Chairman's Statement 2007-2008

The Chairman's Year 2007-2008

Members, let me begin by setting out the changes to our Executive Committee. Stepping down are Jane Waller and Alex Ritchie. Jane, Archivist at The Baring Archive, has decided to take a midcareer break. In recent years she has most enthusiastically supported our newsletter and website work. Alex Ritchie has served the Council for a considerable time, first as a survey officer, then while working for the Historical Manuscripts Commission, and latterly at The National Archive. My sincere thanks to them both. I should now like to introduce their successors on the Executive. Moira Lovegrove has been an archivist of The Baring Archive since 2000, and is reviews editor for Principles and Practice. Richard Wiltshire joined the LMA in 2002. He is currently Senior Archivist for Business Archives held by the City of London Corporation. Based at the Guildhall Library he has cross-site responsibilities for business records at the Guildhall and LMA. We are delighted that they are on board.

The year 2007-8 has been an exciting time in the Council’s history. The work done on the development of a strategy for the business archives sector has been a principal concern. The work started by Robert Brown has been most effectively completed by Katey Logan. This is now in the final stages of production, after extensive consultation, and I hope you have all taken the opportunity to contribute to the shaping of it. The strategy lays down the steps we can take towards making business archives better managed, better reserved and better understood, and I look forward to your continuing support over the coming years as we work towards implementing the recommendations of the strategy.

The Council also continued to raise the profile of the business archives sector with key decision makers. We were invited to join the All Party Parliamentary Group on Archives and one of the deputy chairs of the Council, Sara Kinsey, attended the inaugural meeting of this group at the House of Lords in the summer – where the importance of business archives was mentioned by many of the speakers.

We also played a leading role in a ‘Meet the Archivists’ session for graduate students held at The Baring Archive in November 2007. Executive members Peter Scott and Valerie Johnson gave papers, a number of our corporate members gave presentations, and the event was chaired by Mike Anson.

Your Council has also continued its core activities:

Publications: Journal, Newsletter, Web

Business Archives number 93 (Principles and Practice), edited by Valerie Johnson, was an instructive and insightful issue. It contained important contributions from Judy Faraday on the promotion of business archives in the private sector and Victoria Rea on the state of in-house archives, identifying opportunities for collaboration and partnership. There were also articles on the performance history of the Royal Shakespeare Company, HSBC’s regional archive in the Asia Pacific region, and BP’s R&D archive. Number 94 (Sources and History), edited by Mike Anson, was equally impressive. It contained a provocative piece by John Quail on the survival prospects of the archives of our largest companies – John is talking at our conference - and by Bridget Williams, one of our bursary winners, on the value of Sainsbury’s sales data as a guide source for food retailing trends. There were also pieces on shipbuilding, coal, and a diverting article on the ‘Mr Micawber of Gas’. Bibliographic contributions to our journal were generously provided by Emma Stagg, Richard Hawkins and Mike Anson. Jane Waller’s four Newsletters continued to inform. Jane has now stepped down as our editor. Our sincere thanks to her for all the work she has done on the Council’s behalf. She is succeeded by Alan Gall, managing director of SDA Electronics Ltd and part-time archivist for the Institute of Science and Technology. The Council’s website was further enhanced, thanks to the work of Claire Twinn, and I should like to draw your attention to the ‘Hidden Assets’ section which promotes the professional management of archives. I am also delighted to report that Jane’s work in overseeing the website will be continued by a new member of the Executive, Moira Lovegrove. Once again, I record my sincere thanks on your behalf to everyone concerned in these ventures.

Conference 2007

On 13 November 2007 we held another successful conference, which was generously hosted by Barclays at its Canary Wharf HQ. The theme was ‘Initiatives and Innovation: Business Archives Today and Tomorrow’. Richard Coopey from Aberystwyth University gave a keynote address on the archival challenges of pursuing research on the popular music industry, and there were papers on Barclays’ use of a corporate exhibition in outreach to local communities (Maria Sienkiewicz), the rescue of the important Equitable Life archive (David Rayment), and the MLA’s designation scheme (Yvette Burrows). In the afternoon we heard from Kate Murphy on her research into the role of women in the BBC, Cheryl Bailey on her work in documenting the Black Country’s role as Workshop of the World, and from Steve Capes and his colleagues on their enthusiastic approach to community archives in Cambridgeshire. The conference concluded with an innovative and lively open forum, supported by an on-the-spot SWOT analysis, the results of which where used to guide our development of the archive strategy. The event was once again conceived by Judy Faraday. The conference was supported by our hosts, Barclays, and thanks to Maria Sienkiewicz and her team for ensuring its efficient organisation.

Wadsworth Prize 2007

The Wadsworth prize reception was held at the Museum of London Docklands immediately after our conference. Our thanks to Judy Faraday for organising a very successful event. The 2007 prize, awarded to a book published in 2006, was won by me (I am somewhat embarrassed to report). Perhaps I should state here that the judges function entirely separately from the Council. I received the prize from Peter Mathias, one of our stalwart vicepresidents, for my book, The Official History of Britain and the Channel Tunnel, which was published by Routledge.

Bursary 2007

After another competitive round of judging, I am delighted to announce that our 2007 Bursary was won by Drew Keeling, from the University of Zurich. Drew has been using the bursary to research ‘Passenger fares of the Cunard Line and the business of mass migration across the North Atlantic’. A paper based on the research will be appearing in Business Archives. My thanks to Peter Scott, and to all our judges for the Wadsworth and Bursary awards, for their work in identifying our worthy winners.

Finally, I announce a major change in our line-up. Our President, Sam Twining, is stepping down after 40 years of much-valued support and encouragement. He joined the Executive Committee in 1968, became Chairman in 1972, and succeeded Peter Mathias as President in 1994. I am sure you would want me to thank him for all he has done for us in what has been an exceptional level of continued support. I am delighted to say that he has agreed to be nominated as a Vice-President. It is also my pleasure to introduce his successor, Sir Geoffrey Owen. Sir Geoffrey had a distinguished period at the Financial Times, and has enjoyed a second career at the LSE. He is a Senior Fellow in the Department of Mangement, was from 1991 to 1996 Director of Business Policy in the Centre for Economic Performance, and has contributed the impressive textbook, From Empire to Europe: The Decline and Revival of British Industry since the Second World War. He is currently working on a modern history of Courtaulds. Welcome to the Council, Sir Geoffrey!

And I must finish by thanking our hosts at the Wellcome for their generosity in hosting our AGM.

Terry Gourvish

Chairman

12 November 2008

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