Tag: blogs

Sentimental Journey: a focus on travel in the archives

/ Jane Ronson / 1 Comment

Archives Hub Feature for August 2013

Steel engraving of Capri from 1875 named Picturesque Europe
© Image is in the public domain

The season of summer often brings hopes and plans for holidays and this month we’re looking at the wider theme of travel.

The hundreds of collections relating to travel featured in the Archives Hub shed light on multiple aspects of travel, from royalty to the working classes, and encompassing touring, business, exploration and research, the work of missionaries and nomadic cultures.

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page” – St. Augustine.

Travel diaries

There are a number of travel diaries recording impressions of, and experiences in, the UK, Europe and beyond from a bygone era. ‘Grand tours’, leisurely and often luxurious, were the domain of the more privileged classes, where sometimes business and pleasure were combined. In more recent times, the pursuit of knowledge, education and ideas has motivated similar educational journeys.

Collections:

Thomas Moody, journal of a tour through Switzerland and Italy, 1822.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb227-msd919.m7e22

Beatrice Webb, A summer holiday in Scotland, 1884.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb227-msda865.w4

Harriet Susan Miller: Continental Tour Journal, c. 1856.
https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb12-ms.add.6230

Watercolour paintings and photographs of Canada by an unidentified artist, 1884.
The paintings and photographs are held within a large album, providing a record of a journey by unidentified travellers to Canada from Liverpool in 1884. http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb159-ms57

Extracts from the journal of William George Meredith during a trip to Spain and the East in the years 1830-1831.
Accompanied by Benjamin Disraeli, together with associated correspondence.
https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb206-brothertoncollectionms19cmeredith(1)

Diary of travels through Italy and France, compiled by Sir William Trumbull, 1664-1665.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb206-brothertoncollectionmstrvd1

Nassau William Senior Papers, 1830-1864.
Copies of journals kept by Nassau William Senior recording his visits to France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Algeria and Egypt between 1850 and 1862. http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb222-bmssnws

Papers of Sir Leonard David Gammans and Lady Ann Muriel Gammans, ne Paul, 1916-1971.
Diaries, notebooks, etc. of Leonard David Gammans, 1916-1956; diaries. etc. of Ann Muriel Gammans, 1918-1970; tourist brochures and other printed material concerning South Africa, [1965-1971]. http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb161-mss.brit.emp.s.506

J.R.T. Pollard Papers, 1930-1999.
The collection consists of diaries and papers of J.R.T. Pollard. The diaries include details of the author’s extensive travel, particularly in Europe and observations regarding his years of army service in Africa (1941-1945). http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb222-bmssjpol

Manuscript Itinerary of Henry III of England.
Not quite a diary, but of special note, is the late 19th Century Manuscript itinerary showing the geographical whereabouts of Henry III, where known, for all dates from 1216 to 1272. http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb133-engms123

Business and work-related travel

Collections:

Records of the United Commercial Travellers’ Association (Nottingham Branch), 1908-1975.
The collection comprises accounts from 1932-1967, Committee minutes from 1908-1967 and registers from 1920-1975.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb159-ct

Papers of James Craig Henderson, fl. 1941-1950, commercial traveller.
Commercial traveller in the Middle East.
https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb248-ugd305

Papers of John Hunter, fl 1865-1912, carpenter’s mate, Royal Navy.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb248-ugc076

John William Ramsay, 13th Earl of Dalhousie: Naval Notebook, HMS Galatea , 1869-1871.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb12-ms.add.9279

Papers of John Wylie, merchant, Glasgow, Scotland, 1809-1840.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb248-ugd028

Household book of James Sharp, Archbishop of St Andrews, 1663-1666.
Household account book of James Sharp, archbishop of St Andrews, kept by his secretary George Martin of Claremont, including details of journeys to Edinburgh and London.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb227-msbx5395.s4m2

Exploration and research

Photograph of Icebergs, Greenland Sea by Frank Illingworth.
Photograph of Greenland Sea by Frank Illingworth. Copyright © Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge.

Contrasting with travel for pure pleasure, was travel for the purpose of exploration, discovery and research.

Collections:

William Gibb: Journals of Voyages in the Carnatic and the Yangtze River, 1838-1844.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb12-ms.add.9377

Johan Hjort collection, 1912.
The collection comprises of correspondence by Hjort to polar explorer William Speirs Bruce (leader of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, 1902-1904).
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb15-johanhjort

Michael William Leonard Tutton: Natural History Diary, 1930-1932.
Natural history diary kept while Tutton was a King’s Scholar at Eton, which was awarded the Natural History Prize, 1930-1931. The diary contains notes on occurrences of insects, especially butterflies and moths, and occasionally birds and mammals.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb12-ms.add.8769

Henry Seebohm: Ornithological Notebook.
Unfinished notes of visits to Glossop, Worksop, Ashopton and other places in Derbyshire; to the Farne Islands and Coquet Islands, Northumberland; to Flamborough Head, Yorkshire; and to Asia Minor (Constantinople and Smyrna) in 1872. The notebook also includes some watercolour sketches.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb12-ms.add.8794

Missionaries

Collections:

Memoirs of Elizabeth Thomson, 1847-1918.
Teacher, missionary, traveller and suffragette, c1914.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb248-ugc053

Diary of the Rev. David Cargill, 1 May 1842 – 29 Mar 1843.
Diary kept on his second missionary journey to Tonga.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb231-ms0911

Papers of George Murray Davidson Short, 1890-1978.
Arts graduate and missionary, Glasgow, Scotland 1927.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb248-ugc049

Alexander Gillon Macalpine.
Malawi missionary papers and linguistic studies, 1893-1964.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb237-coll-48

Records of the Calabar Mission, 1849-1969.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb237-coll-212

St Joseph’s Society Missionary Society (Mill Hill Missionaries), 1865- .
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb2254-stjosephsmissionarysociety

Romanies and Gypsies

Romany Vardo of the English Gypsies
© Image is in the public domain

Collections:

The Gypsy Collections, c.1860-1998.
The collection consists of two separately-catalogued but interlinked parts, the Gypsy Lore Society Archive (GLS) and the Scott Macfie Gypsy Collection (SMGC).
https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gb141-gls%26gb141smgc

Manuscripts relating to gypsies and other travellers collected by Sir Angus Fraser, 1752-1976.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb206-brothertoncollectionmsrom-fraser2

Georg Althaus Photographs (including Hanns Weltzel Papers and Photographs).
1907 – 1960s.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb141-glsadd.ga

Letters of Jeanie Robertson, 1954-1956.
The Scottish traditional folk singer Jeanie Robertson is regarded as a seminal figure in the music culture of Scotland’s travelling people. The collection includes letters from Robertson to the poet Hamish Henderson (1919-2002).
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb237-coll-725

Miscellaneous and related information

The Records of the Traveller’s Aid Society, 1885-1939.
The Travellers’ Aid Society was initiated in 1885 by the Young Women’s Christian Association to aid female passengers arriving at ports and railway stations, where they were met by accredited station workers who reported to the Travellers Aid Society Committee.
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb106-4/tas

Cold Comfort, The Franklin expeditions (previous feature).
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/features/jul04.shtml

Charles Darwin and the Beagle Collections in the University of Cambridge: a Voyage Round the World (previous feature).
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/features/darwin.shtml

Romanies and Gypsiologists (previous feature).
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/features/jun06.shtml

200 years of railways (previous feature).
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/features/railways.shtml

Sea-Fever: Britain’s maritime heritage (previous feature).
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/features/apr05.shtml

Also of interest

Perthshire Cant: Secret language of Scottish travellers, BBC History:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/0/22874080

20 Gorgeous Posters From a Time When Travel Was Glamorous blog post:
http://gizmodo.com/20-gorgeous-posters-from-a-time-when-travel-was-glamoro-758243140

Save

How green are our online services?

/ Amanda Hill

Picture of fig plant and monitor
The Museums Computer Group’s JISCmail list had an interesting thread yesterday discussing the environmental impact and sustainability of museums’ online services. Matthew Cock of the British Museum started it off with this question:

I was thinking about how a museum might make its activities more sustainable, in terms of reducing its carbon footprint, etc. And then I got to thinking about the museum’s website (as is my job) and the internet in general. On a large scale, how much energy does the internet use up? Is anyone aware of any figures? On a local scale, we could evaluate the energy used up by the servers hosting our site, and the PCs and infrastructure inside our Museum. But how far could we decrease these (I’m not going to even mention ‘off-setting’ as an option), even as we aim to increase our site visits, and ensure good bandwidth and zero downtime? We increasingly demand that our websites are accessible, and require of 3rd parties that they help us to achieve that – is there a place for requirements that our ISPs use renewable sources of energy?

All the servers we’re using require lots of power to run and to keep them cool. Is that offset by the trips we save people making by putting lots of the information they need online?

I wasn’t sure about this comment from Nick Poole though:

If we are talking about the environmental impact specifically of digital publishing by museums, then I would argue that this is offset by several orders of magnitude by the mostly tedious and tangential blogosphere. If we’re talking about personal choices, preventing unnecessary blogging would probably be up there at number one on my list.

Oh dear. Should we shut this blog down?

Inquire Within Upon Everything

/ Jane Stevenson

I recently watched an episode of the Imagine… TV programme presented by Alan Yentob on the rise of the World Wide Web. One snippet that particularly delighted me was the reference to a Victorian book called ‘Inquire Within Upon Everything’. This is a compendium of advice on every conceivable subject, from alleviating aches and pains to social etiquette. It was the initial inspiration for Tim-Berners Lee when he was developing the software program that was the precursor to the Web – he named it ‘Inquire’ in homage to the book.

I like the idea that the World Wide Web was inspired by an obscure Victorian book. It gives a kind of sense of the continuation and spread of the world’s knowledge from a little-known book to the world wide scale of the Internet.

On a completely different note, I was chatting to Brian Kelly of UKOLN about the wonders of RSS and blogging. However, we agreed that setting up RSS feeds may not be for everyone. You now have an alternative – you can sign up to an RSS email service so that you receive regular emails instead of RSS feeds – read more about this on Brian’s blog – I believe that he’s testing a few out…

Henry Blogg

/ Jane Stevenson

Coxswain Henry Blogg (1876-1954) was the RNLI‘s most decorated lifeboatman. As well as RNLI medals for gallantry, he was awarded the George Cross and British Empire Medal. In 53 years of service, Henry Blogg and his crew helped to save 873 lives. There is now an RNLI Henry Blogg Museum in Cromer, Norfolk.

Blog for history

/ Amanda Hill

The History Matters campaign is organising a mass “One Day in History” blog in the UK on 17 October 2006. The entries submitted will be kept as part of the British Library’s web archive. It’s an internet-enabled version of the ideas behind the Mass-Observation movement.

From the site:

…a society out of touch with its past cannot have confidence in its future. History helps us to know where we come from and to explain the world as it is.

But one post in the site’s forum does point out that there is a distinct lack of mention of archives on the site, and apparent lack of involvement of archive-related organisations:

Sadly, it seems that they have been largely overlooked even by campaigners dedicated to promoting history and heritage.