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

The Avondale Collection

We have recently had donated a large collection of documents relating to Avondale School, as it has now closed. The documents have been used for displays and range from the 1940’s up until recent years. There are an array of newspaper articles and photographs of a range of school life including school trips, sports events, classroom activities, and also photographs of staff. It is a large collection which Lauren & I have been sorting through and cataloguing so it can be placed in the archives.

The photographs from each display board have been placed in separate envelopes, which are then assigned an accession number so they can be easily accessed. It is a large collection so we do have a long way to go before the whole collection has been catalogued!