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#ExploreYourArchive Day: a focus for our campaign

Have you heard about #ExploreYourArchive Day? Read on to find out all about it…

What is #ExploreYourArchive Day?

We introduced #ExploreYourArchive Day in March 2020 to provide a focus day for showcasing archive collections that are related to our monthly campaign themes.

When does #ExploreYourArchive Day take place?

#ExploreYourArchive Day takes place on the 10th of each month. (Keep an eye on Twitter for our reminders!)

Why did #ExploreYourArchive Day start?

We started #ExploreYourArchive Day because we understand that some people can’t commit to contributing to our campaign themes continuously throughout each month. Having one focus day also gives more visibility to the overall Explore Your Archive campaign – especially if we have lots of people taking part!

Who is #ExploreYourArchive Day for?

#ExploreYourArchive Day is for archivists, records managers, conservators, researchers, users and all other archive fans. Absolutely anyone who wants to take part is welcome to join in!

How can I join in with #ExploreYourArchive Day?

You can get involved with #ExploreYourArchive Day by tweeting around the monthly Explore Your Archive theme and using our hashtag (#ExploreYourArchive) or by tagging us (@explorearchives).

Don’t forget to check out the social media page on our website to keep up-to-date with everything that we’re doing!

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Affection, architecture and football in and beyond the archives: Archibald Leitch’s stadium plans in Art of Ayresome

Teesside Archives’ collections feature a range of items relating to the area’s sporting heritage spanning club records, oral histories, plans, photographs and programmes.  

Amongst the highlights on the sporting collections are a number of Ayresome Park football stadium plans by world-acclaimed stadium designer Archibald Leitch, recently digitised and currently on show as part of the Art of Ayresome online exhibition. Bringing together work from acclaimed architects, cartoonists, illustrators, painters, photographers and sculptors, Art of Ayresome features numerous historic items and explore the story of Ayresome Park in a creative, engaging and unique way.

‘Engineering Archie’

Archibald Leitch, born in Glasgow in 1865, was the most famous architect and engineer of football stadiums in the early twentieth century and has been described as ‘the world’s first ever specialist designer of football grounds’.[1] ‘Engineering Archie’ was responsible for designing a number of Britain’s iconic football grounds including Arsenal’s former Highbury home, Glasgow Rangers’ Ibrox Stadium and Manchester United’s Old Trafford. In 1903, Leitch’s Glasgow practice was commissioned to design Boro’s new ‘Ayresome Park’ home as the club made plans to leave the Linthorpe Road Ground. Leitch’s designs for Ayresome Park that have survived and can be found in Teesside Archives form part of a wider collection of plans that chronicle the initial construction of the stadium in 1903 and subsequent enhancements and redevelopments over the decades.

Archie’s Ayresome on show

The Art of Ayresome online exhibition, hosted on the Middlesbrough FC website, features Archibald’s Leitch’s original 1903 plans for Ayresome Park and are the oldest works in the exhibition. The plans provide the visitor with an architectural introduction to Ayresome Park and a detailed, unique perspective on Middlesbrough Football Club’s move to their new home at the beginning of the twentieth century. The plans allow the visitor to explore in minute detail – down to the very foundations – the place that became a central part of life for the club, town and hundreds of thousands of Teessiders.

The plan of the new Grand Stand, received by Middlesbrough Corporation’s Borough Engineer on 21st March 1903, details some of the key features of a typical Archibald Leitch Grand Stand that are evident in Ayresome’s standout feature. In his Engineering Archie, author Simon Inglis describes the new main stand as ‘straight from the pattern book of the firm with which Leitch often worked, the Clyde Structural Iron Company of Glasgow.’ Complete with its barrelled roof, arguably the most notable feature of the new stand was the iconic Leitch semi-circular roof gable, which many fans will remember was adorned for many years with an advertisement for McEwan’s 80/-.[2]

In their detail of the new facilities that formed part of the new ground, the Leitch plans give an indication of the investment and ambitions for the club that underpinned the construction of a new stadium. As Shaun Wilson notes in the ‘Ayresome Memories’ project, Leitch provided a ‘new ground in keeping with Boro’s growing stature.’[3] Costing a total of £11,857, the stadium was a vast improvement on the facilities at the club’s former Linthorpe Road home. The Athletic News reporter ‘Vulcan’described the new, modern facilities in detail ahead of the ground’s inaugural 1903/04 campaign:

The directors, with great faith and equal enterprise have fitted up their new ground at Ayresome Park in accordance with the most modern requirements. Altogether, well over £6,000 has been spent over the equipment of the enclosure, and £3,000 of this has been devoted to the erection of a new grand stand to seat 3,000 persons, from the designs of Mr. Archibald Leitch, of Glasgow. Underneath this there is a well-appointed gymnasium, a billiard room, offices for the secretary (Mr. J. Robson), a boardroom for the directors, baths and retiring rooms for the home and visiting teams, a referee’s room, and other useful accommodation…With the exception of the sixpenny end where it is terraced with earth ashes, there are stands practically all round the field, and the total accommodation provided is for 32,000, so that the North Yorkshiremen are ready for big business.[4]

The Leitch plan of the Grand Stand – initially disapproved by the local authority and subsequently tweaked – detail the features of this ‘big business’ outlook and the state-of-the-art accommodation of the pavilion in miniscule detail, including the specifications of the terraces to the location of urinals in the changing rooms.

A rare insight into the Linthorpe Road Ground

As well as affording an insight into the design of Boro’s attractive new stand, Leitch’s work in Art of Ayresome also provides a rare insight into the club’s old Linthorpe Road Ground, for which there are no known photos showing the inside of the stadium. The June 1903 plan of the old Linthorpe Road Grand Stand – which would become Ayresome’s early South Stand – provides detail absent from photographs of the stand in situ at Boro’s ‘new’ stadium. When compared with Leitch’s textbook Grand Stand creation, the old Linthorpe Road structure appears primitive and lacks the elegance and grace of the Glaswegian’s creation. Nevertheless, the old stand went on to serve the needs of Boro fans for over three decades until a new Dorman Long constructed stand replaced it in 1937.

New audiences and visitor responses

By featuring Leitch’s plans in Art of Ayresome thousands of fans have been able to enjoy the designs for the first time and learn more about the architect and Boro’s history.

Entries in the Visitor Book and Feedback Questionnaire responses reflects positively on the exhibition’s historical components. One supporter commented that “some of the earlier stuff (i.e. before my time) was fascinating. Lovely half hour spent viewing these drawings”. Another visitor commented that it was “good to see original plans”. When asked if Art of Ayresome had helped respondents learn something new about the history of Ayresome Park or Middlesbrough FC, one answer pointed to the “original plans”, another revealed they had acquired new knowledge of the “Scottish designer of the stadium”, whilst another supporter described how “the artist sketches for the original ground were interesting.”

It is evident from the responses to Leitch’s plans and the initial early feedback on the Art of Ayresome that taking the Leitch material beyond the archives has been beneficial for the exhibition and visitors alike. As a rare architectural example of Boro’s early history, the plans have featured in press coverage of Art of Ayresome. As well as helping develop new knowledge, the exhibition has also evoked positive emotional responses to the Boro’s sporting heritage. During the challenging times posed by COVID-19, Leitch’s plans have played an important role in an ‘uplifting exhibition at a difficult time for many’ and it is hoped will continue to have a positive impact for visitors and engagement with Teesside Archives’ collections and the area’s football heritage.

[1] S. Inglis, ‘Archibald Leitch’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/95008(accessed 10 June 2020)

[2] S. Inglis (2005), Engineering Archie: Archibald Leitch – Football Ground Designer (Swindon, English Heritage), p.68

[3] S. Wilson,  ‘The Linthorpe Road Ground and Leitch’s Plans’ https://www.mfc.co.uk/the-linthorpe-ground-and-leitchs-plans (accessed 10 June 2020)

[4] Athletic News, 24 August 1903

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The Common Room of The Great North – Knowledge and Collection; adapting our programme during a pandemic.

In the heart of Newcastle Upon Tyne’s city centre, you will find one of the largest, most comprehensive, public collections on mining engineering in the world. Established in 1852, The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers’ core purpose was to improve safety and to alleviate the horrific impact of disasters on mining communities across the Great Northern Coalfield. Their second objective was to “establish a literary institution, more particularly applicable to the theory, art and practice of mining”.

The early presidents and members of the Institute are synonymous with North East engineering. Through their meetings, their skills and expertise were documented in transactions and then applied across the country and beyond, with their knowledge being exported across the globe.

Influential members included Nicholas Wood, the engineer responsible for the technical drawings of George Stephenson’s Safety Lamp, and Robert Stephenson, the eminent civil engineer who built on his father’s work on the railways.  These influential members, amongst others, created an engineering hub of professionals within the heart of Newcastle.


Through the commitment to preserve this practical knowledge, our archive and collection has now amassed a treasure trove of over 35,000 printed books and unique archives including photographs, manuscripts, maps, objects, underground plans and more. Other archive material include many early scientific and technical reports relating to the development of the coal industry and associated mechanical engineering, especially the early work on safety in mines. Professor Margaret Jacob, one of the world’s pre-eminent scholars of the Industrial Revolution, researched her book, “The First Knowledge Economy”, in our archive, which she describes as “one of the two most important collections in the world for the study of the birth of the Industrial Revolution”.

North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers Members Montage

 The significance of the archive and collection has been recognised by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, who have generously awarded The Common Room with a grant of £4.1 million, as part of a £7.1 million project to restore our Grade II* listed building in Newcastle, preserve and fully digitise our historic archive and to revitalise our approach to heritage engagement.

Neville Hall Building News 1872

Like many heritage organisations, our delivery and accessibility has been greatly impacted upon, due to the recent global COVID-19 pandemic. Our challenge to raise awareness and engagement of our collection through community and education outreach workshops has stopped, with a resilience strategy being adopted to ensure that our stories and archive can still be explored remotely. Last month, The Common Room launched its Explore Online programme, which encompasses a range of heritage activities that everyone can use to explore our story. Moving to digital engagement has posed many challenges around accessibility, inclusivity and impact. How can we make sure that existing and new audiences can access our website? How can we ensure that our user journey is enjoyable and informative? How can we measure our impact through remote learning? One way in which we are currently combatting this is to consult with a range of specialists within the archive, heritage, IT and digital sectors to ensure that our activity is high quality and is informed by the needs and trends of the current market.

The Wood Hall at the Common Room


Despite its challenges, our Explore Online programme has offered people the opportunity to engage with: our Graft & Glory online exhibition of North East industrial heritage; our Pioneering Minds Podcast Series, which explores the eminent engineer and member of the Institute, Charles Parsons; our weekly Common Good Challenge videos based on archival material and heritage; and our education programme, ‘What’s Beneath Our Feet?’, inspired by our vast geology collection.

Although our collection is still in the process of being digitised, we are now, more than ever, resilient in how we can preserve, present and offer our archival material, not just during this pandemic but for life post-COVID.

  •  By Emily Tench, Programme and Engagement Manager, The Common Room (Emily.tench@thecommonroom.org.uk)

    To find out more about our archive and collections, please visit
Collections


To explore our online activities, please visit:

Explore Online


To contact our Library and Archives Manager, please email Jennifer.hillyard@thecommonroom.org.uk


  • About The Common Room

The Common Room of the Great North was established in 2017 to manage the redevelopment and refurbishment of The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. The Common Room of the Great North was awarded £4.1m from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, plus a further £3m in match funding, to conserve the Grade II* listed building, refurbish its ground floor reading rooms, securely house its archive and collections and enhance its conferencing facilities.

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Keeping up with the Archivists at the Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University

Due to the current COVID19 pandemic, the Richard Burton Archives temporarily closed its doors to the public on 19th March, and since then all staff have been working from home. The last month has been a bit of a blur of frantic messages to IT, getting to grips with remote working, and an increase in snacking. On campus there’s 7 flights of stairs to climb to the tea-room, at home there’s 7 steps to the biscuit tin.

But what can an archivist do without access to archives? Turns out- quite a lot! Here’s an insight into our new working day:

Daily Zoom Team Meeting
Generally the only real structure we have in the day. During the first week it seemed like half of us had audio but no video, and the other half had video but no audio. We all seem to have cracked it now. There’re always those awkward silences when no-one says a word, followed by a moment where everyone suddenly talks at once, but it’s become a really important part of the day. We share any updates, talk about anything new we’re working on, and ask each other how we are. I think we’d all feel a lot more isolated without it.

Answering Enquiries Remotely

Although we haven’t been as busy as usual via email or telephone, we’re glad people are contacting us with their enquiries. We don’t have access to the physical records, but we can access our online catalogues so are hopefully still proving helpful. We have assisted researchers by looking into where other online resources might be found, and in doing so, have been developing our own knowledge of sources too.

Work on Catalogue Data

In 2017 we imported a mass batch of data from an old cataloguing system (MODES) into the one we currently use (CALM). It requires a lot of editing so has just sat in draft form since then. It’s not a job any of us could dedicate substantial time to during our normal working day, but it would open up clearer descriptions to hundreds of records.

Repetitive and slightly tedious, it’s actually the perfect job for working from home, especially when you’re regularly interrupted by a 1 year old trying to climb on a table or chew on a laptop wire!

Centenary Work

Cataloguing the University records has had to go on hold, but enquiries about the collection are increasing during the centenary year. Project Archivist Emily Hewitt is busier than ever. Although a planned physical exhibition ‘Swansea University: Making Waves since 1920’ at Swansea’s Waterfront museum has been postponed for now, work to prepare for it continues. Emily has been interviewed by Dr Sam Blaxland for a series of podcasts on the University’s history and has also been coming up with a month of centenary related tweets for #Archives30, and has had to think creatively to make great use of previously scanned material. Have a look through our Twitter timeline @SwanUniArchives to find out more.

Students dancing in the Refectory, College House, c.1960s. Photo: John Maltby  Ltd, courtesy of Richard Burton Archives

Summarising Oral History

Our two Archive Assistants, Sarah Thompson and Stephanie Basford-Morris, have been creating interview summaries for the Voices of Swansea University, 1920-2020 oral history project. This forms part of the archival support we have been providing to Dr Sam Blaxland for the project, which recorded the memories and experiences of individuals who have studied and/or worked at Swansea University in the past.

Building Checks

Our Head of Service, Sian Williams, has been conducting regular site checks to ensure the building and collections remain safe.

Reflection

Working from home has also given us the chance to spend some time catching up on emails, to look at applications for potential projects and funding, and to think about opportunities for the future. We have seen some brilliant examples from our colleagues in the archives’ world of ways to support digital learning and teaching at this time, and recognise that we’d love to be doing more.

But what it’s also brought home to us is that there is nothing quite like welcoming groups down to the Archives in person and hearing the occasional ‘wow’ when we show them the strong room shelving. We’re missing seeing students suddenly spark into conversation over an original document, and welcoming researchers from interesting places across the world.

We wish you all the best, and hope you’re staying safe and well. Looking forward to seeing you all back in the Archives soon!

p.s. if anyone wants to see what we’re missing, you can check out a 360 tour of one of our strong rooms here

StacyO’Sullivan,
Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University

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Wellbeing and Archives: Sustained Engagement with the Past is Good for You.

In May, History Begins at Home was launched.  This national public-facing campaign delivered via social media – Facebook @historybeginsathome and Twitter @beginshistory –uses archives to improve wellbeing by encouraging new audiences to explore the past they are directly connected to.

The idea behind the campaign is to encourage people to connect or re-connect with members of their family, friends and neighbours, through conversations about the past, discovering previously unknown facts or stories, sharing memories, experiences and expertise, and capturing these conversations and findings for future posterity.  We also want people to continue the conversations by sharing stories online.

Central to the campaign is the aim to actively support mental health and wellbeing. The campaign embodies the principles of the 5 Ways to Wellbeing (Connect, Be Active, Keep Learning, Give, and Take Notice).  Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, mental wellbeing was a major issue; now it is more important than ever. 

Archive services can help to address many of these challenges – we all appreciate the benefits that can come from connecting with the past.  History Begins at Home provides a great way of engaging in a positive way not only with current archive users, but also with future audiences.  If you spark an interest and they want to find out more, they will need to explore their archive.

Based on a series of themes – coming soon fashion, which will no doubt include some clothes we have been trying to forgotten – each fortnight we will encourage followers to start a conversation about it, engage in an activity relating to it, record something about it and, if they like, share what they’ve found out on our Facebook or Twitter feeds.  We will also have a website –  www.historybeginsathome.org – where we will keep prompts for questions from each campaign and top tips for capturing the conversation.  Although we are promoting a new theme every fortnight, we want to keep all the conversations flowing.

History Begins at Home is a campaign promoted by the Chief Archivists in Local Government Group and the Archives for Wellbeing Network.   Primarily it is there to deliver a public benefit – everyone needs to look after their mental wellbeing – but it also about proving that archives can make a positive contribution to an this incredibly important agenda.  Archives provide an opportunity for sustained engagement with a past with which people have a personal connection.  This wellbeing benefits of this can last a lifetime.  Engaging people through History Begins at Home can only help.

Gary Tuson

gary.tuson@norfolk.gov.uk

Tel: 01603 222003

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With Love from Dunkirk

A few months ago, through a series of coincidences, staff at Suffolk Archives discovered something remarkable.

Amongst the records we hold for the Suffolk Regiment is a bundle of 41 long-lost letters. The letters were written during the retreat to Dunkirk, and for those who did not make it home they may well be their last messages.

Some of the letters which were posted in May 1940 during the retreat to Dunkirk, but got lost along the way (Suffolk Archives/Suffolk Regiment Museum)

These letters, however, never reached the loved ones they were written to. They went astray in France and were discovered in an abandoned post van by a German officer. They spent the next three decades in the officer’s loft, before he handed them in at the British Embassy in Bonn in 1969.

From there they were sent to the Suffolk Regiment, who tried to deliver them to the people they had been intended for 29 years earlier. Alas, most people could not be found at the addresses on the original envelopes, and 41 of the letters were returned to the Suffolk Regiment, and are now safely kept at our Bury St Edmunds office.

When the letters were re-posted in 1969 they included this cover letter which gave some explanation about what had happened to them (Suffolk Archives/Suffolk Regiment Museum)

The letters are full of personality. Many try to be reassuring, some more successfully than others. Many are full of longing for home, and the countryside that would be so beautiful in the May sunshine. One or two (written to girlfriends or would-be girlfriends) border on the risqué. Authors urge their family and friends to write as often as they can to stay in touch.

Part of Harry Ling’s letter to his new wife Elsie (Suffolk Archives/Suffolk Regiment Museum)

During work to digitise the letters a few months ago, a staff member started to research what had happened to their authors. Who had made it home, and who hadn’t? Many survived Dunkirk only to end up as Japanese prisoners later in the war.

A flirtatious letter from Private Leman Martin to Miss Pamela Howels (Suffolk Archives/Suffolk Regiment Museum)

And now we get to the most remarkable bit of the story. Another member of staff took a look at the letters and saw that one, sent by Private Harry Cole, was addressed to a house in the village where she lives in east Suffolk. More than that, she recognised the family name. She was quickly able to establish that the Mr Cole she knows is the youngest brother of the author of the letter, who died during the retreat. This was his last letter home, and his family never received it.

Having secured permission from the owners of the letters, the Suffolk Regiment Museum, we sent a copy of Harry’s letter in the post to his youngest brother and hoped it wouldn’t be too much of a shock. Fortunately the family were thrilled to receive the letter, though the discovery is of course tinged with great sadness.

The whole collection of letters is due to be part of an intergenerational project with Suffolk Artlink focused on communication, which would have been well underway at the moment were it not for the Covid-19 lockdown. With the project postponed we still wanted to do something to highlight the letters in 2020 to mark the 80th anniversary of the evacuation from Dunkirk.

We decided that the best way to share the letters was through an online display on our website. Our website is not really built to do this, so we are making the best of the built-in features that it has and using other platforms to help make the content more interactive, in this case especially the design tool Canva.

The online display was accompanied by a press release which told the story of the whole collection of letters and focused on Harry Cole’s letter being delivered 80 years late as a headline. The story has had quite a bit of media interest, appearing in national as well as local news, such as this piece on the BBC website.

There may well be other people out there with connections to the letters, and the online display includes a list of all of the authors and recipients; hopefully some more families will be traced and be able to read the long-lost words of a loved one.

Hannah Salisbury, Suffolk Archives – hannah.salisbury@suffolk.gov.uk

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Digital Collections at the Royal Asiatic Society

The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (RAS) was established in 1823 as an independent organization for promoting research and public interest in the histories and cultures of Asia. Many of its founders had been members of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, founded in 1784 by the famous linguist Sir William Jones.

Why was the RAS founded? In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, greater numbers of Europeans moved to live and work in different parts of Asia, as diplomats, merchants, and soldiers, as trade increased and the British Empire rapidly expanded. But there was still very limited understanding of Asian cultures in Britain, or elsewhere in Europe. The RAS sought to improve public knowledge about Asia, including by supporting translations of classic works of literature; and tried to make it easier for scholars to access books, art, manuscripts, and other objects relating to Asian cultures. The Society’s members often donated their own collections to aid this purpose – ranging from Persian manuscripts to Indian paintings to Japanese ukiyo-e theatrical prints – and most of these collections are still with us today, forming the core of the Society’s holdings.

[The painter Manohara and the calligrapher Muhammad Husayn Kashmiri. Gulistan of Sa’di, f.128 r. 1582-1583 AD. RAS Persian 258]

Today, the RAS is a charity which provides free public access to all its collections via its Reading Room service, and we keep looking for new opportunities to make cultural history available to as many people as possible. We want people to know what we have, and we also want people to know the stories behind the collections. In addition to promoting new study of Asian cultures, we want people to know how British people in the past have studied Asia. Many British people who spent time in India, China, Persia or elsewhere collected art, manuscripts and other objects, to better understand local histories and cultures, or from simple aesthetic or intellectual interest. Today, there is wide public awareness that some cultural artefacts were acquired by Europeans in Asia during or after military conflict. But private scholarly collections, many of which were later donated to libraries and museums, often entered European hands legitimately, in much more mundane fashion: typically purchased on the market, or acquired as copies, commissioned by European enthusiasts, of original paintings and manuscripts.

Digital technology is a great way to make collections accessible to people who live outside London and who, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, might have found it difficult to access our collections. Online access is particularly relevant to the Society because many of our collections originate from Asian countries and may contain much of interest to people who live thousands of miles away. Thanks to digitization, it’s much easier for people living in Nepal, Malaysia, or anywhere else to see what we have.

[Temple of Bhim Sen, Patan, Nepal. By Raj Man Singh Chitrakar, 1844. RAS 022.012]

Although only a portion of our collection is digitized, this amount has grown dramatically in recent years. We have now put hundreds of manuscripts, paintings, and early photographs online, as well as the archive of Thomas Manning, one of the first Englishmen to study Chinese and a close friend of the Romantic author Charles Lamb. The Society aspires to digitize and make available online as much of our collection as we possibly can, and in recent years we have been grateful for opportunities to collaborate with partners including the National Library Board of Singapore and the Internet Archive. Now, the Society can provide direct access to its digital collections through its Digital Library, which was launched in 2018 with support from the Friends of the National Libraries. The Covid-19 pandemic has meant our building has been closed since mid-March, and so we have been especially grateful that the Digital Library means people can still access some of our most important collections. We have tried to add new digital collections to the platform since we have been closed, and we will continue to do so in the weeks and months ahead.

[Pencil sketches of the 9th Dalai Lama, Lungtok Gyatso (1805-1815), by Thomas Manning. Lhasa, Tibet, ca. December 1811. RAS TM 9/3]

The government lockdown has revealed how embedded digital technologies have become throughout our daily lives, not least because so many people have remained productive while “working from home”. But the lockdown also reminds us how much of our cultural heritage is now available to see online, from home, while libraries, archives, and museums are shut. Of course, what is online is still only a fraction of our country’s rich heritage collections; and staff and users alike are keen to see heritage institutions safely re-open, so that our cultural life can begin to return to normal. But, thanks to digital technology, the past decade has seen a dramatic change in the accessibility of collections, and now, even a small institution like the RAS can have its own digital collections platform.

[Snakes and Ladders, attributed to Trivenkatacharya. Nagpur, ca. 1800. RAS 051.001]

When libraries and archives strive to deliver valuable content to their users, they look at the example of what their colleagues have achieved elsewhere. We can imitate what has worked well in other cases, and try to avoid repeating mistakes that have been made before. In the process, while we are pursuing our own priorities and the needs of our users, we are also contributing to a process of selection, and helping good ideas to become more widespread. In this way, piecemeal innovations across different services can be unconsciously coordinated and lead to general improvements in services across wide areas, in ways nobody could have foreseen, until even small libraries and archives ultimately benefit from sophisticated applications and techniques developed by people more expert than us.

Heritage professionals everywhere are looking forward to the re-opening of archives, libraries, galleries, and museums, and are working together to solve the challenges which that involves. When we think about future goals and ambitions, it can be helpful to reflect on how we have responded to challenges in the past. In doing so, we can reflect on the processes that have served us well, and which have allowed the ingenuity of our technically-minded colleagues, the care and diligence of archivists and curators, and the imagination and passion of creators, scholars, and collectors, to help create the rich heritage environment we enjoy today.

By Edward Weech

Further information :

Email Address : library@royalasiaticsociety.org

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WGH Transportation Engineering Collection at the National Fairground and Circus Archive

WGH Transportation Engineering was a specialist company operating between 1989 and 2016 from their headquarters in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Their business focused on the supply of amusement rides to the leisure industry and specialist transportation, such as inclined lifts and automated passenger transportation systems, to the wider sector.  

WGH was founded by Andrew Howarth, John Martin and Tony Brown, the Managing Directors of Gyro Mining Transport (GMT). GMT specialised in the supply of some of the most sophisticated narrow gauge locomotives and large inclined rope-haul transport systems in the world to the coal mining industry.

Anticipating the suitability of their existing products to the amusement sector through the application of creative and innovative engineering and design, they adventured into this industry almost seamlessly upon the decline of the British mining industry in the 1980s.

Through its history, WGH worked with some of the biggest names in UK leisure including; Jorvik Viking Centre, Cadbury World, Legoland, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Alton towers and Dreamland.  Additionally, they delivered international projects in the Middle East, Europe and East Asia.

WGH’s first significant project was the suspended monorail at the New Lanark Visitor Centre in Scotland. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001, the ride built for The Annie McLeod Experience combined engineering with the Pepper’s Ghost illusion and it remains one of the site’s key attractions to this day.

This project was followed by the Ebbw Vale Garden Festival funicular in South Wales in 1992. The first funicular to be built in the UK since 1902.

Some of the company’s most prominent projects were the design of the automated platform for the London Eye in 1999, the inclined lift in the Urbis Centre in Manchester for which they received the “Project of the Year 2003” award, the mechanical systems for Alstom’s linear motor accelerated unmanned aircraft launcher in 2008 and the concept for the Vectus PRT project.

Vectus PRT looked into innovative ways to provide intelligent and environmentally friendly, personal public transport for the 21st century and was first tested in Sweden in 2006.  

The concept was based on providing autonomous vehicles to carry passengers between designated stations and several installations followed, including one in Suncheon Bay Ecological Park in South Korea in 2010.

In the leisure industry, WGH created a long list of iconic rides such as The London Dungeon boat ride, Wallace & Gromit at Blackpool Pleasure Beach and the dark ride for the Titanic Experience in Belfast. They also recommissioned the UK’s oldest rollercoaster at Dreamland, Margate in 2014 as part of the £18m restoration project to reopen the park.

WGH stop trading as an independent company in 2016 when it was acquired by Stage One Creative Services Ltd.

The WGH archive is held at the National Fairground and Circus Archive at the University of Sheffield Library. It provides a new perspective to the history of the popular entertainment industry through technology and design and together with the Orton and Spooner and the Savages of King’s Lynn collections, it covers over a century of ride manufacturing history and practices.

By Arantza Barrutia, Collections Manager National Fairground and Circus Archive

University of Sheffield Library

Website https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/nfca

Twitter @fairarchives

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/nfcarchive/

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Explore Your Archives Launch Ireland

Explore Your Archive in Ireland will be launched on Thursday 21st November in the Irish Architectural Archive, Merrion Square in Dublin. Kindly supported by the Irish Manuscripts Commission, the launch will kick off a week of events in local and national organisations in Ireland, to celebrate Explore Your Archive. ARA, Ireland will also be launching their new website on the night: https://araireland.com/

The campaign ambassador for Ireland this year is Fin Dwyer: historian, author and creator of the Irish History Podcast. Fin commented: “I was delighted to be asked to be Explore Your Archive ambassador this year. Through my own work as an historian and in my podcast, I recognise the importance and value of research and storytelling. But it’s also important that archives are for everyone, not just historians or researchers. You don’t need to be an expert to use archives; you just need a keen interest and curiosity in Irish history and heritage.”

Historian Fin Dwyer, ARA Ireland Ambassador for Explore Your Archive 2019 at the Registry of Deeds in Dublin

There’ll be various events happening during the launch week in archives around Ireland. Some highlights include “A beginner’s guide to using DNA for family history” by Martin McDowell, held in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland on 28th November. More information can be found here: https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/beginners-guide-using-dna-family-history; and “Cooking the Books”; a look at the cookery books of the National Library of Ireland held on 27th November in the NLI. More details available here: http://www.nli.ie/en/list/current-events.aspx?page=2&article=e042f4d5-7054-441a-b153-ef7ae33f68f7

Niamh Ní Charra (ARA Ireland Comms Officer), Fin Dwyer (EYA 2019 Ambassador), Joanne Carroll (Campaigns Officer) at the Registry of Deeds in Dublin

There’ll also be plenty of featured archives from Ireland, including ‘A Christmas Spectacle: The Story of Panto in Dublin’ about the exhibition in Dublin City Library and Archive; and ‘To be Taught Everything Necessary…Discover 19th Century Childhood through Loreto Boarding Schools’ about the IBVM (Loreto), Institute & Irish Province Archives.

Joanne Carroll (Campaigns Officer), Fin Dwyer (EYA 2019 Ambassador), Niamh Ní Charra (ARA Ireland Comms Officer) at the Registry of Deeds in Dublin
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Featured Archive – Captain William D.A. Kemmis film collection

The Kemmis collection is a small collection of film reels ranging from the mid to late 1930’s. The reels, stored in an old suitcase came from Moyaliffe House, which was home to the Armstrong family from the seventeenth century to its sale in 1999. Winona (Jess) Armstrong inherited Moyaliffe following the death of her only brother, William in France in 1917. Jess married Captain William Kemmis of Ballinacor, Co. Wexford in 1927..

The suitcase was given to a local family some years ago and brought in to Tipperary Studies in 2018.  While the films could not be viewed locally, a brief index on some of the boxes suggested the contents might be of social and cultural interest.

The 16mm film was converted to digital format by the DVD Centre, Dublin and with the kind permission of family descendants relevant material was placed online in our digital archive.

The archive is accessible here http://tipperarystudies.ie/captain-william-d-a-kemmis-film-collection/ and contains some footage of farming in Tipperary, horseracing and the coronation