Abstract
Too often researchers have ignored developments in historiography and conventional material that might usefully be applied to animal histories. This chapter draws on work both in cultural historiography and in animal-human studies to suggest that the key issue is not only on materials but also the position of the historian. The chapter explores concepts in unpublished diaries written by London-based Laurance Holman, an avid horse-rider, between 1940 and 1950. In writing about his horses, particularly Mariana, this chapter argues that such material sheds light on a particular equine-human relationship at a specific time. It concludes by arguing that if we are interested in acknowledging the identity of individual animals, it also means recognising the traces that do exist—and using them.
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- 1.
Kean, The Great Cat and Dog Massacre.
- 2.
Holman, Diaries. (Despite much searching of alternative proposals nothing has been found on the reasons for the deposition of the diary.)
- 3.
Ibid., Friday 17 December 1937.
- 4.
Kean, “Whose Archive?” (Despite the huge opposition to the destruction of former students’ files more of the adults’ materials from the early twentieth century and later twentieth century were totally destroyed.)
- 5.
Benjamin, Arcades Project, xii.
- 6.
Ibid., 206.
- 7.
Holman, Diaries, 6 April 1949; Benjamin, Arcades Project, 206.
- 8.
Steedman, Everyday Life, 32.
- 9.
Kean, London Stories.
- 10.
For further discussion of this approach see Kean, “Challenges for Historians.”
- 11.
Although my recent book, The Great Cat and Dog Massacre, focuses on the survival (and also death) of cats and dogs during the war there is also brief coverage of horses at that time.
- 12.
Wolfe, Posthumanism, 123–124 (original emphases).
- 13.
Steedman, Dust, 81 (emphasis added).
- 14.
Pegasus, Horse Talks, 25, 30.
- 15.
Holman, Diaries, Wednesday 8 December 1937.
- 16.
Ibid., Wednesday 15 December 1937.
- 17.
Ibid., Friday 17 December 1937.
- 18.
Ibid., Wednesday 15 December 1937; Saturday 12 November 1938; Saturday 2 January 1938.
- 19.
Ibid., Saturday 1 June 1940.
- 20.
Ibid., Thursday 19 September 1940.
- 21.
See, for example, Foster, The Real Dad’s Army, or: Millgate, Mr Brown’s War.
- 22.
Once the war ends, the size of Holman’s diaries—usually containing daily Punch cartoons—offer a different form of writing. There is a large page every day. There are no longer end-of-week areas leading to additional space and comment.
- 23.
Holman, Diaries, Thursday 19 September 1940.
- 24.
Ibid., Monday 30 September 1940.
- 25.
Ibid., Friday 27 September 1940.
- 26.
Ibid.
- 27.
Ibid., Wednesday 16 October 1940, Friday 18 October 1940.
- 28.
Ibid., Friday 6 December 1940.
- 29.
Ibid., Thursday 22 January 1941.
- 30.
Kean, The Great Cat and Dog Massacre, 69, 91.
- 31.
Hansard. House of Commons Debates, 6 February 1941: Vol. 368 cc1108–10W. Question from Colonel Carver to Major Lloyd George, Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade.
- 32.
Hansard. House of Commons Debates, 11 November 1941: Vol. 374 c2088W. Mr. Rostron Duckworth to Mr. Hutton, Minister of Agriculture.
- 33.
Holman, Diaries, Wednesday 12 August 1942.
- 34.
Ibid., Saturday 18 October 1941.
- 35.
Ibid., Saturday 13 December 1941.
- 36.
Ibid., Monday 2 March 1942.
- 37.
Ibid., Monday 21 September 1942.
- 38.
Ibid., Saturday 26 September 1942.
- 39.
Ibid., Sunday 25 October 1942.
- 40.
Ibid., Sunday 25 October 1942.
- 41.
Ibid., Wednesday 28 October 1942.
- 42.
Ibid., Saturday 31 October 1942.
- 43.
Ibid., Wednesday 4 November 1942.
- 44.
Ibid., Friday 9 May 1947.
- 45.
“The Great Diary Project.”
- 46.
Eisenmann , “Swinish Multitude,” 344.
- 47.
Birke and Hockenhull, “Journeys.”
- 48.
See, for example, Andria Pooley-Ebert, “Species Agency.”
- 49.
Kean, “The Home Front,” 163.
- 50.
Human materials came from census returns, birth, marriage and death certificates, archive of the London Sketch Club, Post Office directories, electoral registers, local newspapers, maps and books and periodicals in British Library, Colindale, and the Camden Archives.
- 51.
This broad material is also drawn from the plethora of abstract archival material. Holman left £80,000.
- 52.
“As a young man I worked for L.H. at his advertising agency in Bedford Square. First from Easter 1944 to June 1946 then conscription and again on leaving the army in 1948 until shortly before his death in 1950.” See Graham Lewis, “As written to my website.”
Works Cited
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Hansard. House of Commons Debates, February 6, 1941a: Vol. 368 cc1108–10W. Question from Colonel Carver to Major Lloyd George, Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade.
———. House of Commons Debates, November 11, 1941b: Vol. 374 c2088W. Mr. Rostron Duckworth to Mr. Hutton, Minister of Agriculture.
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———. London Stories: Personal Lives: Public Histories. London: Rivers Oram Press, 2004.
———. “Challenges for Historians Writing Animal-Human History: What is Really Enough?” Anthrozoös 25, Suppl. 1 (2012): 57–72.
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———. The Great Cat and Dog Massacre. The Real Story of World War 11’s Unknown Tragedy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.
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———. An Everyday Life of the English Working Class: Work, Self and Sociability in the Early Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
The Great Diary Project. http://www.thegreatdiaryproject.co.uk/. Accessed October 1, 2017.
Wolfe, Cary. What is Posthumanism? Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.
Acknowledgement
Thanks to Russell Burrows, Kim Stallwood, André Krebber and Mieke Roscher for their support.
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Kean, H. (2018). Finding a Man and his Horse in the Archive?. In: Krebber, A., Roscher, M. (eds) Animal Biography. Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98288-5_3
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