Archives Hub feature for January 2024

Thanks to the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Hallé Concerts Society have the opportunity to interrogate and share their archive collections in ways never before possible. One of those ways is through research and talks. With a generous audience of concert-goers, patrons, members and more, the appetite to learn more about the orchestra they love is ravenous. That got the project archivist, Heather Roberts, thinking. There are so many people who give to the Hallé and so much that the Hallé gives in return. What have been some of the most surprising philanthropic moments in its history? Heather turned to the archive to find out.

Through minutes, photographs, letters, memos, newspaper articles, programme notes and more, the recurring themes of giving are: time and talent, fundraising concerts and awareness raising concerts, instruments, buildings, memories and personal treasures, and sponsorship. But of course, in this modern age, fundraising and the Arts and all that jazz require business support and financial assistance and all sorts. Many businesses have registered charitable status to receive certain funds and to operate within certain spheres of financial and strategic areas. It’s no surprise then, that the Hallé Concerts Society has a large education and community ensembles team – it’s par for the course that community engagement is essential for the modern Arts organisation.

The spirit of giving in the Hallé however, did not start from a strategic business imperative. According to the archive, it started with the man himself, Charles Hallé. An impresario, pianist, conductor and educator of international reputation, his death in 1895 led to large public mourning for the loss of such a generous social staple with 73 wreaths being sent to his grave from admires across the country. So much so, that his obituary in the Guardian is almost one-third filled with anecdotes of his giving nature – not just in financial aid but in using the orchestra and his humanity to support others of greater need such as fundraising concerts for the Railway Servants Orphanage for Fatherless Children, ensuring there were always more affordable seats at any concert to balance out the access to music between those with more and less means etc. This spirit of philanthropy persevered, so much so that when Hallé died, his friends and supporters were quick to gather around and preserve his orchestra and its service to the people of Manchester, creating the Hallé Concerts Society to continue his work supported by guarantors.

In the first 15 years of the Society, 172 people were listed as guarantors, each pledging £100 of their own money against the society to ensure any financial disaster could be swiftly mitigated. This shows a level of trust and faith that seems ludicrous today, equating to roughly £10,000 of personal funds per person. This was especially helpful in the First World War.

The great, the good and the forgotten are named as guarantors but some of the most interesting represent that Mancunian spirit which welcomed and inspired Hallé in the first place. T.C. Horsfall (founder of the Manchester Art Gallery), James Aikman Forsyth (founder of the Forsyth Brothers music shop), Charles E. Lees (Oldham MP, philanthropist and founder of the Gallery Oldham), Margaret Gaskell (founding governor for Manchester High School for Girls), C.P. Scott (journalist and owner of the Manchester Guardian) and more, ensured that the public interest purpose of the orchestra grew and never strayed from its responsibility to the people of Manchester. Most influential was the conductor employed by the Society to carry on Hallé’s work – Hans Richter.

Friend of Wagner and Elgar, internationally respected conductor and pushed boundaries of orchestras and composers throughout his working life. His lesser-known contribution to musicians and their audiences however, was the establishment of the Hallé Pension Fund almost immediately upon his appointment. Akin to the also recently established Mancunian institution, the Musician’s Union, the Fund was a subscription-based service run by the musicians of the orchestra which ensured a pension pay out upon retirement. In the days when there was no state pension, a financial security for musicians administered by musicians was a radical life saver for many.

As well as subscriptions, the orchestra programmed Pension Fund concerts to supplement the pot which were incredibly successful. Donations were sent specifically as gifts for the Pension Fund, to be spent directly on the musicians. For instance, in 1916 the minute book shows £500 (approx.. £30k) was bequeathed by Ida Freund for the players, in memory of her uncle L. Straus, a previous Hallé player; and in 1925 £1000 (approx. £41k) was bequeathed to the fund by Catherine Hankinson in memory of her music teacher and original Hallé musician Sigfried Jacoby. During World War Two, public donations and bequests to the fund increased from £25 6s 6d in 1940, to £299 4s in 1941 and then a huge leap in post-war contributions such as £7241 3s in 1953.

The incredible lifeline of such funds saved families, offered security and inspired loyalty alongside a public recognition of the value of the musicians and their services. And true, while money isn’t everything, it certainly helps.

Other resources that have been given to the Hallé has been in the form of instruments and equipment such as the 1695 Stradivarius violin gifted to the city of Lincoln by a private owner with the explicit instruction that it can only be played by the Leader of the Hallé Orchestra; a building gifted to Charles Hallé by Charles E. Lees in 1893 for his music school the Royal Manchester College of Music; decades of sponsorships and equipment to tour the orchestra all over the world; the Hallé Club run by audience members and fans of the Society’s concerts in 1945 to offer the option for smaller contributions to the Hallé Endowment Fund for those who cannot afford to be Guarantors; free lecture series (now our free pre-concert talks) with musicians about the repertoire to offer musical and historic insight into the performances.

As Heather discovered, the loyalty and love for the Hallé and of the Hallé has manifested in philanthropy both large and small for its entire history. The inspiration continues with an increased number of archival donations of memories and treasures as the archive project continues, people giving their love of the Hallé and entrusting their memories to the archivists. Thanks to the philanthropy of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, they are able to do these memories and gifts the respect they very much deserve.

Heather Roberts
Project Archivist
Hallé Concerts Society

Related

Hallé Archive Collections, 1858-present

Papers of Thomas Coglan Horsfall (held at University of Manchester Library)

Editorial Correspondence of C.P. Scott (held at University of Manchester Library)

Royal Manchester College of Music Archives, 1893-1973 (held at
Royal Northern College of Music Archives)

All images copyright Hallé Concerts Society. Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.

Archives Hub feature for October 2023

The Women’s Aid Federation of England Archive is housed in the University of Leeds Special Collections and is currently being arranged, catalogued and preserved as part of a Wellcome Trust funded project. This is an incredibly significant collection, documenting the charity’s approaches to tackling domestic abuse from its radical beginnings in the 1970s right through to modern day.  

Our three-year project aims to increase public awareness of the work of Women’s Aid and to provide long-term preservation and access to this unique collection. The work will culminate next year with the completion of an online searchable catalogue that opens up this important history – just in time to celebrate 50 years of the Women’s Aid movement. 

Who are Women’s Aid? 

The Women’s Aid Federation of England is a domestic abuse charity that works as the national co-ordinating body for local refuges and domestic abuse services around England. They provide information, training, and resources, as well as lobbying and campaigning for women’s rights and legislative changes, both in England and further afield. 

Women’s Aid was founded in 1974 as the National Women’s Aid Federation, before splitting into separate federations for Scotland in 1976 and England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in 1978. Emerging out of the Women’s Liberation Movement, they formed as a female-led, activist collective, and were often met with scepticism and suspicion, if not outright aggression.  

As the decades pass, we see a narrative of perseverance and progress. The number of refuges affiliated to Women’s Aid rose at an incredible rate, proving the dire need for women’s services. The Federation gets organised: sending out newsletters, holding national conferences, and building a network of supporters around the country. Today, the Federation is well-established and respected for its expertise, conducting original research, and acting as a consultant to government officials, legal figures, and academics.  

What can you find in the Archive? 

The Women’s Aid Federation of England Archive documents the history of the organisation, from its origins as the National Women’s Aid Federation through to present day. The Archive consists of both analogue and digital records, including paper, photographic, textile, audio-visual, and born-digital records. It covers a range of subject areas with a wealth of research potential. 

More than anything, the Archive is a major resource for understanding the formation, development and running of Women’s Aid. It charts the decisions that shaped the development of the organisation, and how these were communicated and coordinated throughout its national network. For example, the national conference series shows the annual meetings that brought staff, volunteers, and service users together from around the country to debate current issues within Women’s Aid and the wider women’s rights movement. 

Our run of newsletters stretches from 1974 to the 2010s, offering an amazing visual timeline of the development of the organisation through the decades. In the early years especially, they formed a vital line of communication on upcoming campaigns and rallies. The newsletter collection also gives insight into the characteristic wit and humour of the organisation with poems, songs and cartoons peppering the pages. There are also examples of puzzles and colouring pages to help entertain the children who end up moving into refuges with their mothers. 

Our digitised collection of posters, postcards, calendars, and badges have recently gone live on our online catalogue. Often brightly coloured, eye catching and extremely emotive, these items were used to spread the word about domestic abuse, signpost where women could get help, and work to change public opinion. The 1970s calendars are prime examples, showing a range of engaging content brought together by women running, volunteering with, or using Women’s Aid services. Posters from Women’s Aid campaigns highlight the different approaches the organisation has taken over the decades to stand up and be heard, such as working with the police, BBC, and a plethora of celebrities.  

How can you explore the material? 

The examples shown above just scratch the surface of what has already been catalogued in the Women’s Aid Archive, and with the project stretching into 2024 there are still boxes to be catalogued and made available online. Researcher interest has already proven that the Women’s Aid Archive is an invaluable source for learning more about the organisation itself and its role in the domestic abuse movement, but also its contribution to wider health and society, changes in the law, and cultural shifts in attitudes towards domestic abuse.  

As we come towards a celebration of 50 years of Women’s Aid, we look forward to the archive being used to explore what accomplishments have been achieved, and what is still yet to be done. 

You can find the Women’s Aid Federation of England Collection Guide on the University of Leeds Special Collections website. It provides information on key series in the archive and on how to search the catalogue and request the material. The collection level record for the archive is live and is increasingly being populated with more catalogued material. The catalogue will be complete in 2024.

Holly Smith

Archivist, University of Leeds Special Collections & Galleries

Project Archivist, Women’s Aid Federation of England Archive

Related

Descriptions of other archives held by University of Leeds Special Collections can be found on Archives Hub here: https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/GB-206.

All images courtesy of Women’s Aid Federation of England.

Archives Hub feature for August 2023

Introduction

The summer months of June, July and August were prime flying season for Laker Airways – though significant discounts were offered to operators in the off-season, too. The man behind this pioneering budget airline was Sir Freddie Laker who recognised the inaccessibility of air travel for the general public, and identified a gap in the market dominated by British Airways and Pan Am. He subsequently founded Laker Airways and its multiple subsidiaries, which allowed tens of thousands of people to fly transatlantic for the very first time. His legacy paved the way for Ryanair, Virgin, and easyJet and today we take the ability to get cheap plane tickets for granted. Now, the archive documenting the rise and demise of the airline is available to the public at West Sussex Record Office.

What’s in the archive?

The archive consists of around 700 files including correspondence, financial records, reports, publicity, and photographs. The other significant part is the vast amount of press cuttings, in fact 135 files of them, spanning 1974 to 1983. These records document the core activities of not just Laker Airways but also its many subsidiaries including the famous Skytrain Holidays and various other business ventures of Sir Freddie’s such as Aviation Traders, TeleTix, and Jaffcom.

But the archive doesn’t just concern Sir Freddie’s core business activities, there are a significant number of personal papers concerning his family, his home, and the management of Woodcote Stud – an animal breeding venture which bridged a hobby and a business for Sir Freddie.

Perhaps for many the most interesting items in the archive relate to the demise of Laker Airways in the early 1980s. There are numerous financial reports, forecasts, legal papers and affidavits concerning the landmark anti-trust lawsuit brought by Laker against British Airways (BA), Pan Am, TWA, Lufthansa, Air France, Swissair, KLM, SAS, Sabena, Alitalia and UTA.

Sir Freddie Laker and Laker Airways

Sir Freddie began his career in the aviation industry in his early twenties by founding Aviation Traders, a business established in 1947 which traded in surplus aircraft and parts which were plentiful after the end of the Second World War. In 1951 he acquired the airline Air Charter. Not content with just that, Sir Freddie also established Colrich Audio Ltd with his wife Joan around the same time, a company which manufactured records in stereo sound.

Air Charter and Aviation Traders were ultimately absorbed into British United Airways (BUA), of which Sir Freddie became its very first Managing Director when it was founded in 1960. By the time BUA was sold off to Caledonia Airways in 1970, Laker Airways had been established for four years. The archive attests to Sir Freddie’s tenacious approach to identifying opportunity during this period.

Initially, Laker Airways worked as a charter airline, meaning that they rented aircraft and recouped the money by selling fares for seats. They acquired their own fleet of planes a little later on. But Laker Airways was the foundation for the most lucrative but most short lived of Sir Freddie’s aeronautical ventures – Skytrain Holidays.

The Skytrain plane was iconic during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Announced in 1971, Skytrain was a wing of the main company and was created to market cheap transatlantic flights between Gatwick and JFK Airport in New York. The archive includes a press release given at the Savoy Hotel in London, along with a press list. However, it took several years to get permission from the Civil Aviation Authority to operate and it wasn’t until 1977 that the first Skytrain flight took place. Sir Freddie understood the importance of branding and publicity, and the archive has many examples such as a tiny souvenir model Skytrain DC-10, model kits of Skytrain A300s, gaudy summer brochures, and a commemorative certificate for the first Skytrain passenger flight.

Fast forward to 1981, and Laker Airways was suffering under the recession. Along with the recession and some poorly constructed financial forecasts, the final blow was the sudden drop in fare prices by competing airlines including BA and Pan Am. Laker Airways collapsed in 1982 and was declared bankrupt. It remains one of the biggest corporate failures in Britain. What followed was a landmark lawsuit through which Sir Freddie accused several of the biggest airlines of predatory pricing, but it was settled out of court.

Conclusion

The archive preserves the legacy of Sir Freddie Laker and Laker Airways, two significant aspects of British cultural heritage and the history of aviation. The archive has previously been used by authors writing books on Sir Freddie and Laker Airways, and it is hoped it will continue to inform researchers at its new home at West Sussex Record Office.

Alice Millard
Project Archivist
West Sussex Record Office

Related

Sir Freddie Laker, 1950-2015

Browse all West Sussex Record Office descriptions available to date on Archives Hub.

Previous Archives Hub features on West Sussex Record Office collections

A polymath’s archive: the Edward-Heron Allen Collection at West Sussex Record Office

The Anna Eliza Bray archive at West Sussex Record Office

All images copyright West Sussex Record Office. Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.

Archives Hub feature for July 2023

Duden’s Lexicon adopts the classic British proclivity for the understatement in its definition of Vergangenheitsbewältigung: “public debate within a country on a problematic period of its recent history…”. The fact is, however, that the term is commonly understood to mean Germany’s coming to terms (or not) with the Holocaust both collectively and on an individual basis.

There has been a proliferation of literature on the subject in the last couple of decades so much so that the Wiener Holocaust Library (WHL) has a whole section dedicated to it. Publications include scholarly analyses of guilt and shame in entire communities at one extreme to personal memoirs detailing how individual families wrestled with the role of their forbears. No doubt the lapse of time since the events themselves has facilitated this dialogue – in many cases initiated by 2^nd , 3^rd and even 4^th generation Germans.

Whilst WHL holds a number of primary source materials from the point of view of the perpetrator, these take the form of published memoirs and diaries of prominent Nazis and reprinted testimony from defendants and witnesses in war crimes trials. The overwhelming majority of the library’s original manuscript diaries letters and personal documents stem from the families of the victims of Nazi persecution.

A rare exception is one letter unearthed amongst the Wiener Library holdings almost 20 years ago. The very recent discovery of it via a description on the portal, Archives Hub https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb1556-wl703, has immersed the family of the author in an intense period of soul-searching .

What was for years considered an orphan work bereft of information regarding provenance and custodial history has now been identified as the letter of someone’s father. The full import of the contents sent a shockwave through the  family.

Notwithstanding the absence of any contextual information the letter and its envelope always seemed genuine. The extraneous elements bear all the hallmarks of authenticity: the abbreviated regimental markings, the Sütterlin Schrift, even the paper seem to fit. Then when you read the content one is left with little doubt that this is the real thing.

The letter is written by a teenage rank and file member of an SS cavalry regiment temporarily holed up in a medical facility in an unidentified part of Poland in March 1942 to one of his pals in a town called Rückwerda near Litzmannstadt (Lodz). It is essentially a chatty communication, keeping a friend up to date with what’s going on in his life and referring to mutual acquaintances etc. So far, so unremarkable. Then at the end of the first paragraph the author nonchalantly mentions that whilst he was able to get some rest in the hospital, the experience has had its disadvantages, namely:

“Yesterday I missed out on a really great thing. The company raided 3 villages and shot a whole bunch of Polacks”

He immediately resumes recounting the banalities of his daily existence without a pause for breath.

The statement is shocking on a number of levels not least the casual way it is woven into this chatty catch-up communication: the perjorative term he uses for Poles and the collective noun not appropriate for humans (original German: eine ganze Masse von Polacken) indicates a derisive, superior attitude; the raiding of villages suggests non-combatants; the fact that he regretted missing out on the event; the absence of any empathy for the victims; the naivity of the admission; and the sense that his attitude appears not to be untypical all contribute to  the portrayal of a mindset at variance with what one would expect in a civilised society.

When I catalogued this letter all those years ago, with the help of a colleague we transcribed and translated it. We also attempted to locate the place (Radau?) with the assistance of an academic who has subsequently published a study of SS Cavalry Brigade:

https://wiener.soutron.net/Portal/Default/en-GB/RecordView/Index/89808

The item has been available to readers ever since.

Then out of the blue a couple of months ago I was contacted by the husband of a cousin of the author’s son, who had spotted the catalogue description online. Since the name is relatively rare, Emmerich Menzer [i](subsequently corrected to Emmrich), he felt sure that it was his wife’s relative. I sent him a copy of the original and the transcript – they struggled reading the Sütterlin script.

Once they had fully digested the contents my correspondent reported back:

“The transcription you sent us yesterday has shocked all of us and […….] [ii] in particular he finds it hard to believe that his caring, loving father was able to utter his regret for having missed ‘a really big thing’ which involved shooting tens, if not hundreds of innocent civilians…”.

On reflection, he observed how it wasn’t uncommon for perpetrators to lead parallel lives: behave like normal, loving family members and at the same time perpetrate war crimes and crimes against humanity- one only has to look at the role of concentration camp guards and commandants.

I asked him to supply biographical details and he duly obliged:

“I assume Emmrich grew up in a very conservative to nationalistic household and was certainly influenced very much by his father (the one who bought the weekly NPD newspaper every Saturday after the war). Already in 1934 as a Hitlerjugend member Emmrich was promoted to “Jungzugführer” at the tender age of 9, so joining the Waffen-SS seems to have been the logical path. As you know he was a founding member of the local NPD chapter after the war so he probably still agreed with the Nazi ideology although he didn‘t mention anything to his children. Perhaps he was ashamed of his actions during the war or the felt his attitude would not be welcome in post-war Germany and just shut up. But this is just speculation.”

He had also made the observation that whilst only 17 when he wrote the letter, he was already Oberreiter ie a rank above Reiter which suggests that he had been with the unit for some time. He makes the further point that the riding lessons he is supposed to have undertaken- which he also mentions in the letter – must have been specific to the requirements of the cavalry as he was already an accomplished horseman.

This exceptionally rare survival of an admission to these heinous crimes committed by a Waffen SS Cavalry unit is evidence above all of the power of Nazi ideology on someone who had effectively been groomed from a young age to be one of Hitler’s willing executioners.

Howard Falksohn, Senior Archivist
The Wiener Holocaust Library

[i] Note this article was written with the consent of the Emmerich Menzer’s relative. All other names have been omitted.

[ii] Name withheld.

Related

Menzner, Emmerich, SS Oberreiter: Letter from Poland (1942)

Browse all The Wiener Holocaust Library descriptions available to date on the Archives Hub.

All images copyright The Wiener Holocaust Library. Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.

Archives Hub feature for June 2023

In 2020 the Cadbury Research Library was successful in our application for funding from the Wellcome Trust to catalogue the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and Youth Hostel Association (YHA) archive collections. We were awarded £235,791 for a two-year project called ‘Healthy Minds and Active Bodies: the promotion of health and wellbeing by UK youth movement’. Both archive collections provide a fantastic body of material regarding work with young people and their physical and mental health, from the development of gymnasiums and outdoor activities and pursuits to educational and vocational courses.

The project employed two Project Archivists, an Archives Assistant, and a part time Project Manager with the aim of producing an online searchable catalogue, and to undertake preservation activities, for both collections. Work started in July 2021 after our previous Wellcome Trust funded project, on the Save the Children archive, was completed. After two years we are delighted to announce the completion of the project and the launch of the collections’ online catalogues during June which will be found here. 

The YMCA collection

The National Council of YMCAs’ archive collection dates to the foundation of the YMCA in 1844 and continues to the 21st century covering the various facets of work undertaken during the charity’s long history. The archive primarily concerns the YMCA National Council which was formed in 1882 to support the work, and act as a national voice, of the growing network of local YMCA associations. The archive contains committee minutes and governance papers, project papers, publications and magazines, photographs and slides, and audio-visual material and objects.

The collection also contains a vast range of material regarding YMCA local associations across England, Wales, and Ireland, including prospectuses, programmes, publications, and photographs.  Affiliated and associated organisations are also represented within the collection including the YMCA Women’s Auxiliary, formed at the end of the First World War, the YMCA Secretaries Association, and publications from the YMCA World Alliance.

The archive documents the YMCA’s various activities to support young men’s, and later also young women’s, spiritual, mental, and physical health. Their early activities ranged from bible classes, lectures, and educational classes on history, science, and religion.  Physical activity was also important with the creation of gymnasiums and sporting competitions, and in America the YMCA invented basketball. The YMCA also prioritised recreational activities and created holiday centres and hosted classes and clubs for drawings, drama, and debating. The YMCA also supported training and employment initiatives, including British Boys for British Farms’ programme, training colleges and Youth in Industry schemes.

Perhaps the most well-known aspect of YMCA’s history has been their work with the armed forces, and in particular the support they provided during the First and Second World Wars. The YMCA created hundreds of canteens and huts to support the welfare needs of troops, munition workers, civilians and Prisoners of War during the First World War. The archives document this work through the ‘Green Books’ series of photographs which have been digitised and are available to view via the catalogue. During the Second World War the YMCA canteen vans were a common sight providing refreshments, including tea and cake, behind the front lines and on the Home Front during the Blitz.

The YMCA has evolved and adapted over its 179-year history to support the needs of the young people it is trying to help and today supports hundreds of thousands of children, young people, and parents every year.

The YHA collection

The YHA (England and Wales) was founded in 1930, following in the footsteps of the world’s first youth hostel association which was founded in Germany in 1909. The movement was set up ‘to help all, especially young people of limited means, to a greater knowledge, love and care of the countryside, particularly by providing hostels or other simple accommodation for them on their travels’. From its initial foundation, the YHA expanded rapidly. By the end of 1931, there were 73 hostels open to the 6000 members of the YHA. By 1939, membership had reached 83,000.

Although the national council and committees had overall oversight and handled high-level decision making, much of the day-to-day management of the hostels and membership fell to regional groups. The YHA archive includes national and regional governance records, including an almost complete sequence of national council and committee minutes. As well as recording the development and management of hostels and membership, these records chart YHA’s work in countryside management, outdoor education, and the development of city hostels.

The collection also includes a large section of printed material, including YHA handbooks, guides, maps, and posters and leaflets, a large photograph collection, and property records charting the history of individual hostels, of the day-to-day management of the hostels and membership fell to regional groups.

In addition to these official records, the YHA archive includes personal papers and objects collected by YHA staff, wardens, and hostellers, including diaries, hostel log books, and YHA merchandise. These records compliment the other papers in the archive and provide a more personal view of the YHA and its impact on 20th century society.

Matthew Goodwin
YMCA/YHA Project Archivist
Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham

Related

Archive of the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association), 1838-1996

YMCA Unofficial Papers: Papers of Sydney L. Vinson relating to the First and Second World Wars, early-mid 20th Century

Youth Hostels Association (England and Wales), Records of, 1929-2018

Browse all Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham descriptions on Archives Hub.

Previous Archives Hub features on the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham collections:

Comic strips and seaside holidays: unexpected stories from the Save the Children Archive

All images copyright Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham. Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.

Archives Hub feature for February 2023

The University of Gloucestershire’s Special Collections and Archives joined Archives Hub in 2022. There are 14 collections at the university, charting everything from the history of the institution (founded as a teacher training college in 1847), to national collections including the Independent Television News (ITN) Image Archive and Local Heritage Initiative Archive. There is also an emphasis on local connections, with holdings on Gloucestershire poets, writers and artists. One such example is the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail Archive.

The collection charts the history of the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail, located at Beechenhurst Lodge in the heart of the Forest of Dean. In 1983, following the establishment of a sculpture trail in Exeter Forest, Martin Orrom (Forestry and Environment Officer, Forestry Commission) wrote a brief for the establishment of a sculpture trail in the Forest of Dean. The Elephant Trust provided £2,500 towards the project and in Spring 1984 around 20 artists were invited to visit the site and submit proposals for sculptures. Martin worked alongside Jeremy Rees (Founding Director of The Arnolfini, Bristol) and Rupert Martin (Curator at The Arnolfini). Six artists were chosen and these founding commissions were collectively titled “Stand and Stare”:

Peter Appleton – Sound Sculptures
Kevin Atherton – Cathedral
Andrew Darke – Sliced Log Star (Inside Out Tree)
Magdalena Jetelova – Place
David Nash – Black Dome/ Fire and Water Boats
Keir Smith – The Iron Road

The trail was opened on 19 June 1986 by Sir David Montgomery, Chair of the Forestry Commission. By 1988, a second batch of sculptures had been installed including:

Bruce Allan – Observatory
Zadok Ben David – As There Is No Hunting Tomorrow
Miles Davies – House
Ian Hamilton Finlay – Grove of Silence
Tim Lees – The Heart of the Stone
Cornelia Parker – Hanging Fire
Peter Randall-Page – Cone and Vessel
Sophie Ryder – Crossing Place/ Deer/Searcher

Since 1986, over 30 sculptures both temporary and permanent have been sited on the Sculpture Trail. The Forest is a living place, and the sculptures have come and gone leaving a mark on visitors and locals alike. Magdalena Jetelová’s ‘Place’, locally known as ‘Giant’s Chair’, was a huge chair sculpted from oak beams looking out over the landscape. It was originally planned as a temporary sculpture to be charcoaled in-situ, but this was deemed too dangerous. ‘Place’ remained on the trail for nearly 30 years before being decommissioned in 2015. It was dismantled and the wood turned to charcoal, reflecting one of the past industries of the forest, with the charcoal creating new artwork.

The Forest of Dean Sculpture Trust was established in 1988 as a registered charity overseeing the maintenance of the trail and commissioning new works. The trail is owned and managed by Forestry England. Since 2011, the Trust has deposited the archive of the trail with the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham. Material covers both the administrative and artistic processes involved. Formats encompass documents, books and publications, leaflets, drawings, videos, a maquette and other ephemera. There is even part of the original bark from ‘Place’ and some of the charcoaled sculpture. The collection has proved popular with arts students both at the university and wider afield. Both the trail and the archive continue to grow as the landscape evolves.

The recent Forest to Forest project celebrated the trail’s 35^th anniversary. To find out more about the site visit https://www.forestofdean-sculpture.org.uk/.

Louise Hughes
Special Collections and University Archivist
University of Gloucestershire

Related

Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail Archive, c.1976-2019

Browse the University of Gloucestershire Special Collections and Archives descriptions to date on Archives Hub

All images copyright Forest of Dean Sculpture Trust and University of Gloucestershire Special Collections and Archives. Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.

Archives Hub feature for January 2023

In March 2022 the Heritage and Education Centre (HEC) for Lloyds Register (LR) began an inventory of the archive holdings as large parts of the collections currently remain uncatalogued. Part of this work has highlighted the individual experiences of some of the surveyor’s working for LR over a period of nearly 200 years in the form of surveyor letter books, notebooks, and journals. Alongside the related survey reports, plans and correspondence which make up a core part of both the archive and the historic work of LR we can provide an insight into these unique individuals and their roles.

Some of the earliest surviving accounts of surveyors we hold come from two surveyors based in Scotland, Walter Paton (Leith and Firth of Forth ports) and John Bar Cumming (Clyde Ports). Their letter books and journals span the years 1834-1850, they generally contain information and notes from their time surveying vessels which accompanies the information which was to be captured on the ship survey reports and subsequently included in the Register Books. They also reflect the changes in shipping within a steadily growing global industrial world as well as showing the lives of individuals operating within shipping. On several occasions Walter Paton explains his dissatisfaction with the unwillingness of local ship owners and builders to pay the survey fees. In one letter John Bar Cummings puts forward a suggestion for a master of a ship to accept a job taking immigrants to Australia.

The later survey report for David Clark shows that the person in question took this job.

Both these surveyors reference meeting and contacting each other throughout their correspondence, demonstrating the networks of officials operating across the United Kingdom, and internationally, with a centralised contact with the London Office.

Surveyors were initially selected from positions as shipwrights and sea captains, not only was this practical experience with the understanding of ship construction and maintenance relevant for the tasks at hand but it also prepared the surveyors for the dangers of life at sea, this can be seen by Walter Paton assisting with a shipwreck of the coast of Leith. Reflecting a theme that runs through the history of LR, safety at sea. The surveyors often worked long hours and in the early days had limited holidays. As a letter book for John Bar Cummings shows, the work-life balance of some of the surveyors from this time was fraught with difficulty. Usually working the Christmas period, Cummings luckily had one holiday on Saturday 1^st of January 1848 due to closed offices!

The early ship survey reports often included additional information on the ship owners, ship builders, the vessel themselves or comments on events and activities at the port of survey. These often go hand in hand with the letter books and journals. The survey report for Hecla states that the vessel was thoroughly overhauled and fitted out as a whaling ship, for the now famous Northern expedition under Captain William Edward Parry, but that originally, she had been built as a bomb vessel for the Royal Navy.

Some of the later accounts of surveyors we hold provide less of a personal insight, but they do reveal how technology and industry were changing and the specialised knowledge that was required to undertake their roles. N H Burgess surveyor notebooks from the late 19th and early 20th century include various detailed diagrams and calculations and lists the safe number of staff that should be on any given ship at one time. Again, reflecting the continued theme of safety at sea within the work of the surveyors. Likewise, the Surveyor notebooks for S Archer from 1942 onwards contain various tables, diagrams, and calculations. Together they show the engineering, scientific and mathematical capabilities required for surveying in the first half of the 20th century. More information on these surveyors can be found listed on the ‘List of Surveyors’ (1) available on our website and found in the Lloyd’s Register of Ships.

The surveyor journal for Bill Blacklock for 1962-1964, around South Shields, Liverpool and Middlesborough, reflects a great change in the global approaches towards energy and fuel. He was one of the surveyors to have worked on the HMS Dreadnaught, the UK’s first nuclear powered submarine.

The notebooks of surveyor John Mansfield covering the 1980s contain multiple volumes from his tenure at the then Machinery Design and Plan Approval Department. In addition to working for plan approval in London he was also positioned in Hamburg. They are typically representative of surveyors work from the time and detail the activities on the ground for the surveying staff. The notebooks include detailed diagrams, calculations and notes on engineering and shipbuilding, including extracts from letters and discussions for rules and regulations. In the case of the letter below, comments extended to the inspection of onboard CO2 fire extinguisher cannisters.

From surveying artic exploration vessels and shipwrecks, to inspecting nuclear powered vessels, these records offer unique insights into the working lives of the Lloyd’s Register Surveyor on sea and on land.

As noted above not all our collections are currently catalogued and searchable online, as our inventory and archival site mapping work progresses, HEC aims to make as much of this material freely and publicly accessible. HEC is currently closed for refurbishments, for further information on our archives, and access the ship plan and survey report, register books and list of surveyors please visit our online catalogue.

Zach Schieferstein, Archive Officer
Heritage & Education Centre
Lloyd’s Register Foundation

Related

(1) Lloyd’s Register List of Surveyors 1942-1947: Lloyd’s Register Foundation, Heritage & Education Centre: Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Browse the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, Heritage and Education Centre descriptions to date on Archives Hub

All images copyright LRF heritage and education centre. Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.