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.

During the Michaelmas term all new Third Formers made a study of these sources, and as a follow-up I was invited into many of the Houses to meet the Third Form students and show them physical examples of archive material. This has been a real highlight for me; there is nothing to rival seeing the students engage with the archives with such genuine interest and humour. They are fascinated by the juxtaposition of a period in time which seems remote to them, with familiar elements such as House names or other aspects of school life; and, with a little encouragement, are soon willing to have a shot at reading out the unfamiliar cursive handwriting of their forbears. In many ways I feel that these records belong to the students much more than to me, and so it’s only right that they should get to see them.

In December, Sixth Former Josh Hafner visited the Archive Store to interview me for Wellington’ own radio station, Dukebox. Since then I’ve been contributing fortnightly podcasts on aspects of Wellington’s history as diverse as the first girls at Wellington, students’ changing tastes in popular music, and the Picton’s complaints about food! I often choose topics connected to upcoming anniversaries or current events in the College’s year. For example, in March and April I had great fun researching the history of the Kingsleys, and of the ‘Athletic Sports’ which for many years were held in bitter cold during the Lent term. In the Summer term I am looking at the history of Speech Day, and of Wellington’s outdoor swimming pool. All my podcasts are available for anyone to listen, on the Dukebox website.

Exhibitions are another great way of introducing the school community to our wonderful collection. It has proved difficult to find suitable spaces for this within College, but I’ve mounted several temporary exhibitions in the Library and the V&A. Last year, for the first time, I created an exhibition for Speech Day, and was looking forward to doing so again. When Speech Day 2020 went ‘virtual’ due to the impact of coronavirus, my plans were put on hold, but I hope to revisit them next year, and to find a location which will enable more visitors to see the display.

Of course, these public-facing elements are by no means the whole of my role at Wellington. I’m also responsible for the herculean task of researching and cataloguing our unique collections, and for monitoring and improving the conditions in which they are kept. On top of this, I answer a wide range of enquiries from both within and outside the College community. Writing after two months of Covid-19-induced lockdown, I can report that there has been no let-up in the volume of these! Luckily, as many of our most-used resources have been digitised, I am able to answer most enquiries while working from home.

Life at Wellington never stands still, and there are more exciting developments in the pipeline, including projects to collect more OWs’ memories and to expand our online resources. I also hope that there will be more opportunities to engage with current students. Wellington’s story and our historical collections are so fascinating that it’s a privilege to be responsible for caring for them, and for sharing them with our community and beyond.

Article written by archivist Caroline Jones