I is for Island

For the latest in the Special Collections A-Z, we look at I for islands. Special Collections holds a wide range of material relating to islands from the far flung to the very near to home. For this blog we will travel to a small selection represented in the collections to give a flavour of the range of material that can be explored. 

HMS Hecla and Fury in their “winter island” as they are frozen in for the winter [MS45 A0183/2 p359]

For the more distant islands you can view the journals of William Mogg in which he describes his journeys as part of Captain William Edward Parry’s second and third Arctic expeditions, on board HMS Hecla and HMS Fury, 1821-5, including being frozen in at ‘Winter Island’ for nine months when the ice closed in. And there is a further Mogg journal when he was on aboard HMS Beagle exploring the coastline and islands of South America. Such items as Prince Louis of Battenberg’s album of his circumnavigation of the world on board HMS Inconstant provide us with glimpses of life in Japan, New Zealand or the Fiji Islands in the 1880s, as well as visits to St Helena and Gibraltar.

Fiji Islands from the album of Prince Louis of Battenberg [MS62/MB2/A20]

St Helena from the album of Prince Louis of Battenberg [MS62/MB2/A20]

A new acquisition to the Special Collections dating from 1896 is an eleven-volume travelogue of the Hon. Louis Samuel Montagu, later second Baron Swaythling, of his world tour (MS461) which includes not just his observations on his travels and the people and places he saw but some wonderful photographs from Japan. And for the 20th century we have photograph albums of Lord and Lady Mountbatten, as well as tour diaries of Lord Mountbatten, relating to visits to islands from the Mediterranean, the South Seas and the Far East, as well as Australia and New Zealand (MS62).

Images of Madeira from a photograph album of a tour taken by Lady Mountbatten, 1931 [MS62/MB2/L6 page 5]

For nearer to home, quite a variety of material has found its way to the Special Collections relating to the Isle of Wight. This includes items collected by the University’s predecessor the Hartley Institution in the late nineteenth century such as a pardon from James I to Thomas Urrey of Thorley, Isle of Wight, 8 June 1604 (MS6/1).

Pardon from James I to Thomas Urrey, 1604 [MS6/1]

Other items include descriptions of walks around the island such Sarah Jane Gilham’s “journal of seven weeks peregrinations at the most beautiful place on earth, namely the Isle of Wight”, 1850 (MS6/8), or Thomas Flood’s description of his walking tour of the island in 1845 (MS450).

The island was the inspiration for poetry by James B.Fell (MS14) as well as the long manuscript poem “Elizabeth the fair prisoner of Carisbrook”, mid-nineteenth century (MS5/32).

Within the papers of the Gordon family, who resided at Northcourt on the island, are a series of watercolours by Lady Julia Gordon that feature the house and garden (MS80). Special Collections also holds a collection of watercolours by the Revd John Lewis Petit (MS283). Those for the Isle of Wight range from Alum Bay to Yaverland and includes seascapes and landscapes as well as churches, which are the focus of many of his paintings.

Alum Bay: View from cliff top looking across to The Needles by J.L.Petit [MS283/55]

The working papers of the academic Lindsay Boynton includes considerable material on both Sir Richard Worsley and Appuldurcombe House (MS301). Special Collections also holds the editorial notes for the Victoria County History for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (MS29) providing an interesting counterpoint to the range of published histories of the island held as part of the Cope Collection.

For politics on the island in the 19^th and 20^th centuries you can find a range of material in the papers of the first Duke of Wellington and the Broadlands Archives including extensive files for Earl Mountbatten of Burma as the Governor of the Isle of Wight.

Letter sent by internee at the Aliens’ Detention Camp, Douglas, Isle of Man, to Rabbi Dr Victor Schonfeld, 19 June 1917 [MS192 AJ413/7 f3]

Another island of the UK coast for which we hold quite a number of items is the Isle of Man. This ranges from material on the harbour defence in the 19^th century in the Wellington Archive to material in quite a number of the Jewish archive collections relating to the use of the island in the 20^th century for internment. This latter material includes not just reports on an inspection of the internment camps in the Second World War which can be found in archive of Solomon Schonfeld, but correspondence of internees in both World Wars.

Sketch of Mooragh internment camp, Ramsay, Isle of Man, by K.Rothschild, c.1940 [MS297/A890/2/1]

Sketch of Ramsay, Isle of Man, by Manfred Steinhardt, 1940 [MS297/A890/2/1]

To complement the more recent material relating to islands in the Mediterranean found in the papers of Lord and Lady Mountbatten, there is 19th-century papers in both the archive of the first Duke of Wellington and those of third Viscount Palmerston relating to the Ionian Islands, the seven islands that include Corfu, Paxos and Cefalonia. This covers the period from the Treaty of Paris in 1815 when the islands were placed under British protectorship, to 1864 when they were officially reunified with Greece.

First page of synopsis for “Refugee island” a proposed TV play by Norman Crisp [MS199/101/1]

And we travel even further with a fictional island although potentially situated in the South Seas. Taken from the archive of the writer Norman Crisp (MS199), this is a synopsis and script for a proposed TV play “Refuge Island”. Written in the response to the threat of the H-bomb, the play follows the story of an individual, who may or may not be a confidence trickster, and his scheme to create a “refuge island”.

To find more islands, or to find out more about any of the items mentioned, do explore the Epexio Archive Catalogue which contains details of the archival collections that we hold.

And do join us next week when we will have reached J for Jewish archives.

Travel and Voyages: Britain and the Far East

This week, our travels take us to the Far East, where we will be exploring the development of Britain’s relations with the region. Items displayed are from the MS64 Congleton manuscripts and MS62 Broadlands Archives.

Nagasaki, Japan, 1881-2 [MS 62 Broadlands Archives MB2/A20]

The Far East is a term used to describe the geographical, economic, and cultural region that encompasses Eastern Russia (Siberia in particular), East Asia, and Southeast Asia, and in some cases, Pacific island nations. Use of this phrase dates back to twelfth-century Europe, when the ruling class, explorers, traders, and travelers took an eastern route to reach this area and so the term the Far East was used to refer to the region because it is the farthest of the 3 Eastern Asian areas, which are the: Near East, the Middle East, and the Far East. The expression became favoured during the reign of the British Empire, and was used to refer to any area east of British India.

The English Quarter, Shanghai, China [MS 62 Broadlands Archives MB2/A20]

In the second half of the nineteenth century, Western knowledge of the Far Eastern powers increased markedly. Trade with Japan was opened up, and further ports in China were made accessible: some ninety-two places in China were open for British trade by 1914. British business dominated the trade with China until the 1880s, especially through Shanghai, but was less successful later. In parallel with treaty arrangements guaranteeing access to trade, the British formally acquired territory. From a political point of view, this was a safeguard for British interests in India; and it was also a component in creating further economic growth. Accompanying this came the trappings of empire, especially its military presence. This was critical to ensure the security of trade where more informal relations existed. Territorial acquisition was also driven by rivalry with other Western powers, particularly the French and the Dutch; and it advanced as much by treaty with local rulers as it did by military action and annexation.

Samurai practising with double-handed swords, Japan 1881 [MS 62 Broadlands Archives MB2/A20]

Singapore was ceded to Britain in 1819 and the Malay archipelago was divided into Dutch and British areas of influence in 1824. The British areas — the future Straits Settlements — were administered as part of British India. Later in the century, Singapore became of central importance in the China trade, as a coaling station. It was a major entrepot in the trade from the Netherlands East Indies, and its strategic position ensured that it was well-garrisoned. Its administration passed from the Indian government to the Colonial Office in 1867. There was then an expansion of British influence in the Malay peninsula through the establishment of a system of residencies — creating the Federated Malay States — and, as elsewhere, a blurring of distinction between those parts that were formally part of a British empire and those outside it. From the close of the nineteenth century, the development of rubber plantations in the Malay States created an additional element in the economy.

Programme for the Singapore Races, Autumn 1880 [MS64/292]

The image above shows a Singapore Races event programme, which belonged to the servant of the empire, Henry Parnell, fourth Baron Congleton (1839-1906), who was also a member of the Singapore Races organising committee. He had a military career, serving in the Crimea and the Zulu war of 1879. In 1880-3, his battalion of the Buffs (the Third Regiment of Foot) was posted to Singapore, where he was commandant of the garrison and president of the Singapore Defence Committee.

A draft of a report on the defences of Singapore, from Parnell’s papers as president of the Singapore Defence Committee, with his annotations and notes on business [MS 64/291]

We also hold the journal of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Parnell. The image below shows a section of the journal describing his trip to Japan in September and October 1883. On 12 September he was at Kyoto, where he visited the imperial palace and, in the evening, had a demonstration of fighting with a two-handed sword.

Section from the Journal of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Parnell, describing his trip to Japan in September 1883 [MS 64/278]

The British imperial presence was reinforced by official tours. In August 1880, a detached squadron, led by the iron frigate, HMS Inconstant, embarked on a world cruise to show the flag, in a journey lasting more than two years. On the Inconstant was Prince Louis of Battenberg, who was to become First Sea Lord immediately prior to the First World War and who was to marry a favourite grand-daughter of Queen Victoria; two sons of the Prince of Wales, one of them the future George V, also served with the squadron. In 1921-2 another Prince of Wales, later to become Edward VIII, toured India and Japan, visiting Burma and Singapore en route.

Singapore: the route to Government House lined by head hunters (Dyak tribesmen) from Borneo, March 1922 [MS 62 Broadlands Archives MB2/N7, 187]

During the same trip, the party was able to visit the Malay-Borneo exhibition as well as unveil the Straits Settlements War Memorial.

Unveiling of the Straits Settlements War Memorial, with the Prince of Wales’ staff on the right, March 1922 [MS 62 Broadlands Archives MB2/N7, 189]

Join us next week for our third travel and voyages themed blog post, which will focus on South America and Central America.