Archives Work – What do I do?
My brother asked me the other day what it was that I did in the archives. He had a vision of gas lights and catacombs and old parchment paper. I gave him the run down and I’ll post it here also because I’ve had the question from others.
Dear Brother!
I like the catacomb vision although sadly, this isn't totally the case here in modern industrialized Britain. I mostly just go into this big building that sits on a man-made lake (next to the Thames) and then I go upstairs to where some guards in jackets ask to look through my stuff and then I swipe a card that lets me pass. Then I swipe my card again and it tells me my seat assignment and cubby number for the day (usually 27D). Then I go to my cubby and pull out the dusty old whatevers I’m looking at.
For instance, today I looked at whole books of correspondence, called CO from the Colonial Office. Apparently, way back in the day (i.e. the eighteenth century, and possibly before and after too), when noble men wrote letters to each other, they made duplicate copies of everything and numbered them. This is so that they could write a letter something like, "To his most distinguished Lord, the Commander in Chief Lord Earl of Balcarres, Sir, I was most pleased to receive your letter of the 15th last pertaining to my letter of the 12th of August, No. 4, in which you replied that my comment concerning Lord Balgrave's reply on the Act of Parliment on the 12th of July..." You get the idea.
So, whomever was in this serial of correspondence usually made copies of every letter they sent and received, and then they numbered them. Somewhere along the way, probably at the end of every year I imagine, someone's clerk would come along and put these serialed correspondences into a book. It would be bound and then shelved somewhere, never to be looked at again, until little ole Miriam comes along and says, hmm, I wonder what happened in Central America in 1797.
So, to know what happened in Central America, I would have to know that parts of it, i.e. Belize, were under British control. And I'd also have to know that they called Belize British Honduras. And then I'd ALSO have to know that British Honduras was under the jurisdiction of Governors in Jamaica, i.e. Balcarres. And then I'd come to the British Archives and I'd look up all correspondence from the Governor of Jamaica. And every now and then I'd get lucky because he would talk about Honduras (they dropped the British part). Mostly he corresponded with a Lt Col Barrow in the Bay of Honduras who would write to Balcarres whenever they got attacked by the Spanish. But then Balcarres also wrote reports to his boss, the Duke of Portland.
And so I'd get really excited every time I saw this little word "Honduras" and I'd pay extra special close attention, but then I also have to pay attention to everything else in this correspondence book because it gives a more complete picture of what's going on the in Caribbean. For instance, little Honduras is getting attacked by the Spanish a lot, but mostly Balcarres is concerned with this small little slave insurrection that occurred on Jamaica which prompted him to send all these black slaves "maroons" to Nova Scotia in Canada. Meanwhile, he's also trying to convince Great Britain that it's a good idea to have a black military regiment (commanded by whites of course) in order to keep the Island safe from the attacking French and Spanish fleets.
So that's mostly what I do. Except sometimes it's not quite so exciting reading. For example, two days ago I went through about nine boxes of Treasury notes called Memorials. Memorials are when someone writes a receipt for expenses incurred on some business of the King. He expected to be reimbursed by the Treasury, so he wrote them a why/where/what for. Mostly these were very tedious, but they are useful in that they prove how much the Crown considered certain activities important. It's a lot of "Sir, I have the honour to direct your attention to a memorial of 30 pounds incurred while entertaining the inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras in order to settle a form a government to prevent..." etc. Mostly I think the reimbursement is straightforward, but sometimes I think it is challenged and then follows a flurry of increasingly excitable letters. You can usually tell these because they start with "Sir!"
Your vision of dusty scrolls is fairly accurate though, if not the catacombs. I've unrolled a few scrolled maps which required a huge table and weighted sandbags. And I'm sneezing quite often because of all the dust. But the actual office is very state of the art, and makes me sad for poor little Guatemala archives.
If you've made it all the way this far, I'm very happy. I would reward you with a treat, but I've just sat here for 5 minutes and could think of none, so perhaps when I get home I'll just make some brownies.
Love MRM
Dear Brother!
I like the catacomb vision although sadly, this isn't totally the case here in modern industrialized Britain. I mostly just go into this big building that sits on a man-made lake (next to the Thames) and then I go upstairs to where some guards in jackets ask to look through my stuff and then I swipe a card that lets me pass. Then I swipe my card again and it tells me my seat assignment and cubby number for the day (usually 27D). Then I go to my cubby and pull out the dusty old whatevers I’m looking at.
For instance, today I looked at whole books of correspondence, called CO from the Colonial Office. Apparently, way back in the day (i.e. the eighteenth century, and possibly before and after too), when noble men wrote letters to each other, they made duplicate copies of everything and numbered them. This is so that they could write a letter something like, "To his most distinguished Lord, the Commander in Chief Lord Earl of Balcarres, Sir, I was most pleased to receive your letter of the 15th last pertaining to my letter of the 12th of August, No. 4, in which you replied that my comment concerning Lord Balgrave's reply on the Act of Parliment on the 12th of July..." You get the idea.
So, whomever was in this serial of correspondence usually made copies of every letter they sent and received, and then they numbered them. Somewhere along the way, probably at the end of every year I imagine, someone's clerk would come along and put these serialed correspondences into a book. It would be bound and then shelved somewhere, never to be looked at again, until little ole Miriam comes along and says, hmm, I wonder what happened in Central America in 1797.
So, to know what happened in Central America, I would have to know that parts of it, i.e. Belize, were under British control. And I'd also have to know that they called Belize British Honduras. And then I'd ALSO have to know that British Honduras was under the jurisdiction of Governors in Jamaica, i.e. Balcarres. And then I'd come to the British Archives and I'd look up all correspondence from the Governor of Jamaica. And every now and then I'd get lucky because he would talk about Honduras (they dropped the British part). Mostly he corresponded with a Lt Col Barrow in the Bay of Honduras who would write to Balcarres whenever they got attacked by the Spanish. But then Balcarres also wrote reports to his boss, the Duke of Portland.
And so I'd get really excited every time I saw this little word "Honduras" and I'd pay extra special close attention, but then I also have to pay attention to everything else in this correspondence book because it gives a more complete picture of what's going on the in Caribbean. For instance, little Honduras is getting attacked by the Spanish a lot, but mostly Balcarres is concerned with this small little slave insurrection that occurred on Jamaica which prompted him to send all these black slaves "maroons" to Nova Scotia in Canada. Meanwhile, he's also trying to convince Great Britain that it's a good idea to have a black military regiment (commanded by whites of course) in order to keep the Island safe from the attacking French and Spanish fleets.
So that's mostly what I do. Except sometimes it's not quite so exciting reading. For example, two days ago I went through about nine boxes of Treasury notes called Memorials. Memorials are when someone writes a receipt for expenses incurred on some business of the King. He expected to be reimbursed by the Treasury, so he wrote them a why/where/what for. Mostly these were very tedious, but they are useful in that they prove how much the Crown considered certain activities important. It's a lot of "Sir, I have the honour to direct your attention to a memorial of 30 pounds incurred while entertaining the inhabitants of the Bay of Honduras in order to settle a form a government to prevent..." etc. Mostly I think the reimbursement is straightforward, but sometimes I think it is challenged and then follows a flurry of increasingly excitable letters. You can usually tell these because they start with "Sir!"
Your vision of dusty scrolls is fairly accurate though, if not the catacombs. I've unrolled a few scrolled maps which required a huge table and weighted sandbags. And I'm sneezing quite often because of all the dust. But the actual office is very state of the art, and makes me sad for poor little Guatemala archives.
If you've made it all the way this far, I'm very happy. I would reward you with a treat, but I've just sat here for 5 minutes and could think of none, so perhaps when I get home I'll just make some brownies.
Love MRM
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