Wishing you a Happy Christmas everyone from the Archives Hub team! The team will be taking a break from 23 December, back on 2 January 2025.
In the meantime, let’s take the opportunity to revisit some of our more ‘Christmassy’ features:
The Dorset House Archive by Oxford Brookes University Special Collections & Archives.
Dorset House School of Occupational Therapy, the first School of Occupational Therapy in the UK, opened on New Year’s Day 1930, but the inspiration for the School can be traced back to a festive morning in a hospital ward. Dr Elizabeth Casson (1881-1954), the School’s founder, was working in a psychiatric hospital when she realised the therapeutic benefits enjoyed by patients who were presented with tasks and activities rather than mere convalescence.
Find out how Christmas decoration making inspired the first School of Occupational Therapy in the UK!
Pantomime: performance, interpretation and the importance of the popular at Special Collections and Archives, University of Kent.
As winter rolls in and Christmas looms around the corner, it’s fascinating to reflect on how nostalgia shapes this most memorable of seasons. When it comes to British festive traditions, one stands out more than most: pantomime.
Pantomime is a uniquely British institution – it’s always fun trying to explain it to international friends! The University of Kent, celebrated the arrival of one of the largest collections of historic pantomime material in the UK: their David Drummond Pantomime Collection.
And not forgetting the 12 days of Christmas – Archives Style! (2016 remix), featuring collections from among others:
- Seven Stories, the Centre for Children’s Books
- Barking and Dagenham Archive and Local Studies Centre
- National Museums Liverpool: Maritime Archives and Library
- University of Reading, Museum of English Rural Life
- Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick
- Archifdy Prifysgol Bangor / Bangor University Archives
- The Glasgow School of Art Archives and Collections Centre