Dundee Royal Infirmary Admissions

The scale of Irish immigration to Dundee is clearly demonstrated in the admission registers of Dundee Royal Infirmary held by Archive Services.   

Our volunteers are currently undertaking a long term project to transfer the information contained in the Dundee Royal Infirmary admission registers, which start in 1842, onto a searchable database. This will make it much easier for researchers to use the information contained in these volumes, particularly for family historians looking for relatives who had been patients. So far more than 2,700 entries have been added to the database which covers the period January 1842 to November 1843.

The data has already revealed some interesting information about Dundee at that time (not just related to medicine) for example the admission registers record the nationality of the patient and the county or parish in which they were born.

For the period 1842-1843:

•  72.28% of the patients admitted were Scottish, 22.19% were Irish,  just 2.51% were English and 0.80% were ‘foreign’ 

Of the 610 patients who were recorded as Irish 91 had Ireland listed as their place of birth and of the remainder the most common counties recorded were:

·         Armagh: 57 patients

·         Sligo: 53

·         Kings County (now Offaly): 48

·         Cavan: 47

·         Derry/Londonderry: 45

·         Monaghan: 43

·         Antrim: 36

·         Tyrone: 32

The registers also state the patients’ current residence so we know that the 57 patients from Armagh settled in 25 different locations in Dundee. The most popular areas were:

Hawkhill (8)

Bonnett Hill (7)

Gowden Knows (5)

Scouringburn (5)

This is just a small example of the kinds of information and statistics that can be gathered from these patient admission registers. Many other avenues can be examined as the registers show patient name, occupation, marital status, age and dates of admission and discharge. Watch out for future blogs which will explore this further.

The admission registers are available to be consulted in the archive searchroom, please contact us for more information, archives@dundee.ac.uk. 

eARMMS, April 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.
In this edition:

1. Zoology Museum events
2. Archives online
3. Visit of international PhD student
4. New semester
5. Disaster preparedness
6. Dundee Royal Infirmary (DRI) Admissions Register
7. The Robert Hugh Stannus Robertson collection
8. Abertay Historical Society 65th Anniversary
9. New Archive volunteers
10. Families in British India Society
11. International Source List
12. Graduation, summer 2012
13. Peto Image of the Week
14. World Book Night

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1. Zoology Museum events

After a hugely successful Easter opening, the D'Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum is playing host to various special events over the next few weeks, starting on 17 April when Professor Tony Martin will be giving a talk about the multi-million pound project he is leading to restore native wildlife on South Georgia. On 1 May, Dr Chris Connolly from the Medical Research Institute at Ninewells will be talking about a new neurological research project to investigate the declining population of bees by exploring the impact of pesticaides on their nervous systems. On 8 May we present the fourth annual creative writing event, Notes from the Museum, in which writers from the School of Humanities perform poetry and prose they've written inspired by D'Arcy's collections. Full details on all these events and more can be found at http://www.dundee.ac.uk/museum/zoology/events.htm.

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2. Archives online

Caroline attended a one day conference organised by UK Archives Discover Network (UKAD) which looked at new developments in cataloguing and sharing and exchanging data. Caroline is working on a project for the Scottish Council on Archives (SCA) to extend the Scottish Archive Network (SCAN) and create an interactive online portal for catalogues so it was interesting to hear the papers at the conference and to meet with representatives of the National Archives at Kew to talk about their plans for a portal for archives in England.

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3. Visit of international PhD student

During March we were pleased to welcome Cherri-Ann Beckles, Assistant Archivist, University of the West Indies, to Dundee. Cherri is currently undertaking doctoral study with the Centre for Archive and Information Studies (CAIS) on international approaches to data protection/privacy legislation. Cherri will also be moving to Dundee for three months in the autumn to examine various approaches to Data Protection Act (DPA) compliance in Scottish universities whilst on sabbatical from the University of the West Indies.

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4. New semester

The CAIS team have been busy processing student applications and interviewing applicants for the May intake of our distance-learning courses. In total there will be 25 new students starting our various programmes of study, including 9 on our Masters pathways. For further information about our courses please see http://www.dundee.ac.uk/cais/ and for more information on our various CPD opportunities please have a look at http://www.dundee.ac.uk/cais/cpd/modules_for_cpd.htm or get in touch with us at armtraining@dundee.ac.uk.

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5. Disaster preparedness

Alan, Caroline, Mhairi and Durham were reminded of the importance of keeping a well-stocked disaster recovery kit this month. A leak in the roof of an off-site store resulted in water running along shelving and very close to some of our records. Nothing was damaged and we were able to move the records out of harm's way and mop up accordingly, but the incident was a timely reminder of how quickly disasters can happen and the implications of not being able to respond as quickly as possible.

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6. Dundee Royal Infirmary (DRI) Admissions Register

More than 2,600 entries have now been transferred from the Dundee Royal Infirmary Patient Admission Register onto a searchable database. So far this covers the period January 1842 – November 1843 and already it is showing some interesting information about Dundee at that time (besides the obvious medical information). For example it records the nationality and place of birth of the patient which for this time period shows that 73.07% of the patients admitted were Scottish, 22.06% were Irish while just 2.3% were English and 0.69% were 'foreign'. It can also tell us where the patients were living at the time; the majority lived at Scouringburn (14.17%), Overgate (13.29%) and Hawkhill (7.66%). This is obviously a long term project but should prove to be a useful resource for researchers once completed.

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7. The Robert Hugh Stannus Robertson collection

Keren is currently cataloguing the papers of Robert Hugh Stannus Robertson. After obtaining an MA in geology, mineralogy and chemistry at the University of Cambridge, Robertson was appointed chief chemist in 1933 to the Fuller’s Earth Union Ltd in Surrey, where he spent nine very successful years. He devoted all his working life to applying science to industry and specialised in the creation of new processes and new industries. In 1958 he moved to Pitlochry where he worked as a consultant, rapidly becoming a highly respected international authority on the uses of clay minerals, the methodology of raw material development and the management of innovation. The collection has been worked on by several different people so it is now coming together as a whole with some very interesting items relating to peat, nuts and their uses. For further information about the collection please get in touch with us at archives@dundee.ac.uk.

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8. Abertay Historical Society 65th Anniversary

The Abertay Historical Society (AHS) will celebrate the 65th Anniversary of its founding in May. Archive Services hold the archives of the Society including the papers related to its foundation. Over the years several members of ARMMS staff have been involved with the society and current council members include Dr Kenneth Baxter and Matthew Jarron, who is Secretary of the Society. Kenneth has been going through the archives to gather some information on the AHS’ early days to use in publicity for the anniversary.

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9. New Archive volunteers

Archive Services are pleased to welcome 3 new volunteers to the archives. Beth, Doug and Adey will be coming in at various times on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Beth is currently working on the Rep archive, Doug is doing some scanning and looking at the Dundee Art Society collection and Adey is working on our book collections. We wish them all well and are very pleased to welcome them to our team. Thanks are also due to our longer term volunteers John, Jaqui, and Rosanna.

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10. Families in British India Society

Caroline was asked to give a talk to Scottish members of the Families in British India Society (FIBIS) on the collections that we have in the archives with a connection to India. It was difficult to limit the talk to 30 minutes given the amount of material that we have but the audience was interested and asked several questions, as well as taking leaflets on our family and local history distance learning courses. More information on our holdings can be found online at, www.dundee.ac.uk/archives.

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11. International Source List

The International Source List is now available online. This is a list of records in our collections that relate to countries other than Scotland or England. Wales was included in the list of countries because it was a good way to draw together items relating to Wales. The International Source List reveals how important the international context has been for Dundee historically, through industrial, academic and personal connections. These include the famous connection with India because of jute, investment in North America, spreading religion in New England, involvement in Europe during the World Wars, and there is even mention of pirates in the Caribbean! www.dundee.ac.uk/archives/international.htm.

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12. Graduation, Summer 2012

The deadline for students registering for the graduation ceremony on 19 June 2012 was Friday 6 April. There are 27 students registered for graduation. Of these, seven are graduating with the Masters, 13 are graduating with the Postgraduate Diploma and seven are graduating with the Postgraduate Certificate. To date six students have confirmed they will be attending the ceremony. Further information on the ceremony can be found at http://www.dundee.ac.uk/registry/main/com/grad/. We are very much looking forward to graduation and hope all our students and their families have a wonderful day.

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13. Peto Image of the Week

All the images used for Peto Image of the Week are now available online as part of the 'The Peto Collection Image of the Week Archive' the page being available at http://www.dundee.ac.uk/archives/peto/imageofweekarchive.htm. The images are in chronological order, the most recent at the top, and grouped according to the month in which they were used. Normally, the images relate to a topical issue; a current news item, the anniversary of an important historical event or the anniversary of a famous person's birth or death.

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14. World Book Night

Monday 23 April, which was both the birth and death dates of William Shakespeare, was World Book Night. The event's founder and Chair is Jamie Byng, Managing Director of Canongate, the Archive of which is held by Archive Services. Pat was a World Book Night Giver and received 24 copies of Small Island, by Andrea Levy, to give away. The purpose is to encourage reading and the books should be read and passed on to others. Each book has a unique identifier, which can be logged and monitored on the World Book Night web site. More information is available at: http://www.worldbooknight.org/.

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Free Volunteering Roadshow in Dundee

Please find below details of a free training event organised by the Archives & Records Association UK & Ireland with the support of the Centre for Archive and Information Studies and the Scottish Council on Archives.

·         Working with volunteers: opportunities and challenges

·         A mix of speakers, workshops and group discussions

·         Friday 18 May 2012, Tower Building, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN

·         10.30-16.15, coffee and lunch provided

·         Two travel bursaries are available for this event for two ‘archive assistant staff with day-to-day contact with volunteers’

The full programme is below. To book a place, please email membership@archives.org.uk  with the Subject Heading: Dundee Volunteering Roadshow. Include your name, organisation, contact email and phone number. 

To apply for a travel bursary email c.z.brown@dundee.ac.uk with your contact details and a short paragraph explaining your interest in the event and the reasons you wish to apply for a bursary.

The Archives and Records Association

Supported by the

Centre for Archive and Information Studies, University of Dundee

and the Scottish Council on Archives

Volunteering Roadshow

18^th May 2012

River Rooms, Ninth Floor, Tower Building, University of Dundee

10.30-10.45         Registration and coffee and welcome

10.45-11.15         ‘Friend or Foe? Assessing the value of volunteers’, Jan Merchant, Assistant Archivist, Perth & Kinross Council Archive

11.15-11.45         'Openness, variety and choice: different paths to volunteering', Rachel Hosker, Archive Manager, Scottish Borders Council

11.45-12.15         ‘The symbiosis of volunteering: creating a mutually beneficial relationship’, Rachel Hart, Muniments Archivist and Deputy Head of Special Collections, University of St Andrews

12.15-12.30         Discussion

12.30-13.15         Lunch

13.15-14.15         Case studies

14.15-14.30         ‘Volunteering the view from the ground’, Kirsty Lee, volunteer, University of St Andrews

14.30-15.15         Creating a volunteering policy

15.15-15.30         Coffee

15.30-15.40         Useful sources of information, Caroline Brown, Deputy Archivist and Programme Leader, University of Dundee

15.40-16.15         Review of frequently asked questions and discussion

The Dundee Jute Strike, 1912: ‘We will never be content - Till we get our ten per cent’ – sinister discovery in the University Archives!

The years 1910 to 1914 were a year of militancy and strikes across the whole of the United Kingdom. In Dundee, a city dominated at the time by the textile industry, one of the local responses included the jute workers leaving their looms and mills to take to the streets in1912. The early days of the strike were marked by a spirit of good-humoured defiance and good natured gatherings. Although a local newspaper, probably the Evening Telegraph and Post, reported that the striking workers had marched through the city singing ‘war songs’, the primary concern for the reporter at the scene seemed to be the hats and masks of the strikers that enhanced the initial carnival atmosphere.

As the strike wore on tensions began to rise, with the employees of Cox Brothers in Lochee becoming particularly militant. On one occasion Baxter Brothers’ Dens Works was besieged by four hundred masked strikers from Lochee who were brandishing sticks and other weapons. They succeeded in preventing the Dens Works workers from entering the mill by throwing stones and missiles at them, although eventually the police were able to open a passage to the gate.

Records in the Cox Brothers collection may indicate how seriously the company treated the demonstrations. Filed with a volume of newspaper cuttings on the strikes compiled by the firm, are gun catalogues and correspondence with Harrods relating to an order for revolvers.  Cox Brothers requested around twenty revolvers, of the type that would fire up to 32 shots without reloading, but were informed that there might be a delay due to ‘a very large demand’. Perhaps the company, and other employers across the country, were so alarmed by the depth of feeling amongst the workers that they took serious measures to protect themselves and their factories in the event of riots.

At one point during the strike a total of 30,000 millworkers in Dundee were locked out. In the end, however, the employers gave in to the demand for a wage increase, although the 2½% increase was far short of the 10% and 15% demanded. The final settlement was agreed on April 14^th and the following day the workers at Cox Brothers voted to return to work, an event that marked the end of the dispute. Coincidently this was also the day on which the Titanic sank.

The Cox Brothers collection in the University Archives contains a wealth of material relating to the strike and is part of the larger Sidlaw Industries collection (MS 66). Sidlaw Industries was originally 

Jute Industries, a company formed in 1920 by the amalgamation of several leading Dundee jute manufacturers including Cox Brothers, J.& A.D. Grimond and Harry Walker. The records are available for consultation in the University Archives and relate to a broad range of subjects including finance, wages, accidents, strikes, shareholders, and stock – in addition the collection also contains a number of photographs and plans.