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Archive Centre, 2008, plus old relic |
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'.
My main qualification for the role, apparently, was that I am so old that I would know what I was looking at! So I started work in January, 2008 working one day a week to a deadline of the end of term July, 2008. The result of those labours, completed exactly on time, was the 'Aston 125' exhibiton, which now gets several showings a year.
At first it didn't, so the school asked me to return on a more regular basis, and fulfil the role of School Archivist. This I did in January 2009, one morning per week, but I told them I would only do it for five years
About 80% of what is there is 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 volunteer assistant Brian Roberts, visited the Foundation Archivist (Mrs. Alison Wheatley) 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, and the Foundation Archive is the obvious place.
In many cases there are further copies which I have classed as 'duplicates'. With the Headmaster's permission these are sold in aid of school funds.
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 Harold 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!
Speech Day programmes: more or less a complete run going back to 1894.
There is an almost complete run (two missing) of the 'The Record' from 1908 to the present day. 91 editons have been produced so far (2009-10). 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.
In the course of this work I have noticed large gaps in the material held. When I think back to my few years there, I can remember events of which there is no trace in the archives - like that marvellous production of 'The Mikado'. Another example is the complete absence of material reflecting the huge changes in the school's ethnic diversity since the 1960s. The photograph of Phillips, VC, that overlooked the stairs leading up to 'Big School', is nowhere to be seen, to say nothing of the Rugby Honours Board that went AWOL years ago! A Christmas card (circa 1953), purportedly showing a snow covered school by moonlight, but actually a model for a marionette show, and subsequently photographed by 'Joe' Pinder.
So, if you come across anything in your attic that you think might be of interest to the school, please let me know before sending it. It would be a pity to do so if we already have a copy.
Suprising as it may seem, several items are duplicated in large numbers - and these are 'For Sale'.
After a while, it became clear that my role, as for any archivist anywhere, is to collect, catalogue and conserve material recording the school's history. As you can see above, I concentrated at first on cataloguing what was already there. It wasn't long before I got seriously behind with this work, because of the requests I was getting to do other things.
So I asked for help from students.
I had been doing the job for quite a while before I realised that the 'whole school' photographs on display in the canteen (in full sunlight) were, in many cases, the only copies we had. So I set about getting them copied, with the considerable help and expertise of the current school photographers, Gillman and Soame. Thanks to the co-operation and generosity of old boys, it hasn't been necessary (yet!) to de-frame any of those in the canteen. I dread to think what might happen if ever we have to!
To sum up, the most difficult of our routine activities is collecting, and the most expensive conserving.
But we have become victims of our own success, and now we are getting requests for help from all sorts of quarters: people doing family history research who discover an AOE among their ancestors; teachers preparing material for assemblies; the 'History of Aston' talks; podcasts; electronic vignettes of archives; names for honours boards; photographs for Aston's 'Hall of Fame', etc., etc. Please form an orderly queue!
The first project was to research the names of all school captains, for a board that was to be created listing them. This was put up in June 2010 and records them for one hundred years, with gaps and the obligatory spelling mistake (since corrected!):
