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FROM THE ARCHIVES LOUISE PIFFERO
FROM THE ARCHIVES
BY LOUISE PIFFERO ARCHIVIST
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Louise Piffero joined the RGS in June 2021 as our new Archivist. Louise has had a varied career so far, which has included working with Benjamin Britten’s music manuscripts at the Britten-Pears Foundation, and a role supporting archive services across the country at The National Archives in Kew. Her most recent post was a major project to catalogue medical collections at Leeds University Library Special Collections.
My first few months at RGS have been fantastic and I’ve felt instantly welcomed into school life. It is my first time working in a school, so I’ve had a lot to learn! The archives are full of treasures and I’ve been energised by the many opportunities to bring these stories to life for ONs, staff and students.
When researching material in the archive relating to the Economics Department I found we don’t hold a huge amount, but there are certainly a few gems to share.
An excellent resource we hold are past issues of The Novocastrian student magazine, dating back to 1885. The majority have been digitised and are available to browse and search on our archives website (see link below). The Novo has proved to be a vital record for news of the Economics Society, Economics trips and visits, as well as valete articles for staff.
Extract from NOVO, 1984
In the 1984 issue [Vol. 91, Issue 2], you can find out about the Upper 6th Economics Competition “Running the British Economy 1984”. It was organised through Williams and Glyn’s Bank and involved running a computer model of the British Economy –the RGS team gained third place. I would love to know if any ONs have memories of taking part.
I was also thrilled to read how our first ever Head of Economics, Roger Hennessey (Staff 62-73), was instrumental in managing the school archive during his time here [Vol. 80, Issue 3, 1973]. We hold two of Roger Hennessey’s books, Factories (1969), and Railways (1973) –the latter copy he signed and presented to the Library.
Professor Stanley R Dennison
We hold a few items relating to the Economist Professor Stanley R Dennison CBE, RGS Chair of Governors between 1969 and 1987. Dennison was the third Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hull, and during the Second World War he was Economic Adviser in the War Cabinet Secretariat. We have a beautifully presented scrapbook which was likely presented to Dennison on his retirement as Chair in 1987.
Finally, a photograph album survives of the RGS Economics Tour of Denmark, 1978. It included visits to the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory, the Tulip bacon factory and the Carlsberg factory. If any readers are able to identify individuals in the photograph from the trip, please do get in touch.
