Explore Archives Week 2019

Did you know that Special Collections at Brunel University is home to a wide range of both printed and archival collections and that anyone is welcome to explore them?

Why use Special Collections?

Delving into the sources in Special Collections can take your research (whether for an undergraduate essay or dissertation, to postgrad work) to the next level by making it more original, as well as helping you to develop your research skills. We also welcome members of the public doing research into their family history or personal interest topics.

Recent topics that have been researched using our collections include:

• London during the First World War
• Communists in England in the 1920s and 1930s
• Shopping habits and trends in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
• Perceptions of fascism in the inter-war period
• Feminism under Thatcher
• Dominican nuns who lived in a convent designed by Gilbert Blount
• Literary cultures of Victorian railway workers
• Anti-apartheid movements in sport

We have also had novelists use our collections to find inspiration, to check whether their heroine’s railway journey was feasible (using the timetables in our Transport History Collection) and family historians to read their ancestor’s autobiography.

Transport History Collection

Find out more about our collections

Special Collections is home to a huge array of material that can support your research. You can explore them using our list of collections, or consulting our Special Collections guide, where we’ve highlighted collections of particular interest to English or History students. We also have topics guides covering the First World War, Second World War and Women’s History.

You can search our collections by subject or keywords – use the library catalogue for printed material and the archive catalogue for manuscripts.

Browse the Special Collections blog, you can use the tags to find posts on particular themes, such as the First World War or trains.

Check out our tweets and posts on Instagram.

Contact the Special Collections Librarian if you need help finding suitable material.

If you are looking for collections beyond Brunel you will find a list of resources on our guide.

Dennis Brutus Collection

Using Special Collections

Our collection are kept in closed access, so you will need to make an appointment to come and see them. If you haven’t used Special Collections or archival material before then there is a guide on our blog.

Rare books and periodicals Collection

Preserving our collections

A major part of our work in Special Collections is to ensure that our materials will still be available to future generations of scholars and visitors. Many of the objects we hold are made of sturdy stuff, our rare 18^th century books will probably outlast us all, but other items such as our photographic collections are more fragile, and even stable materials can become vulnerable over decades. To this end we spend a lot of time making sure materials are stored in optimal conditions to extend their life and usefulness. This week we are participating in the ALA Preservation Week by celebrating all things preservation and giving you an insight into the activities we undertake. You might even pick up a few tips on how to preserve your own special items!

Blue blinds and ultraviolet filters

Where and how you store different materials can have a big impact on their lifespan. We try to store collections in a space that has a consistent temperature and humidity all year round. This is because extremes of temperature and the presence of moisture in the air can induce a harmful reaction in different materials. For instance, paper can be vulnerable to mould in hot and wet conditions or older colour photographs can decay in high temperatures.

This year we have installed some rather snazzy blue blinds to prevent sunlight artificially warming our facility, with the addition of ultraviolet filters to prevent yellowing of paper and fading of inks. We also monitor the temperature and humidity of our collections with some basic digital indicators to give us a warning of problems.

Digital temperature and humidity monitors

Additionally, we keep our eyes peeled for any pests such as silverfish that might take a fancy to our materials for food or accommodation. We use pest traps to monitor any nuisance visitors, and if we find any try to modify the environment to discourage their visits.

Other environmental factors should also be considered. This might include dust, or pollution if you live in a built up area. One way to mitigate these is to store

Pest trap

materials in an enclosure like a box that will prevent light and particles from accessing the item. This is a simple way to preserve heirlooms or keepsakes, although you do have to check on them occasionally to make sure there is nothing happening inside the box itself.

Interestingly, a common way materials become damaged is just through poor handling. To try and minimise handling and stress we use book supports to cradle our printed materials when they are being viewed. We also add a protective layer of Melinex to items like photographs or paper to prevent them from being damaged by constant use. At home, something as simple as washing your hands before handling rare materials can limit environmental pollutants.

Book rests to support texts

With these safeguards in place we hope our collections will be available for years to come.If you would like more information about Preservation week visit the ALA webpages for advice and insights.

Explore Archives

This week is a great time to get involved in archives and special collections that interest you! Have a look at the Explore Your Archive main page to see what’s happening near you, and look at the #explorearchives posts on Twitter and other social media.

Find out about our collections:

Special Collections at Brunel is home to a huge array of material that can support your research. You can find out more by using our A-Z list of collections, or consulting our Special Collections guide, where we’ve highlighted collections of particular interest to English or History students.

You can search our collections by subject or keywords – use the library catalogue for printed material and the archive catalogue for manuscript.

Browse the Special Collections blog, where you can use the tags to find posts on particular themes, such as the First World War or trains.

You can see more about us on Twitter and Instagram too.

If you are looking for collections beyond Brunel you will find a list of resources on our guide.

Using Special Collections

Our collections are kept on closed access, so you will need to make an appointment with the Special Collections Librarian to come and see them once we re-open in January. If you haven’t used Special Collections or archival material before there is a guide on our blog.

 

50 objects 46: register of parcels going through Padstow station

Everyday administrative records can give valuable insights into aspects of life in the past, and often become more interesting with age. This book is a register kept as part of the standard records at Padstow station in Cornwall, from 1921 to 1952.

This station, the terminus at the western end of the North Cornwall Railway, was opened by the London and South Western Railway in 1899. As railway companies changed and merged the station changed ownership, and when it closed in 1967 it was owned by British Railways. The station was served by the Atlantic Coast Express, which ran direct from London Waterloo.

As the port at Padstow sent out a great deal of fish, the station had a separate fish loading platform. This was closed in 1950s as the trade in fish declined. This website gives more details on the freight trains, including the dedicated fish service running to Nine Elms.

The register’s full title is “L. & S. W. Ry – Register of traffic forwarded or received unentered account to follow: [blank] station”, and each page comes with instructions and ready-labelled columns to complete. This was a standard printed LSWR book issued to their stations. “Padstow” has been filled in on some pages of this one.

The register keeps note of parcels or goods being sent by train for which there is some anomaly or for which a payment is due. The information filled in by hand or stamp for each individual transaction varies in detail and legibility, and the precise directions are not always followed, but the entries as a whole give snapshots over a thirty-year period of the range of goods being sent, the stations to and from which they were sent, and the costs involved.

Many of the entries are for fish or other foodstuffs, but there is also an entry for a corpse, sent in December 1940 to Stepps in North Lanarkshire: perhaps a fallen soldier? Kept in the pages for 1940 is a loose memo, written in pencil and dated 20th September 1940, concerning a delayed delivery and noting that “during the current emergency” (that is, during World War Two, owing to the disruption to rail services) the special charges for fish sent to London Waterloo would also apply to fish sent to Paddington.

 

50 Objects 27: A History of Uxbridge

A post by Graduate Trainee, Becky Tabrar.

Included within our local history collection are nine volumes of The Victoria History of The County of Middlesex by the University of London Institute Of Historical Research. They are part of the Victoria County History project which was established in 1899, with the aim of producing a complete encyclopaedic history of each county in England. The project is still ongoing, and so far the histories of thirteen counties have been completed. The topics covered are varied and include natural, political, religious, economic and social histories.

Some of our Victoria County History volumes

Volume Four of the Middlesex history is dedicated to the ten ancient parishes in North- West Middlesex, of which Hillingdon is one. It contains fascinating information on the development of Brunel University London’s home town Uxbridge, which we have summarised into a short history below.

The frontispiece from Volume four.

Originally Uxbridge was a hamlet under the administration of its parent parish, Hillingdon. The earliest evidence of settlement within the Parish dates to the Palaeolithic era. A Roman road ran through the middle of the old Parish, and Roman pottery was found in Uxbridge in 1959, near Cowley church. It is believed the place names of ‘Hillingdon’, ‘Colham’, ‘Cowley’ and ‘Yiewsley’ originate from Saxon family names, while it is believed ‘Uxbridge’ derives from the original hamlet’s proximity to a bridge crossing the river Colne.

The first recorded use of the name ‘Uxbridge’ is in the 12^th century, and the hamlet was represented in Edward I’s first parliament in 1275. By 1328, Uxbridge was the major settlement in the parish of Hillingdon, and by the medieval period was an affluent market town. At the intersection between Windsor Street and High Street was the centre of the town. As is still the case today, it was home to the market house and St Margaret’ chapel (original built in 1275, and later rebuilt in the 15^th century). The present market house dates from the late 18^th century, while the oldest part of St Margaret’s Chapel, the North Tower, dates to the late 14th century.

Further connections between the medieval market town and todays Uxbridge are still visible. The 16^th century Treaty house, which is now the Crown and Treaty pub, was used as a venue for negotiations between King Charles I and Parliamentarians during the English Civil War. The inside retains original features, though only a single wing of the 16^th century mansion remains. Similarly, the building of the Three Tuns pub originates from the 16^th century, and is grade II listed. There is a monument on Cross Street overlooking what was formally known as Lynch Green to remember three protestant heretics who were burned there in 1555. The three men were not from the local area, but were used to set an example to the people of Uxbridge, and ensure they conformed to Catholic ideology. The memorial was established four hundred years later.

By the late 1700’s insanitary conditions in Uxbridge meant the high street was widened by fifty two yards to the South West, and a new market house was built. By 1790, the town consisted of houses neatly lining both sides of the high street, with a few shops, including a chair factory, a malt house, a brewery, a mill, Higgenson’s bank and the market house. By the 19^th century Uxbridge, aided by its proximity to the Grand Union Canal and it lining the route from Oxford to London, became one of the most important market towns in Middlesex, and was the main producer of flour for London. Even Kingsmill bread originated from Uxbridge!

Becoming increasingly autonomous, Uxbridge split from the Parish of Hillingdon in 1894, and formed the civil parish of Hillingdon West, which later became the Borough of Uxbridge.

References:

R.B. Pugh, The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Volume IV (13 Vols, London, 1971).

C. M. Hearmon, Uxbridge: A Concise History (Hillingdon Borough Libraries, 1982).

 

50 objects 25: Library Staff Suggestions Book

A post by Graduate Trainee, Becky Tabrar.

In celebration of Brunel University’s 50^th birthday, which is fast approaching on the 6^th July, we thought we would share with you another item from the Library History Archive. In 1978, a staff suggestion book was created by the University Librarian Nick Childs, to allow library colleagues to have their say on how services could be improved.

Library Staff Suggestion Book, 1978-1984.

 

The comments were recorded between 1978 and 1984, and offer a unique insight into the operations of an academic library in this era. Often borrowing books from the Library was a time consuming and arduous process. Before the existence of online record systems, Brunel University Library used an early computer form of automated library system, which read a student’s issue ticket and ticket held within the item they wanted to borrow, and copied them on to a tape which was printed every day for records. One colleague lamented about the complexity of issuing journals under this system, and in particular, was concerned about the difficulty of discharging journal articles if its ticket had fallen out, as was often the case. They suggested that journals should become reference only as a solution, and later on this was indeed the case. As expected, with barcodes now allowing paper journals articles to be easily discharged from our computer system, this is no longer a concern.

Nevertheless, the rise of the computer has not resolved all of the concerns from the 1970s and 80s. In 1978, a staff member refers to the frequency of checked out books being left behind on library desks. This is a common phenomenon even today. Likewise, a comment recorded in 1979 states ‘someone was disco dancing in the reading room at 5pm (till I saw him!)’. One staff member in 1978 had an enthusiastic way of describing the high noise levels in the Library and in verse declared:

‘Once upon a time,

Before the laughter pierced the silence,

And pattering tiny feet,

Thundered round in circles,

…….Library quiet had lingered,

Once upon a time’

Though I can’t say I have ever seen a student ‘disco-dancing’, we still have our fair share of noise complaints!

50 objects 18: Perceived effect of the Channel Tunnel on tourism

Amongst the opposition faced by supporters of the Channel Tunnel was the idea that the easier crossing would have a detrimental effect on tourism and related economies in Britain; that, for instance, families from the north of England would holiday in northern France rather than on the south coast of England and so the hotel trade would suffer.

In the late 1920s, a sub-committee of the Channel Tunnel Parliamentary Committee contacted businesses involved in UK tourism to ask for their views on the Tunnel, in particular whether it would help or hinder their business.

Letter showing summary of bodies in favour and against

The Channel Tunnel archive holds three files of this correspondence, annotated in blue pencil by the committee, and divided into “in favour”, “against”, and “neutral”. While the majority of the letters are short and business-like, the collection as a whole reflects an intriguing range of attitudes to the Tunnel and to tourism.

The tone ranges from terse to discursive, from uninterested to fiercely invested, and some letters go beyond the tourism issue and investigate other aspects of the Tunnel.

One of the longest and most eloquent letters in the “against” section, pictured below, reasons that not only would the Tunnel be detrimental to the  hotel trade, but it would also lead to problems with foot and mouth disease, with a knock-on negative impact on farming; the shipping industry would also suffer, and “with our glorious traditions of the sea, it would not look well for Britons to enter the Continent by a rat-hole.”

Letter against the Channel Tunnel

Selections from letters on all sides of the question

50 objects 17: Meet the Dragon

Bill Griffiths (1948-2007) was, amongst other things, a scholar of medieval literature. For more information on him and his wide-ranging work in other areas, see this post . You can see a description of Brunel’s whole Bill Griffiths collection via the archives catalogue.

The material held in Special Collections here includes his work on Old English poetry, notably on the epic Beowulf in which the hero slays two monsters and a dragon. The section on Beowulf features research notes including translations and articles, and related material such as MJ Weller’s Beowulf Cartoon (Writers Forum, 2004) for which Griffiths wrote an introduction.

Dragon drawn by MJ Weller as part of his Beowulf Cartoon.

Meet the dragon: an introduction to Beowulf’s adversary (Heart of Albion Press, 1996) arises from

Meet the Dragon cover

the author’s study of Beowulf but delves into the history of dragons in a much broader way. The history of dragons, beginning with ancient Egyptian and Sumerian beasts, and their development into the later winged, fire-breathing animals we think of today, is outlined, and references are made to named dragons and dragon-slayers from various cultures, from the Norse legend of Sigurd and Fafnir  to the Hindu mythology of Indra and Vritra.

The work also covers the etymology of the name “dragon”, and the relationships between dragons and other mythical beasts such as griffins and wyverns. There are sections covering benevolent and protective dragons, and discussing the dragon as a representation of negative human characteristics, notably greed.

It is intriguing to read this pamphlet alongside the research notes and correspondence underlying it, to see the evolution of Griffiths’ ideas and the process of editing.

Handwritten letter from “John” to Bill Griffiths dated 16th January 1991, discussing roots of the word dragon.

A selection of Griffiths’ notes on dragons.

Annotated typescript draft of part of Meet the Dragon.

Explore Archives

Special Collections at Brunel University London is home to a wide range of both printed and archival collections.

Why use Special Collections?

Delving into the sources in Special Collections can take your research (whether for an undergraduate essay or dissertation, to postgrad work) to the next level by making it more original, as well as helping you to develop your research skills.

Recent topics that people have researched using Special Collections include:

• London during the First World War
• Communists in the 1920s and 1930s
• Clothing of the poor
• Perceptions of fascism in the inter-war period
• Feminism under Thatcher
• Colonial and post-colonial writers at the BBC
• Presentation of women in the media
• Feminism in the US in the 1950s

and the Burnett Archive of working class autobiographies has been featured in Radio 4 programmes about the history of friendship and the lives of working people during the industrial revolution.

Find out about our collections:

Special Collections is home to a huge array of material that can support your research. You can find out more by using our A-Z list of collections, or consulting our Special Collections guide, where we’ve highlighted collections of particular interest to English or History students.

You can search our collections by subject or keywords – use the library catalogue for printed material and the archive catalogue for manuscript.

Browse the Special Collections blog, you can use the tags to find posts on particular themes, such as the First World War or trains.

Contact the Special Collections Librarian if you need help finding suitable material.

If you are looking for collections beyond Brunel you will find a list of resources on our guide.

Using Special Collections

Our collections are kept on closed access, so you will need to make an appointment to come and see them. If you haven’t used Special Collections or archival material before there is a guide on our blog.

 

National Sporting Heritage Day

Today it’s National Sporting Heritage Day, and we’re blogging about one of our collections which is particularly relevant to this.

 

Dennis Brutus Collection

Dennis Brutus was a South African human rights activist, sports campaigner against apartheid, and poet. He is perhaps best known for his campaign to have apartheid South Africa banned from the Olympics in the 1960s. His collection here at Brunel includes personal and professional correspondence and a large collection of newspaper cuttings on sport and apartheid in South Africa.

Find out more about the Dennis Brutus collection on our website.