As another year draws to a close we thought that we would share some of the goings on from 2018, before we start looking ahead!
Raissa Page Project In September David Johnston-Smith joined the Archives as a Project Archivist on a one-year contract to catalogue and promote the Raissa Page collection. You can find out more about this Wellcome Trust funded project in David’s introductory blog.
Swansea University Centenary Assistant Archivist Emily Hewitt continues to catalogue the records of Swansea University in readiness for the University’s centenary in 2020. The collection continues to grow thanks to many deposits and donations of records relating to the history of the University. This development includes the deposit of a further 17 interviews by Dr Sam Blaxland from the Voices of Swansea University oral history project. Emily is responsible for the curation of the oral history collection, and is working with a student volunteer, who is creating summaries of the recordings.
Richard Burton Collection The Archives are working with Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales regarding an exhibition focusing on the life of Richard Burton that is scheduled to open at the end of 2019.
Women’s History and the Commemoration of the Centenary of Votes for Women In May 2018 an article co-authored by Prof. Kirsti Bohata, Dr Katrina Legg and Mandy Lane, was published in the May 2018 Group for Literary Archives and Manuscripts issue of ARC magazine. ‘Take me as you find me … I am not ashamed of being myself’ explored the life and impact of Elizabeth Amy Dillwyn (1845-1935), and how the collection held in the Archives has been used by students and an artist, Mandy Lane.
The Archives have worked in partnership with West Glamorgan Archive Service, Women’s Archives Wales | Archif Menywod Cymru, Swansea Museum and the Dylan Thomas Centre to create an exhibition to mark the partial extension of suffrage in 1918. ‘Votes for Women’ was displayed in Taliesin Create in October 2018 and the Archives organised a short series of talks to run alongside:
- Prof. Kirsti Bohata – Amy Dillwyn’s Queer Archives
- Dr Sam Blaxland – Welsh Women MPs: Exploring Their Absence
- Jay Rees – Bob Baker’s Bird of the Week: Perceptions of Femininity at Swansea University during the 1960s
- Sue Thomas – Rescued Lives: Cwmdonkin Shelter, a refuge for ‘fallen’ women 1886-1972
A Good Age for Archives To celebrate the launch of the British Society of Gerontology collection the Archives organised this event with the Centre for Innovative Ageing at Swansea University. The event included talks from Dr Martin Hyde and Dr Charles Musselwhite of the Centre for Innovative Ageing, Swansea University, Dr Bill Bytheway, a founder member of the then British Society of Social and Behavioural Gerontology, now the British Society of Gerontology, and from Dr Katrina Legg and David Johnston-Smith of the Archives.
Guests came over to the Archives to see behind the scenes, to view a display of items from the British Society of Gerontology collections and the Raissa Page archives, and to talk with the Archives staff about how the collections held in the Archives may be of use in their research.
Want to know more? The Archives are open to everyone so to arrange a visit, to find out more about the collections, or to discuss depositing or donating material please do contact send an email to archives@swansea.ac.uk or telephone 01792 295021.