eARMMS, March 2012

This is the latest edition of the ARMMS and CAIS newsletter, eARMMS, that we also post here. Let us know if you would like an email copy each month.

1. E-ARMMS first birthday
2. Centre for Environmental Change & Human Resilience (CECHR) Conversations
3. Human Race touring exhibition
4. CAIS study day
5. New Publication
6. Archive Enquiries
7. New Resource
8. Scottish Universities Special Collections and Archives group meeting
9. Managing electronic records / Public History
10. Archive Class
11. Economic & Social History Society of Scotland Spring conference

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1. E-ARMMS first birthday

Our E-ARMMS Newsletter turns one this month. We’ve really enjoyed putting the newsletter together over the last twelve months and hope you’ve enjoyed reading it. To date we’ve written 117 postings. These have covered all aspects of the work of the Archive, Records Management, Museum Services and CAIS departments, ranging from new acquisitions, to the delivery of presentations, major exhibitions and new CPD and Masters Courses. To have a browse through past editions please see, http://www.dundee.ac.uk/armms/e-armms_past.htm.

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2. Centre for Environmental Change & Human Resilience (CECHR) Conversations

The latest exhibition by Museum Services in the Lamb Gallery features work by Jean Duncan, artist-in-residence with CECHR, an interdisciplinary collaboration between the University of Dundee and the James Hutton Institute. As well as Jean's own artworks, the exhibition also features photographs, models and prints by some of the researchers that Jean has been working with at CECHR. The exhibition runs until 14th April.

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3. Human Race touring exhibition

Museum curator Matthew Jarron is on the management board of Scotland and Medicine, which has just launched its latest touring exhibition Human Race: Inside the Science of Sports Medicine. The exhibition has received funding from the Olympics Legacy Trust (one of only two museum projects in Scotland to do so) and is an official part of the Cultural Olympiad. The exhibition (which features several objects from the Tayside Medical History Museum's collections) has opened at the University of Stirling and will be coming to Dundee in September, showing in both the Lamb Gallery and the Institute of Sport and Exercise.

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4. CAIS study Day

On the 10th March CAIS held a Study Day in Berwick for 20 distance-learning family and local history students. Bringing together the expertise and knowledge of five CAIS tutors, students undertook a number of sessions on Local Government Records, Palaeography, Transcription and Analysis as well as group sessions on Police, School and Poor Relief Records.

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5. New Publication

The Abertay Historical Society launches its 52nd publication Dundee’s Two Intrepid Ladies: A Tour Round the World by D C Thomson’s Female Journalists in 1894, edited and introduced by Susan Keracher on 31st March. As part of the launch event, to be held at The McManus: Dundee's Art Gallery & Museum, Kenneth will be giving a short talk on Dundee women at that time. Other talks will be given by Murray Thomson, of D C Thomson & Co Ltd, and Dundee University Professor Jim Tomlinson. More details about this event may be obtained from Matthew Jarron, http://www.dundee.ac.uk/museum/contact_us/

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6. Archive Enquiries

As ever we have dealt with several telephone and e-mail enquiries in the past month. These have come from a variety of sources including academics, family historians, students, publishers, professionals and members of the University staff. These enquiries have covered a diverse range of topics including Dundonians working in India, the genealogy of the Baxter textile dynasty, the history of the University and the records of patients in Sunnyside Hospital.

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7. New Resource

Kenneth has recently compiled information relating to the Neish Family of Tannadice and Clepington. The Archive has a very interesting collection of scrapbooks belonging to the family (MS 160) which mainly contains items relating to British military campaigns from the late nineteenth century to the Great War. The Neish family had a strong military tradition and several members of the family held commissions in the Boer War and the Great War.

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8. Scottish Universities Special Collections and Archives group meeting

Pat and Caroline visited Aberdeen University Library Special Collections for a meeting of the Scottish Universities Special Collections and Archives Group. Part of the meeting included a tour of the new University Library, exhibition area and Special Collections department.

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9. Managing electronic records /Public History

Pat, Caroline and Alan visited the parliamentary archives based in the House of Lords in London. Part of the meeting focused on the management of electronic records, discussing tools and systems that might be suitable for use in managing the university’s digital archives. They also met Caroline Shenton, Clerk of the Records, to discuss a forthcoming Public History module for the Centre for Archive and Information Studies.

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10. Archive Class

Jennifer and Caroline hosted a class of twenty College of Education students last week as part of their programme of study. The students were fascinated by the Archive collections and were particularly interested in our asylum records, letters from First World War soldiers, and the Joseph Lee prisoner of war diaries. Further information about these records and our other collections can be found online at http://134.36.1.31/search/search-all.htm.

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11. Economic & Social History Society of Scotland Spring Conference

Pat, who is Convenor of the Society, attended the latest conference, held in Glasgow, which was on the subject: 'Scotland and the Indian Subcontinent'. Speakers included Professor Jim Tomlinson, University of Dundee, Dr Stana Nenadic, University of Edinburgh and Suchitra Choudhury, University of Glasgow. Following the conference delegates, speakers and chairs very appropriately met for a very good curry in Byres Road. For more information on the Society and to receive email updates on history events in Scotland email Development Officer, Dr Iain Hutchison, at iain@keapub.fsnet.co.uk.

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Dundee at War

From the Boer War to the First World War through the eyes of the Neish family of Tannadice and Clepington.

In our collections we have three large scrapbooks which have always been something of a mystery. At first sight they seem just to contain press cuttings but on closer inspection they also include telegrams and other ephemera covering the period 1896-1917. This was a period of national and international conflict and the volumes include material relating to British military campaigns during the second Boer War, the Boxer Rebellion and the First World War, as well as to the Russo-Japanese War and the Dogger Bank incident. Events of national importance, such as Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, are also mentioned.

Until recently the provenance of these items was obscure, all that was known about them was that they were seemingly compiled by a member or members of the family called Neish. Further research now suggests that these scrapbooks were put together by a close relative of William Neish of  Tannadice and Clepington, whose family were active in the military at this time and an influential family in Dundee. Key members in the family are described below: 

• William Neish (b c 1815): born in Dundee, became a well-known barrister in the city. Married Margaret Ann Watson and had nine children.
• George Watson Neish (1849-1931): son of William, founded the firm of Neish, Howell and Haldane in London
• Sir Charles Henry Lawrence Neish KBE CB (1857-1934): son of William, Registrar of the Privy Council from 1909 until 1934
• Edward William Neish (c 1865-1938): son of William, a Sherriff Substitute from 1905 to 1932
• Major Colin Graham Neish OBE (1860-1931), son of William, had a notable career in the army
• Lt. Col Francis Hugh Neish (1863-1946): son of William, served in Sudan, the second Boer War and at Mons at the start of the Great War.  
• William Neish (c 1882-1931): son of George Watson Neish, was a Major by 1914.

William Neish is 4th from the left

Both Lt. Col Neish and his nephew William, who were serving with the Gordon Highlanders, were captured at Mons. No doubt inspired by the plight of his brother and his son, George Watson Neish served as Convener of City of Dundee and Forfarshire Prisoner of War Help Committee throughout the Great War.

An odd coda to the family’s war service came when Colonel W. E. Gordon of the Gordon Highlanders lodged a case for slander against the publishers John Leng & Co. Their newspaper The People’s Journal had printed an article which implied that Colonel Gordon had needlessly surrendered the Gordons at Mons.

Lt. Col Neish, who had had a poor relationship with Gordon since the surrender, was called as a witness. It was hinted that Gordon blamed Neish for the surrender, although the latter denied any involvement in ordering it. During the case it emerged that Neish and two of his brothers owned shares in John Leng & Co. Gordon’s legal team implied that the family might have used the article to deflect blame away from Neish himself, an allegation they strongly denied.  Colonel Gordon won his case and £500 damages, but the question of who had ordered the surrender and why remained unanswered by the verdict.

The Neish family’s name lives on today in the Jock Neish Scout Centre cited on the family’s land at Tannadice. The Centre was named for Colin Francis Ian ‘Jock’ Neish (1897-1977), a former officer in the Black Watch and the son of Major Colin Neish, who devoted much of his life to the scouting movement. A less obvious legacy of the family is the name of Dundee United’s stadium Tannadice Park. Built on what was the Clepington part of the Neishs’ lands, it owes its name to the Neish estate at Tannadice.

It seems, then, that the scrapbooks were compiled by members of the Neish family to record their involvement in the various campaigns with which they were involved. Whatever their origins Archive Services has a fascinating resource covering the key conflicts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which shaped the world we live in today.

For more information about the scrapbooks and other collections relating to war and military campaigns contact archives@dundee.ac.uk

eARMMS

ARMMS and CAIS publish a newsletter each month which we post on our website and send out by email. This is the most recent edition of eARMMS, rounding up our news from February. Let us know if you would like an email copy each month.

In this edition:

1. New Exhibition in Tower Foyer Gallery
2. Papers of former Academic Secretary
3. Who Do You Think You Are Live? 2012
4. Oral History Project
5. New Archive Accessions
6. Archive Classes
7. Disaster Planning
8. Article in Comma
9. JISC Research Project on FoI
10. The Michael Peto Photographic Collection Project

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1. New Exhibition in Tower Foyer Gallery

The latest exhibition by Museum Services in the Tower Foyer Gallery features some of the most recent additions to the University's fine art collections. These include paintings, prints, photographs and artists books purchased from the last two Degree Shows at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design; original comics art by the legendary Dudley D Watkins, acquired with a grant from the National Fund for Acquisitions; prints by leading contemporary Scottish artists Katy Dove, Toby Paterson and Louise Hopkins; and new additions to the Centre for Artists' Books collection from the Visual Research Centre. The exhibition continues until 14 April.

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2. Papers of former Academic Secretary

Kenneth has been going through a most interesting accession of material very kindly donated by Dr Ian Francis, who retired recently as Academic Secretary. The accession consists of a number of key documents mainly relating to the governance of the University since its foundation in 1881 which were collected by successive members of the University's administrative staff.

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3. Who Do You Think You Are? 2012

CAIS was represented at the annual Who Do You Think You Are? Live event, held on the 24th-26th February at the London Olympia. We answered questions about records and archives, distributed information on our short courses and Masters degrees in Family and Local History by online distance learning and signed up a record number of new students to our Master’s degree in Family and Local History and Beyond the Internet, our short courses for family historians.

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4. Oral History Project

Archive Services are progressing the Oral History Project, which aims to capture the experiences of individuals connected to the University and the University archival collections. Recent interviews have included David Torrie (former editor of The Dandy), James Petrie and David Sutherland (DC Thompson artists), Alastair Ross (former Duncan of Jordanstone student and sculpture lecturer) and Ellena Salaryia (midwife and researcher).

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5. New Archive Accessions and Accruals

New accessions to the archive include DVDs of short films and news items relating to Duncan of Jordanstone. Accruals to existing collections include Peter Haining and the Attic Archive, Publishing Scotland and Canongate. Further deposits have also been received for the Comics Collection, including 2000AD.

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6. Archive Classes

Caroline spoke to students about the Archive collections during a lecture for the History Level 1 Britain in the 20th Century students. Classes have also been held in the Archives for students taking Red Scotland, the History of the Book, Britain in the 20th Century, Reading 17th Century Scotland, Shakespeare, and Scottish Soldier. All subject areas are welcome to use the archival collections for teaching and research support. Further information is available from Caroline at c.z.brown@dundee.ac.uk.

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7. Disaster Planning

Jennifer, Caroline and Matthew are updating the departmental Disaster Plan. Training will be held for all staff on 26 April.

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8. Forthcoming publication: Article in Comma

Alan has recently completed an article examining the nature of standards and standardisation for a forthcoming issue of Comma, the journal of the International Council on Archives.

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9. JISC Research Project on FoI

Records Management Services have contributed to a JISC research project which is attempting to establish the true cost of compliance with the Freedom of Information Acts. Five recent requests to the University were tracked in detail to assess the amount of time needed to process them, to locate and retrieve relevant information and to write and send appropriate responses to the applicants.

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10. The Michael Peto Photographic Collection Project

The Michael Peto Photographic Collection Project promotion has included a meeting with our Patron, Rector, Brian Cox, to discuss strategies for fundraising and external activities, the production of a fundraising and promotional prospectus and meetings with galleries and curators in the UK and the US.

Discontent, War & the Impact of Revolution in Dundee

Caroline has recently been teaching a class of Level 4 History students taking the module Discontent, War & the Impact of Revolution: Scotland 1910-1922.  The subjects covered included industrial unrest, the growth of socialism, the impact of the Great War and the decline of the Liberal Party all of which are very well documented in the University archives.

The 'sane and high class journalism' of the
Toscin is commended by Keir Hardie

  

 Dundee was an important centre of political and social change in Scotland in this era. In 1906 Dundee elected Alexander Wilkie as one of Scotland’s first two Labour MPs. Other key figures on the left of Scottish politics were also based in Dundee including Edwin Scrymgeour, the socialist prohibitionist who was a councillor in the city and eventually one of its MPs, and  Bob Stewart, another councillor who went on to be a key figure in the early days of the Communist Party of Great Britain.  Also active in the labour movement before 1914 was the journalist, cartoonist and future war poet Joseph Lee who produced a Labour periodical called the Tocsin, which is held in the University archives along with letters of praise from key figures including Keir Hardie and Arthur Henderson.

The decline of the Liberal Party was very evident in Dundee; Wilkie’s victory in 1906 was a blow to the party, but not completely fatal. In 1908 the Liberal Winston Churchill, who had recently lost his seat in Manchester, was fairly comfortably elected at a by-election in the city and was returned with Wilkie in the next three general elections. However by 1922 Churchill was in trouble. The Liberal Party in Dundee, as in many parts of Britain, was split leading to an independent Liberal challenging Churchill and his running-mate D. J. MacDonald. He was also bitterly attacked by the other three candidates – the communist Willie Gallacher, Labour’s E. D. Morel and Scrymgeour – who, like many on the left, felt Churchill and the Liberals had failed the working classes.

The Tocsin's view of Churchill's attitude
 to women

D. C. Thomson, owner of the local newspapers, turned against Churchill leading to both the Liberal Dundee Advertiser and the Tory Courier advising their readers to reject him. Additionally, with the city now having a large female electorate, his previous hostility to the female suffrage campaign cost him support.  All of this added up to a spectacular and embarrassing defeat for Churchill, who finished a poor fourth as Scrymgeour and Morel romped to victory.

The University archives have several collections relating to this important period in history including: Joseph Lee’s Papers (MS 88), the Dundee Power Loom Tenters Society Minute Book (MS 65), the Papers of D. J. MacDonald (MS 93) and the Joan Auld Memorial Collection which contains an extensive collection of books written by and about some of the key figures of this era.

If you are interested in looking at any of these collections we are based in the main University Tower Building and open to the public. See our opening hours at www.dundee.ac.uk/archives. 

Kenneth Baxter