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Culture and evidence: or what good are the archives? Archives and archivists in twentieth century England

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Abstract

Archives have the potential to change people’s lives. They are created to enable the conduct of business and accountability, but they also support a democratic society’s expectations for transparency and the protection of rights, they underpin citizen’s rights and are the raw material of our history and memory. This paper examines these issues in the context of the historical development of archives and archivists in twentieth century England. The research lays the foundations for understanding how and why the modern archives and records management profession developed in England. This paper will investigate the historical conflict (or is it a continuum?) between archives as culture and as evidence. The story identifies and highlights the contributions made by many fascinating individuals who established archives services and professional practice in England in the twentieth century. They shaped the archive in a very real way, and their individual enthusiasms, interests and understandings set the course of the English archival profession. To a great extent, it was these individuals, rather than government or legislation, that set the boundaries of English archives, they decided what was included (acquired) and what was not (of archival value.) The conclusion will consider the more fundamental questions: what are archives and what are they for, or perhaps, ‘what good are the archives’?

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Notes

  1. This paper does not seek to examine these (contested) notions in detail, or to review the conceptual relationship between them, but uses the concepts as a framework for the historical account.

  2. Including, among many others, Cook and Schwartz (2002), Hamilton et al. (2002) and McKemmish et al. (2005).

  3. The focus is on the twentieth century, but developments are traced from the Public Record Office Act 1838, the commencement of building of the Public Record Office (PRO) in 1851, the establishment of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (HMC) in 1869, and other key nineteenth century events. The story concludes in 2003 with the formation of The National Archives bringing together the PRO and HMC; discussions about new national archives and records legislation; and an Archives Task Force, the first significant enquiry into archives for 50 years.

  4. Local Government (Records) Act 1962 and the Local Government Act 1972.

  5. Fowler noted in 1922 that there is ‘no school of training … from which an efficient archivist could be drawn’ so he had ‘to train on the spot some young person who has a natural bent towards historical study, who is orderly, methodical and neat fingered’. F G Emmison was appointed in 1923. He was thoroughly trained in Fowler’s approach. In 1938 Emmison became the first county archivist of Essex. Fowler also trained I P Collis, who became county archivist of Somerset in 1946; Francis Rowe, who became Cheshire county archivist in 1949; and Joyce Godber who later became county archivist in Bedford.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Studies, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK

    Elizabeth Shepherd

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  1. Elizabeth Shepherd
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Correspondence to Elizabeth Shepherd.

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Details are at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/infostudies/elizabeth-shepherd/.

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Shepherd, E. Culture and evidence: or what good are the archives? Archives and archivists in twentieth century England. Arch Sci 9, 173–185 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-009-9077-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-009-9077-2

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