Time and host  to be confirmed

For more information and to book, please contact Lucy Shepherd on visits@archivesforlondon.org

Exploring the Olympic Park’s Industrial Past

with Jenny Butler

2pm

15 – 20 people

For more information and to book, please contact Lucy Shepherd on visits@archivesforlondon.org

Speaker - Chris Woods, Director, National Conservation Service

Venue – LMA

Advance booking is essential. Please guarantee your place by contacting

e: Jeff.Gerhardt@cityoflondon.gov.uk

 t: 020 7332 3879

Speaker – Caroline Shenton, Head of Parliamentary Archives

Venue – LMA

Advance booking is essential. Please guarantee your place by contacting

 e: Jeff.Gerhardt@cityoflondon.gov.uk

 t: 020 7332 3879

Speaker - Dr Alastair Massie, National Army Museum

Venue – LMA

Advance booking is essential. Please guarantee your place by contacting

e: Jeff.Gerhardt@cityoflondon.gov.uk

 t: 020 7332 3879

The AfL Conference is being held in partnership with the Centre for Metropolitan History and Dickens House Museum on 6^th October at the Chancellor’s Hall, Senate House. Further details will be posted very soon.

Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of the scouts, was also a hero of the relief of Mafeking (1899).  He published Scouting for Boys in 1908, and to some extent the scout movement dates from that.  In the beginning girls wanted to join, so very soon a separate Girl Guides movement was formed: today the two operate together. Daniel’s talk suggest that from there things snow-balled. 

Almost from the beginning there was a branch of SeaScouts. Wolf cubs for younger boys soon followed, and the scouts played a valuable role on the home frontduring World War 1, doing jobs as messengers and organising recreation: a 16-year old scout was awarded the V.C. Towards the end of that war a senior section was formed for boys over 18 who wanted to continue their involvement. Gilwell Park in east London became a base for the scouts around this time: it continues in use to this day, having become the scout headquarters in 2001. Gang shows started in the 1930s and ran until1974.  The scouts made a contribution in WW2 as they had in WW1, and the scout ‘bob-a-job’ week started in 1949, to continue until 1970, after which of course the shilling vanished from our currency. 

The scouting movement has a great record of helping: it has helped victims of the Chernobyl disaster, and has sponsored a lifeboat at Hartlepool. 

The scouting movement  started a retail branch which they sold to Blacks in 2006 (and Blacks has recently been a victim of the recession, having been sold to J–D sports). 

Daniel also talked about the link with Scott of the Antarctic. The ship Discovery was built in 1900, and was used by Scott in 1901 in a successful mission of research and exploration.  It became the ship of the Sea Scouts, and can still be seen today in Dundee, where it was built. All in all a very wide-ranging talk. 

Web sites:

www.scoutsrecords.org/  for everything you want to know about the history of the scouts; 

www.youtube.com/user/ScoutArchive has a number of scouting film clips.  

For Gilwell  Park see wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilwell_Park. 

The seminar was very poorly attended, with only 13 members: there was a raffle with gifts donated by Andrea Tanner, to whom our thanks, so if you did not attend you missed a good chance of a prize. 

Palaeography was a prominent factor in Caroline’s talk, and she handed round copies from the microfiches of the journals. The hand was indeed difficult to interpret, but with Caroline’s explanations it soon became clear that the documents contained a fascinating insight into medieval London. The journals were used to record the activities undertaken by the Court, so there were pages recording the elections of aldermen and mayors, lists of members of the Common Council and oaths given by the Bailiff of Southwark, for example. The clerks also used the journals to make rough notes, such as drafting a welcome speech to the visiting Queen Marie of Anjou in 1445. Overall Caroline gave a fascinating introduction to the jostling, vibrant world of 15th century London, where men selling rotten pies were ordered to stand in the pillory with the pies around their necks, and attendees at Court threw fruity insults at each other. 

The BL currently have over 350 oral history collections and this is growing due to their on-going collection strategy. The cataloguing of oral histories relies on existing archival cataloguing standards, with emphasis on ‘descriptive’ and ‘administrative’ information, but thought is also given to the format of the recording, and who owns the rights to the information contained in the record. Some histories have restricted access due to the personal information contained within them but overall the BL aims to make these most downto-earth of historical records as accessible as possible. 

Access can be made on-site at the BL, or online via the BL Sounds website: http://sounds.bl.uk/

Have you wondered about freemasons in your community and the role they played in shaping its history? 

Do you care for records relating to freemasonry but would like to know more about them?

Would you like to know more about interpreting the information they contain?

Following the success of our event in Manchester last autumn, the Library and Museum of Freemasonry is delighted to offer another free one day workshop. This will provide an opportunity to investigate the relationship between freemasons and society, focusing on localities in Surrey, Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, Middlesex and south London.

This event  will be held on Wednesday 2 May at Glenmore House, The Crescent, Surbiton, Surrey KT6 4BN- includes lunch and other refreshments.

Click here to view the programme and booking form

Booking essential. To book please complete the booking form or e-mail Len Reilly, Historical Records Survey Project Manager at: lreilly@freemasonry.london.museum

Please provide the following details:

Your name

Organisation (if appropriate)

Contact address, e-mail or telephone number

Any access or dietary requirements

All bookings will be acknowledged