wellington college yearbook 19/20
Tales from the Archive I have now had the privilege of being the Wellington College Archivist for four years, and I am loving my work and the College more all the time. It has taken a while for me to find my feet, and for Wellington to start making use of what I can offer, but gradually the opportunities for me to engage with students, staff, parents, OWs and all members of the College community have grown and grown. My first foray into public engagement was to offer talks on various aspects of Wellington’s history, illustrated by documents and objects from our collections. I’m fortunate to be part of the College’s Community team, who have given me a termly ‘slot’ in their busy programme. My talks take place at lunchtime on Saturdays and are free and open to all. So far I’ve covered an array of topics, drawing on resources such as College account books, sanatorium records, dormitory record books or ‘Fasti’, and the records of cross-country running and the Debating Society. These talks generally follow a morning tour of the College’s historical central buildings, meaning that visitors can attend a full ‘Heritage Day’ with complimentary lunch in between if they wish. Some tours are led by me, others by individuals with notable knowledge of the College’s history. I’m also delighted that I have recently been able to offer historical tours to College staff. I
recognise that not everyone who works at Wellington will have an interest in its history, but I feel passionately that those who would like to learn more should have the opportunity to do so. So far there has been considerable interest from a wide range of College employees including administrative, domestic and estates staff. Finding relevant archive material to support history teaching at College has been an interesting challenge. A couple of years ago, a group of Sixth Formers made a study of some of our First World War sources, while last Autumn, teacher Tristan Macleod and I put a lot of effort into compiling a large electronic resource about Wellington during the Second World War. Consisting of many digitised documents from the time, including extracts from all the House and Dormitory records, this resource vividly illustrates aspects of the College response to the War, such as air raid precautions, the Local Defence Volunteer unit, and the drudgery of landwork.
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