Archives Hub feature for September 2019

Part of an ambitious expansion plan by the University College, Southampton, the first developments at the Highfield Campus were completed in 1914, shortly before the start of the First World War. The College decided to remain in its City Centre base and the Highfield buildings were used as a War Hospital. When the College moved to Highfield in the autumn of 1919, many of the buildings bore “honourable scars” from their service as a hospital and the accommodation was supplemented by the wooden huts added to provide additional wards.

Traces of the hospital origins of some of the additional accommodation – such as the inscription ‘dysentery’ on the door of the staff refectory – were to remain for some time. And for the Principal, Kenneth Vickers, who was appointed in 1922, a priority was not only creating halls of resident for students but improving the buildings on campus. Vickers noted: “On my first day in College I was waylaid by the Professor of Physics who was alarmed at the dangerous condition of his first floor lecture room, which was showing signs of subsiding […]” Vickers, alongside the President, Claude Montefiore, were two of the notable individuals responsible for the development of the College during the 1920s.

Whilst the 1930s were a bad time for the College, amongst developments was the creation of a new library, remedying the most serious lack in facilities since the move to the Highfield campus. Made possible by a substantial donation from Margaret and Mary Turner Sims, the Turner Sims Library was opened in October 1935 by the Duke of York (later King George VI). Described as having a “commodious reading room”, the Library also boasted a stack room for 12,000 volumes and six seminar rooms and was to prove an attractive space for students.

The Second World War was a period of both anxiety and opportunity for University College, Southampton. The decision not to evacuate the Highfield site allowed the College to play a full part in wartime training and education and in research related to the war effort, but meant that students and staff were potentially at risk from enemy action.

Student Nora Harvey noted of the air raid precautions: “We have elaborate sheets of cardboard up at Highfield windows which are fixed up with strips of wood slipping into slots at the side… In air raids we are going to congregate in one of the downstairs corridors. It is awfully safe apparently as there are two cement and steel floors above us there and rooms all round and no windows at all.”

Wartime brought other restrictions on student life with all male students on full-time courses required to join the Senior Training Corps or University Air Squadron, student societies forced to close due to pressure of time and travel difficulties affecting sporting fixtures. Entertainment continued as far as possible, although dances were forced to end at 8.30pm, causing “considerable feeling” amongst the student body.

In 1952 Southampton became the first university to be created in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, receiving its royal charter on 29 April of that year. The University of Southampton Act received its Royal Assent on 6 May 1953 and on 3 July the ceremonious installation of new Chancellor, the Duke of Wellington, took place at the Guildhall in Southampton. As part of these celebrations, a message was carried in relay by members of the Southampton Athletics Union from the Chancellor of the University of London to be presented to the Duke.

The “swinging sixties” were a decade of significant growth and expansion for the university. Key to the development of the Highfield site was architect Sir Basil Spence who had been charged with creating a “master plan” for the Highfield Campus and all the major buildings of this period were designed by him.

The Highfield campus has been the focus of much development in the subsequent decades as the University has expanded to meet growing demands and changes within the higher education sector. Significant for the Special Collections was the development of the Archives Department from 1982 to house the newly acquired papers of the first Duke of Wellington and the creation of new archival facilities as part of a 2002-4 expansion of the Hartley Library.

From the formality of the earlier decades of the twentieth century – even in the 1950s “it was still an era when all students were required to wear a black academic gown at dinner in the evening” – student life has developed to reflect the concerns and interests of its times. The 1960s saw the beginnings of student protest. These varied from a boycott of the refectory about the quality of the food to support for national and international causes. In later decades, student protests have encompassed a wide range of issues, including opposition to the introduction of loans.

Sporting endeavour has been a constant throughout the history of University life: from a relatively modest number of sporting societies in the early student days to everything from Aerial Sports to Zumba covered in 2019. Another constant has been the annual RAG, traditionally a highlight of the Winter term. In earlier decades this featured a procession of decorated floats on lorries through the city centre. During the 1950s “the Engineers were always very prominent during Rag … often accompanied by their human skeleton mascot ‘Kelly’.”

For more on Highfield 100, see the Special Collections monthly posts charting the progress of the University decade by decade since 1919: https://specialcollectionsuniversityofsouthampton.wordpress.com/?s=highfield+100

Karen Robson
Archives and Manuscripts
Hartley Library
University of Southampton

Related

Papers of K.H.Vickers, 1920s-1958

Papers of C.J. Goldsmid-Montefiore, 1885-1935

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

Previous features on University of Southampton Special Collections:

The Basque Child Refugee Archive

60 years of faith and conflict

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

Archives Hub feature for June 2019

In 2018 Newcastle University Special Collections published an updated catalogue for the archive of Sir Charles Philips Trevelyan on the Archives Hub. A socialist MP, anti-war campaigner and member of the first two Labour cabinets, Sir Charles is known for twice resigning his cabinet seat in protest against government actions as well as donating the family estate of Wallington to the National Trust. The Archive has been held at Newcastle since the 1960s, and a previous catalogue created in the 1970s listed documents relating to Sir Charles’ professional life and political career.

The project to produce the new digital catalogue has made a substantial quantity of previously uncatalogued and inaccessible content available alongside this material. This content sheds light on the other characters in Sir Charles’ family – in particular his wife, Mary Katharine Trevelyan, but also their children, staff and extended families.

Mary Katharine Trevelyan, known as Molly, was born Mary Katharine Bell in 1881. Her parents were author Florence, Lady Bell and industrialist Sir Hugh Bell. The family, including Mary’s half-sister, the famed explorer and diplomat Gertrude Bell, lived in Redcar, North Yorkshire. The newly catalogued correspondence offers the chance to understand Mary’s early family life through letters written to her parents. They include accounts of her childhood at the family home Red Barns, her education and visits to Europe with her sister Elsa.

Mary ‘came out’ in society in 1899, and the four years between this and her engagement with Charles are recorded in her personal diaries. The diaries reveal the whirl of pre-war society enjoyed by affluent young people. In 1902 Mary was courted by three young men, including Charles. Her memoirs written in the 1960s recall that ‘At a dance in Mansfield Street one young man asked me to marry him; a second would have done the same if I had not checked him before it happened – and the third who held my heart in thrall, sat back and laughed (The Number of my Days, 1962, M K Trevelyan, Newcastle University, Rare Books Collection, RB 942 TRE). In 1903 Charles proposed again, and Mary accepted. The pair were married in January 1904, and their correspondence features lengthy discussions about arrangements for their big day, as well as their first home together at 14 Great College Street, Westminster.

The couple had six children between 1905 and 1920, five of whom survived into adulthood. In the early years of their marriage Charles and Mary were often apart, with Charles attending parliament in London and Mary caring for the children (alongside domestic staff) at their home at Cambo House on the Wallington estate. They wrote to each other every day that they were apart, resulting in over 50 files of letters between the two for this 15 year period alone. They wrote love letters, apologised for arguments and discussed their reading. Charles expresses misgivings at his performance in Parliament and Mary her frustration that they are so often apart. The tone of the letters ranges from incredibly intimate to extremely practical.

The newly added material also features substantial content relating to the development and education of the Trevelyan children; Pauline, George, Kitty, Marjorie, Patricia and Geoffrey. The collection features their letters home from boarding school. The Trevelyans chose to send their older children to the co-educational Sidcot – a Quaker school in Somerset. Their correspondence continues into adulthood and includes content regarding their own marriages and the lives of their children. Letters from their adulthood reflect their fascinating and diverse lives, featuring (amongst other things) solo hikes across Canada, working as shepherdesses, life in Hitler’s Germany and aeronautical engineering.

The updated archive catalogue is complimented by the online publication of the family photograph albums, via Newcastle Special Collections’ Page Turners resource. Photographs of the family playing at home or visiting relatives sit alongside newspaper cuttings about their careers. Correspondence can therefore be cross referenced with the relevant album, revealing more information about the people who appear in the images and the family’s activities.

In the same year the new catalogue was published, the Trevelyan’s family home Wallington Hall, celebrated 50 years of being open to the public as a National Trust property. Improved access to the archive enabled Newcastle University to better support the celebrations, providing guidance on relevant archive material and digital images for use on promotional materials. As part of the celebrations, a performance and panel discussion titled ‘Gifted to a Grateful Nation?’ was prepared jointly by Newcastle University, performing arts company the November Club and the National Trust, held at Newcastle University Kings Hall. Chaired by Dr Tom Schofield and featuring academics, actors and members of the Trevelyan family, the event explored the motivations behind Sir Charles’ decision to donate Wallington the National Trust, and the legacy of this bequest.

The Trevelyan (Charles Philips) Archive is a rich research resource for a range of subject areas, including twentieth century politics, socialism, landed families, childhood and women’s history. It is available for public consultation at Newcastle University Special Collections, with requests to be made in advance. The catalogue can be found on the Archives Hub. Digitised versions of the family’s photograph albums, which form part of the collection, are available on Special Collections’ Page Turners resource, and a selection of other digitised content can be accessed via Newcastle University’s Collections Captured website.

Alexandra Healey
Project Archivist
Special Collections, Newcastle University

Related

Trevelyan (Charles Edward) Archive, 1807-1886

Trevelyan (Charles Philips) Archive, 1761-1965

Trevelyan (George Otto) Archive, 1838-1928

Trevelyan (Walter Calverley) Archive, 1797-1870

Bell (Gertrude) Archive, 1874-1938

Browse all Newcastle University Special Collections and Archives descriptions available to date on the Archives Hub.

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

 

 

 

Archives Hub feature for April 2019

The British Paediatric Association (BPA), which became the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) in 1996, was founded in 1928. After an inaugural meeting of six attendees, its membership grew to 60 in the first year. The members had a few things in common: they all worked in or had a professional interest in practicing, teaching or researching paediatrics, and they were exclusively men.

In the 19th century, there was huge prejudice against women as doctors and many were unable to study medicine in the UK. World War I gave women the opportunity to progress in medicine as medical schools began allocating places to women to fill the spaces left by men away fighting, but after the end of the war, they were banned from studying medicine again until the 1930s. This led to many women leaving to study abroad, mostly in Europe, before returning to the UK to take up posts.

Most female doctors of the early 20th century were unmarried and childless, and many left the profession after starting a family. At this time, women also usually came into paediatrics from other routes, such as general practice or public health, rather than specialising from the start of their career.

Although there was nothing in the early rules of the BPA to say that membership was exclusively for men, only male doctors were invited to become members and attend the first meeting in May 1928. The aims established when the BPA was founded were to advance the study of paediatrics and to promote friendship amongst paediatricians, but this did not seem to extend to the female paediatricians male members were working alongside in hospitals.

This led to an awkward situation in 1938 when the BPA planned a joint meeting with the Canadian Paediatric Society. As women were allowed to be members of the Canadian society but not in the British Association, the BPA were in a situation where they were treating Canadian female doctors as their equals, but not the women they worked with. At a meeting of the Executive Committee, it was unanimously decided that female members of the Canadian Society would be invited to the meeting as they would be coming as members rather than individual guests. It was stated that “this should not be regarded as a precedent” and British women continued to be excluded.

Discussions of admitting women to the BPA began in the early 1930s after being raised by various members but each time it was agreed no action would be taken. It wasn’t until April 1944 that a vote was taken at a meeting of the Executive Committee on whether to admit women as members. Minutes of the meeting state that the BPA was “criticised as not representing those actively engaged in the Practice or Teaching of Paediatrics or in Paediatric Research”, reflecting the growing numbers of women in paediatrics.

All members were asking if they would be in favour of amending the rules for women to be elected as members and the response was in favour of changing the rules, although not by a large margin. Of the 65 members, 45 responded, with 34 in favour of allowing women to become members, 12 against and one member remaining “doubtful”. It was a step forward for equality in the profession, and at the next Annual General Meeting in 1945, the first women were elected into the BPA. Catherine Chisholm became an Honorary Member and Helen MacKay, Hazel Chodak-Gregory and Beryl Corner were made ordinary members.

While it was a step forward for the Association, female paediatricians still faced prejudice in their work. June Lloyd, the first female president of the BPA, was advised early in her career to pursue a specialty that was less male-dominated than paediatrics and Mildred Creak, the first purely psychiatrist member of the BPA who joined in 1949, applied for over 90 jobs before securing a post. It was the determination of women like these that aided the acceptance and rise of women in paediatrics.

While criticised in its early days for not representing female doctors, the BPA quickly became supportive all members and were recognised for their achievements, regardless of gender. Dame June Lloyd was instrumental in the BPA becoming the RCPCH and features as a supporter on the coat of arms alongside Thomas Phaire, and is one of the few coats of arms to include a woman.

Today, 60% of members are women and, although much has been achieved in the past 75 years, the RCPCH still continues to strive for gender equality and examines what we can do as a College to support and encourage women in the profession.

Kate Veale
Archivist and Information Governance Co-ordinator
Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health

Related

Records of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, 1928 to Present Day on the Archives Hub.

RCPCH Archives online catalogue

Explore more Paediatrics collections on the Archives Hub

All images copyright Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.

Archives Hub feature for March 2019

The Devonshire Collection Archives held at Chatsworth span over 450 years and date back to the time of Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (c.1527-1708, better known as Bess of Hardwick), with elements of the archive dating from even earlier. They document the lives, careers and estate management of the Cavendish family – one of the most important aristocratic families in English history, counting amongst its number politicians, art connoisseurs and collectors, industrialists, and leading society figures.

Filling over 6,000 boxes, the archives can be divided broadly into estate and family papers. The family papers comprise the personal archives of many of the Dukes and Duchesses of Devonshire, other family members, families who married into the Cavendish line, and some individuals who had a close association with the family, such as the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, and the landscape gardener and architect Sir Joseph Paxton.

Sorting and listing of the family correspondence began in the 1920s, resulting in several extremely large series of correspondence focused on chronological or specific ducal periods. However, our first submissions to the Archives Hub – published this month – focus primarily on a separate group of smaller archives known as the ‘Devonshire Family Collections’. These predominantly date from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries, although they do contain some much earlier material – notably in the form of papers relating to the marital dispute between Bess of Hardwick and her fourth husband George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury. Money and property played a major role in this dispute, but the rift between husband and wife was exacerbated by Shrewsbury’s role as custodian of Mary Queen of Scots for 15 years. So notable were the couple involved that Queen Elizabeth I herself intervened in an attempt to reconcile husband and wife – although this ultimately had little effect.

From the 18th and 19th centuries, there are extensive networks of family correspondence. Letters were exchanged between family members in the UK – between those resident at or moving between different properties and estates, between city and country, and between parents and children at school. Letters also crossed continents as a crucial means of keeping in touch when family members were travelling or working abroad: there are letters home from family members undertaking the continental Grand Tour in the eighteenth century; letters from William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire, sent home from an American trip in 1859; and – from the same writer as a much younger man – some wonderfully detailed letters sent to his mother from Russia in 1826, where he accompanied the 6th Duke of Devonshire to attend the coronation of Tsar Nicholas I. Amongst descriptions of palaces, country houses, working mills, customs and language, the voice of an 18-year-old also shines through: in one letter he remarks rather wearily that he hopes when they get to Moscow they will not have to look at any more relics of Peter the Great as they have seen so many already.

Cavendish family members served for centuries as MPs in the Whig and Liberal cause, so there is extensive political correspondence amongst the family papers. The papers of Spencer Compton Cavendish, the 8th Duke (better known throughout his political career as the Marquess of Hartington) include letters from W.E. Gladstone amongst others. His wife’s papers (Louise Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire) contain letters of condolence she received on his death, including one from a young Winston Churchill expressing his gratitude for having had an opportunity to work with the 8th Duke. Also notable are the papers of the 8th Duke’s brother, Lord Frederick Cavendish (1836-82), which contain references to the 1867 Reform Act, industrial reform, education and much more. There are also posthumous papers relating to his death in a politically-motivated murder in Phoenix Park, Dublin, in 1882.

In addition to letters, there are diaries of various family members, including one documenting the 4th Duke of Devonshire’s Grand Tour in 1739-40; scrapbooks and commonplace books – including some compiled by Duchess Georgiana (1757-1806), whose papers also contain some of her own literary manuscripts; personal and household accounts; official documents; and keepsakes and mementoes such as locks of hair treasured by parents and spouses in memory of lost family members.

Special mention must be made of William George Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire (1790-1858). An art collector and bibliophile who loved entertaining and travel, he was also responsible for transforming Chatsworth through the addition of the great North Wing and his support of Joseph Paxton’s innovative work in the gardens. As so many of the family collections date from the 19th century, he and his activities feature in many of them.

The 6th Duke also had a great archival sensibility and his own papers are particularly rich: significant trips, visits or activities are meticulously recorded in scrapbooks containing letters, cuttings, tickets, invitations, calling cards and other printed ephemera (Papers of William George Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire). Alongside journals, diaries and notebooks, he also kept yearly datebooks detailing places he visited. A great socialiser, he recorded lists of acquaintances as well as keeping guest books and visitors’ books.

There are also the manuscript and proofs of his Handbook to Chatsworth and Hardwick (1844), which stands the test of time as an engaging and accessible guide book to his two principal houses; his writing was admired by Charles Dickens, who read his copy of the Handbook on a train journey back to London after visiting the 6th Duke at Chatsworth and commented that the writing was worthy of a novelist.

Most of the family collections now have item-level catalogues available in PDF form via the Chatsworth website. Many of the other, larger, collections have item-level lists in various states and formats which can be provided on request. We will be submitting further collection-level descriptions to the Archives Hub in due course.

Fran Baker
Archivist & Librarian
Chatsworth

Related

Browse all Devonshire Collection Archives, Chatsworth descriptions available to date on the Archives Hub.

The Dog: A celebration at Chatsworth
Exhibition: 23 March – 6 October 2019

All images copyright Chatsworth House Trust and reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.

Archives Hub feature for January 2019

Over the past year, staff and volunteers at Hull University Archives have been working on the collections of two maritime charitable organisations: The Anglican run Missions to Seamen; and the Catholic run Apostleship of the Sea.

Background to Seamen’s Missions

During the 18^th and 19^th centuries there was a growing concern over the spiritual wellbeing of those who spent their working lives at sea. First came the development of bible societies which existed to provide literature to sailors for their moral enrichment. Following on from this was the development of the seamen’s Bethels, which provided floating spaces where seamen could listen to sermons and take part in religious services.

The impetus for the establishment of both Missions to Seamen and Apostleship of the Sea can be found in the extension of this area to include concern with the physical welfare of seamen. Since their inception, the work of both organisations has been fundamentally the same: to minister, both spiritually and physically, to the needs of seafarers who find themselves away from home and family because of work.

The Missions to Seamen was founded in 1856 as a denominational society, Anglican in outlook. The first minute book of the society illustrates that the practice of ministering to seafarers was already active at the point of formation. Many of the pages, for instance, are taken up with discussions of how best to integrate existing local work, such as that undertaken by the Bristol Society established in 1837, with the newly formed national society.

The formation of the Apostleship of the Sea came later, in 1920, although the work of the Catholic Church in this area began much earlier. The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul had been undertaking charitable work on behalf of the poor, including seamen, since 1833. In 1894, the ‘Société des Oeuvres de Mer’ was established in France to tend to the needs of fishermen, and represented the first dedicated Catholic Mission. In Britain, five years later, a society was established at Glasgow under the name of the ‘Apostleship of Prayer’ by a Father Egger, again as a dedicated mission to those working on the sea. It was the work of this Glasgow society which eventually led to the papal sanctioning of the establishment of the Apostleship of the Sea as a Catholic society in Britain.

Ship Visiting and Seamens’ Centres

From the earliest days of their establishment, the undertaking of ship visiting by chaplains and the running of seamens’ centres in ports was at the heart of the work of both societies. The Missions to Seamen was known throughout the world by the sign of the ‘Flying Angel’, whilst the Apostleship of the Sea was known internationally as the ‘Apostolatus Maris’. For over a century, these symbols were displayed on badges worn by chaplains and on flags flown outside the centres operated by the two societies. The signs became immediately recognisable by seamen of all nationalities as symbols of aid.

Chaplains were appointed by both societies to minister to seamen on ships entering individual ports. Where ships were docked and crew unable to alight, the chaplain had responsibility for visiting the crew on-board in order to deliver spiritual reading material and to check on their welfare. Bibles were provided and publications produced by both societies were handed out to seamen. Both collections contain series of these publications, which include newsletters, journals, prayer cards and pamphlets. Missions to Seamen also contains an extensive series of personnel files for chaplains and lay readers who undertook this aspect of work. The files consist mostly of correspondence, applications for posts, and some photographs of individuals about their work.

Seamen’s centres were established at significant ports up and down the British Isles and, later, across the world. They provided facilities for relaxation, refreshment, and spiritual nourishment, and were intended to provide for seamen needing a place to stay whilst in port, whether this was overnight or merely for a few hours. Facilities included games rooms, libraries, dining areas, and a shop. Most centres incorporated a chapel where services and prayers were held, or else were associated with a local church where such spiritual ministry could be sought. In some ports, these centres were operated jointly by both societies as a more efficient way of ministering to the seafaring community which they served.

Both collections contain series of individual port files which include reports, correspondence, photographs and pamphlets. Hull, as a significant port town during the 19^th and early 20^th century, features heavily in the archival material, as does Southampton and Bristol, along with ports on the rivers Thames, Mersey, Tyne, Wear, and Tees. Internationally, Antwerp, Buenos Aires, Dunkirk, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Kobe, Mombasa, Port of Spain, Rotterdam, Santos, Vlissingen, and Yokohama, are well represented in the records.

Lighthouses, Lightships and Launches

The work of both Missions to Seamen and Apostleship of the Sea extended beyond those sailing on board ships to include those maritime workers who faced months of isolation manning lighthouses and lightships. Launches were acquired to enable chaplains and representatives of the societies to visit these remote workers. The launches were used to deliver reading material and personnel to allow the holding of services at lighthouses or on-board lightships. One such launch was the ‘John Ashley’ motor vessel. Operated by the Missions to Seamen, it was named after the Reverend John Ashley, an Anglican clergyman responsible for the establishment of the Bristol Mission in 1837. A significant number of files relating to the management and operation of the ‘John Ashley’ can be found in the Missions to Seamen collection, and these files include correspondence, photographs and minutes of the management committee.

In the 1920s, a ‘Lighthouse Adoption Scheme’ was established by Missions to Seamen, whereby groups attached to local schools or parish churches were encouraged to take on responsibility for writing to and sending monthly reading material to lighthouse keepers. These groups were known as ‘parents’, and had special duties at Christmas time when they would raise money to send hampers and care packages containing food and warm clothing. One such group was constituted from members of the Guild of St Anne in 1925 to oversee efforts at Bishop Rock lighthouse in the Scilly Isles. Over the years, members of the Bishop Rock ‘parent’ group included Miss Jean Austin Dobson, Miss Ivy Shotter, and Miss D. Hobson. The collection contains Lighthouse and Light Vessel files consisting of correspondence, photographs, reports and minutes, and includes one file which contains correspondence between the Bishop Rock ‘Parents’ and headquarters in London.

Ongoing Work

The work of both societies continues to this day, largely unchanged, although increasingly incorporating themes of justice and legal rights for seamen. Meanwhile, work on these historic records continues at Hull History Centre. Whilst the records of the Apostleship of the Sea have been fully catalogued [U DAPS], work is ongoing to complete the cataloguing of the records of the Missions to Seamen [U DMS]. This work is expected to be finished by August 2019, however, access may be possible before then with prior notice by email.

Claire Weatherall
Assistant Archivist
Hull University Archives at Hull History Centre

Related

Records of Apostleship of the Sea, 1922-2014

Browse all Hull History Centre collections on the Archives Hub.

All images copyright Hull History Centre and reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.

Archives Hub feature for 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.

He also made significant contributions in aerodynamics, helping to establish key principles of powered flight and publishing work about it in the 1890s before the Wright brothers’ first successful take off in 1903. His mathematical theories on military combat and strategy have formed the basis for operations models commonly used in business, and he advised the government on military matters in the First and Second World Wars. His interest in these areas, along with work on optics and field of vision, colour photography, musical notation, pneumatic-framed buildings, radios, loudspeakers, gramophones and many other subjects has led to him being described as the ‘British da Vinci’.

His work on cars led to him building the first all-British motor boat in the 1890s and then the first outboard motor engine – because restrictive speed limits on roads meant that he could not carry out meaningful engine tests in cars.

The Lanchester Engine Company (later Lanchester Motor Company) was formed in 1899. Acquiring factories in Birmingham and then Coventry, Frederick Lanchester spent much of his life and career in the West Midlands. His experiments revolutionised the development of gas and petrol engines. His early car models contained a radical new gearbox design later adopted by Henry Ford, and in 1902 the Lanchester Motor Company became the first to market disc brakes to the public. Another car innovation ahead of its time was a hybrid petrol-electric car built in 1927, which is now at thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum.

In 1930 the Birmingham Small Arms Company bought the Lanchester Motor Company and made it a subsidiary of Daimler, where Frederick Lanchester continued to set benchmarks in car design. His models were favoured by the then Duke of York and future King George VI. The last Lanchester cars were produced by Daimler in Coventry in the mid-1950s.

Despite this, Frederick Lanchester has not become a household name even though his skills were widely recognized by his peers in the scientific community, so the Lanchester Interactive Archive project aims to rectify this and increase awareness of this talented man.

The project started in earnest in early 2016 to digitise much of the material in the collection, which is the largest Frederick Lanchester archive in the world. Although the project’s first phase (supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and others) ends in April 2019, Coventry University will continue to support the project and the Lanchester Interactive Archive space (LIAS) that was created in its library to showcase Lanchester’s life and his work. The university will also explore more external funding to digitise further items.

The outreach work that has taken place during the project will carry on, such as the Lanchester Days held during Coventry Motofest, which include a variety of Lanchester cars parked outside the university library. Individuals and groups will still be able to visit the LIAS, which specialises in showcasing science, engineering, history and creative thinking. The project also celebrated in October 2018 the 150^th anniversary of Lanchester’s birth.

Workshops tailored for any age group, and visits to schools, organisations, and communities will continue; and augmented reality (AR) and pop-up displays mean that the message can be taken outside the university.

The LIAS has touch screens that include interactive games and puzzles to explain the engineering and technical aspects of Lanchester’s work and his inventions, and visitors can point AR tablets at the exhibition images to produce additional information on the tablets. Visitors can also sit in a car built by one of the project consultants (Lanchester historian and enthusiast Chris Clark).

The project had its official launch in April 2017 and a special guest was Danella Bagnall, a former student at the university’s predecessor Coventry Polytechnic, who is now Executive Vice-President Product Engineering, Jaguar Land Rover (China/Asia Pacific Region).

Over 21,000 images from the collection will be available by April 2019 via the university’s online catalogue including personal and business correspondence, sketch books, pocket note books, copies of his patent applications, blueprints, copies and manuscript originals of his published works and a large collection of contemporary photographs of Lanchester cars and other vehicles.

Other items that have not been catalogued yet include Lanchester family papers, objects, and donations from individuals and organizations such as the Lanchester Trust, a charity that supports the university’s Lanchester collection work.

The project aims to open up Lanchester’s archives for use and show their potential for research in a variety of subjects, and to inspire a new generation of engineers and designers. One student at Coventry has already used an 1897 Lanchester patent for an aircraft design in his work. As part of his MSc in aerospace engineering, Osita Ugwueze created a flight simulation model of the manned flying machine, which was never built at the time. Osita used advanced computer software to prove that Lanchester’s machine would have flown. His work also suggested it would have been more aerodynamically stable than the Wright brothers’ machine that was used in the world’s first powered flight. The simulation was among several designs showcased by Coventry University students at the 2018 Farnborough International Airshow.

More information can be found on the Lanchester project website which includes a link to Coventry University’s online catalogue.

The project has updated its catalogue on the Archives Hub website for the university’s Frederick Lanchester collection and more records will be added soon.

Gary Collins
Archivist, Coventry University

Bibliography

The Lanchester Legacy volume 1 1895-1931 Chris Clark (Coventry University 1995)

The Lanchester Legacy volume 2 1931-1956 Chris Clark (Lanchester Legacy Ltd 2016)

The Lanchester Legacy volume 3: a celebration of genius ed. John Fletcher (Coventry University 1996)

Browse all Coventry University archives collections on the Archives Hub.

All images copyright Coventry University (available via Creative Commons 4.0 license) and reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright holders.