Online Seminar

St Christopher’s Oral History Project

Wednesday 29th September 2021, 18:00–19:15, Zoom

Thanks to the generous support of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, St Christopher’s intends to tell the story of the Hospice by capturing oral history testimonies from the variety of people who helped to shape the history and life of the organisation. These recordings will be made accessible to the public and will culminate in a ground-breaking multimedia exhibition at St. Christopher’s CARE which will celebrate these different stories and the history of the Hospice. There will also be a permanent static display in the main hospice foyer which will be a central focal point for the project, and the continued life and history of St. Christopher’s.

Daniel Albon is the Oral History Lead at St Christopher’s Hospice who manages the Oral History Project which captures the life and history of the organisation. Daniel was a Digital Archivist at London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) looking after the Film and Sound Collections, and also an Archivist at LMA looking after the Anglo-Jewish Collections. He was also a Curator at the RAF Museum London where he curated an exhibition about the long distance record breaking aviator, Sir Alan Cobham.

Booking is open to members initially (link sent through mailing list) and any remaining spaces are then available to non-members via Eventbrite (a link will appear on the AfL homepage ).

Online Seminar

Mollie Hunte: Educator, Psychologist and champion of African-Caribbean people

Wednesday 23rd June 2021, 18:00-19:30, Zoom

Mollie Hunte

 

Mollie Hunte (1932-2015) was an educational psychologist born in British Guiana (now Guyana). She immigrated to the UK in the 1960s to continue her studies. She set up a variety of key African-Caribbean organisations for the community which included The Caribbean Parents Group (1975) and The Caribbean Parents Group Credit Union (1990). These organisations were created to aid the Caribbean community in London and ensure that young children and parents were supported through the education system and with mental health and parenting.

Mollie was an essential part of the Black Parents Movement and the education movement in the UK from the 1960s onwards. She also contributed heavily to local authorities such as Ealing and Brent, where she strived to help young children in need of help both in their home lives, and particularly in schools where young black children were regularly overlooked and unfairly labelled ‘educationally subnormal’.

Rebecca Adams is the archivist responsible for the Mollie Hunte Collection. She completed an undergraduate degree in English Literature and History from Goldsmiths University in 2016 and went on to complete her Masters in Archives and Records Management at University College London in 2018, graduating in 2019. She has been focusing solely on Mollie Hunte’s records and organising a launch event around the collection for 2021.

Booking is open to members initially (link sent through mailing list) and any remaining spaces are then available to non-members via Eventbrite (a link will appear on the AfL homepage ).

Archives for London Practicals. Online.

Wednesday 24th June 2020 1.30-3.30 (PM) Wikithon:  Develop Wiki Editing skills.

We have partnered with The Institution of Engineering and Technology, Women’s Engineering Society and the biographical project Electrifying Women, to bring you a Wikithon and training in being a Wikipedia editor. It is centred around the entries for women, but is not exclusive to women joining in as editors.

This isn’t as daunting as it sounds! Tuition will be given during the session, and resources will be supplied in advance.

Join us to celebrate the women in science, technology and engineering that deserve a more prominent place in the online historical record. You’ll develop your digital skills and learn how to edit Wikipedia in order to harness the power of the web to share your knowledge.

Complete beginners and experienced editors are both welcome to attend – we’ll provide training for anyone new to editing. If you’ve spotted an article that needs improving, bring along your queries and we’ll see what we can do to help. If you’re new to the subject, we’ll suggest articles to update or subjects to research.

To book for the event go to this URL:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/extraordinary-women-in-engineering-a-wes-wikithon-tickets-57696650234

Members Lockdown Newsletter

The AfL Board has instituted a members Lockdown Newsletter to keep our members informed about London’s archives and entertained until we can gather again.

This will include:

  • Information on London’s archives
  • Get to know your Board members – contributions on their work and interests
  • Suggestions for relevant websites to look at, or virtual events to join in.
  • Input from AfL members on their archival interests

This is only available to members, but for anyone joining AfL, back issues would be made available.

To find out more about Archives for London, go to our Membership Page

*As a result of recent government guidance we feel we must follow advice and postpone the following events*

Archives for London Conference 2020 – Flushed with Success: London’s Waterways Engineering

POSTPONED  Friday 27th March 2020, 10.00 – 16.30  POSTPONED
Huntley Room, London Metropolitan Archives.

The Thames is central to London, join us for a day of talks discussing its bridges, tributaries and historic engineering!

Join us for a day of fascinating talks:

10.00am Registration/Coffee

10.30am Welcome

10.45am London Bridge and its Houses c1290-1790 – Dorian Gerhold

11.30am Crossness Pumping Station – Past, Present and Future – Petra Cox/Mike Jones

12.15-2pm Lunch (not provided) and a chance to view the current exhibition at London Metropolitan Archives

2.00pm Vanishing Act: The smaller rivers of South London and Bazalgette’s Main Drainage – Jon Newman, Lambeth Archives

2.45pm The Genius of Bazalgette – Tom Furber, London Metropolitan Archives

3.30pm “Messing About on the River”: Southwark’s Riverside as seen in the Archives – Patricia Dark, Southwark Local History Library & Archives

4.15pm Closing remarks

Advance booking is essential. Please book your place through Eventbrite or by telephoning Alex Fisher (AfL Secretary) on 020 7594 8818.

£19 for AfL members, £25 for non-members.

Adventures in the Savoy Archive: The American Bar and the Savoy Cocktail Book

POSTPONED Wednesday 25th March 2020, 18.00 – 19.30 (doors open at 17.30) POSTPONED
Huntley Room, London Metropolitan Archives.

The Savoy Archive is a private company archive, founded in the mid-1970s by the Managing Director of the Company, Sir Hugh Wontner. Surviving material dates back to the hotel’s opening in 1889, and forward to the present day. The underpinning collection is a huge quantity of business papers, while more PR-friendly photographs, menus, brochures, press cuttings, ledgers and staff and guest records are a constant attraction for promotional purposes and public enquiries.

Susan Scott is the fourth qualified archivist to be employed at The Savoy, where she arrived in 1996. The role has always been a part-time one, and Susan holds an archive post elsewhere at the same time. She is presently the archivist at the Cayzer Family Archive, which contains business records and personal papers of the family who started a British shipping line in the 19th century.

Advance booking is essential. Please book your place through Eventbrite or by telephoning Alex Fisher (AfL Secretary) on 020 7594 8818.

Free for AfL members, £6 for non-members.

Seminars

We have a whole host of exciting seminars coming up.  Tickets are normally released on Eventbrite around one month before the seminar.  Our membership secretary will email members when ticket sales go live.  Seminars are usually held at the London Metropolitan Archives with doors opening at 5.30pm for a start time of 6pm.

Past Seminars include:

  • 6th September 2018 – ‘Saved from a skip and selected in a Swiss chateau: the curious journeys of archive collections at the Charles Dickens Museum’
  • 4th October 2018 – ‘The Extraordinary Records in the London Metropolitan Archives for the Rebuilding of St Paul’s Cathedral after the Great Fire.’
  • 1st November 2018 – ‘Mapping history with The Layers of London Project: partnership, public engagement and the art of looking up.’
  • 6th December 2018 – Archives of the Worshipful Company of Musicians.
  • 23rd January 2019 – From Big Ben to the Liberty Bell: the archives of Whitechapel Bell Foundry.
  • 27th February 2019 – Alderman Arnold fitz Thedmar – London’s first civic historian.
  • 27th March 2019 – Is it really Albert’s Hall? How one woman’s determination shaped the evolution of the arts and sciences in South Kensington.
    24th April 2019 – The Turner Bequest at the National Gallery.
  • 22nd May 2019 – London Unspooled: Sounds from the Strongrooms
  • 26th June 2019 -The Health of Children in Institutional Care in London 1890-1920
  • 24th July 2019 – Maps, Minutes and Miscellany: a Museum Archive
  • 25th September 2019 – London Metropolitan Archives Film Premiere
  • 23rd October 2019 – Creating the V&A: Victoria and Albert’s Museum
  • 27th November 2019 -The curious tale of the lady in the photograph – Love Actually comes to LMA
  • 22nd January 2020 – Pharmacy Shops in London
  • 26th February 2020 – The New Mediatheque at LMA

Practicals:

We run workshops for professional archivists and archives users based on the needs of our membership.  While we have none currently planned, we would like to hear from you if you have a particular skill or topic you would like to see covered.  You can contact us here.