2022 – a year in review

In the first blog of the new year we reflect on our work and activities for 2022. This included further developments in the new online catalogue and the Virtual Reading Room service, hosting events and activities on campus and welcoming a range of new collections into our care.

University platinum jubilee

Early in the year the University marked its own platinum jubilee, as it had been the first educational institution to be granted University status in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.

Part of the University charter, 29 April 1952 [MS1]

To mark the occasion in April, Archives and Special Collections created a series of blogs focusing on the 1950s, these featured fashion; politics – with a particular spotlight on the Suez crisis; food, including making a couple of dishes that featured as part of the banquet in July 1953 to mark the installation of the Duke of Wellington as the first Chancellor of the newly created University; and Southampton in the 1950s.

And as part of a jubilee alumni day in May 2022, Archives and Special Collections hosted a behind the scenes visit which enabled visitors to view material from its holdings on University and student life from the 1950s onwards. The visits proved to be particularly nostalgic for a number of visitors and resulted in donations of new material for the Archives.

Visitors viewing material in the Archives and Special Collections during the Alumni Day, May 2022.

Archive Service Accreditation

Towards the end of the year, in November, Archives and Special Collections were awarded Archive Service Accreditation by The National Archives. 

Accredited Archive Services ensure the long-term collection, preservation and accessibility of our archive heritage. Accreditation is the UK quality standard which recognises good performance in all areas of archive service delivery. Achieving accredited status demonstrates that Archives and Special Collections has met clearly defined national standards relating to management and resourcing; the care of its unique collections and what the service offers to its entire range of users.

As a service, we were delighted to receive this national recognition which acknowledges our expertise and hard work. The Archive Service Accreditation Panel noted that it “…welcomed this application from a forward-looking, well-supported and ambitious archive service which is delivering well for its own mission and for the wider work of the university. The considered and high-quality approach of the service across its remit was commended….”

Events

We contributed to two Parkes Institute events during the year: Karen Robson took part in a round table discussion on discovering new meanings in Special Collections in January, while Jenny Ruthven and Karen Robson spoke at a seminar on historic libraries in November.

In June, Karen Robson attended the Religious Archives Group Conference at Lambeth Palace Library and presented a joint paper on behalf of herself and Professor Tony Kushner relating to Jewish archives in the UK.

On Wednesday 7 December we hosted a panel discussion about refugees and migration. Archives and Special Collections is the home of considerable archival holdings relating to the Basque child refugees who had arrived in Southampton 75 years previously and this was our contribution to mark the anniversary. The event had been postponed from September. In what was a fascinating and wide-ranging discussion, the panel (Professor Tony Kushner and Dr Jennifer Craig-Norton, together with Wendy White, Director of Library Services as moderator) considered not only the experiences of the Basque children and the Jewish refugee children who arrived in the UK as part of the Kindertransport but many contemporary resonances, including historic and present-day reactions to refugees, their portrayal in the press and the development and skewing of language in the discourse about refugees, migrants and asylum seekers.

Collections

First editions of Jane Austen’s Emma (1816)

We are pleased to say that the Library has received copies of the first editions of Jane Austen’s Emma (1816) and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (1818) and the second edition of Sense and Sensibility (1813) in the allocation of material from the Blavatnik Honresfield Library. The contents of this private collection have been distributed to libraries around the country to ensure that they remain accessible to the public following its acquisition by the Friends of the National Libraries. The donation is especially welcome as the Library has lacked early editions of books by Hampshire’s best-known author.

The Library was formed towards the end of the 19th century by William Law (1836-1901), a Rochdale mill owner, who created an exceptional collection of English and Scottish manuscripts and printed books that had the Brontës at its heart, as well as manuscripts in the hands of Jane Austen, Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott and a significant collection of printed books. It has been largely inaccessible for the last 80 years, until the work of Friends of the National Libraries enabled the collection to be purchased for the nation in 2021.

Certificate honouring Professor Landsberg as a pioneer in renewable energy, 1994 [MS459/A4369/8]

We have continued to add to the archival holdings over the last twelve months, including new material relating to the University and its history, some of which arrived as a result of the alumni event in May, but which also include the papers of the theoretical physicist Professor Peter Theodore Landsberg who had been Professor of Applied Mathematics. Born in Berlin to the Jewish family Professor Landsberg came to the UK in the late 1930s.

Prototypes of solar cells created by Professor Landsberg, 1970s [MS459/A4369/9]

There have been other significant new Anglo-Jewish archive collections during the year, such as the papers of JCORE (Jewish Council for Racial Equality), those of the West Central Liberal Synagogue and of another European physicist, this time the Austrian/Czech physicist Benjamin Abeles whose research in the United States of America in the 1960s led to the development of technology that powers space probes such as the Voyager. Abeles came to UK with the Kindertansport in 1939. An event is being planned in June 2023 to mark the arrival of this collection at Southampton.

Photograph of Ben Abeles for immigration documentation, 1961 [MS464/A4383/2/13]

Social media

We have continued to maintain a very active social media presence throughout the year with weekly blogs and regular tweets. The blogs have covered a whole range of subjects, including shining a spotlight on collections. As well as the 1950s themed blogs in April, we had a series of articles looking at the work Behind the scenes of the Special Collections in May which gave an introduction to putting on events, a conservation project, the work of the archivists and rare books cataloguing. The winter themed blogs that we began in December will be continuing next week with a look at Arctic clothing. We do hope that you will join us for this.