The Archive Centre
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Early this century (sounds good that!), the arch next to the Porter's Lodge was glazed in, and a mezzanine floor and shelving installed. Then all the school's archives were retrieved from various hiding places and put in there. And so the 'Archive Centre' came into being.
As soon as I learned of its existence, I contrived a visit to see what was there. I wasn't disappointed: I found a copy of something that had disappeared from my parents' home years ago. Two more surreptitious visits and I was beginning to get a feel for the place.
Various AOEs had by this time been saying to me 'There's a job for you there', but I knew what that would entail, so kept a low profile! But eventually the school caught up with me, in the form of its energetic deputy Head, Frank Hedley. In November, 2007 he asked me to go through the archives, 'looking for material suitable for an exhibition to celebrate the school's 125th birthday in academic year 2008/9'.
So I started work in January, 2008 working one day a week to a deadline of the end of term July, 2008.
Much of what follows will alter by the week, as new discoveries are made. Early discoveries have been:
- the vast majority of what is there are the personal records of past students, and so they are more or less permanently closed to public scrutiny. There are no detailed individual files before 1930.
- I, and my first (and, so far, only) volunteer assistant Brian Roberts, visited the Foundation Office's archive at Edgbaston to see what is there. We found that they have less stuff than we do! They consider this is because a) Aston has been led by a series of historians who have wanted to keep their own archives and b) once borrowed, things haven't been returned!
- because there are multiple copies of some material, I decided to create a 'back up' archive. It is standard practice on archival security for this to be kept in a physically different location, which will be the Foundation Office.
- in many cases there are further copies which I have classed as 'duplicates'. These could be sold to AOEs in aid of school funds.
Find of the week (19th Feb): The October, 1932 edition of 'The Record' says that houses had emblems! Bentley's (School) is a Fleur de Lys, Jones's (Floyd) a Lion Rampant (what else!), Mayers' (Temperley) a Tudor Rose and Ross's (Manton) a Portcullis. I never knew that, did you?
Identifying, cataloguing and filing material is painfully slow and unbelievably dirty: I don't wear my Floyd house tie whilst working! It took me most of my first day to work out how to construct the flat pack filing boxes. My mechanical aptitude never was very good! I am creating a card index which shows the location of each item, and indicates where duplicates exist.
So far I have sorted out:
'Whole school' photographs - no thanks to the idiot who stuck 'blu-tac' on the back of the 1948 photo - and then rolled it up! It is now irretrievably damaged. Others are in frames which are on their last legs, and yet more have no frames at all but are mounted on card, while others are simply rolled up. The biggest collection is hanging on the canteen wall in Douglas House, and are listed elsewhere.
There are myriads of undated and unidentified photos, Rugby XVs being the most numerous: 'blu-tac' is much in evidence. I am chipping away at these, and will probably take up Harry Jessop's invitation to go for coffee and take them with me, for him to identify! The earliest dated photo is 1902. One of a teacher in academic dress is, I suspect, even earlier (and may be a man named Johnson). This one, like many others, carries a Foundation Office stamp and archive number on the back, which confirms that they were 'borrowed' from there at some time in the past (probably the Centenary in 1983).
School Lists from 1908-1939. These were an annual, sometimes bi-annual, publication listing every pupil by form and his position within the form in several subjects. Staff were listed as well, though their performance is not recorded! Lots of duplicates from 1911 onwards.
Speech Day programmes: more or less a complete run going back to 1894.
There is an almost complete run (three missing) of the 'School Record' from 1926 to the present day. Here there are masses of duplicates, even as early as 1910.
Some old boys' memorabilia, which I have archived separately, including the original photo of W O Bailey. Included here are copies (the originals are in Birmingham Central Library) of Frank Jones's letters (38 in all) to AOEs during World War II. From these I was astounded to learn that 'Buggy' Mayers was a grandfather. I didn't even know he was married!
Newspaper cuttings going back to the 1940s. Extremely fragile, but now laid flat in plastic pockets.
Things I am looking for: the Christmas card (circa 1953), purportedly showing a snow covered school by moonlight, but actually a model; the photograph of Phillips, VC that used to hang on the staircase up to 'Big School'.
I have been able to identify one group of photos as relating to Five Ways. This was because I spotted Theo Fox on them, and he left Aston to go there in 1958. They have now been deposited in the Foundation Archive. How they found their way to Aston I will never know.