1 October 2021: During the years I have spent poring over documents at the reading rooms at Kew, I have often paused to marvel at the efficiency of the operation as yet more bulky – and weighty – cardboard boxes were smoothly delivered to my allotted cabinet; but, besides thanking those involved, I had not really considered how these tricks were done. So a recent behind-the-scenes tour with staff was a revelation.
The first of the two wings was opened in 1977, the second twenty years later. They are obviously substantial buildings but some simple statistics are still remarkable: the five levels – called Repositories – on each wing contain storage space that extends to some 120 miles (equivalent, apparently, to driving to Brighton and back); and in the final year before the pandemic’s onset, 80 staff delivered and returned about 600,000 orders, moving 1.2 million documents.
Seeing the boxes – some of which one has handled – stacked on those many miles of shelves, and how they are moved on Doris’s instructions (Doris being the ingenious ordering system) was illuminating. But, as always, it is the powerful storytelling content that seizes the attention. Among the items displayed for our touring party was the opened volume of Holloway Prison’s burial ground – and there, neatly written in fountain pen, the name Ruth Ellis with the date July 13, 1955. The cause of death – her execution that day – is not mentioned, but below is a poignant addendum, another handwritten entry, of her exhumation and reburial at Amersham in 1971. When we moved on to the next repository and came across another large volume containing assizes records from 1793, which on a single page illustrated the whimsical difference in the fates of individual burglars – those sentenced to death by hanging and those transported to a new life in New South Wales – I was tempted to say, Oh, do carry on, just leave me with the records.
A fascinating insight, then; but a word of caution. The next tour for Friends is not likely until next May, and these visits are heavily subscribed.
A major addition to those shelves will be almost ten million service records, which are to be transferred from the Ministry of Defence to TNA over the next six years. The records are of personnel born before 1939 who served in the Navy, Army or Air Force, including some 500,000 men from the First World War. Interest among researchers will be high, naturally, but it has been pointed out that much work will have to be done before these records can be made accessible. More information is to be had at
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/news/mod-records-project/
Meanwhile, work has been proceeding – with Friends’ assistance – on a related project. Last year, we funded a specialist to start the cataloguing of MH106, the First World War military hospital records. The process has now been taken over by three FTNA volunteers, and from all available evidence it is fair to say the progress has been remarkable.
The focus thus far has been on the records of Napsbury Hospital, where servicemen were treated for shellshock. An episode last year of Who Do You Think You Are? featuring David Walliams’s great grandfather highlighted these records, but work on the catalogues was disrupted by the pandemic before the volunteers returned. Laura Robson-Mainwaring, the Health Records specialist at Kew, has told us how streamlining the cataloguing process is speeding matters along. Output has tripled, with each volunteer being able to process up to 100 folios a day instead of 30 folios.
The task is still enormous. The initial timetable for completion was about eleven years. As the 169 boxes to be catalogued are of variable size, Laura says reliable calculations are hard, but that might be reduced to six years. Peter Helmore, one of the volunteers, is clearly delighted by the progress and his enthusiasm (and fascination with some of their discoveries) is testimony to the pleasure as well as the value of this work. Perhaps others may be similarly inspired….
The opening of confidential records is always intriguing. The latest batch of Cabinet Office documents to be released, from the Blair government in 1997, reflect less turbulent times: discussions over devolution for Wales and Scotland; plans for a Freedom of Information Act; and preparations for a visit by President Clinton. These are available for free.
https://clicks.econnectmail.com/email/S-1864@162726@oIItx4sERB-A4k9Z0N-dcZGxvpB8xUFleblQoU6vDUU.@
Altogether darker events are highlighted in the latest weekly newsletter from TNA. It is just six years since files on the investigations into Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean became accessible. Looking at them now, it still seems remarkable that their treachery escaped attention for so long.
https://clicks.econnectmail.com/email/S-2163@183767@oIItx4sERB-A4k9Z0N-dcZGxvpB8xUFleblQoU6vDUU.@
The holiday season – such as it was – has pretty well disappeared. Visions of the way things once were, however, come from another TNA link to holidaying through history – a variety of images and posters that conjure up recreational escapes from Tudor times to the Grand Tour and the Victorians.
https://clicks.econnectmail.com/email/S-2023@173877@oIItx4sERB-A4k9Z0N-dcZGxvpB8xUFleblQoU6vDUU.@
Approval was given in June for the Friends to fund a play proposed by the Education Department. Based on Poor Law correspondence, and specifically, ten anonymous letters from paupers protesting about conditions at Cardiff’s workhouse in the 1850s, Your Unfortunate Servants, by Dominic Green, a writer in residence at Kew, was recorded recently and can now be heard at
https://clicks.econnectmail.com/email/S-1881@164248@EZ5FW3xK5A8hkNU9Z-NCx6diIWsljtVNBQq7R3vrMxI.@
Another FTNA-supported project is Rebels in the Records – a series of short films (the sixth so far) – made by young people for an audience of their contemporaries, drawing attention to history-telling through the archives. Supervised by the Education Department, the films were prepared by six students during the summer and are based on individuals who stood up to authority on matters of principle. The four rebels selected were: Samuel Sharpe, leader of the 1832 slave rebellion in Jamaica; the women sewing-machinists at Ford Dagenham who went on strike in 1968, opening the way to the Equal Pay Act of 1970; Radclyffe Hall, poet, novelist and lesbian; and Constance Markievicz, the Irish republican campaigner who became the first woman elected to Westminster (having once been sentenced to death). The films are likely to be released at half-term next February.
TNA specialists have a gift for mining the records for items relevant to current events. A recent example is a blog on the origins of the Paralympics. Britain’s love of sport, our creative gift with balls of various shapes and sizes, is well charted, whether in football, golf, cricket or rugby (even if we are no longer very good at them). A moving force behind the Paralympics, however, was a German, Ludwig Guttmann, a refugee neurologist who inspired disabled airmen to sporting activity at Stoke Mandeville after the Second World War. The blog has a charming picture of Guttmann performing an operation – on a turkey at a Christmas party…
https://clicks.econnectmail.com/email/S-2054@176047@oIItx4sERB-A4k9Z0N-dcZGxvpB8xUFleblQoU6vDUU.@