in the Edge Hill district of Liverpool in January 1885, with just 41 students. Sarah Jane Yelf was appointed as the College’s first Principal, with the intention of producing ‘a superior class of Elementary School Mistresses’. Sarah Jane Hale took over as principal in 1890 and the institution began a gradual expansion. Miss Hale died in 1920 and by the end of her tenure the College had trained 2,071 girls, of whom 213 were Head Mistresses, 178 First Assistants, and 30 science mistresses. Miss Hale’s successor in 1920 was Eva Marie Smith and she would continue with the ambitious expansion of the College, with it by now having a firmly established reputation for excellence.

Postcard showing the original Edge Hill College on Durning Road, Liverpool.

Miss Smith and her colleagues had begun to feel that the Durning Road site was not suitable for the growing student and staff population (as well as facing regular problems with the upkeep of the site. In 1925, Edge Hill was placed under the control of Lancashire County Council who would provide a new building for the college, preserving the original name, history and reputation. A site in Ormskirk was chosen and the foundation stone of the new building was laid in 1931, before opening in October 1933.

During the Second World War, the College was evacuated to Bingley Training College while the campus served as a military hospital. The original Durning Road premises were destroyed in a German bombing raid on 28 November 1940, killing 166 people – the worst single incident in the Liverpool Blitz as regards loss of life.

The gradual expansion of the Ormskirk campus resumed after the War and, in 1959, the first male students were welcomed to the College. During the 1960s courses were expanded and diversified, with a rapidly developing range of degree courses on offer.

Watercolour of Edge Hill College, Ormskirk, by an unknown student, 1950s. Ref: EHU/GUAL/3/27/4.

Over the next decades, the institution would maintain its reputation for excellence in teacher training while also steadily expanding a range of successful degree courses in other areas. This acceleration of curriculum, infrastructure and institutional development has continued to the present day, with the University Title awarded in 2006.

The Edge Hill University archives offer a wealth of potential areas for research. The collections have vast potential for the history of teacher training, women’s education and the changing lives of women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The expansion of Edge Hill in recent decades means its history has a great deal to tell us about the development of higher education in Britain as well as the changing experiences of those who studied and were employed here. Each milestone changed and broadened the horizons of what Edge Hill University is today.

Photograph of a page from a student’s autograph album portraying the highs and lows of Test Week, c. 1904. Ref: EHU/GUAL/3/12/1.

It would be fantastic to see this collection being used more for research. It has already proven a fantastic resource for historians of women’s suffrage, with a number of Edge Hill’s alumni having been active in the fight for equality and some becoming particularly well-known figures such as the barrister and women’s rights campaigner, Helena Normanton and the socialist, feminist and human rights campaigner, Ethel Snowden. Discussions around women’s suffrage and equality were often covered and reported on in the annual Edge Hill College magazines – a wonderfully rich series of documents that reveal much about the cultural shifts in the lives of women during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Four Edge Hill students, 1922.

The dedicated cataloguing of the archive only began in late 2019, so there is a huge amount of material yet to be catalogued, as well as a constant flow of new accessions arriving at the archive, so researchers are encouraged to contact us if they cannot find things that they might expect to find listed, would like to find out more about the collections or have a specific enquiry we might be able to support them with. Get in touch and discover an archive collection that is overflowing with untapped potential!

Dan Copley
Edge Hill University Archivist

Related

Edge Hill University and Predecessors, c. 1882-c. 2019

Edge Hill University Archives on the Archives Hub

All images copyright Edge Hill University Archives. Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.

Using AI to Write Blog Posts

Given that Hub Labs is looking at AI and we’re also writing blog posts, it seemed like a good opportunity to try out one of the AI blog post writing applications that keep appearing in my various streams. The one that seems to get the best recommendations and is also free to trial is Writesonic. I’ve been meaning to write a post about our initial steps to build the AWS cloud infrastructure for Labs, so I thought I would use this as the basis for the experiment. You essentially provide a title, in this case I chose ‘Getting Started with Machine Learning in the Cloud’, and it will then provide some intros and outlines that you can accept or reject before it goes on to produce some copy. The best copy I could get it to produce given the options provided is pasted in below. You can see it’s a bit marketing speak and it was no great surprise that it’s not proved to be of much use for my experiment at least. For some reason it wanted to assume we are using Google Cloud and didn’t offer any AWS copy. It was interesting to try it though, and I could see it might be useful for more general posts.

The AI generated copy (italised by me) including the image is pasted below:

Getting Started with Machine Learning in the Cloud

Image Source: Freepik‍

The practice of machine learning involves training computer algorithms to recognize patterns in data and make predictions based on those patterns. It takes a lot of resources to implement machine learning in your business. There are many different datasets, tools, and software packages that you need to understand and choose from before you canput them to work analyzing your data and building your algorithm. This blog post discusses how you can use cloud services for machine learning with an example using Google Cloud Machine Learning (Cloud ML) and its APIs for Natural Language Processing (NLP).

What is Machine Learning?

There are many definitions of machine learning, including the IEEE’s “A computer program is said to learn from experience E with respect to some class of tasks T and some performance measure P if its performance at tasks in T, as measured by P, improves with experience E.” Or, as silly as it sounds, you can think about machine learning as a computer program that takes a bunch of data and spits out a prediction. You’re the one that has to tell the program how to do it.

Cloud ML with its APIs for NLP

Google Cloud Machine Learning workflows let you build and manage machine learning models in Google Cloud. Cloud ML supports a variety of machine learning frameworks, including TensorFlow, Caffe 2, and Apache MXNet. Cloud ML also provides a set of Natural Language APIs to support natural language processing (NLP) tasks, including sentiment analysis and entity extraction. Cloud ML’s NLP APIs can be accessed programmatically through its REST APIs.

Create a dataset using BigQuery

When you’re collecting data for machine learning, it’s important that your data be as accurate as possible. Google’s BigQuery lets you create a dataset in the cloud, and then you can use Google’s Natural Language API to analyze that dataset and get a breakdown of the different parts of speech. BigQuery is Google’s fully managed, enterprise data warehouse for business analytics. With BigQuery, you can query large data sets using standard SQL and get results in seconds. It’s also fully integrated with Google’s other analytical and collaboration tools, such as Google Sheets, Google Data Studio, and Google Cloud Platform.

Create a model using TensorFlow

With your dataset collected and a model for the Natural Language API built, you can create the model with TensorFlow. In this example, you’ll be building a model for sentiment analysis, which means you’ll be using the API’s sentiment analysis functionality. If you’re new to TensorFlow, don’t worry. There are some libraries out there that make it super easy to get started. One of them is tf-python-client, which is a library that allows you to write python code that uses TensorFlow.

Run the model in a Cloud Dataflow job

At this point, you’ve built a model and have everything ready to go. All that’s left to do is plug everything into Cloud Dataflow. Cloud Dataflow is Google’s fully managed, distributed framework for executing streaming data pipelines. Cloud Dataflow lets you build scalable, easy-to-manage data processing pipelines that transform and enrich your data. With Dataflow, you can build data processing and machine learning pipelines in a single, unified programming model. This means that you can build a model that performs data analysis, trains the model, and then deploys it in one workflow instead of three different ones.

Run the model in an API server

Your model is ready to go. Now you’re just missing the code to plug into an API server that can handle your data and send it to BigQuery. The Google Cloud Natural Language API lets you understand the meaning of text. You can use the API to detect entities, sentiments, and other linguistic properties of text. The API supports 82 languages.

Conclusion

Now that you know what machine learning is and have gotten started with Cloud ML and its NLP APIs, you can put this knowledge to use. You can use the NLP APIs to perform sentiment analysis or entity extraction on a dataset. This can be helpful for creating articles, social media posts, or marketing materials that are more effective.

With Cloud ML and its NLP APIs, you can create machine learning models that are more accurate and make more informed predictions. It takes a lot more effort to create models without cloud services, and it’s often difficult to keep track of all of the resources needed. With cloud services, you can focus on the model and not worry about the infrastructure and resources needed to run it.

Stanley Houghton Collection and Salford Digital Archives

Archives Hub feature for May 2022

This month we explore the recently digitised Stanley Houghton Collection held by the University of Salford and made accessible on Salford Digital Archives.  2022 marks 110 years since the first performance of Houghton’s best-known dramatic work, Hindle Wakes.

Photograph from a Hindle Wakes production in 1912, Ref: SHC/4/2.

About Houghton

William Stanley Houghton (1881-1913) was born in 1881 in Ashton-upon-Mersey, Cheshire and during his short life would become one of a group of playwrights known as the ‘Manchester School’. 

It would seem Houghton had a standard middle-class upbringing.  His father was a cotton cloth merchant in Manchester and in 1896 the family moved to Alexandra Park, a middle-class residential area south of the city from where Houghton attended Manchester Grammar School.  On finishing school, Houghton went straight into his father’s cotton business, where he worked as a ‘grey-cloth’ salesman.  It was during this time whilst working in the city that Houghton was developing his skills as a playwright and supplemented his income by writing critical reviews for the Manchester Guardian

Houghton was one of several playwrights championed by Annie Horniman for his focus on what she called ‘real life’.  Horniman was proprietor of Manchester’s Gaiety Theatre, the first repertory theatre outside of London with its own company of actors and a rotating programme of plays by local writers.  It was through the association with the Gaiety that Houghton’s work was performed to audiences in London and America. 

Hindle Wakes

Houghton’s best and most successful work was Hindle Wakes (1912), a comedy about the freedom of the young and the ‘double standard’ of morality. Written in 1911 and premiered at the London Aldwych Theatre in 1912, the play was controversial at the time for its portrayal of a mill girl who shocks the older generation by choosing independence rather than marriage to the mill owners’ son.  The play both appealed and shocked audiences but ultimately proved a hit on an international level.  The financial success of the play, coupled with the production of Houghton’s earlier work The Younger Generation (1909) enabled him to leave the cotton trade and take to writing full time.  

However, Houghton’s career as a full-time writer was short lived.  After moving to London and then Paris, Houghton returned to Manchester in ill health where he died in 1913 at the age of 32.  

Highlights from the collection

Purchased by the university of Salford in 1983, the Stanley Houghton Collection is largely made up of unpublished manuscripts of plays which give insight into his working methods and character.  It was through a ‘chance check in a Manchester telephone directory’ that a PhD student at the University interested in the life and work of the writer discovered Houghton’ living descendants.  It turned out that they had kept a collection of previously unseen manuscripts by Houghton and photographs of early performances ‘wrapped in brown paper…in various suitcases in the house and garage’.

Page from Ginger, Ref: SHC/1/5.
Plan of stage layout for Ginger, Ref: SHC/1/5.

The works are a mixture of comedies, such as Pearls (c1910) which was designed for the music hall, and melodramas such as The Intriguers (c1906) that demonstrate his development as a writer and working method. Ginger (c1910) is evidence of Houghton’s approach to planning and plot development.  I particularly like Houghton’s handwritten note on the page opposite the start of Act 2, to ‘focus Ginger a bit’, which makes me think of Houghton, pencil in hand reviewing his work.   The typescript of Act 3 of Trust the People includes handwritten stage prompts to get the ‘gramophone ready’, giving a sense of how the work might have been produced on stage. 

Page from Trust the People Act 3, Ref: SHC/1/3.

There are also published first edition translations of some of his works including Twixt Cup and Lip, a version of Houghton’s play The Dear Departed in Scots dialect by Felix Fair.

Front cover of Twixt Cup and Lip, Ref: SHC/2/4.

My favourite items in the collection are two sets of photographs of early 20th century theatre productions of Hindle Wakes and The Younger Generation.  They include actors from the Gaiety Repertory Theatre who first performed Hindle Wakes some 110 years ago at the London Aldwych Theatre.  The photos not only capture the sets and costumes of a theatre production at a particular point in time, but are also portraits of early 20th century actresses, including Ada King, Sybil Thorndike and Edyth Goodall. 

Photograph from a Hindle Wakes production in 1912, Ref: SHC/4/2.
Photograph from a Hindle Wakes production in 1912, Ref: SHC/4/2.

I would love to see the Stanley Houghton Collection used more for teaching and research.  Houghton was writing and dramatizing the life and society of the young just before the start the 1914 Great War which of course would have an enormous impact on his own generation. 

Salford Digital Archives

The Houghton manuscripts and photographs are one of several collections now available on Salford Digital Archives, the University of Salford’s new platform to access digital archive content online. 

Other collections on the platform include Brass Band News, a unique newspaper about brass bands from the 1880s up to the 1950s, alongside photographs from the Working Class Movement Library and the Bridgewater Canal.  We are adding new collections to the platform in due course including a set of architectural drawings and plans for the University campus and two series of Salford Student Union newspapers.  We welcome ideas for new collections and opportunities to work in partnership to curate content from our own and other archives. 

Alexandra Mitchell
Archivist, The University of Salford

Related

Stanley Houghton Collection, 1906-1930s

Brass Band News Digital Archive (Online Resource)

Browse all University of Salford Archives & Special Collections descriptions:

On the Archives Hub (main site)

On University of Salford microsite (Archives Hub repository website)

Browse all Working Class Movement Library collection descriptions on the Archives Hub

All images copyright University of Salford Archives & Special Collections. Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.

An Archive of a True Love Story

Archives Hub feature for April 2022

This is the true love story of Geoffrey Griffiths (1906-1993) and Ida Carroll (1905-1995).

Griff

Referred to as “Griff” by many alumni, the lasting memories of this charming chap are primarily as the pipe-smoking first impression of the Northern School of Music. Stepping into the school off Sydney Street (where the Manchester Metropolitan University’s sport centre is now) his lugubrious voice would greet you amid a stain of smoke.

He was the school’s bursar. He typed up the daily notices on the school’s stairwell pillars, he drove the van full of the larger instruments (and their carefully balanced players) to the concert halls for orchestral performances and he kept everything squared away with the balance sheets.

What many did not know, is that he was in a dedicated relationship with the school’s principal Ida Carroll, for about 60 years.  The only reason we know it now is due to the treasure chest of incredible love letters he sent her.

The letters

He wrote his Christmas letters to her at 1 min past midnight on the 24th so he could technically be the first to wish her Merry Christmas.

Geoffrey wrote letters, beautiful love letters, to Ida throughout their relationship. He would write multiple times a week, often just after getting home late at night from visiting her in order to tell her how much he already missed and loved her.

His writing to her was so prolific it seemed only to continue the conversations they had started when meeting face to face, undoubtedly to be picked up again when they next met. Most are merely introduced as “Monday afternoon”, and “Tuesday evening”.  No need to put down such frivolous details as dates when he’s seeing her again by the end of the week.

There are some incredible references the Second World War when he’s had to hastily put down his pen, pick up his papers and pipe (priorities), and make his way to crouch under the stairs or in the nearest bomb shelter. He is very put out as he continues his letter writing in the cramped din, often cursing Herr Hitler for getting in the way of their love affair, which was apparently damned inconsiderate of him.

Griff pours out his war and wedding anxieties to Ida, 1939 (1).

Ida was an Air Raid Precaution Warden for the Didsbury area of Manchester. Griff was part of the Auxiliary Fire Service in Ashton-under-Lyne, spending many nights in the rooms of a bar parlour with a handful of other chaps, waiting for air raids and the inevitable fires that came after. Many long nights of boredom led to some very interesting letters, full of wartime musings, pining for more time with her, and pages upon pages agonising over details such as the merits of joining a journalism course, the exact details of the journey home, and Whist tactics.

Griff pours out his war and wedding anxieties to Ida, 1939 (2).

The couple apart

However, despite their devotion to one another, they didn’t traditionally exist as a couple. Indeed, they never actually lived together. One reason for this, it would seem, was Walter Carroll.

Walter was Ida’s father, and a firm fan of Griff for all it would appear. Griff worked in the travel agency frequented by Walter for his many trips to London. Over time, they got friendly and upon discovering Griff’s interest in singing and music (he had a cello called Boris), Walter enrolled Griff into his own choir at Birch Church. It’s likely that this is when he got to know and fall in love with Ida.

He would visit her at her family home and seemed openly intimidated by her father who, despite his appreciation of Griff’s musical passion, did not appreciate any other passion of Griff’s finding focus in his daughter.

The majority of their friends were also unaware of their affair. Both avid Hallé concert goers, they would arrange tickets to go with friends, fully intending to casually meet up at the concert, sit together or near, and meet up together after. A sort of stealth date night.

Getting closer and closer was all well and good, but still they never made the marriage/cohabitation plunge. Even though at one time they had planned to get married and were actively hunting for flat to take together. His letters describe in detail their dreams, just as the Second World War was being announced. Unfortunately, Griff’s mother died shortly after their plans were made. Moving out would have meant leaving his father alone in the family home through war and through grief. It seemed that Walter’s unwillingness to support the union and this tragic weight of family duty, led Griff to write a heart-breaking letter explaining why he needed to call off the engagement.

The couple together

Griff and Ida on holiday c.1960.

After the war, he quickly took up the opportunity to work as the Bursar of the Northern School of Music (where Ida was Secretary and later Principal) in 1946. Typical of the Northern School of Music and of Ida’s method of career advice, he was not expected to interview but simply to show up and never leave. Which is pretty much what happened.

They remained dedicated to each other, but never married. Their relationship continued for many years, almost in a perpetuating stage of courting. Griff later fell severely ill and Ida nursed him through to the end of his life, almost moving into the nursing home where he lived his final days.

Griff and Ida c.1990.

A lovely side-note here that shares some of the effectiveness of the school’s teaching. A friend and former student of Ida would visit her at Griff’s nursing home. The building was all locks and electronic key codes and it became a bit of a faff. Ida, having taught aural skills for decades had learned the key codes to the door locks simply based on the melody they made. She would relay this to her old friend in “tonic sol-far” (you know the one: do re mi fa sol…), singing the code notes to her, to allow freer movement in and out of the building when she visited.

While not dramatic opera-esque, or reminiscent of soaring symphony crescendos, this was a quiet, steadfast, romantic love of the ages. To read all the letters, head over to the Manchester Digital Music Archive with a cup of tea and sigh ready in your heart.

Heather Roberts
RNCM College Archivist
Royal Northern College of Music

Related

The Carroll Papers: Walter, Elsa and Ida Carroll, c.1850-1999

Browse all Royal Northern College of Music Archives collection descriptions on the Archives Hub

Previous features on Royal Northern College of Music Archives

Thomas Baron Pitfield (1903-1999): a visual autobiography

All images copyright RNCM Archives. Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.