On 3-4 November, I attended a two-day event at the British Library that highlighted the challenges and approaches of collecting materials created during times of war, conflict and crises. Through a series of panels and discussions, museum and library professionals, researchers and private collectors shared examples of incredible historical and contemporary initiatives to preserve diverse materials and heritage sites at risk of loss, decay or destruction.
Having recently worked on the joint Bodleian Libraries and History of Science Museum Collecting COVID project, I was particularly interested in contemporary programmes of collecting. Our project, which ran from 2021-2023, aimed to acquire and preserve the University of Oxford’s research response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It enabled us to capture, catalogue and publish over ninety oral history interviews.
Modern collections/initiatives showcased included:
Web Archiving the COVID-19 pandemic, Nicola Bingham, British Library
Coastal Connections (heritage sites at threat from coastal erosion) Dr Alex Kent, World Monuments Fund)
Endangered Archives Programme (recent case studies include Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan) Dr Sam van Schaik, British Library
Collecting Human Stories during the war in Ukraine, Natalia Yemchenko, Rinat Akhmetov Foundation/Museum of Civilian Voices
Rapid collecting is a means to collect documentary evidence, preserve cultural memories and commemorate events. By providing access to these collections, institutions are then able to build a body of evidence and facilitate research. I was struck by the similarities between modern initiatives and those that had taken place a century before. Some of the contemporary examples of collections crowdsourcing harked back to the collecting of ephemera during the First World War. Dr Ann-Marie Foster highlighted the Bond of Sacrifice Collection and Women’s Work Collection (Imperial War Museums) in her presentation with Alison Bailey, in which families sent items memorialising loved ones, as examples of early collecting initiatives. Modern rapid collecting work has meant that contemporary archivists/curators have taken up this tradition, working actively to save materials at risk of loss through intentional selection.
As well as crowdsourcing and outreach, other strategies institutions draw upon in an increasingly online world are web archiving, digitisation and digital preservation. With social media now a main mode of communication for millions, web archiving is a useful tool to preserve and present online response to global events. Work to capture websites relating to recent events is ongoing at both the Bodleian Libraries and British Library. I found Archive-It to be an incredibly useful tool to capture and publish a range of web pages (including the social media pages of COVID-19 researchers, given with permission) for our project, which without reactive selection and preservation, would otherwise have been at risk of loss.
Overall, the event highlighted that institutions must use active strategies towards preserving at-risk materials created during ongoing crises and conflicts, including:
Involving communities to assist in selection of materials;
Providing as representative a view of the event as possible (capturing diverse perspectives);
Providing access to collections and making them available as widely as possible (ethical considerations and sensitivities permitting);
Democratising collections and preserving them for future generations.
Raymond Chandler is best known for hard-boiled crime novels including The Big Sleep (1939) and The Long Goodbye (1953) and as a screenwriter for some of the biggest motion pictures of the 1940s, including The Blue Dahlia. Since the start of the year, work has been underway to enhance and expand the original catalogue of the Chandler archive and to integrate and make accessible later accessions. These new additions cover papers and correspondence created by Chandler in his lifetime, as well as a vast afterlife of papers showcasing the legacy of the great mystery writer.
New additions to the archive largely focus on correspondence and papers concerning the Chandler estate, stewarded by his literary agent and heir, Helga Greene. These demonstrate a wealth of interest in Chandler’s work by filmmakers and biographers, largely covering a period from 1960-1990. By the 1970s, small and big screen adaptations of his novels and short stories were becoming apparent as a major focus of interest for the estate. Greene’s defence of Chandler’s work and legacy is evident in the papers, through her diligent renewal of copyright and selective choices over permissions for adaptations, anthologies and new publications. The papers also go into detail over a will contest and include material concerning Greene’s legal fight to be recognised as heir, in a suit brought by Chandler’s former secretary, MS. Chandler 112-113.
Amongst the papers generated by the estate following Chandler’s death are snippets of original writings that demonstrate his natural humour and wit, as well as leisurely pursuits and interests, including cookery and darts. In the final year of his life, whilst working on ‘The Poodle Springs Story’ (the last and unfinished novel, in which Marlowe marries heiress Linda Loring), Chandler and Greene were also collaborating on an idea for a cookery book with a provisional title of ‘Cooking For Idiots.’ Although the book never came to fruition, the collection does hold remnants of the early development of this work. As well as the above letter teasing recipes such as apples baked in cider (‘vociferously admired by anyone who owes me money’), the collection includes an assortment of handwritten recipe cards featuring the culinary creations of Chandler’s late wife Cissy, including ‘Cissy’s Ham Goodbye’ and ‘Pancakes for Raymio,’ MS. Chandler 102 & 106.
Alongside the cookery ‘specials’ of the Chandler household, a glimpse of Chandler’s humour is found in this unsent letter marked ‘For Posterity’ to Los Angeles department store Bullock’s Wilshire (in its heyday a glitzy haunt of famous clientele), where he conjures an elaborate narrative in an effort to return an unwanted sports jacket.
Additionally, original prose such as drafts and typescripts for short stories including ‘The Pencil’ (published as ‘Marlowe Takes on the Syndicate’ in the Daily Mail, 1959) and the fantastic story ‘Professor Bingo’s Snuff’ are now available, along with a selection of assorted notes, prose and unpublished writings in MS. Chandler 7. The material featured in this blog post, along with all other newly catalogued additions to the archive can now be consulted in the Weston Library. The new and enhanced catalogue for the Archive of Raymond Chandler is searchable here.
Maria Hary Becket (1931-2012) was a Greek political and environmental activist who worked on a global scale.
The catalogue of the archive of Greek political activist Maria Becket is now online (see catalogue: Collection: Archive of Maria Becket | Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts). The archive spans the turbulent international politics of the mid-20th century and also documents the growing environmental movement of the late-20th and early-21st centuries, all told through the personal story of a life fiercely lived in the passionate service of human rights and causes. I found working on the Maria Becket Archive to be revelatory in its documentation of the horrors of repressive regimes and violent conflicts, and the superhuman and sometimes unorthodox efforts that Becket and her family, friends and associates went to try to remedy these problems.
Maria Hary was born in Athens in 1931 into a prominent Greek family – her father, Nikolaos, was active in the resistance against the Nazi occupation in Greece, but his troubled character had a formative effect on her early life. Her mother’s family were from old Constantinople (now Istanbul), which led to Maria’s lifelong interest in Byzantine history. She credited her political awakening to an experience during the Greek Civil War of 1946-1949, when she discovered a girl who had died of starvation on her doorstep and wondered why she had lived and the girl had died.
MS. 23105 photogr. 27. The Hary family in 1949, including Maria Becket aged 18, seated on left, and her father Nikolaos, standing on the right.
After her first marriage to a Greek shipowner and a period studying Byzantine history in London, Maria met American lawyer James Becket on a cruise ship crossing the Atlantic in 1958, and they married, had two daughters, and moved to Geneva in Switzerland. When the Greek government was overthrown by a junta of “colonels” in April 1967, the Beckets immediately became involved in the resistance movement. They were instrumental in the case brought against Greece in the Council of Europe by four Scandinavian countries, where they presented witnesses to testify about the use of torture by the regime. The archive contains testimonies and details of dozens of political prisoners who were tortured under the junta, and information on the horrific conditions in the notorious police building on Bouboulinas Street in Athens and in other Greek prisons. Maria and James Becket were also closely involved with networks of clandestine resistance to the regime of the “colonels”, and organised the escape of political prisoners.
MS. 23105/77. Stamps discouraging tourism in Greece during the military regime period, 1968.
When the junta regime fell and Cyprus was invaded by Turkey in August 1974, Maria Becket organised Radio Free Cyprus to broadcast messages from Cyprus’s deposed leader Archbishop Makarios. Maria was also involved in the placement of Greek-Cypriot refugee children in foster care, and organised a programme for displaced Greek-Cypriot women to produce embroidery items for sale. She was offered the position of Greek Ambassador to the USA in 1974 but turned this down.
MS. 23105/130. Doll wearing Cypriot national costume made by Greek-Cypriot refugees from a group organised by Maria Becket, c.1974.
Maria Becket had a lifelong involvement with Palestine, and had connections to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). She attended PLO training camps in the Greek junta period, and her involvement is documented in the archive. The Beckets also had much wider interests in resistance movements and human rights issues all over the world.
Maria worked as an advisor for the Greek centre-right New Democracy party under Constantine Karamanlis from 1976-1981, and during later election campaigns. She also worked for UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and also became involved in his environmental work.
This work inspired her to begin Religion, Science and the Environment (RSE) in conjunction with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church, also known as the Green Patriarch. RSE organised eight floating symposia between 1995 and 2009, in which religious leaders and prominent scientists travelled on epic voyages across seas and rivers through multiple countries, giving a programme of talks addressing the environmental crises in the visited regions. The symposia included journeys on the Aegean Sea, the Arctic Ocean, the River Amazon and the Mississippi.
Maria died in 2012, but in her last years recorded autobiographical interviews which describe her extraordinary life.
The archive includes testimonies and collected information on political prisoners and refugees; planning material on resistance activities; political correspondence; papers on human rights, politics and the environment; photographs relating to political and environmental work; political pamphlets, magazines and ephemera; papers on the organisation of international meetings and symposia; personal correspondence and autobiographical material; and audio-visual and digital material.
The Archive of John le Carré (David Cornwell) has been further expanded to include an extensive array of the author’s literary papers, personal and professional correspondence, photographs, interviews and articles, and an assortment of personal and family papers. The updated archive (see catalogue here: Collection: Archive of John le Carré (David Cornwell) | Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts), available now to readers at the Weston Library, contains over 1,200 boxes of material spanning Cornwell’s entire life and career, from childhood photographs and letters written during his time as a student at Lincoln College, Oxford, to correspondence and book drafts penned in the last few weeks of his life. The archive is a brilliant resource not only for fans of John le Carré and his internationally renowned novels and adaptations, but for researchers interested in British novelists, 20th and 21st century literature, or the spy genre in particular.
Supplementing the hundreds of boxes of Cornwell’s literary papers already in the archive, the newly released material offers an insight into Cornwell’s life as a whole, including and beyond his career as John le Carré. Key moments and experiences throughout his early adulthood, for instance, are represented in detailed correspondence with his first wife Ann and his tutor, mentor and friend Vivian Green (later cited as an important inspiration for the character of George Smiley). These letters provide a window into Cornwell’s student years, his complicated relationships with both his father and new wife, his early jobs as a teacher, aspiring illustrator and – of course – intelligence officer, as well as his first ventures into writing. The hundreds of letters Cornwell wrote to Ann during their relationship in the 1950s and 1960s were often highly personal and detailed, and frequently featured small sketches, as in this letter sent in April 1954 (MS. le Carré 929, folder 2). Further illustrations are scattered throughout the archive: in correspondence with friends and family, decorating novel drafts, and offered as donations to various charities.
Cornwell’s correspondence makes up a significant portion of the archive: letters to and from family, friends, colleagues and fans offer a unique insight into his professional experiences, personal thoughts, and sometimes variable relationships. The vast majority of this correspondence is handwritten, a lifelong preference touched upon in this ‘User’s Manual’ written by Cornwell when joining Penguin in 2009 (MS. le Carré 973, folder 2). He explains, ‘I write all my books by hand. I barely type, but can do one-finger e-mail. Jane & no-one else retypes my handwriting endlessly for me, & is my companion in all literary & professional matters’. As well as reflecting the distinctive way in which Cornwell wrote, this document highlights the essential role played by his second wife Jane, former publicist and foreign rights manager for Hodder & Stoughton. Cornwell goes on to write ‘her word is my word, & usually she’s better at it than I am. So when you get Jane, you are not getting second best, you are getting The One.’ This vital influence is evident throughout the archive, whether in Jane’s annotations across countless novel and letter drafts, the endless manuscripts she was responsible for typing, or David’s notes on almost every document asking ‘Oy’ (her nickname) to make x amendment, contact y person, or decline z invitation. This valuable collaboration is further explored by Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian, in his article reflecting on the acquisition of the archive.
The archive includes correspondence with prominent authors, activists and politicians, as well as numerous actors, directors, producers and screenwriters involved in the many successful adaptations of Cornwell’s work. Perhaps most notable among these actors is Sir Alec Guinness, lauded for his portrayal of George Smiley in the 1979 and 1982 television adaptations of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley’s People. Amongst a box of correspondence sent between the two from 1978 until Guinness’s death in 2000 are some brilliant letters discussing the prospect of Guinness playing Smiley in the very first television adaptation of a le Carré novel. In response to several pages from Guinness listing concerns regarding his suitability for the role, Cornwell sent this reassuring letter dispelling each one in turn (MS. le Carré 925, folder 1). As well as writing ‘no, you are not rotund or double chinned, though I think I have seen you in rôles where you have, almost as an act of will, acquired a sort of cherubic look!’, he assures Guinness that ‘apart from plumpness, you have all the other physical qualities: a mildness of manner, stretched taut, when you wish it, by an unearthly stillness and an electrifying watchfulness. In the best sense, you are uncomfortable company, as I suspect Smiley is’. This letter evidently had the desired effect: Guinness’s Smiley was an instant success and is still celebrated today. The archive highlights Cornwell’s frequent such involvement in adaptations of his works, assisting casting, script writing, and even appearing in several on-screen cameos.
Understandably, papers specifically relating to Cornwell’s literary works, including manuscript and typescript drafts, lists of edits and corrections, and correspondence with researchers and translators, comprise the majority of the collection. The character and timeline notes for A Perfect Spy pictured below are a classic example of the hundreds of novel notes and drafts in the archive: handwritten, with large chunks completely crossed out, and additions and edits, often in different coloured pens, dotted throughout (MS. le Carré 607, folder 2). Such notes and drafts would often be written in small notebooks, especially during Cornwell’s many research trips, or on pretty much any paper he had to hand, even the endpapers of whichever book he happened to be reading when inspiration struck. This particular example, written on standard A4 paper, sees Cornwell formulating the central characters in A Perfect Spy, father and son Rick and Magnus Pym, a duo based strongly upon the relationship between Cornwell and his own father, Ronnie. The notes refer to ‘Rick’s rachmannism [sic]’, showing obvious parallels even in the book’s early conception to Cornwell’s property dealer father, jailed for fraud and declared bankrupt multiple times.
The archive also extends beyond paper documents, including a great collection of photographs and press cuttings. In addition to the photo at the top of this blog post (MS. le Carré 1196, folder 3), the archive contains portraits of Cornwell taken throughout his life, as well as black and white family photos reaching back generations and photos with his Foreign Office colleagues in the 1960s. The impressive collection of press cuttings, dating from Cornwell’s debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961, also helps to put his work into a wider context. The scrapbook pictured below is filled with press cuttings relating to Cornwell’s first three novels, providing a glimpse into the beginning of his literary career and especially the sudden global success brought by his third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (MS. le Carré 1203, folder 1). Quotes from these cuttings, including ‘the spies are not playing Bond-like games: they operate nastily, unspectacularly and with real determination’ and ‘if it is not the best spy yarn I have read, it is certainly the finest anti-spy story’, illustrate the excitement surrounding this completely new style of spy novel.
This collection comprises material collected by Seckersen for a dictionary of medical eponyms. The dictionary was never published. It also includes a set of glass negatives of portraits of those whose names have been used as an eponym.
Francis Wrigley Hirst (1873-1953) was a journalist who wrote for numerous publications, including The Speaker, The Manchester Guardian,The Tribune, and The Nation. He was chief editor of The Economist from 1907 until 1916. Due to his outspoken campaigning during wartime, where he published numerous pieces against conscription, on irresponsible war finance, and on the threat the war posed to civil liberties, he was forced to resign. In 1916, he set up his own paper, Common Sense, which was devoted to a negotiated peace, retrenchment, and the economy. In 1921, Common Sense was discontinued, and as Hirst’s influence within liberalism waned, he drew his attention to giving lectures in South Africa, Austria, and widely in the United States. Hirst unsuccessfully stood for Parliament as a Liberal in 1910 and 1929, and in June 1936 he was elected to serve on the Liberal Party Council. Hirst wrote extensively about Adam Smith, William Ewart Gladstone, and John Morley. He died in 1953 of influenza, and a book titled F.W. Hirst By his Friends was published in his remembrance in 1958.
The archive comprises diaries, working and personal correspondence, literary and political papers, and press cuttings both by and of Francis W. Hirst.
Terence Osborn Ranger (1929-2015) was a historian of African history. While working at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, he was horrified by the colour bar and, alongside his wife, became active in politics both inside and outside of the university. He was denied citizenship, possibly due to his political associations, and was declared a prohibited immigrant in 1963. He began working at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in the pioneering African history department. During his time at Dar es Salaam, he wrote several books, including Revolt in Southern Rhodesia, 1896–7 (1967) and Dance and Society in Eastern Africa, 1890–1970 (1975). In 1969 he moved to the University of California at Los Angeles as a professor and then in 1974 he moved to the University of Manchester as chair of modern history. During his time at Manchester, he began to introduce African history into the curriculum. Ranger was the Rhodes chair of race relations and a fellow at St Antony’s, Oxford, from 1987 until his retirement in 1997. He returned to Zimbabwe to teach at the University of Zimbabwe as a visiting professor (1998-2001) and spent time researching for his book Bulawayo Burning: The Social History of a Southern African City, 1893–1960 (2010).
The archive comprises working papers and correspondence, including material related to: academic appointments, research on African politics and history, and societies Ranger was associated with.
Thomas Lionel Hodgkin (1910-1982) was a historian of African history. He spent time in Palestine, in a cadetship in the Palestine civil service, which made him very aware of the nature of Western and British imperialism. After he resigned, he wanted to stay to observe the aftermath of the April 1936 Arab uprising but was made to leave by the British administration. He returned to Britain in 1936 and joined the London Library and the Communist Party. He met his wife, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin, in 1937 when she was in London to photograph insulin at the Royal Institute.
He worked for the Workers’ Educational Association in north Staffordshire and, in September 1945, he became secretary of the Oxford University delegacy for extra-mural studies which took him to the Gold Coast and Nigeria in 1947. This began his interest in African history, and he wrote for West Africa on the background to African nationalism. After leaving the delegacy in 1952, he travelled extensively in Africa. He published his book Nationalism in Colonial Africa in 1956, before turning to the subject of Islam in Africa. He worked in several universities in America and Canada, and became director of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana in 1962. He became a senior research fellow at Balliol College, Oxford, and lecturer in the government of new states in 1965, where he supervised students from many countries. He published several books during his life, including Perspectives (1960), African Political Parties (1961), and Vietnam: The Revolutionary Path (1981). He also wrote an unpublished novel titled ‘Qwert’.
The archive comprises: Academic papers, including lecture notes and papers on African history; correspondence, including from his family and wife, D.M.C. Hodgkin; literary papers including unpublished novels; and personal papers.
Tatchell is best known for his LGBTQ rights advocacy. He was born in Melbourne, Australia, and emigrated to London in 1972, where he quickly became involved with the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). In 1973 he was the GLF’s delegate to the World Festival of Youth and Students in East Berlin, where he distributed leaflets in support of gay liberation inside the German Democratic Republic. In 1986 Tatchell published a pioneering self-help book, AIDS: A Guide to Survival [find in the SOLO catalogue] and was a founding member of the UK AIDS Vigil Organisation and the UK chapter of ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power).
In 2011, OutRage! ceased operations and Tatchell founded The Peter Tatchell Foundation, a non-profit whose work seeks to promote and protect human rights in the UK and internationally.
In addition to his campaign work, Tatchell fought a number of parliamentary campaigns. In 1983 he ran as the Labour Party’s candidate in the Bermondsey constituency by-election, in 2000 he was an independent candidate for the Greater London Assembly, and in 2007 he was the Green Party’s candidate for Oxford East.
The archive mainly comprises Tatchell’s working papers for his protest and political campaigns, including research materials and protest ephemera (including a set of photographs of OutRage! protests by Steve Mayes), as well as papers relating to Tatchell’s journalism and travel writing. The catalogue is a first edition and additional protest ephemera and objects will be added following conservation work.
Colin Ford, born 13 May 1934, is a curator and historian of photography. He was Keeper of Film and Photography at the National Portrait Gallery (1972-1981), the first director of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television (1982-1993), and Director of the National Museums and Galleries of Wales (1993-1998).
Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) was a 19th century photographer, whose portraits include Charles Darwin, Sir John Herschel and Alice Liddell. She took up photography later in life, having been gifted a camera by her children in around 1863. Despite only creating works for 12 years, she produced over 900 photographs and is considered an important portraitist of the 19th century.
The archive comprises papers, correspondence and photographs mostly relating to Julia Margaret Cameron: The Complete Photographs. The collection includes correspondence relating to Julia Margaret Cameron dating from 1974, and also includes sketchbooks of Herschel Hay Cameron, Adeline Cameron, Harding Hay Cameron, and an 1895 photo album.
