Chairman's Statement 2006-2007

The Chairman's Year 2006-2007

In welcoming you to the Council’s AGM for the year 2006-7, I should like to report on another year of solid achievement for the Council. One of the key initiatives we have been involved in has been the work of the Business Records Development Officer. In the first year Robert Brown worked on the development of a strategy for business archives from his TNA base, as well as keeping us abreast of rescue issues. He has now moved to a permanent post as archivist for Faber and Faber and we are in the middle of the recruitment process for a new Officer to continue his work. Members of the Council have been supportive of the work of the BRDO – talking to Robert during the year and answering the questionnaire that he sent round and we thank you for that support. We would like you to stay involved during the refining stage of the strategy because this is where you get to have your say. Consultation, both within and from outside the sector, will be a key feature of the next phase and you will be able to contribute your own thoughts and opinions to feed into the strategy.

The Council has also turned its attention, in common with other charities, to the issue of risk management. During the year we have made a start by conducting a risk assessment, which will becoming a continuing process. Following the detailed guidelines from the Charity Commission, potential risks have been categorised as governance, operational, financial, external and law & regulation compliance risks. An impact and likelihood assessment has been made. Initial work has identified the loss of the membership database as a substantial risk, and steps have been taken to store a number of back-ups at different locations.

Publications: Journal, Newsletter, Web

In Business Archives we had two substantial issues in 2006/7. Volume 91 (Principles and Practice), edited by Valerie Johnson, contained contributions on the business records of the Black Country, and the archives of the Ionian Bank, held at LSE, and being used by a number of scholars, notably Phil Cottrell, the commissioned historian of the Bank. There were also pieces on the Bank of England archives; business archives in Japan; Michael Moss’s provocative lecture, given at the 2005 conference, on ‘the archives of business and the business of archives’; and the invaluable archive bibliography compiled by Emma Stagg. Volume 92 (Sources and History), edited by Mike Anson, contained articles on Victorian businesswomen, J & P Coats, the RAC and two contributions using the Bank of England archive, including another contribution from one of our bursary winners, Hiroki Shin, on the Bank of England’s note issue outside London, 1797-1821. The issue also included the extremely useful bibliography of business history, compiled by Richard Hawkins, and the list of business records deposited. Jane Waller’s four Newsletters kept members up to date on our activities, and on news elsewhere. The Council’s website has been enhanced and the content significantly added to by Barbra Ruperto. Once again, I record my sincere thanks on your behalf to everyone concerned in these activities.

Conference 2006

On 17 November 2006 our annual conference was held in association with the Business Archives Council of Scotland, the Business Records Group of the Society of Archivists, and the business & labour archives section of the International Council on Archives. The event was hosted by the Royal Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh and had the theme ‘managing business archives: a global perspective’. I was alas unable to attend the conference, which was organised by Alison Turton and, I am reliably informed, was a great success, with an impressive international dimension to the papers delivered.

Wadsworth Prize Reception 2006

The Wadsworth prize reception was held at Barclays immediately after our last AGM. Our thanks to Maria Sienkiewicz and Patrick Gonsalvez for hosting such a successful and enjoyable event. The prize for 2005 went to Professor Geoffrey Jones of Harvard Business School, for his book Renewing Unilever: Transformation and Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2005). The award was presented to Dr Peter Miskell, one of the project’s researchers, on Professor Jones’s behalf, by our President, Sam Twining, and John Orbell, a member of the Prize panel.

Bursary 2006

Following successful awards to Stephan Schwarzkopf and Hiroki Shin, I am delighted to announce that we have another worthy winner, after a competitive round of judging. Ms Bridget Williams from Reading University won the 2006 bursary. She will use the funding to support her PhD research on the history of self-service retailing, focussing in particular on Sainsbury’s sales data and the pioneering efforts in self-service retailing of the Portsea Island Mutual Co-operative Society. Bridget was Sainsbury Group archivist and historian, and has been a loyal supporter of the Council; we wish her all the best with her endeavours.

My thanks to Peter Scott, and our judges for the Wadsworth and Bursary awards, for their work in identifying our worthy winners.

The Future

While our activities have been again successful, there is no room for complacency in the business archives world. The funding difficulties revealed by the British Library, the impending closure of the Family Records Centre in Myddleton Street, which raises the issue of physical vs. electronic access, and the recent spate of corporate mergers and acquisitions, some of which will remove some of the UK’s longest-established companies, all make it abundantly clear that collections are never entirely safe and require vigilance to safeguard their preservation and use. We will all have much to do on this front in the forthcoming year.

On a happier note, may I express the hope that the continuing work on the National Strategy, and the involvement of the Council in initiatives like the recent Archives Summit at the House of Commons, will do much to bring the value of business archives to the attention of both the business world and the wider community.

I should like to thank the archivists and historians who have generously supported Alex Apostolides’s idea for a one-day conference called ‘Meet the Archivists’. This event will introduce new postgraduates to the wealth of business records that are accessible to scholars. It will take place on 27 November courtesy of the Baring Archive at ING Bank. Thanks to all who have been concerned in making this initiative happen.

May I conclude by thanking our hosts at Barclays for their generosity in hosting our AGM and Conference this year, and the Sainsbury Study Centre at the Museum in Docklands, for generously agreeing to host our Wadsworth Prize reception for 2007.

Terry Gourvish

Chairman

13 November 2007