Kew, Richmond
Surrey
TW9 4DU
Tuesday May 27th 2014
This was an
opportunistic rather than planned visit – Jo was away walking in France and
Mary doing her half-term duty, so a very wet bank Holiday Tuesday found Linda (and
Roger) finally accessing some papers from the Forties requested back in January.
The file – a bit of family history – was listed in the catalogue but as ‘Closed
until 2048’ which piqued our curiosity so we made a Freedom of Information request. This took several weeks and a bit of money
finally to give us access to a very thin Home Office file with a certain amount
of redacted detail...
Essentially we were
doing what many of the Archives’ other visitors were also intent on –
researching some family history, I mean. All I can say is that, having obtained
a readers ticket (free and valid for 3 years), booked a desk and got the file,
everyone else’s cardboard box or folder looked more interesting than mine.
Keeping Reading Room silent
is not one of my talents so we escaped to the café and excellent shop and the Keepers
Gallery, which could easily take up to an hour of your time. Basically it
showcases some of the TNA’s star exhibits and also explains the range of
material for which they are responsible plus a history of the archive itself.
TNA are very mindful of being accessible to as
wide an audience as possible so the keeper’s gallery is careful to display
items to interest women as well as more recent arrivals in the UK (by this I
mean more recent than the early record keeping of rolls and charters etc kept
in Westminster Abbey’s Chapter House and the Tower of London) ‘parchment to
podcast’ as they put it. The records were formalized as the Public Records
office in 1857, and they moved out to Kew, taking on the Historical Manuscripts
Commission also and the now defunct HMSO, to this excellent purpose built and landscaped
building in 1977, and it’s wearing well.
The displays show
some of their treasures –
Maps and diagrams – a
contemporary plan of Stalag Luft III from which the ‘Great Escape’ was planned and executed, with more interestingly
a photograph of the memorial to those escapees shot by the Germans. More photos
and biographies are given of 4 spies; four men four women. They have a ‘cipher
wheel’ from Elizabeth I’s reign though of course codes are much older than
that.
More relevant to
what’s happening today was a copy of the document signed by Edward Heath in
1972/3 to mark the UK’s entry into the European Community that after this week’s
European elections looks at its most
fragile? Similarly the Scots' defeat of the English at Bannockburn in 1314 is
another anniversary with contemporary relevance.
Interestingly the
horses lost in the Battle are all listed (compensation for contributing
horse-owners you understand) whereas 12 million African slaves transported
between 1500 and 1869 remain largely anonymous.
The whole approach to
counting and accounting (‘Tallies to Taxes’ ) is also documented with tally
sticks on display( the two halves need to ‘tally’) and a reminder that
Exchequer took its name from the chequered /cloth also used for calculations…counters
on squares.
The collection
contains a wealth of maps and plans – pictorial, aerial and historical and the
excellent shop will sell you reproductions of the early Ordnance Survey versions.
Photos also form part of the collection and interestingly items, other than
text, which have copyright such as textile, which was a neat link back to our
trip of earlier in the month to the fashion & Textile Museum.
Their most
famous/precious item is the Domesday Book; the original was not on display nor
was the interactive programme alert so if you want to know more, click here
With the steady
interest in family history/ service records and above all the centenary of the
outbreak of World War 1 the Archive itself will be busy fielding amateur and
professional historians.
I am not sure the
Keeper’s Gallery is a destination in its own right, but as part of the whole
experience of visiting TNA, or if you are in the area…it is well worth looking
at to see the original documents which
form part of the nation’s and your own history.
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