Tag: events

Autumn in the Archives!

/ Jane Ronson / 2 Comments

This blog post forms part of History Day 2024, a day of online interactive events for students, researchers and history enthusiasts to explore library, museum, archive and history collections across the UK and beyond.

Close up photograph of red and golden brown leaves.
Red and Brown Leaves. Photograph by Pixabay from Pexels (Creative Commons Zero license).

Use Archives Hub, a free resource provided by Jisc, to find unique sources for your research, both physical and digital. Search across over 3.3 million descriptions of archives, held at over 390 institutions and organisations across the UK.

As History Day takes place during November, let’s explore some archival collections around the theme of ‘Autumn’!

Abundant harvests

International Harvester Company of Great Britain International Harvester Company was formed by a merger in 1902 between two of the largest American manufacturers of harvesting machinery, McCormick and Deering Harvester Company. Three other firms joined the merger: Milwaukee Harvester Company, Plano Manufacturing Company and Warder, Bushnell and Glasner. This new corporation became the world’s dominant manufacturer of a wide range of agricultural implements and machines. The subsidiary company, International Harvester Company of Great Britain Limited, was incorporated in 1906 with offices located at 115 Southwark Street, London. 190 documents, 1908-1960’s. Held by the Museum of English Rural Life.

Side view of rusting vintage tin from the 1930s, with the inscription: Smith’s Potato Crisps.
Smith’s Potato Crisps vintage tin 1930s, Cotesbach Family Trust. Cotesbach Archive: A Remarkable Harvest (feature from December 2020).

Papers on Brewing in Scotland: Brewing has been carried out in Scotland since pre-Roman times when the inhabitants of the country brewed crude ales from wild barley and rowan, spruce, broom and heather. The process was re-introduced from the Continent in the twelfth century by monks in the abbeys of Holyrood and Melrose and elsewhere. By the fifteenth century domestic brewing was widespread, seasonal, and based around the harvest cycle. Circa 13 letters, 1 manuscript volume, 19th Century-20th Century. Held by Edinburgh University Library Heritage Collections.

Winged female figure, standing on a tree branch with a harvest moon behind her and surrounded by flowers.
In art nouveau frame drawn in ink on brown backing paper: The Harvest Moon, Chas. R. Mackintosh, 1893, To John Keppie, October 1894. Copyright: Glasgow School of Art Archives and Collections.

A.H. Swinton: The Sun and the Harvest: Newspaper cuttings, statistics and diagrams illustrating sunspots and their relation to the harvest, 1906-1912, and a copy of a letter from Sir Norman Lockyer to Swinton, 8 May 1901. Held by Cambridge University Library.

Falling leaves and dewy mornings

Herbert Beerbohm Tree and Family Collection: Herbert Beerbohm Tree was a successful actor manager, renowned for his productions of Shakespeare, while also keeping an eye of innovations in the field. He made his amateur debut as an actor in 1876, and turned professional in 1878. As well as running several theatres, he undertook many foreign tours and made a name for himself in America as well as in Britain. He founded the Academy of Dramatic Art (later to become RADA) in 1904, and was knighted in 1909. In 1882 he married Helen Maud Holt, professionally known as Mrs Beerbohm Tree and later Lady Tree, an actress who frequently was to appear on stage with him. His daughter Viola was also an actress. Held by V&A Theatre and Performance Collections.

Large colourful multi-paned stained glass being moved into position by a crane, with trees in the background.
Installation of Cathedral 1986 (ref: ST-3-3-5). Copyright: Forest of Dean Sculpture Trust. Stand and Stare: The Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail Archive at the University of Gloucestershire (feature from January 2023).

Maple Leaves: Canadian History and Quebec Scenery (Third Series): Sir James McPherson LeMoine was a prolific writer, chiefly on historical subjects, whose books include seven volumes, published between 1863 and 1906, entitled ‘Maple Leaves’. The third in a seven-volume series, this volume contains material in two main categories; historical essays, chiefly on the campaign of 1759, and thirty-five short accounts of ‘Our Country Seats’, in the vicinity of Quebec. It was the first Canadian book illustrated by the insertion of actual photographs, and, according to Greenhill (1965) p.64, ‘Copies of this book differ very considerably both in the number of photographs included and in the actual pictures used’. Held by the Royal Commonwealth Society Library.

Papers of the Missionary Leaves Association: The Missionary Leaves Association [MLA] was founded in 1869 by Reverend R. C. Billing and Mrs. H. G. Malaher of Reading, Miss Lanfear of Hungerford and other friends. Mr. Malaher was its first secretary and its headquarters were at 20 Compton Terrace, London. The purpose of the Association was to assist Church Missionary Society missionaries and indigenous clergy in the CMS mission areas, by providing an agency through which they could obtain things necessary for their work but not provided by CMS e.g. harmoniums, equipment for lantern shows, church furniture and bells etc. It also collected contributions for the support of orphans and children in boarding-schools. It supplied goods for sale to people in the British Isles who organised fundraising events for CMS. Held by the Cadbury Research Library at the University of Birmingham.

Ink drawing of a contorted bare tree.
TP1.15 Pen-and-wash drawing of a contorted tree, Dunham Park, 1981. Thomas Baron Pitfield (1903-1999): a visual autobiography (feature from July 2015).

Papers William Dew & Sons: The firm of William Dew & Sons, auctioneers, valuers and surveyors was based at Bangor and Conwy in north Wales. The collection (54 items, 1848-1906) comprises correspondence and other material relating to properties, businesses and land across North Wales, including Bangor and Llanberis Railway; Hafod Las Quarry; Caernarfon; Kinmel Manor; Anglesey Castle; Plas Newydd Estate. Held by Archifdy Prifysgol Bangor / Bangor University Archives.

Deeds collected by G.J. Dew: George James Dew (1846-1928) lived in Lower Heyford, Oxfordshire. Some of his diaries relating to village life, and the poor law, have been published. The deeds comprise: an account of the sum charged on each parish in Ploughley Hundred, Oxfordshire, for the land tax of 1772; articles of agreement touching the debts of Henry Villiers of St. Martin in the fields, London, deceased; tolls from a lighthouse at Tynemouth, Northumberland, 1714; a financial settlement by the Earl of Jersey, 1711; two King’s Bench summonses, 1773. Held by Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

National Meteorological Archive: The National Meteorological Archive is home to one of the most comprehensive collections on meteorology anywhere in the world and provides a major resource for scientific and historical research of international scope. The collection contains around 500,000 meteorological records stored across four large, environmentally controlled strongrooms. Records in English and multiple languages, Mid-Nineteenth century – 2010. Held by the National Meteorological Archive.

Bonfires and fireworks

Madame Tussaud’s: Guy Fawkes 1977-1978: File relating to the design of the Guy Fawkes tableau designed by Julia Trevelyan Oman for Madame Tussaud’s. Contains costume designs, fabric swatches and reference material, designs for props and scenery and photographs of the finished tableau. Forms part of the Julia Trevelyan Oman Archive (1930-2003). Julia Trevelyan Oman CBE (1930-2003) was one of the most celebrated theatre, television, ballet and opera designers of the second half of the twentieth century. Her personal archive covers her entire career and includes her original designs with research files, technical drawings and plans, research photographs, production photographs, correspondence and fabric swatches. Held by University of Bristol Theatre Collection.

Mary Katharine Bell, 1903 (CPT/PA/1)
Mary Katharine Bell, 1903 (CPT/PA/1).

Letter from Mary Katharine Trevelyan to Florence Bell, concerning family life: Mary hosts a bonfire with fireworks which all of Cambo village all attended. Forms part of the Trevelyan (Charles Philips) Archive: In 1904 Charles married Mary Katharine Trevelyan nee Bell (1881-1966) [Molly], daughter of Hugh and Florence Bell, and half-sister of the archaeologist and explorer Gertrude Bell. The pair had seven children together, six of whom survived to adulthood. The early years of their marriage were split between Cambo House on the Wallington Estate in Northumberland, and 14 Great College Street in Westminster. Held by Newcastle University Special Collections and Archives.

The Trevelyan family, 1910 (CPT/PA/5)
The Trevelyan family, 1910 (CPT/PA/5). The Archives of the Trevelyans of Wallington (feature from June 2019).

Henry Doubleday Research Association “Give up Smoking Bonfires” leaflet: ‘Give up Smoking Bonfires – make compost instead’ information leaflet. Pybus is referenced in this leaflet relating to the inhalation of smoke. The item is part of the Pybus (Professor Frederick) Archive, the professional and personal papers of Professor Frederick Charles Pybus (1882-1975). His papers primarily used statistical evidence and real-life cases to investigate the association of lung cancer and carcinogens found in air pollution – particularly benzopyrene in soot from burning materials and diesel fumes. Pybus also investigated the effects of tobacco smoking, but felt that air pollution was a bigger threat. Held by Newcastle University Special Collections and Archives.

Astra Fireworks, firework manufacturer: display poster and firework labels: Astra Fireworks, based at Sandwich, Kent, produced a wide range of British fireworks. In the 1980s the company’s output was reduced and the production ranges limited to its most popular lines of fireworks and other pyrotechnic products. The collection (1 file) comprises firework labels, including price and size details (ca. 1950-1990); promotional display poster (undated). Held by the V&A Archive of Art and Design.

To view the full list of item descriptions for the Astra Fireworks collection, select the ‘expand’ button on the table of contents – to the top right of the description (you’ll see this option for any multi-level description on Archives Hub).

Photograph of two burning sparklers with blurred blue background.
Close-Up Photo of Sparkler. Photograph by Rahul Pandit from Pexels (Creative Commons Zero license).

Programme: Firework display to welcome the return of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Holyhead:
Alexandrina Victoria (1819-1901) was Queen from 20 June 1837 until her death. She was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She inherited the throne at the age of 18. Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1840. The Royal party passed through Holyhead enroute to Ireland. Held by Archifau Ynys Môn / Anglesey Archives.

Documents relating to Martin Beckman: Martin Beckman, pyrotechnist and military engineer, was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1634/5. Beckman says he left Sweden in the mid 1640s to serve the English crown. He took an early interest in fireworks and was injured whilst preparing a display to celebrate the coronation of King Charles in 1661 and was granted £100 compensation by the king. Held by Hull History Centre.

Explore Science and Technology collections using Archives Hub

/ Jane Ronson / 2 Comments

This blog post forms part of History Day 2022, a day of online interactive events for students, researchers and history enthusiasts to explore library, museum, archive and history collections across the UK and beyond. History Day is part of the Being Human festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities, taking place 10–19 November 2022.

Use Archives Hub, a free resource, to find unique sources for your research, both physical and digital. Search across descriptions of archives, held at over 380 institutions and organisations across the UK.

This year’s History Day is themed ‘Human Discovery: Experiencing Science’, so we’re highlighting a range of archive collections relating to inventions, technology, medical advances and more.

Photograph of women factory workers during WW1. Image copyright Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Press photograph of women factory workers during WW1. Image copyright © Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Feature: Engineering and innovation during the First World War (October 2014).

Inventions and inventors

John Logie Baird papers (1906-2009). Baird was born in Helensburgh and studied electrical engineering at the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College, then attended Glasgow University. After becoming apprenticed with Argyll Motors and then to working with other firms, from 1916 he engaged in various private business ventures in Glasgow, London and the West Indies. In 1922 he began to experiment with transmitting and receiving visual signals. In 1924 his efforts were rewarded by a flickering image on his screen. A public demonstration was given at Selfridge’s Oxford Street store in April 1925 and showed the transmission of crude outlines of simple objects. The world’s first demonstration of television followed on 26 January 1926 at the Royal Institution, London. In May 1927 the first demonstration of television between London and Glasgow took place, and in February of the following year the first transatlantic television broadcast was successfully carried out. On 30 September 1929 the BBC made its first television broadcast using the Baird 30-line system. Material held by University of Strathclyde Archives and Special Collections – see full collection description.

Papers of Marjorie Jean Oswald Kennedy (19th-20th century). Marjorie hailed from the Kennedy family of Kilmarnock which included Thomas Kennedy c1796-1874, founder of Glenfield & Kennedy (producers of valves) and inventor of the world’s first water meter. During the Second World War, Kennedy served with the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS), 1942-1945. She was stationed at HMS Pembroke III, the WRNS training depot at Mill Hill in 1942, then at HMS Beaver, Hull, from 1942 to 1943, at HMS Drake, Devonport, in 1943, and then at HMS Pembroke III again and HMS Pembroke V, Bletchley Park, between 1943 and 1945. At Bletchley Park Kennedy was working with the team of allied codebreakers who were able to decrypt a vast number of messages that had been enciphered using the German’s Enigma machine. The intelligence gleaned from this source, codenamed ‘Ultra’ by the British, had been a substantial aid to the Allied war effort. Material held by Edinburgh University Library Special Collections – see full collection description.

Frederick Lanchester at the wheel of the 8 h.p. two cylinder Lanchester known as the ‘Gold Medal Phaeton’ with his brother George as passenger. c1899. Coventry University [reference no. LAN/1/16/4].

Photograph copyright © Coventry University.


Feature: The Frederick Lanchester archive at Coventry University (December 2018):
The work of car manufacturer, engineer, scientist and inventor Frederick Lanchester (1868-1946) is being celebrated by the Lanchester Interactive Archive project at Coventry University. He was one of the UK’s leading automobile engineers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and creator in 1895 of the first all-British four-wheel petrol driven motor car.

Records, publications and artefacts relating to James Watt (1705-1990): Watt was born at Greenock in 1736. He trained as an instrument maker in London and began to practise this trade in Glasgow. Watt soon developed a reputation as a high quality engineer and was employed on the Forth & Clyde Canal and the Caledonian Canal. In 1763 he repaired the model of Newcomen’s steam engine belonging to Glasgow University, and began experiments on properties of steam. Watt improved on the engine’s design and took out a patent for the separate condenser in 1769. He later adapted the engine to rotary motion, making it suitable for a variety of industrial purposes, and invented the flywheel and the governor. In 1774 he went into partnership with Matthew Boulton to make steam engines at their works at Soho, Birmingham. The first engines were used in collieries and iron works and were the driving force behind the transformation of cotton spinning from a cottage to factory industry. Watt’s inventive talents led him to patent a variety of machines and devices including a letter-copier and a smoke-consuming furnace. Material held by Heriot-Watt University Museum and Archive – see full collection description.

Technology

Lithograph of George Biggin, Letitia Sage and Vincenzo Lunardi ascending from St George’s Fields, London, 29 June 1785. Image copyright © National Aerospace Library.

Feature: Planes, pilots and politics: National Aerospace Library’s collections fly onto Archives Hub (April 2020).

Private Telegraph Companies (1846-1899): The development of the telegraph system in the United Kingdom closely followed the growth of the railways with telegraph offices often being located at stations. The Government allowed the network to develop under private ownership and did not intervene significantly in its running. This was in sharp contrast to the telegraph system on the Continent which had been under state ownership since its inception. By 1868 there were five major telegraph companies operating the inland network, all of which were open to criticism regarding errors, delays and high prices. Frank Ives Scudamore campaigned on behalf of the Post Office for them to be nationalised citing how unfavourably they compared with those on the Continent. Despite protestations from the companies a series of Acts of Parliament were passed and the inland telegraph system came under control of the Post Office in 1870. Material held by British Telecom Archives – see full collection description.

Online Resource: Developing LEO: The world’s first business computer. Reports, memoranda, photographs and other documents from the archives of the statistician John Simmons (1902-1985), including key material on the development of the pioneering LEO computers by J. Lyons & Company Ltd. during the 1940s and 1950s. Provided by Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick.

Barclaycard 1972 promotions. Photograph copyright © Barclays Group Archives.

Feature: Barclaycard: 50 years of plastic money – the story from the Archives (June 2016).

Illustration: Spare Rib, April 1978, photo copyright © The Women’s Library.

Feature: Typewriters and Office Machines

Online Resource: Hiroshima Archive – the Hiroshima Archive is a pluralistic digital archive using the digital earth to display in a multi-layered way all the materials gained from such sources as the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the Hiroshima Jogakuin Gaines Association, and the Hachioji Hibakusha (A-bomb Survivors) Association. Beyond time and space, the user can get a panoramic view over Hiroshima to browse survivors’ accounts, photos, maps, and other materials as of 1945, together with aerial photos, 3D topographical data, and building models as of 2010. The archive aims to promote multifaceted and comprehensive understanding of the reality of atomic bombing. Stories of Atomic bomb survivors living across Japan. Around 170 testimonies and around 150 photographs can be browsed.

Destroyer fitted with a type ‘N’ paravane. Image copyright © Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Feature: Engineering and innovation during the First World War (October 2014).

Medical Advances

Papers of the Dorset House School of Occupational Therapy (1919-2005): Dorset House, the first School of Occupational Therapy in England, was established by its visionary Medical Director, Dr Elizabeth Casson, in the latter part of the 1920s. Over the years the School has moved from its original base in Bristol to Bromsgrove, and finally to Oxford, firstly in Nissen Huts in the grounds of the Churchill Hospital and then to London Road in 1964. In 1992 Dorset House School of Occupational Therapy became part of Oxford Polytechnic, which, later that year, was conferred with university status and was named Oxford Brookes University. Material held by Oxford Brookes University Special Collections and Archives – full collection description.

Elizabeth Casson, aged 21. Image copyright © Oxford Brookes University Special Collections and Archives. Feature: The Dorset House Archive (December 2019).

John Charnley/William Waugh Collection (1922-1989): John Charnley, orthopaedic surgeon, born in 1911, was educated at the Medical School of the Victoria University of Manchester. In 1937, he took up his first post as a resident surgical officer at Salford Royal Hospital, and demonstrated an early talent for making and developing specialist apparatus and equipment. He first encountered work in orthopaedics and fractures in 1939 as resident casualty officer at the Manchester Royal Infirmary. During the Second World War, Charnley worked at an Orthopaedic Centre near Cairo, applying to become an orthopaedic specialist in 1942. Charnley returned to Manchester in 1946 at the Manchester Royal Infirmary as an honorary assistant orthopaedic surgeon and lecturer in orthopaedic surgery, and later as a consultant. In 1949, Charnley became a visiting orthopaedic surgeon at Wrightington Hospital. He began to work on the mobility of the hip in painful hip conditions due to arthritis. His discoveries in this field were made possible by his outstanding ability in engineering, and in working with materials. In 1961, Charnley established the Centre for Hip Surgery at Wrightington Hospital, where he pioneered and developed prostheses for hip replacement surgery, and studied the acceptance of artificial materials within bone and joint tissues. The hip replacement operation is now one of the most common operations performed in the UK. Material held by University of Manchester Library – full collection description.

Online Resource: London’s Pulse: Medical Officer of Health Reports 1848-1972. This collection features digitised reports of the UK Medical Officers of Health for the London area during the 19th and 20th centuries. These reports were compiled on an annual basis and include written information and statistical data on public health issues, such as infectious diseases, mortality rates, health services and environmental impacts on health. Selected reports are available from the period and the areas covered include the present City of London, the current 32 London boroughs and the predecessor local authorities for these areas. The reports also highlight the differences between different Medical Officers of Health and show how individual personality influenced their work and reporting style. Provided by the Wellcome Library.

Papers of Martindale, Louisa (1872-1966): Louisa Martindale was born in 1872 and studied at the London School of Medicine for Women and in Vienna, Berlin and Freiburg, obtaining her M.D. in London in 1906. She practised in Brighton and was founder of the New Sussex Hospital here in 1918, where she was Senior Honorary Surgeon. In 1921 she moved to London as a Consultant Surgeon and was Honorary Surgeon to the Marie Curie Hospital at Hampstead. During a visit to New York in 1919 she was a moving force behind the foundation of the Medical Women’s Federation and in 1931 she was elected President of that body. Martindale was a pioneer in the treatment of uterine cancer and fibroid growths in women through deep X-ray therapy. She died in 1966. Material held by the Wellcome Collection – full collection description.

HD/1/81: The minute book of the founders of the hospital, discussing the principles of kind treatment and moral management, dated 1842-1848. Image copyright © Archifau Sir Ddinbych / Denbighshire Archives.

Feature: Unlocking the Asylum: Cataloguing the North Wales Hospital Archive (August 2019).

Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority Archive (1948-1974): The collection consists of reports and monographs on the location, construction and administration of hospitals in Northern Ireland covering the period 1948 to 1974. Items include reports from The Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority, Hospital Management Committees, research organisations and central government. The archive constitutes the nucleus of the Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority library which passed to The Queen’s University of Belfast at the Authority’s demise in 1973. Queens University Medical Library continues to maintain an archive of material related to health and social services provision in Northern Ireland. Material held by Queen’s University Belfast Special Collections & Archives – full collection description.

One of our first attempts at archiving the RCN COVID-19 webpages using our digital archive. Image copyright © Royal College of Nursing Archives.

Feature: Creating a COVID-19 archive at the Royal College of Nursing (November 2020).

Florence Nightingale letters (1882-1883): Florence Nightingale, (1820-1910), nursing pioneer and reformer, is regarded as the founder of modern nursing. Born in Florence, Italy, she dedicated her life to the care of the sick and war wounded. In 1844, she began to visit hospitals; in 1850, she spent some time with the nursing Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul in Alexandria and a year later studied at the institute for Protestant deaconesses in Kaiserswerth, Germany. In 1854, she organized a unit of 38 nurses for service in the Crimean War. In 1860, she established the Nightingale School for nurse training at St. Thomas’s Hospital, London and in 1907 became the first woman to be given the British Order of Merit. This collection contains letters from Florence Nightingale to William Rathbone the MP for Caernarfonshire, concerning public health issues and the typhoid epidemic at Bangor in 1882. Material held by Archifdy Prifysgol Bangor / Bangor University Archives – full collection description.

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Bringing Archives to Life – On Point: Royal Academy of Dance at 100

/ Jane Ronson

Archives Hub feature for December 2021

On Point: Royal Academy of Dance at 100 is a free display, mounted in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London, to celebrate the centenary of the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) which was founded in 1920 with the aim of improving the standards of dance teaching in the UK. The display uses a wide range of material from both the RAD and the V&A archive collections, some of which are listed on the Archives Hub website, to explore the RAD’s story from its foundation to its influence on ballet and dance internationally.

On Point: Royal Academy of Dance at 100 in the Theatre and Performance Galleries at the V&A Museum, London. Photo © V&A
On Point: Royal Academy of Dance at 100 in the Theatre and Performance Galleries at the V&A Museum, London. Photo © V&A

The display occupies three rooms in the V&A’s Theatre and Performance galleries, and each space includes original costumes, designs, drawings, artefacts, and documents, as well as film footage and many photographic images. It’s a largely chronological arrangement with the first room focusing on the founders of the RAD, the context in which the organisation was founded, and its early development.  

In 1912, Philip Richardson (editor of the Dancing Times magazine) met the dancer, choreographer and teacher, Edouard Espinosa, at the Arabian Nights Ball in Covent Garden. The two men became friends and found common purpose in campaigning to improve the state of dance and dance teaching in in the UK. It was Richardson who essentially cherry-picked the five founders who agreed to form the first committee in 1920. Their international backgrounds represented the principal schools of ballet training (French, Italian, and Russian) and together they pooled their knowledge to produce a syllabus that would provide the foundation for a new British standard.

Adeline Genée, Phyllis Bedells, and Tamara Karsavina were among the greatest ballerinas of the early 20th century and committed to the RAD for the remainder of their lives. Lucia Cormani and Edouard Espinosa combined the roles of performers, choreographers, and teachers from early in their careers and were only involved with the RAD during its first decade. Their connections with the professional ballet scene were an important factor in shaping its work, its initial influence, and continuing development. Although the organisation was primarily concerned with teaching, the founders were also keen to promote the talents of young British dancers and provided many opportunities for performance.

Adeline Genée with young RAD scholars in 1932.
Adeline Genée with young RAD scholars in 1932.

Genée agreed to become the first President of the RAD and was instrumental in securing the patronage of Queen Mary in 1928 and the Royal Charter in 1935. Following the end of the Second World War, she turned her attention to getting ballet recognised as an educational subject to be taught in schools alongside the sister arts of music, drama, and painting. The second room explores the heart of the RAD’s business in teacher training and syllabus development more fully. We also introduce Margot Fonteyn who succeeded Adeline Genée as President of the RAD in 1954.

Costume design by Philip Prowse for Margot Fonteyn in Paquita, 1964.
Costume design by Philip Prowse for Margot Fonteyn in Paquita, 1964.
Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev at a rehearsal for the 1963 Gala Matinée performance. Photo by GBL Wilson, © RAD/ArenaPAL
Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev at a rehearsal for the 1963 Gala Matinée performance. Photo by GBL Wilson, © RAD/ArenaPAL

One of the highlights of Fonteyn’s presidency was the series of gala matinées she organised between 1958 and 1965. These performances showcased artists, companies and repertoire that had not been seen in London before, including the first appearance of Rudolf Nureyev in 1961. The galas proved to be an enormous success and provided the foundation for the legendary Fonteyn and Nureyev partnership. There were also opportunities for RAD scholars to perform in the programmes alongside the professional artists. The display includes a selection of materials relating to the galas – set and costume designs, photographs and programmes, alongside a beautiful costume from the romantic ballet Les Sylphides, which Fonteyn danced many times throughout her career. 

Another highlight in Room 2 is some previously unseen film footage of Fonteyn presenting the primary grade of the children’s syllabus which she devised in 1968. Filmed in 1972 by her brother Felix, it shows how involved she was with the work of the RAD, and was only recently discovered in the archives. 

The final room focuses on the current and future RAD with photographic representations of recent initiatives such as Silver Swans – dance classes for older learners of any ability, and Project B – a campaign aimed to encourage more boys into dance.  Well-established events such as the Genée International Ballet Competition (now renamed ‘The Fonteyn’) are also included here with the original Adeline Genée Gold Medal (first awarded in 1931) being displayed alongside more recent rehearsal footage and photographic images from across the years.

Madonna Benjamin, winner of the Adeline Genée gold medal in 1979. Photo by Jennie Walton.
Madonna Benjamin, winner of the Adeline Genée gold medal in 1979. Photo by Jennie Walton.

The presidents of the RAD are brought up to date with costumes worn by Antoinette Sibley (president from 1991 – 2012) and Darcey Bussell (president from 2012 to current) displayed alongside a tunic worn by Nureyev as Prince Siegfried in Act 3 of Swan Lake. The succession of legendary ballerinas who have assumed the role of president shows the strong connection that has always existed between the RAD and the ballet profession.

Shoes worn by Darcey Bussell at her farewell performance with the Royal Ballet, 8 June 2007. Photo © V&A
Shoes worn by Darcey Bussell at her farewell performance with the Royal Ballet, 8 June 2007. Photo © V&A

Visitors to the display are also encouraged to have a go for themselves! A ballet barre area has been installed with screens showing some simple exercises from the current RAD Graded Examinations syllabus to follow along.

100 years later, the RAD is now a truly global organisation, inspiring people and communities everywhere to enjoy the benefits and joys of dance – something of which its founders would rightly be proud.

On Point: Royal Academy of Dance at 100 is on now until Monday 29th August 2022 at the V&A Museum, London (admission free).

Eleanor Fitzpatrick
Archives and Records Manager
Royal Academy of Dance

Related

Adeline Genée Archive Collection, c. 1890-1970

Phyllis Bedells Archive Collection, c. 1906-1985

Browse all Royal Academy of Dance Archives on the Archives Hub

Browse all V&A Theatre and Performance Collections on the Archives Hub

Previous features on Royal Academy of Dance Archives collections

The Association of Performing Arts Collections

A Spring in Your Step

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

Discovering Environmental History collections using the Archives Hub

/ Jane Ronson

This blog post forms part of History Day 2021, a day of online interactive events for students, researchers and history enthusiasts to explore library, museum, archive and history collections across the UK and beyond.

Use the Archives Hub, a free resource, to find unique sources for your research, both physical and digital. Search across descriptions of archives, held at over 370 institutions across the UK.

This year’s History Day is themed ‘environmental history‘, so we’re showcasing a range of archive collections relating to nature, landscape, climate change and more.

Nature

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Archive, 1933 onwards: The Trust was established in 1946 to receive the gift of two plots of land at Askham Bog, York. The land had been purchased in 1944 by prominent confectioners and keen naturalists Sir Francis Terry and Arnold Stephenson Rowntree, following the earlier unsuccessful attempt of the Joseph Rowntree Village Trust to acquire the site at auction. Today, the Trust is one of a national partnership of 47 Wildlife Trusts across the whole of the UK, the Isle of Man and Alderney, and cares for over 100 nature reserves throughout Yorkshire. Held by the Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of York – see full collection description.

“Wild Rose haups. Rosa Canina. Sidlaw Road, Strathmartine. September 1912”. Detail from Illustrations of Scottish Flora (1912-1913) by David R Robinson. From the Kinnear Collection, reference GB 0254 MS 103/3/5. Photograph copyright © University of Dundee Archive Services.

Feature: Botany – botany and botanists (March 2005).

Ida Margaret Hayward Collection: Ida was born in 1872 to a family very much connected to the cloth industry. After her father died, she and her mother went to live near her mother’s family in Galashiels in the Scottish Borders where her uncles owned the woollen mills of Messrs. Sanderson. It was noticed by one of her uncles, William Sanderson, that many of the seeds brought in with the wool imported from Australia, New Zealand and South America survived the treatment process and went on to germinate on the banks of the Tweed. Encouraged by him, Hayward set about conducting a thorough study of this alien flora. She jointly published “The Adventive Flora of Tweedside” in 1919. Ida was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1910 and the Botanical Society of Edinburgh in 1913. Before her death in 1949, she donated her herbarium of adventive (alien) plants to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, along with her scrapbook and letters relating to the Flora. Held by Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Archives – see full collection description.

Online Resource: Historical UK Tide Gauge Data (19th and 20th Century): this collection offers registered users the chance to search UK sea level records, including some of the UK’s earliest recorded sea level data from Sheerness – a port on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. Records available include several large datasets of tide gauge charts and ledgers from around the UK. Resource is provided by the British Oceanographic Data Centre:
https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gbah5-historicaluktidegaugedata.

Stopes (Marie) Papers: Marie Stopes was educated in Edinburgh and London. She obtained a first class honours degree and was a gold medallist at University College London. She studied for her Ph.D. in Munich. Marie was the first woman to be appointed to the science staff of the University of Manchester in 1904. She went to Japan on a Scientific Mission in 1907, spent a year and a half at the Imperial University, Tokyo, and explored the country for fossils. She specialised in coal mines and fossil plants. She founded, jointly with H. V. Roe, the Mothers’ Clinic for Constructive Birth-Control, 1921 (the first birth control clinic in the world). Marie was President of the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress. She was also Fellow and sometime Lecturer in Palaeobotany at University College London and Lecturer in Palaeobotany at the University of Manchester. She published many books, mainly concerning botany and birth control. Material held by University College London Archives – see full collection description.

Image of butterflies: courtesy Museum of Natural History, University of Oxford.

Feature: Insects and Entomologists, enthusiasts and biologists, entomologists and zoologists (March 2006).

“Fringilla Carduelis. The Goldfinch”, from the Bird Book. Image courtesy of the University of Exeter Library Special Collections.

Feature: Ornithology, scientists, enthusiasts, and illustrators (May 2003).

Landscape

Papers of Sir Robert Hunter, Solicitor and Co-founder of the National Trust: Robert Hunter was in South London in 1844. He took his degree at University College, London. In 1867 he was appointed solicitor for the Commons Preservation Society and was instrumental in the preservation of Wimbledon Commons and Epping Forest among other open spaces. In 1876 he wrote a competition essay for the Commons and Footpaths Preservation Society on the means of preserving common lands for the enjoyment of the public. This was chosen as one of six to be published. In 1882 he became Chief Solicitor to the Post Office but continued to advise the Commons Preservation Society. In 1894 he was knighted for services to the open space movement. Coupled with the work of Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley in the Lake District, Hunter’s influence led to the foundation of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. Material held by Surrey History Centre – see full collection description.

Papers of Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875): influential geologist, fellow of the Royal Society; these papers include notes on the New Zealand earthquake of 1856. Charles Lyell was born at Kinnordy, near Kirriemuir in Angus, in 1797. During his lifetime he wrote many geological papers, mainly published by the Geological Society of London, however his reputation rests almost entirely on his work Principles of Geology. In this work, Lyell propounded his theory of uniformitarianism, which holds that the Earth’s history is explained by gradual change over time, and that geological processes going on today (like erosion) have occurred in the past and have shaped the Earth’s surface, and this had a strong influence on Charles Darwin. In 1828 he explored the volcanic region of the Auvergne, then went to Mount Etna to gather supporting evidence for the theory of geology he would expound in his Principles of Geology. The collection is held by Edinburgh University Library Special Collections – see full collection description.

Cartouche from Moore’s Mapp of the Great Levell of the Fenns re-printed in 1706 [R59/31/40/13/1]. Image copyright: Cambridgeshire Archives.

Feature: Silt, sluices and smelt fishing – The Eau Brink Cut and the Bedford Level Corporation Archive (July 2018).

Climate change

G.S. Callendar Archive, 1930-2003: In the first half of the twentieth century, the carbon dioxide theory of climate change had fallen out of favour with climatologists. Beginning in 1938, Guy Stewart Callendar (1898-1964), a noted steam engineer and amateur meteorologist, revived this theory by arguing that rising global temperatures and increased coal burning were closely linked. Working from his home in West Sussex, England, Callendar collected weather data from frontier stations around the world, formulated a coherent theory of infrared absorption by trace gases, and demonstrated that the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, like the temperature, was indeed rising. Although he was an amateur meteorologist, Callendar worked on a truly global scale, compiling a reliable world data set of surface temperatures from earliest times and insisting – long before it became fashionable to do so – that climatology must deal with physics and atmospheric dynamics. Just before the beginning of the International Geophysical Year in 1957, Hans Seuss and Roger Revelle referred to the ‘Callendar effect’ – defined as climatic change brought about by anthropogenic increases in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, primarily through the processes of combustion. Collection held by the University of East Anglia Archives – see full collection description.

Guy Stewart Callendar (1898-1964)
Photo courtesy of the G.S. Callendar Archive, University of East Anglia.

Feature: Seeing the light: G.S. Callendar and carbon dioxide theory of climate change (November 2007).

Records of the Geological Society of Glasgow, learned society (1858 onwards): The Geological Society of Glasgow was founded in 1858. The Society aims to gain an understanding of the study of the earth through excursions and lectures, and is still active to this day. The Society’s early contribution to geological research includes, fossils, an understanding of Scotland’s glacial history, geological time and the relationship between climate change and the Earth’s rotation. Famous 19th and early 20th Century Presidents include Lord Kelvin (for 21 years), Sir Archibald Geikie, Charles Lapworth, Ben Peach and Walter Gregory. Material is held by the University of Glasgow Archive Services – see full collection description.

Research Papers relating to the Global Environment Facility (1990-2002): The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is an international financial instrument situated within the World Bank. Establishment of the GEF took place just prior to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit (also known as the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development or UNCED) held 3-14 June 1992. It also resulted in three legally binding agreements known collectively as The Rio Convention: Convention on Biological Diversity; Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. Compliance to agreements was ensured with the establishment of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), the GEF was to be the financial mechanism for these conventions, and the work of the GEF was informed by the outcomes of the Rio Earth Summit. The GEF’s main areas of work focus on biodiversity, climate change, chemicals & waste, land degradation, international waters, sustainable management of forest and REDD+. The body’s work also cuts across food security, sustainable cities, commodities, public private partnerships, capacity development, the small grants programme, gender mainstreaming, small island developing states, and indigenous peoples. The collection is held by Hull University Archives, Hull History Centre – see full collection description.

Other collections related to Environmental History

Environment Agency Collection, 1786-2010: The Environmental Agency is an executive Non-departmental Public Body responsible to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and a Welsh Government Sponsored Body responsible to the Minister for Environment and Sustainable Development. The collection consists of reports, surveys, data records, maps, administrative records and other material relating to the work of the Environment Agency (and of its predecessor organisations the various River Boards, River Authorities, Water Authorities and the National Rivers Authority). While a few documents date back to the 19th century and earlier, the majority spans the 1930s to the 1990s. Material held by Freshwater Biological Association Archives – see full collection description.

“Yellow water-lily. Pools in Camperdown Woods. Nuphar lutea (Nymphæaceaæ) July 19, 1913”. Detail from Illustrations of Scottish Flora (1912-1913) by David R Robinson. From the Kinnear Collection, reference GB 0254 MS 103/3/5. Photograph copyright © University of Dundee Archive Services.

Feature: Botany – botany and botanists (March 2005).

Dee and Clwyd River Authority records (1653-1979) 1544 items. In 1965, the Dee and Clwyd River Authority was constituted, superseding the numerous earlier authorities concerned with the navigation of the Dee Estuary and the drainage of low-lying coastal and estuarial land. The construction of a navigable cut from Chester to Connah’s Quay had been empowered by an Act of 1732, to replace the old deep-water channel to the north of the estuary, and in 1740 the River Dee Company was created to maintain the navigation. The Dee Conservancy Act 1889 established the Dee Conservancy Board, taking over the Company’s functions. In 1938, the Conservancy Board officially came to an end. Material held by North East Wales Archives – Flintshire / Archifau Gogledd Ddwyrain Cymru – Sir y Fflint – see full collection description.

Online Resource: Freeze Frame. The collection will be of interest to anyone studying or teaching the arts as examples of landscape, portrait and historical photography. There are images related to the environment, wildlife and travel. Themes such as ‘History of Photography in the Polar Regions’, Changing Britain and the Heroic Age’ and ‘Surviving in Extreme Environments’ can all be explored within this collection. The resource includes 20,000 images, biographies, photographs, still images and text. Provided by Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge: https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gbah17-freezeframe.

Meteorological Office Archive (Mid-19th Century – 2010): as a result of the Brussels Conference of Maritime Nations in 1853 and following consultations by the Board of Trade with the Royal Society, a Meteorological Department was formed at the beginning of August 1854 for the collection and co-ordination of meteorological observations made at sea. The National Meteorological Archive is the official UK Place of Deposit for meteorological records. It is home to one of the most comprehensive collections on meteorology anywhere in the world and provides a major resource for scientific and historical research of international scope. Their aim is to support the Met Office and the wider scientific community by providing a targeted, proactive and flexible information service; their primary role is to preserve the public memory of the weather and to conserve the records in their care. The collection comprises around 500,000 meteorological records stored across four large, environmentally controlled strongrooms. See full collection description.

Online Resource: GB3D Type Fossils (Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic; Early Neolithic). This collection currently holds examples of macrofossil types found in the UK, and will develop in future to include examples from collections based around the world. The study of fossils provides insight into the Earth’s history, how creatures evolved, continents separated and environments changed across vast periods of time. Fossil types available to view in the database include ammonites, belemnites, fish, corals and trilobites. Institutions who have contributed to the database include the Sedgwick Museum, Oxford University, National Museum of Wales, Geological Curator’ Group and the collection’s publishers – British Geological Survey: https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/data/gbah2-h2-gb3dtypefossils.

Chameleon: photograph of vivarium in The Manchester Museum, copyright © The University of Manchester.

Feature: Charles Darwin and Evolution (February 2009).

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“Gather them in” – the musical treasures of W.T. Freemantle

/ Jane Ronson

Archives Hub feature for February 2019

A new exhibition at the Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery at the University of Leeds explores the story of a forgotten Yorkshireman whose achievements are now being reassessed.

Dr Bryan White, Senior Lecturer in the School of Music at the University of Leeds, has been researching the material collected by the Sheffield-based organist, antiquarian and collector William Thomas Freemantle (1849-1931). Dr White’s investigations have revealed a tenacious collector who would “endure martyrdom in Siberia” to acquire unique treasures for his library.

Photograph of W.T. Freemantle, 1912. Leeds University Library, Special Collections, MS 1700/6/7.
Photograph of W.T. Freemantle, 1912. Leeds University Library, Special Collections, MS 1700/6/7.

W.T. Freemantle’s musical interests extended widely and he gathered a valuable collection of manuscripts and prints. Much of this material has only recently been catalogued, and more still remains to be explored.

“W.T.” was born in Chichester and moved with his family to Sheffield in 1855. At the age of 16 he was apprenticed organist at Lincoln Cathedral and developed an interest in the music of Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847).

Engraving of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy made by A.H. Payne and W.C. Wrankmore, after a portrait by Theodore Hildebrand (c.1835). Leeds University Library, Special Collections, Brotherton Collection, uncatalogued holdings.
Engraving of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy made by A.H. Payne and W.C. Wrankmore, after a portrait by Theodore Hildebrand (c.1835). Leeds University Library, Special Collections, Brotherton Collection, uncatalogued holdings.

Freemantle’s enthusiasm for Mendelssohn ran against the tide. At the mid-point of the nineteenth century the composer was a towering figure in the musical landscape, particularly in Britain. Mendelssohn’s reputation waned in subsequent decades, but Freemantle continued to value his music highly. Today Mendelssohn is again one of the most popular Romantic composers, and Freemantle’s collection has much to offer the researcher.

Freemantle described his metamorphosis into a collector in a lecture entitled “How I became an autograph collector and what I have got”. He tells of a visit to a Sheffield market where he stumbled upon a “rather soiled looking lot of manuscript music”. As he worked through the pile he found a Mendelssohn signature and felt “my blood had heated, my pulse had quickened” … “Oh! That bundle of music! I was now indeed an autograph collector.”

Autograph manuscript of Mendelssohn’s “Sonata” in B flat minor, 1823. This is the only source for this early sonata. Leeds University Library, Special Collections, BC MS Mendelssohn/Scores 1.
Autograph manuscript of Mendelssohn’s “Sonata” in B flat minor, 1823. This is the only source for this early sonata. Leeds University Library, Special Collections, BC MS Mendelssohn/Scores 1.

Several decades later his Mendelssohn collection encompassed 40 autograph manuscript scores, 300 letters, and hundreds of books, musical prints, concert programmes and other ephemera touching upon all aspects of the composer’s life and that of his family and colleagues. In the 1870s Freemantle began a biography of the composer, but eventually put the project aside when the extent of the surviving material overwhelmed him.

Engraving of Fanny Mendelssohn and her husband Wilhelm Hensel (August Weger and Johann-Paul Singer, 1846). Leeds University Library, Special Collections, Brotherton Collection, uncatalogued holdings.
Engraving of Fanny Mendelssohn and her husband Wilhelm Hensel (August Weger and Johann-Paul Singer, 1846). Leeds University Library, Special Collections, Brotherton Collection, uncatalogued holdings.

Freemantle collected music by other significant figures, and in particular committed himself to the music of Charles Dibdin (1745-1814), a prolific composer of theatre music and songs. Freemantle acquired a substantial set of Dibdin’s autograph manuscripts, working with great skill and dedication to organise and identify this very disordered material.

Charles Dibdin, autograph sketches of “Here’s all her gear” from his comic opera Rose and Colin, 1778. Leeds University Library, Special Collections, MS 1700/2/38.
Charles Dibdin, autograph sketches of “Here’s all her gear” from his comic opera Rose and Colin, 1778. Leeds University Library, Special Collections, MS 1700/2/38.

W.T. also took a strong interest in Sheffield history. He acquired books, pottery, painting, prints and tokens from the local area and wrote and lectured on local history. His collection of Rockingham pottery was eventually bought by the Sheffield Corporation and now resides at Weston Park Museum along with his collection of coins and seals.

Freemantle sold his Mendelssohn collection along with his entire library to Lord Brotherton of Wakefield sometime in 1927-28. The purchase was probably brokered by Brotherton’s personal librarian, J. Alexander Symington (1887-1961). Symington had oversight of the Freemantle Collection before it was formally accessioned by the University Library in Leeds, and he took the opportunity to sell significant parts of the Mendelssohn and Dibdin material to libraries and collectors in the United States. His actions played a significant role in suppressing the extent of Freemantle’s activities and his reputation as a collector.

Photograph of W.T. Freemantle and family at Barbot Hall, 1913. Leeds University Library, Special Collections, Brotherton Collection, uncatalogued holdings.
Photograph of W.T. Freemantle and family at Barbot Hall, 1913. Leeds University Library, Special Collections, Brotherton Collection, uncatalogued holdings.

Had Freemantle’s music collections remained intact he would be recognised as a pioneering figure in Mendelssohn studies, and more widely as a significant British collector of his era. Thankfully, the rest of Freemantle’s materials were left untouched and now form an important part of Special Collections at the University of Leeds. Now that Freemantle’s work is being reassessed, the real story of his achievements can begin to be told!

The exhibition runs from 1 March-31 July 2019 in the Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery at the University of Leeds.

On show for the first time to the general public are many of the Mendelssohn manuscript scores housed in Special Collections at Leeds University Library, alongside other items from Freemantle’s extensive music collections.

The Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery is free and open to all. For directions, opening times and our programme of related events see:

https://library.leeds.ac.uk/galleries

Get all the latest news and behind the scenes insights by following the Gallery on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – @LULGalleries

Special Collections at Leeds University Library is home to hundreds of thousands of rare books, manuscripts, archives and artworks. Our collections offer a rich resource for staff, students, and the wider research community. Start your search here:

https://library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections

Dr Bryan White
Senior Lecturer, School of Music, University of Leeds

Rhiannon Lawrence-Francis
Collections and Engagement Manager, Special Collections, University of Leeds

Related

Miscellaneous papers collected by W.T. Freemantle, ca.1775-ca.1925

Browse all University of Leeds Special Collections descriptions on the Archives Hub.

The Mendelssohn papers, mid-18th-19th century (held by the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford)

Previous features on the University of Leeds Special Collections:

Sentimental Journey: a focus on travel in the archives

Recipes through the ages 

World War One

All images copyright University of Leeds Special Collections and reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.

Uncovering censorship in the V and A Theatre and Performance Archives

/ Jane Ronson

Archives Hub feature for September 2018

On the 9th July 2018, the V&A Theatre and Performance Department opened a new display in our galleries titled Censored! Stage, Screen, Society at 50. The display commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Theatres Act, which abolished state censorship of the British stage. As well as tracing the broader 300-year history of stage censorship, the display also looks at the censorship of music, film and print in the UK.

Uniquely for one of our displays, much of the material is taken from our collection of almost 500 named archives that form the V&A Theatre & Performance Archives. A significant portion of these are catalogued on the Archives Hub website, and all can be consulted by appointment in our Reading Room at Blythe House in London.

Poster for The Arts & Censorship gala at the Royal Festival Hall, 1968.
Poster for The Arts & Censorship gala at the Royal Festival Hall, 1968.                              Image copyright: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London [Museum no. S.2054-1995].
Telling a story of censorship

Censorship is a story shaped by legal documents and correspondence. Its battles were often fought on paper and were won and lost through Parliamentary Acts.

Patent for Theatre Royal Drury Lane, issued by Charles II to Thomas Killigrew, 1662.
Patent for Theatre Royal Drury Lane, issued by Charles II to Thomas Killigrew, 1662. Credit: On loan from the Really Useful Theatres Group. Image copyright: © Victoria and Albert Museum, courtesy of Really Useful Theatres [Museum no. LOAN:USEFUL.1-2000].
This meant that the core of the display had to be taken from the rich resource of company, theatre and individual archives which are comprised of these letters, licenses and administrative records.

Curatorially, we considered the challenges of presenting archives carefully:

  • We wished to avoid overwhelming the visitor with paperwork;
  • To select key documents which could communicate both a specific example and the overarching narrative of censorship;
  • Balance a paper-driven aesthetic with colour and innovative exhibition design

We carried out rigorous research, and found fantastic theatre designs, posters and photographs which equally contributed to the narrative of the display. We were also lucky to work with political cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, who created a special commission for the display, as well as leading graphic designers Barnbrook who conceived the display design concept.

Censored! Stage, Screen, Society at 50 display, Theatre and Performance Galleries, Copyright V&A Images.
Censored! Stage, Screen, Society at 50 display, Theatre and Performance Galleries, Copyright V&A Images.

There were obvious important examples of censorship that we wanted to include, such as the play Saved by Edward Bond. This was performed as a private ‘club performance’ at the Royal Court Theatre after it was banned by the Lord Chamberlain for its violence and profanity.

In the English Stage Company / Royal Court Archive, it was fantastic to find correspondence from Edward Bond to the Lord Chamberlain refusing to make alterations, as well as a handwritten note written by a theatre staff member recording a conversation with a police officer who came to investigate the illicit performances.

Lord Chamberlain’s alterations to Saved by Edward Bond, 1965.
Lord Chamberlain’s alterations to Saved by Edward Bond, 1965.  Image copyright: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London [Archive ref: THM/273].
There were also surprising discoveries within named archives. Joan Littlewood of Theatre Workshop had directed a semi-improvised play You Won’t Always Be On Top in 1958. She was prosecuted for producing a show which did not have a script for inspection by the Lord Chamberlain.

We discovered a letter in the Vivien Leigh Archive which Littlewood had written to the actress to ask for her public support. Leigh and husband Laurence Olivier were vocal supporters of the removal of censorship, and Littlewood was successfully defended in court. As well as this letter, we were also generously allowed to display photographs of the production from the Theatre Royal Stratford East Archive.

Letter from Joan Littlewood to Vivien Leigh, 1958.
Letter from Joan Littlewood to Vivien Leigh, 1958.  Image copyright: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London [Archive ref: THM/433].
The display also features a section on OZ magazine, which was the subject of a notorious obscenity trial in 1971 for the publication of its Schoolkids Issue. This was edited by children and featured a depiction of Rupert the Bear in a sexually explicit scenario. The successful defence of the magazine’s editors was a ground-breaking testament of an increasingly liberalised culture.

The acquisition of the Felix Dennis / OZ magazine archive in 2017, with the assistance of the Art Fund, provided with us with fascinating material for display. Not only tracing the creative process, including paste-up boards by Martin Sharp, the archive also contains a wealth of material relating to the trial and the magazine editors’ supporters, including flyers for benefit concerts, badges and a fundraising record by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

‘God Save Oz’ charity record by Apple Records, 1971.
‘God Save Oz’ charity record by Apple Records, 1971.  Image copyright: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London [Archive ref: THM/497].
As well as these examples, we also drew material from our core collection of Production Files, and images from our extensive photographic collections, including the Douglas Jeffery Archive. The Arts Council of Great Britain Archive also provided valuable documents relating to recent productions that had been the target of protest or loss of funding.

Production photograph of The Romans in Britain, National Theatre, 1980.
Production photograph of The Romans in Britain, National Theatre, 1980.            Credit: Douglas Jeffery. Image copyright: © Victoria and Albert Museum [Archive ref: THM/374/1/2283/5].
This a small selection of the fascinating stories uncovered in the archives and now on display. Visit in person to listen to a playlist of banned songs, hear interviews from leading practitioners and cultural critics, and contribute towards the debate ‘what is censorship?’.

Censored! Stage, Screen, Society at 50 is open until 27th January 2019.

Harriet Reed, Assistant Curator
V&A Theatre and Performance Department
Victoria & Albert Museum

Browse all V&A Theatre and Performance Archives collections on the Archives Hub.

Previous features by V&A Theatre and Performance Archives:

The D’Oyly Carte Archive, October 2016

Curtain up! The Theatre and Performance Collections at the V&A, 2011

All images copyright the Victoria and Albert Museum and reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.

Making your digital collections easier to discover – Jisc workshops in November

/ Jane Ronson

Jisc is offering two one-day workshops to help you increase the reach of your digital collections, optimise them for discovery and evaluate their impact.

‘Exploiting digital collections in learning, teaching and research’ will be held on Tuesday 15 November.

‘Making google work for your digital collections’ will be held on Tuesday 22 November.

If your organisation has digital collections, or plans to develop them, our workshops will help you maximize the reach of those collections online, demonstrate the impact of their usage, and help you build for future sustainability. They will equip you with the knowledge and skills to:

• Increase the visibility of your digital collections for use in learning, teaching and research
• Encourage collaboration between curators and users of digital collections
• Strategically promote your digital collections in appropriate contexts, for a range of audiences
• Optimise your collection for discovery via Google and other search tools
• Use web analytics to track and monitor access and usage of your digital collections
• Evaluate impact and realise the benefits of investment in your digital collection

Who should attend?

Anyone working in education and research, who manages, supports and/or promotes digital collections for teaching, learning and research. Those working in similar roles in libraries, archives and museums would also benefit.

Both workshops will be held at Jisc office, Brettenham House, London and will offer a mix of discussion, practical activities and post-workshop resources to support online resource discovery activities.

For more information and to book your place please visit http://www.jisc.ac.uk/advice/training/making-your-digital-collections-easier-to-discover.

UKAD Forum

/ Bethan Ruddock

The National Archives
The National Archives (used under a CC licence from http://www.flickr.com/photos/that_james/2693236972/)

Weds 2nd March was the inaugural event of the UK Archives Discovery Network – better known as UKAD.  Held at the National Archives, the UKAD Forum was a chance for archive practitioners to get together, share ideas, and hear about interesting new projects.

The day was organised into 3 tracks: A key themes for information discovery; B standards and crowdsourcing; and C demonstrating sites and systems.  Plenary sessions came from John Sheridan of TNA, Richard Wallis of Talis, David Flanders of Jisc, and Teresa Doherty of the Women’s Library.

I would normally have been tweeting away, but unfortunately although I could connect to the wifi, I couldn’t get any further!  So here are my edited highlights of the day (also known as ‘tweets I wish I could have sent’).

Richard Sheridan kicked off the proceedings by talking about open data.  The government’s Coalition Agreement contains a commitment to open data, which obviously affects The National Archives, as repository for government data.  They are using light-weight existing Linked Data vocabularies, and then specialising them for their needs. I was particularly interested to hear about the particular challenges posed by legislation.gov.uk, explained by John as ‘A changes B when C says so’: new legislation may alter existing legislation, and these changes might come into force at a time specified by a third piece of legislation…

Richard Wallis carried on the open data theme, by talking about Linked Data and Linked Open Data. His big prediction? That the impact of Linked Data will be greater than the impact of the World Wide Web it builds on. A potentially controversial statement, delivered with a very nice slide deck.

Off to the tracks, and I headed for track B to hear Victoria Peters from Strathclyde talk about ICA-AtoM.  This is open source, web based archival  description software, aimed at archivists and institutions with limited financial and technical resources.  It looks rather nifty, and supports EAD and EAC import and export, as well as digital objects.  If you want to try it out, you can download a demo from the ICA-AtoM website, or have a look at Strathclyde’s installation.

Bill Stockting from the BL gave us an update on EAD and EAC-CPF.  I’m just starting to learn about EAC-CPF, so it was interesting to hear the plans for it.  One of Bill’s main points was that they’re trying to move beyond purely archival concerns, and are hoping that EAC-CPF can be used in other domains, such as MARC.  This is an interesting development, and I hope to hear more about it in the future!  Bill also mentioned SNAC, the Social Networks and Archival Context project, which is looking at using EAC-CPF with a number of tools (including VIAF) to ‘to “unlock” descriptions of people from finding aids and link them together in exciting new ways’.

David Flanders’ post-lunch plenary provided absolutely my favourite moment of the day: David said ‘Technology will fail if not supported by the users’… and then, with perfect timing, the projector turned off.  One of David’s key points was that ‘you are not your users’.  You can’t be both expert and user, and you will never know exactly how what users want from your systems, and how they will use them unless you actually ask them! Get users involved in your projects and bids, and you’re likely to be much more successful.

Alexandra Eveleigh spoke in track B about ‘crowds and communities: user participation in the archives’.  I especially liked her distinction between ‘crowds’ and ‘communities’ – crowds are likely to be larger, and quickly dip in and out, while communities are likely to be smaller overall, but dedicate more time and effort.  She also pointed out that getting users involved isn’t a new thing – there’s always been a place in archives for those pursuing ‘serious leisure’, and bringing their own specialist knowledge and experience.  A point Alexandra made that I found particularly interesting was that of being fair to your users – don’t ask them to participate and help you, if you’re not going to listen to their opinions!

I have to admit that I’d never really heard of Historypin before I saw them on the conference programme.  Don’t click on that link if you have anything you need to get done today!  Historypin takes old photographs, and ‘pins’ them to their exact geographic location using Google maps.  You can see them in streetview, overlaid on the modern background, and it is absolutely fascinating.  Photos can be contributed by anyone, and anyone can add stories or more information to photos on the site.  One of the developments on the way is the ability to ‘pin’ video and audio clips in the same way.

CEO Nick Stanhope was keen to point out that Historypin is a not-for-profit – they’re in partnership with Google, but not owned by them, and they don’t ask for any rights to any of the material posted on Historypin.  They’re keen to work with archives to add their photographic collections, and have a couple of things they hope to soon be able to offer archives in return (as well as increased exposure!):  they’ll be allowing any archive to have an instance of Historypin embedded on the archive’s site for free.  They’re also developing a smartphone app, and will be offering any archive their own branded version of the app – for free!  These developments sound really exciting, and I hope we hear more from them soon.

Teresa Doherty’s closing plenary was on the re-launch of the Genesis project.  As Teresa said ‘many of you will be sitting there thinking ‘this isn’t plenary material! what’s going on?”, but Teresa definitely made it a plenary worth attending.  Genesis is a project which allows users to cross-search women’s studies resources from museums, libraries and archives in the UK, and Teresa made the persuasive point that while the project itself might not be revolutionary, how they’ve done it is.  Genesis has had no funding since 200 – everything they’ve done since then, including the relaunch, has been done with only the in-house resources they have available.  They’ve used SRU to search the Archives Hub, and managed to put together a valuable service with minimal resources.

As a librarian and a new professional, I found Teresa’s insights into the history of archival cataloguing particularly fascinating.  I knew that ISAD(G) was released in 1996, but I hadn’t had any real understanding of what that meant: that before 1996, there were no standards or guidelines for archival cataloguing. Each institution would catalogue in entirely their way – a revelation to me, and completely alien to my entirely standards-based professional background!  And I now have a new mantra, learned from one of Teresa’s old managers back in the early 90s:

‘We may not have a database now, but if we have structured data then one day we will have a database to put it in!’

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a better definition of the interoperability mindset.

After the day officially ended, it was off the the pub for a swift pint and wind-down. An excellent, instructive, and fun day.

Slides from the day are available on SlideShare – tag ukad.

On Holiday in the Archives

/ Jane Stevenson

Pierrot troupe, 'Shorefield Gardens Westcliff 1916'
Liverpool University Centre for Archive Studies (LUCAS) organised an event on Saturday, with Sefton MBC, at Southport Arts Centre. This was an afternoon of talks and films about what archives can show us about holidays and seaside resorts.

There were four films from the North West Film Archive, made by railway companies to encourage visitors to travel to northern resorts, and films showing local people made by cinema owners to encourage visitors to their cinemas.

Then Dr Chris Lewis of Victoria County History told us about his investigation into the names of private houses in the seaside town of Goring in West Sussex – an ingenious way to shine light on social history.

Allan Brodie of English Heritage showed us some of the evidence he had uncovered that Liverpool (rather than Margate) can make a claim to be the first seaside resort, in the early 18th century.

Professor John Walton of Leeds Metropolitan University described some of the lateral thiking and detective work required to track down sparse or scattered records of resort life in Britain (and Spain) in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Documented history concerned with these aspects of ordinary lives tends to be thin on the ground, as the whole subject was generally seen as ‘trivial’. But there’s so much more to history than the ‘great and the good’. These archivists and historians were at the seaside, but they were working on illuminating our history…

Above: Photo from the collection Papers relating to English concert parties and pierrot shows, held at the University of Exeter. Image courtesy of University of Exeter Library (Special Collections).