Wild Family Visit

A few months ago I was asked to do some research for a family who were visiting Stockport from Melbourne, Australia. Their ancestors had lived at 31 Market Place, now Staircase House, they also had an ancestor who was mayor of Stockport and one who who penned several books and plays.

Rather excitingly, they visited Stockport this week and myself and Margaret greeted them to show them the research we had, items from our archives and old photographs of Stockport. We were even able to show them books from our archive which were written by their ancestor William Isaac Wild!

This was followed by tea and scones with the mayor, before returning to the library so they could examine the material in more detail.

It was a fascinating day, and lovely to meet the people who I had researched for. It was so interesting finding the information, as their ancestors were a rather notable family in Stockport there was a fabulous amount of information to be found.

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Manchester Central Library

We were lucky enough to be taken on a tour of Manchester Central Library & Archives before it’s official opening date on the 22nd March.

I’ve saved the post until now as they requested that we didn’t post any photographs on the internet until the new library had been unveiled. It was very impressive, and invoked a little envy as I would love to work there!

The library has been really well designed, and it came across that every little thing had been thought about. When we went, just ten days before it opened, it was a hive of activity and dare I say a little chaotic – there were so many different aspects waiting to come together and I was a little doubtful that it would all be done in time!

The reference section was a particular favourite with me, as the moving shelves have images of notable Manchester people including the Pankhurst sisters, Elizabeth Gaskell and Alan Turing. The glass window showing the book archive is also striking, and the interactive screens in the local history section are wonderful.

After the library was opened, I returned last Saturday and gave myself a little tour – it was wonderful, and great to see that it is so popular!

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A Little Update

I haven’t given an update for a while – as the new trainees have been recruited I’ve been busy searching for a new job for when my contract ends in June.

We have been very busy the last few weeks with training courses and visits.

Lauren & I went for a visit to Tameside archives to see the Archive management software CALM in action. In 2010 Tameside was given four stars in the National Archives Self Assessment making it the best Archive in the North West. It includes two large temperature controlled archive spaces, and a search room with family history resources similar to the one at Stockport.

I also spent a day in the Lending Library downstairs – the Heritage Library is reference only, so there are certain tasks which we don’t do much of upstairs – such as  book renewals, transfer of books to other libraries, and dealing with requests. I spent a day learning all these, which was really interesting and I hope to spend some more time down there in the future. It also made me realise I need to venture down to borrow books more frequently!

We had two training days last week – the first was ‘Effective Minute Taking’ which was very useful and has made me feel confident about taking minutes during meetings, and the second day of the ‘Taking Stock’ course. This course is four days in total, and is a development course aimed at women – it’s been wonderful for confidence building, recognising your strengths, team working etc. and very enjoyable – I’ve met some lovely ladies!

I’ve also been busy replying to lots of enquiries which have been coming into the library – most notably a family who are visiting the library from Australia in May – their ancestors had a boot shop in what is now Staircase House, so I have been compiling some information for when they visit, and have found that one of their ancestors wrote books and plays, some of which we have copies of in the archives – very exciting!

So that is a very speedy round-up of what I’ve been up to over the last few weeks!

Cataloguing the Goodison Collection

A project I have been working on for a while is cataloguing the Goodison Collection – a collection of family papers and school documents spanning three boxes. It is amongst this collection I found the WW1 letters I wrote about recently.

The collection is broken down into two main categories – family documents and school documents, although the two are closely entwined. The collection spans almost 100 years, from 1875 to 1972.

The main person in the collection is Joseph Goodison, who was headmaster of Higher Brinksway Council School from 1884 to 1924. The collection includes qualification certificates, exams, and a scholarship to attend Owen’s college in Manchester. There are also personal letters, reference letters from previous employers, and several photographs.

Goodison had eight children altogether, and two of these, Winifred and Ellen, went on to train as teachers.

The collection allows us to piece together information about their lives – for Joseph particularly. His obituary in the Stockport Express in 1935 described him as having a “wonderful and extensive influence” over his pupils, his “kindly counsel was a precious heritage” and “he loved every child in the school”. We know that he was ambitious; in 1882 he was sent a letter by E. Holyoake advising that he was too young yet to be headmaster, however just two years later in 1884 at the age of 23 Joseph was appointed as headmaster of St John’s British School, Stockport (later Higher Brinksway Council School). The school was newly opened, and was known at first as the ‘iron school’ – there is a photograph of the headmaster with children in the iron building. Joseph was headmaster there until his retirement in 1924.

The Goodisons were certainly a family of collectors. The collection is a rich source of information regarding the schools they worked at. Amongst the highlights of the collection are:

• The first log book of St John’s British School (later Higher Brinksway) 1884-1899
• Letters written by soldiers during WW1 to Joseph Goodison (read more here)
• A speech Joseph Goodison gave to the National Union of Teachers in 1917, during WW1
• Reference letters for teachers
• Photographs of the family and schools
•  Documents relating to the Dilwara Cruise around the Baltic in 1937
• A cookery book with recipes & magazine cuttings (I used this for a recent project, read more here)

It is quite amazing the amount of information contained in this collection, which gives a view of Stockport Schools over such a large period of time and through two generations of a family – so much information can be pieced together about their lives and the schools.

The collection has also proved useful for displays and exhibitions; for our ‘Explore Your Archives’ project in November we used the cookery book and school log book from this collection, and the WW1 letters will form part of an exhibition for Stockport’s WW1 Centenary later this year .

The picture of the ‘iron school’ can be viewed at: http://www.stockport.gov.uk/services/leisureculture/libraries/libraryonline/stockportimagearchive/sia/?accessionno=36035&picResultsNo=6#picInfo

ARA Core Training: Copyright

Lauren & I are getting to be regular visitors at John Rylands’ Library for various events, and on the 18th November we returned for the ‘ARA Core Training: Copyright’ course.

Copyright is something we deal with frequently in the library, mainly in regards to our image archive, and it’s a topic which is quite confusing to everybody as there are many variables. Looking into the history of copyright, it appears that there has always been some confusion and disagreement surrounding it.

The concept of copyright originated in the UK in 1710 with the Statute of Anne, its full name being “An act for the encouragement of learning, by vesting the copies of printed books in the authors or purchasers of such copies, during the times therein mentioned”. The original statute is held at the British Library. It begins with:

“Printers, Booksellers, and other
Persons, have of late frequently taken
the Liberty of Printing, Reprinting,
and Publishing… Published Books,
and other Writings without the Con-
sent of the Authors or Proprietors… to their
very great Detriment, and too often
to the Ruin of them and their Families”

A full transcription and images of the statute exist here. 

The statute granted publishers of a book legal protection for fourteen years, and twenty-one years for books already in print. In 1731 the copyright and protection it granted began to expire, and London booksellers lobbied parliament to extend the copyright term.

The ‘Battle of the Booksellers’ between the Scottish Booksellers and the London Booksellers took place for thirty years over the right to reprint materials which fell outside the protection of the act, and it was argued out in a number of court cases. The London Booksellers argued that without perpetual copyright authors would have no incentive to continue creating literary works as there would be no financial benefit for them or their descendants.

The case of Donaldson vs Beckett reached the House of Lords in 1774, and Lord Camden vocally rejected the idea of perpetual copyright, voicing his concerns that learning would be locked up and the price dictated by booksellers. The Lords voted against perpetual copyright, and confirmed that copyright did expire – opening a large number of books and other works to the public domain, this broke the dominance of London booksellers and allowed for competition.

An agreement was reached that authors had a pre-existing common law copyright over their works, which was limited by the Statute of Anne for the wider social good. There were fourteen copyright acts introduced between 1734 and 1888, covering engravings, prints, sculptures, dramatic works, lectures and musical compositions.

The Statute of Anne remained in force until the Copyright Act 1842 repealed it. The copyright Act 1842 declared that copyright of a book would last for the author’s lifetime and a further seven years from their death. If this period was less than forty two years, then the copyright would remain in place for the full forty two years.

In 1911 an act was introduced to replace all previous copyright laws, extending to all parts of the British Empire. It established a single statute covering all types of copyright, and implemented the Berne Convention which abolished common law copyright in unpublished works. The act also abolished the need for registration, and indicated that copyright is established upon creation of a work. The copyright term was extended to the lifetime of the author and fifty years thereafter.

The copyright act 1956 expanded copyright law to adhere to international copyright law and technological advancements. This was reformulated in 1988 to form the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 which is the copyright law in use today.

The act establishes that copyright for seventy years after the death of the creator if known, or seventy years after the work was created if the creator is unknown.

There are a set of exceptions to copyright law known as ‘fair dealing’ for the purpose of research, criticism and review.

Dr Ellie Pridgeon

The first talk we had was from Dr Ellie Pridgeon, the former Deputy Archivist at The Science Museum, London. The Science Museum archives are a record scientific, medical and technological change from the 1700’s to the present.

Dr Pridgeon spoke about the Hooper collection held at the Science Museum, and the large difficulty of copyright which surrounds it.

Hooper & Co were a British coach building company based in Westminster, London from 1805 to 1959. The company were known for making luxury coaches, both horse-drawn and motor powered. The Hooper collection at the Science Museum has original design drawings and car construction records, and the Denver Public Library has items from the records between 1947 and 1979 received from Rippey’s Veteran Car Museum including the collection of Osmond Rivers, Hooper designer 1930s to 1950s and Managing Director.

Dr Pridgeon explained how the Hooper collection is frequently used by classic car enthusiasts and PhD students, it is a popular archive but a lot of issues surround it regarding copyright. Hooper & Co was taken over by the BSA group, and a new entity Hooper (motor services) Ltd which acted as a sales and service company. The law states that if copyright is not transferred to the new company, then copyright remains with the original company – it is not clear whether the copyright was transferred, therefore unclear who owns the copyright. Also adding to the confusion is the timescale of the archive – some items are out of copyright under the 70 year rule, but other items the date is unclear.

The museum sought advice from first Tim Padfield, and then a legal advisor. They have a member of staff who is searching to find who the copyright belongs to. It was very interesting to hear of the issues other organisations have with copyright, and it also shows how frustrating the topic of copyright can be.

You can see some of Hooper’s designs which were photographed from Osmond Rivers’ collection (held at Denver Public Library) here:

http://www.rrec.org.uk/Cars/Coachwork/Hooper_and_Barker.php

The Science Museum have a blog about their collections which you can view here:

http://sciencemuseumdiscovery.com/blogs/collections/

Tim Padfield

Tim Padfield is a widely recognised expert in the field of copyright. He worked as an Information Policy Consultant at the National Archives for over 30 years, advising on copyright and public sector information issues, retiring earlier this year. He has also written books advising Archivists & Record Managers about copyright, and in May he was awarded Honorary Life Membership of the Archives and Records Association.

There is a post on the ARA website written by Tim Padfield, advising about the supply of copies of documents by archivists.

Mr Padfield gave a very interesting talk about the issues surrounding copyright, and offered some clarification around the principles of copyright illustrated by a myriad of examples of court cases.

He indicated the issues which need resolving, and spoke about how the copyright laws are about to be changed.

Overall the day was very informative and interesting, and shed a little light on the huge topic of copyright.

There have been recent articles in the news regarding copyright. In 2011 the Independent Newspaper wrote about the call for change:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/call-for-copyright-law-changes-2285792.html

And in 2013 it wrote about changes being made to media sharing laws:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/copyright-law-change-means-ipod-users-are-no-longer-criminals-2330869.html

Explore Your Archives

After the Library’s centenary Lauren, Helen & I have been very busy working to put together our exhibition for the Explore Your Archives campaign. I have posted before about the research I have been doing for this campaign, and the workshop we attended.

Explore Your Archives is a nationwide scheme led by the National Archives to make archives more accessible to people, and aiming to get people interested in the wealth of information which can be found when exploring archives. We chose to focus on schools in Stockport – a natural choice as we have excellent collections about schools, most notably the Stockport Sunday School collection. The exhibition we created focuses on schools from 1796 through to 1950.

To protect the originals, we reconstructed copies of the archives with selected excerpts for people to read at their leisure, in the hope that people will read them and if interested will request to view the originals.

The items I focused on were school log books, housecraft lessons, cookery lessons, school dinners, and an exam paper. We also put together an exhibition guide so people can easily identify the items.

School Log Books

The school log books we hold are from a variety of times, the selected excerpts I chose to include were from

• Cheadle Heath St John British School (excerpt dated August – September 1884)
• Great Moor Church of England School (excerpt dated March – September 1923)
• Lancashire Hill Council School (excerpt dated May – July 1909)
• Brentnall Street Infants School (excerpt dated August – October 1897)

Log books were written by head teachers, and recorded important events in school life such as the visit of inspectors, closure of the school or a new member of staff. Attendance information, and information about recorded epidemics are included. They are wonderful sources of information, which allow us to find out more about the history of schools in Stockport, what lessons were taught, how school life was different, and how national events such as the outbreak of WWI and WWII affected children at school.

Domestic Science Lessons

The equivalent of domestic science lessons taught to the girls pre-1950’s was ‘Housecraft’. It was taught to girls to prepare them for managing a household – this included instruction in household account keeping, compilation of budgets of expenses, cost of furnishing, and of household upkeep. It also taught instruction and practice in the various cleaning processes necessary in the household, the care of linen, furniture, and other articles of household use, needle repairs and adaptations, and so on.

In the archives we hold an exercise book which shows lessons in Housecraft. It was donated with some other exercise books, and curriculums relating to the Manchester Exam Board. One of the other books is dated 1918, so perhaps this exercise book is from a similar time period. We don’t know who the exercise book belonged to, as there is no name, but the book shows us what girls were being taught in Housecraft classes. There are sections devoted to housework – the girls were taught how to organise what housework to do when, and how to do each job most efficiently and effectively. Cookery shows what they were taught to make, how to choose a cut of meat and how to identify whether meat is old or ‘from beasts fed on oil cake mixtures’. There is also a separate section for a ‘Laundry Book’ which details how best to wash different items, how to starch and how to iron.

There is also some information in the school log books regarding housecraft lessons. The log books indicate that girls from Lancashire Hill Council School & St Peter’s Church of England School were sent to the Bridgefield Centre, girls from Woodford School were sent to the Poynton Centre. They would learn laundry, cookery, and sometimes needlecraft.

 Cookery Lessons

To show what girls were taught to cook in school, I made some recipe cards using recipes from school cookery books, which people visiting the exhibition can take away.

Two of the recipes come from Mrs Goodison’s Cookery Book, a notebook of carefully written recipes, recipes cut from newspapers and magazines & receipts from various food suppliers. The newspaper clippings date from the 1920’s to the 1950’s and the book has a vast array of recipes everything from rabbit several ways, to mock cream and a variety of baked treats.

The third recipe comes from a cookery book dated 1889, by the Manchester School Board.

You can read more about them here.

School Dinners

I was interested in school dinners, because everybody seems to have a memory of them.

The best source of information was minute books from the schools – I mainly used The Stockport Education Committee: School Canteen Sub-Committee Minutes and The Stockport Industrial and Ragged School Reports. The ragged school gives an example of school dinners in the 1870’s. The Education Committee minutes doesn’t give specific menus like the one below, but does generally refer to the types of food given. I also used information about the Education Acts through the years and the impact these have had upon school dinners.

Sample Ragged School Dinners, Stockport, 1870’s
Australian meat 4 oz. ¾ lb potatoes, 4 oz. bread	Rice & Milk, with 4 oz. bread	Soup (with meat) with 4oz. bread	Pea soup (made with ham bones) with 4 oz. bread	Vegetable soup (bullock’s head) and 4oz. bread

Exam Paper

In St Peter’s Church of England School log book, a history examination has been fully written down, with some results of what the children answered.

The paper was set in 1933 for children aged 13 and over in 12 schools throughout Stockport, as part of a ‘Report on Teaching of History in Public Elementary Schools’.

Questions include:

1. Arrange the following names in the right order of time – Shakespeare, St Paul, Wolfe, Wolsey, Isaac Newton (1 mark)
2. In what century after the 10^th were good roads first made in England? (1 mark)
3. What happened at Waterloo, Runnymede, Versailles, Blenheim, Copenhagen, Gibraltar, Tower of London? Choose any four of these and give dates if you can. (8 marks)

The paper has been transcribed, and is available in the library for people to test themselves and measure themselves against the standards of the 1930’s. Unfortunately the answers were not written down, so Heritage Library staff had fun debating the answers.

The average score over all the schools was 27.5%. The best score for the paper was 40%. Comments from the report include:

“…The teaching often seemed lifeless and mechanical; many of the teachers gave the impression that they would have preferred to be teaching something else…”

“…The children rarely seemed to remember anything but what they had been taught quite recently: still more rarely did they seem able to think about the past intelligently…”

“…It can hardly be regarded as a brilliant result for the time expended…”

 

Exploring the Archives; Manuscripts

When we were in the archives re-labelling boxes, we came across two boxes  labelled “Museum Documents & Manuscripts” we had a quick peek inside and decided they were perfect for this week’s ‘Exploring the Archives’.

The boxes were covered in a heavy layer of dust, and filled with delicate and very old documents which were packed in no particular order and accompanied by short notes explaining what they were.

They appeared to be mainly deeds for land and legal documents, there wasn’t much that we could decipher as they were mainly written in Old English or Latin, and the writing was quite faded on some. Some of the documents were very brittle, and there was evidence of some water damage.

The documents appear to have been donated to the museum in 1940, and it is unclear when they were placed in the archive. Some of them have lovely intricate detailing and patterns, and they all have beautiful styles of writing.

Several were dated during the 1500’s and 1600’s – but to be holding documents which are at least 500 years old was amazing.

We are going to a session at John Ryland’s Library about manuscripts, so perhaps it will shed a little light on this box for us, and help us to understand a little more about them.

Finding this box illuminates the importance of the archival skills course in London which taught us about caring for and preserving documents. We were certainly going through it wondering whether the paper used for the notes is acid free, noting evidence of water damage, and checking the paper clips used to ensure that no inadvertent damage is done to the documents.

Exploring The Archives

One of the best things about working at the Heritage Library is finding historical documents in the archives. Lauren – the HLF trainee who works in Museums – has a ‘Find It Friday’ running on her blog.

We regularly find things of interest in the archives in our day-to-day work, but Lauren & I have decided to try and do our own ‘Find It Friday’ and explore the archives by taking a couple of pictures each week of interesting documents we find – so watch this space!