Age of Revolution in the Archives

Over the next couple of weeks level one students undertaking the Age of Revolution module on the University’s History Programme will be carrying out a source based exercise which uses material from our collections relating to Dundee in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including maps and an extract from a Dundee Directory. This assessment encourages students to think about primary sources as well as some of the broader issues relating to the impact the industrial revolution had on Dundee, Scotland and the rest of Britain.

In previous years many students undertaking this and similar exercises have come to the archives to enhance their work by making use of the many other sources we have relating to life in Dundee at this time, and we anticipate many of this year’s cohort will visit us again in the next few days. Some of the collections students have made use of in the past include:

MS 11 Baxter Brothers & Co Ltd. The Baxters operated one of Dundee's major textile works. Their extensive archives include many records relating to the business as well as an account of the early days of flax spinning in Dundee written by Charles Mackie, 'an old mill manager'.
MS 17 The Thornton Collection  and MS 105 The Shiell and Small Collection These collections includes material relating to the coming of the railways to Dundee as well as several plans of Dundee and its buildings

MS 102 The Peter Carmichael of Arthurstone Collection. There are many fascinating items to be found in the papers of one of Scotland’s great factory managers and engineers including photographs of Dundee in the nineteenth century, personal correspondence and an excellent autobiographical account of life and trade in the city.

MS 134 Working Class Life in Dundee for Twenty Five Years, 1878-1903  This study by Dr David Lennox includes much material relating to the late eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century as background to its arguments on the main period it covers.

THB 1 The Dundee Royal Infirmary Collection has a wide range of useful information on life in Dundee at this time including reports of the work of the hospital and disease in Dundee, patient admission registers and directors minutes. These records provide insight into a range of subjects including health, immigration and working patterns.

KLoc The Kinnear Local Book Collection has a number of rare histories of Dundee as well as publications produced in this period such as the Dundee Directories,  and the Rev. George Lewis's ‘A course of lectures on the physical, educational and moral statistics of Dundee delivered in the Watt Institution Hall in December 1840’

The archives also have many other collections which contain material relevant to students of the Industrial Revolution as can be seen from our On-line Catalogue (http://134.36.1.31/) and our source lists and subject indexes (http://www.dundee.ac.uk/archives/sourcetop.htm). In addition we hold copies of most of a number of useful texts on the history of Dundee in the industrial period which are available for consultation in the search room. These include:

L. Miskell, C. Whatley & B. Harris (eds) Victorian Dundee Image and Realities 2^nd Edition  (Dundee, 2011)
C. McKean, P. Whatley with K. Baxter Lost Dundee (Edinburgh, 2008)
D. Swinfen, A. Smith and C. Whatley The Life and Times of Dundee (Edinburgh, 1993)
C. McKean, Dundee: An Illustrated Architectural Introduction/Guide (Edinburgh, 1984 & 1993)
C. Mckean, C. Whatley and B Harris (Eds) Dundee 1500-1800 Renaissance Burgh to Enlightenment Town (Dundee, 2009)

Dr Kenneth Baxter 

International Archives Day

Wednesday 9^th of June was International Archives Day.

The day celebrates the international role and importance of archives and it seemed appropriate to reflect on the collections held at Dundee University which have international significance. About 10 % of the material in the archives relates to the Indian subcontinent. Dundee was once a major centre of jute manufacture which resulted in the link between the city and West Bengal, where jute is grown. Dundee companies set up several jute mills in the Kolkata area and sent many Scots to the area to provide managerial and technical expertise. The records that have survived, and that are now in the University Archives, particularly the annual managers’ reports, the correspondence and the photographs, offer a unique insight into the development of the industry in India and of the dramatic changes in Indian society as the country moved from colonialism towards independence. Researchers from a variety of countries including India, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States have come to Dundee to consult these documents.

The photographs of Michael Peto have attracted a great deal of interest across the world. The Beatles, Nelson Mandela, C.S. Lewis, Rudolf Nureyev, Jawaharlal Nehru and Nikita Khrushchev are just a fraction of the myriad of famous names from politics, the performing arts, literature and music captured by Peto’s lens. We have sent copies of the photographs showing Nelson Mandela during his 1962 visit to London to Mandela himself, and Peto’s images of C.S.Lewis have been used for a number of publications across the world, including reprints of Lewis’s books in South Korea, Sweden and the United States. Last year the National Costume Centre in France used some of Peto’s dramatic photographs of Nureyev for a major exhibition, while photographs of a young Ian McKellen performing Edward II can be found on the actor’s own American-based website.

Some of our collections originated abroad, thus explaining their international links. An example is the series of drawings depicting scenes from the American Civil War which were at one time in the possession of a soldier from the New York Infantry who fought in the war. We also have a collection, mainly of photographs, relating to the life and work of a family of medical missionaries in Tiberias. The Sea of Galilee Medical Mission was initially established when the area was under Ottoman control, and the involvement of the Torrance family continued through the British Mandate and into the early years of the State of Israel. The Torrances were keen photographers and apart from typical ‘Holy Land’ images the collection contains photographs of the hospital staff and of patients, as well as of local Arabs and Jews going about their daily business. Many of the images of the patients show medical conditions that are often quite harrowing.

Sometimes the international connection is not so obvious. Our Glasite and Sandemanian collection is an example of this. When the Presbyterian clergyman John Glas was deposed as minister of the Tealing church in the early 18th century almost all of his congregation continued to support him and eventually formed a separate church. This became known as the Glasite church and congregations were formed throughout Scotland. His son-in-law, Robert Sandeman, established what became known as Sandemanian churches in England and eventually across the Atlantic in Connecticut. The most famous member of the Sandemanian church was the scientist Michael Faraday. Although the church no longer exists some American churches trace their descent from the Glasite church and in recent years academic researchers have come here from places such as Oklahoma and California just to consult the collection. The image below is of an 18^th century letter from the New England Sandemanians.

Other records in the Archives cover Caribbean pirates, Polish officers, American POWs, Hitler Youth, and the first black heavyweight boxing champion of the world. Dundee may be a relatively small city but over the past centuries its history has been linked to so many places across the world that its importance can be measured on a global scale.

Archive Staff Recommend: Minutes of the Dundee Power Loom Tenters Society

This is the first of our Archive Staff Recommend features which will showcase items from the collections that we find interesting or striking. We hope that you enjoy them too.

The Dundee Power Loom Tenters Society Minute Book (MS 65) is a very interesting item for many reasons. Firstly, the item provides very detailed records of a Dundee based textile trade union from a time when the textile industry was still at the centre of Dundee’s economic life. Many records of Dundee workers have not survived and the vast majority of the surviving records of the textile industry in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries relate to the running of the mills rather than to those who worked in them.

Secondly, the book has a beautiful, hand-drawn frontispiece giving the dates the book covers. The inside cover of the book also features an attractive design bordered by a flower which records the date of the establishment of the society. These must have taken someone hours to create and were clearly drawn by a talented individual.

Finally, this is an item with an interesting history. After the demise of the Society it is believed that for much of the twentieth century it remained in Dundee in private hands, but at some point it seems to have been disposed of, possibly after its owner died. The volume was eventually sold at an antiques fair in England where it was bought by a book dealer who had planned to sell it via an online auction. Thankfully it was noticed by a member of ARMMS staff and the seller was persuaded to withdraw it and entered negotiations which saw the item return to Dundee in 2006.

However, it is understood that at least one other minute book belonging to the society survived and left Dundee at the same time as its brother. If anyone knows the fate or whereabouts of this book, or any other records relating to the Dundee Power Loom Tenters Society, ARMMS would be very interested to hear from you.

Written by Kenneth Baxter

Brian Cox's Jute Journey (reprise)

Last night BBC 2 showed the BBC Scotland programme, 'Brian Cox's Jute Journey', across the UK. The show looks at the jute industry in Dundee and the city's connections with India. Archive Services at the University of Dundee has the world's finest collection of records pertaining to the jute industry in the city and its relationship with the Indian subcontinent. Some of the key sections of our holdings relating to the textile industry in India are noted in this source list. More detailed information on our holdings is available via the online catalogue. The show is available again to view online via the BBC's iPlayer until Sunday 29 November.

When the programme first aired Michael wrote a post which discusses some of the links between the textile industries in Dundee and India and mentions an item from our collections used in the programme. As Michael points out in that post

Anyone is welcome to visit the archives to look these fascinating records. We are also interested in hearing from any Dundonians who spent time in India and who might have material relating to their time there. Please email archives@dundee.ac.uk.

We look forward to hearing from anyone interested in this important part of Dundee's history.

Brian Cox's Jute Journey

Some of the best used and most interesting records held by Archive Services are those that relate to India, in particular the area around Calcutta and in West Bengal. Dundee’s links with India are fairly well known – initially the city imported raw jute which was manufactured in factories in Dundee. Later production moved to India and managers from Dundee were employed to oversee the process. What is not so well known is that the records of these processes, of the trade between Dundee and India and of those employed in the factories in India are held by Archive Services. Details of living conditions, wages, and schemes to provide for the social and physical welfare of Indian and European workers are just some examples of the unique information we hold.

This week BBC Scotland broadcast a programme about the long connection between Dundee and West Bengal that developed as a result of the jute industry. Using the actor Brian Cox (who has featured in a number of Hollywood movies including the fist two Bourne films and X-Men 2) the programme provided insights into the historic reasons for the link between these two very different parts of the world.

During the programme Cox read from a facsimile of an item held here in the Archives - it was a page from the Colloquial Hindustani textbook used by the Scottish expatriates to learn Hindi and, as can be seen from this image, the phrases they were taught reveal much about attitudes towards the local Indian workforce.

The programme can still be seen on the BBC’s iPlayer until the 13th October 2009.

Our collections relating to Dundee's textile’s links with India are of particular historical importance and contain some of the best primary sources that have survived. They have attracted scholars from around the world, including the United States, India, Bangladesh, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Archive Services mounted an exhibition of this material to celebrate the visit of the Indian High Commissioner to the University which can be seen here.

Anyone is welcome to visit the archives to look these fascinating records. We are also interested in hearing from any Dundonians who spent time in India and who might have material relating to their time there. Please email archives@dundee.ac.uk.