Telephone operator, c.1900. Courtesy of BT Archives.
The objects of the Council are to promote the preservation of business records of historical importance, to supply advice and information on the administration and management of both archives and modern records, and to encourage interest in the history of business in Britain. The Council’s publishing programme includes Business Archives, which is published half yearly, and a Newsletter which appears quarterly. Other Council publications include Managing Business Archives and A Guide to Tracing the History of a Business. In recent years surveys of the archives of brewing, banking and shipbuilding have been published, as has a survey of the archives of 1,000 of the oldest registered companies in Britain.
The Council is a registered charity and derives much of its income from the annual subscriptions of its members. These include business organisations, libraries and other institutions, and individual archivists, records managers, business people and historians. An annual conference gives members the opportunity to meet, as well as to hear papers on themes of current interest.
The Chairman's Year 2006-2007
In welcoming you to the Council’s AGM for the year 2006-7, I should like to report on another year of solid achievement for the Council. One of the key initiatives we have been involved in has been the work of the Business Records Development Officer. In the first year Robert Brown worked on the development of a strategy for business archives from his TNA base, as well as keeping us abreast of rescue issues. He has now moved to a permanent post as archivist for Faber and Faber and we are in the middle of the recruitment process for a new Officer to continue his work. Members of the Council have been supportive of the work of the BRDO – talking to Robert during the year and answering the questionnaire that he sent round and we thank you for that support. We would like you to stay involved during the refining stage of the strategy because this is where you get to have your say. Consultation, both within and from outside the sector, will be a key feature of the next phase and you will be able to contribute your own thoughts and opinions to feed into the strategy.
The Council has also turned its attention, in common with other charities, to the issue of risk management. During the year we have made a start by conducting a risk assessment, which will becoming a continuing process. Following the detailed guidelines from the Charity Commission, potential risks have been categorised as governance, operational, financial, external and law & regulation compliance risks. An impact and likelihood assessment has been made. Initial work has identified the loss of the membership database as a substantial risk, and steps have been taken to store a number of back-ups at different locations.
Publications: Journal, Newsletter, Web
In Business Archives we had two substantial issues in 2006/7. Volume 91 (Principles and Practice), edited by Valerie Johnson, contained contributions on the business records of the Black Country, and the archives of the Ionian Bank, held at LSE, and being used by a number of scholars, notably Phil Cottrell, the commissioned historian of the Bank. There were also pieces on the Bank of England archives; business archives in Japan; Michael Moss’s provocative lecture, given at the 2005 conference, on ‘the archives of business and the business of archives’; and the invaluable archive bibliography compiled by Emma Stagg. Volume 92 (Sources and History), edited by Mike Anson, contained articles on Victorian businesswomen, J & P Coats, the RAC and two contributions using the Bank of England archive, including another contribution from one of our bursary winners, Hiroki Shin, on the Bank of England’s note issue outside London, 1797-1821. The issue also included the extremely useful bibliography of business history, compiled by Richard Hawkins, and the list of business records deposited. Jane Waller’s four Newsletters kept members up to date on our activities, and on news elsewhere. The Council’s website has been enhanced and the content significantly added to by Barbra Ruperto. Once again, I record my sincere thanks on your behalf to everyone concerned in these activities.
Conference 2006
On 17 November 2006 our annual conference was held in association with the Business Archives Council of Scotland, the Business Records Group of the Society of Archivists, and the business & labour archives section of the International Council on Archives. The event was hosted by the Royal Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh and had the theme ‘managing business archives: a global perspective’. I was alas unable to attend the conference, which was organised by Alison Turton and, I am reliably informed, was a great success, with an impressive international dimension to the papers delivered.
Wadsworth Prize Reception 2006
The Wadsworth prize reception was held at Barclays immediately after our last AGM. Our thanks to Maria Sienkiewicz and Patrick Gonsalvez for hosting such a successful and enjoyable event. The prize for 2005 went to Professor Geoffrey Jones of Harvard Business School, for his book Renewing Unilever: Transformation and Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2005). The award was presented to Dr Peter Miskell, one of the project’s researchers, on Professor Jones’s behalf, by our President, Sam Twining, and John Orbell, a member of the Prize panel.
Bursary 2006
Following successful awards to Stephan Schwarzkopf and Hiroki Shin, I am delighted to announce that we have another worthy winner, after a competitive round of judging. Ms Bridget Williams from Reading University won the 2006 bursary. She will use the funding to support her PhD research on the history of self-service retailing, focussing in particular on Sainsbury’s sales data and the pioneering efforts in self-service retailing of the Portsea Island Mutual Co-operative Society. Bridget was Sainsbury Group archivist and historian, and has been a loyal supporter of the Council; we wish her all the best with her endeavours.
My thanks to Peter Scott, and our judges for the Wadsworth and Bursary awards, for their work in identifying our worthy winners.
The Future
While our activities have been again successful, there is no room for complacency in the business archives world. The funding difficulties revealed by the British Library, the impending closure of the Family Records Centre in Myddleton Street, which raises the issue of physical vs. electronic access, and the recent spate of corporate mergers and acquisitions, some of which will remove some of the UK’s longest-established companies, all make it abundantly clear that collections are never entirely safe and require vigilance to safeguard their preservation and use. We will all have much to do on this front in the forthcoming year.
On a happier note, may I express the hope that the continuing work on the National Strategy, and the involvement of the Council in initiatives like the recent Archives Summit at the House of Commons, will do much to bring the value of business archives to the attention of both the business world and the wider community.
I should like to thank the archivists and historians who have generously supported Alex Apostolides’s idea for a one-day conference called ‘Meet the Archivists’. This event will introduce new postgraduates to the wealth of business records that are accessible to scholars. It will take place on 27 November courtesy of the Baring Archive at ING Bank. Thanks to all who have been concerned in making this initiative happen.
May I conclude by thanking our hosts at Barclays for their generosity in hosting our AGM and Conference this year, and the Sainsbury Study Centre at the Museum in Docklands, for generously agreeing to host our Wadsworth Prize reception for 2007.
Terry Gourvish
Chairman
13 November 2007
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The Chairman's Year 2005-2006
Business Records Development Officer
In May the first ever Business Records Development Officer, Robert Brown, took up his post. You will remember that the BAC was instrumental in putting together the funding package for his post, and Robert is now hard at work. His major challenge is to develop a strategy for business archives, and I know that he has met or talked to many of you here about this. He has also been busily engaged in rescue work, finding homes for the archives of William Duckworth of Manchester, the Confederation of Paper Industries and Typhoo Tea. He has also been active in following up cases of business collections which may be at risk. He will be continuing this work next year by reaching out to businesses to persuade them of the value of their records and archives. Robert is based at the National Archives, and his partly funded by them and partly by ourselves, with other generous contributions from the society of archivists, MLA, CyMAL, the Economic History Society and the Association of Business Historians. We wish him well in his work.
Important as this initiative undoubtedly is, we should not forget that over the year your Council has continued to enhance its core activities:
Publications: Journal, Newsletter, Web
Business Archives Volume 90 (‘Sources and History’) contained 3 articles, Catherine Harbour’s piece on newspapers as a source for the music business in the early modern period, an article on women in BP (Valerie Johnson), and a contribution from one of our bursary winners, Stefan Schwarzkopf, on UK advertising, exploiting the archives of the History of Advertising Trust. Volume 91 (‘Principles and Practice’) contained 5 articles, ranging from Black Country Business records (Cheryl Bailey); the conversion and digitisation of the Ionian Bank collection at LSE (Zoe Browne and Sue Donnelly); the Shibusawa Shashi project and sharing information on business archives in Japan (Yuko Matsuzaki); an overview of the Bank of England Archive (Sarah Millard, Jenny Ulph, and Hayley Wilding); and Michael Moss’s thought-provoking article on ‘The archives of business and the business of archives’, which was read to our conference last year. Jane Waller’s four Newsletters kept members up to date on our activities, while providing a forum for others involved in the business archives world. The Council’s website was further enhanced, and it is now possible to access a ‘members area’, which includes on-line articles from Business Archives for 2002-5. Once again, I record my sincere thanks on your behalf to everyone concerned in these ventures.
Conference 2005
On 8 November 2005 we held another successful conference, which was generously hosted by the John Lewis Partnership at its Peter Jones store. This time the theme was ‘From Family to FTSE’, and the event was organised by Judy Faraday. The conference examined the relationship between families, business history and business archives. The keynote address was given by Michael Moss, who spoke on ‘The Business of Archives and the Archives of Business’, and the other speakers were: Jim Bolton, from Queen Mary College, who introduced the Borromei Bank project; Lucy Newton, from Reading University, who presented her research on continuity in the transition from private banks to joint stock banks in England; Edwin Green, our treasurer and HSBC Group archivist, who emphasised the importance of the HSBC archive as a source for family historians; Andrew Alexander, from Surrey University, who explored the role of small businesses in retailing; Judy Faraday, JLP archivist, who demonstrated how the JLP archive was such a fertile source of social history and corporate culture; and Richard Wilson, who explained how until very recently brewing has always been synonymous with family enterprise. A concluding summary was provided by Oliver Westall of Lancaster University.
Our Conference for 2006, ‘Managing Business Archives: a Global Perspective’, was, of course held in Edinburgh three weeks ago. I will report on it more fully next year, but I understand that the event, which was hosted jointly with the Business Archives Council Scotland, the Business Records Group of the Society of Archivists, and the Business and Labour Archives section of the International Council on Archives, was well attended and was a great success.
Wadsworth Prize 2005
The Wadsworth prize reception was also held at Peter Jones, immediately after our conference. Our thanks to Judy Faraday for organising a very successful event. The 2005 prize was won by Professor Robin Pearson of Hull University, for his book Insuring the Industrial Revolution: Fire Insurance in Great Britain 1700-1850 (Ashgate, 2004). The award was presented by our President, Sam Twining, and Sir Ian Hay Davison, a member of the Prize panel.
Bursary 2006
Following successful awards to Stephan Schwarzkopf and Hiroki Shin, I am delighted to announce that we have another worthy winner, after a competitive round of judging. Ms Bridget Williams from Reading University has won this year’s bursary. She will use the funding to research ‘title’ , with particular reference to Sainsbury’s sales data and the pioneering efforts in self-service retailing of the Portsea Island Mutual Co-operative Society. Bridget was Sainsbury Group archivist and historian, and has been a loyal supporter of the Council; we wish her all the best with her endeavours.
My thanks to Peter Scott, and our judges for the Wadsworth and Bursary awards, for their work in identifying our worthy winners.
I conclude by thanking our hosts at Barclays for their generosity in hosting our AGM, and the Wadsworth Prize reception, which is to follow.
Terry Gourvish
Chairman
7 December 2006
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The Chairman's Year 2004-2005
2004-5 has proved to be another good year for the Council.
Journal, Newsletter, Web
The issues of our journal Business Archives – ‘Principles and Practice’, and ‘Sources and History’, continue to thrive under the direction of new editors, Valerie Johnson, of BP, and Dr Michael Anson, of the Bank of England. Under Jane Waller’s most competent direction, we have published the customary four issues of our Newsletter, and enhanced the process of dissemination with development of the BAC web-site. I should like to draw your attention to the ‘Hidden Assets’ section of the website, which promotes the professional management of business archives. Jane has also made it possible to access articles from back issues of the journals.
My thanks on your behalf to everyone concerned in these ventures.
Conference 2004
Hosted by Lloyds TSB on 30 November 2004, we held a very successful conference on the theme of ‘Business Archives: Fit for the Future?’. The sessions were chaired by Nicholas Kingsley, then County Archivist of Gloucestershire and now Head of National Advisory Services, TNA. Lively debates on the challenging future for business archives were stimulated by our speakers: Piet Clement, Heads of Library, Archives and Research Support at the Bank for International Settlements, Basel; Andy Pols, of Pols Consulting; Martin Rush, of the Royal Mail Group; Adam Green and Gary Collins, from the Access to Mineral Heritage Project; and Justin Cavernelis-Frost of MLA. There was also a valuable panel session on Funding, with contributions from Lucy Jones of BT, Rachel Hosker, Scottish Business Archive, Glasgow University, Lisa Giffen, BAC (Scotland), Judy Aitken, from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and Tania Noble of Arts and Business.
Wadsworth Prize 2004
At a reception held at the Bank of England Museum on 30 November 2004, the Prize for 2004 was awarded to Professor J. Forbes Munro, of the University of Glasgow, for his book Maritime Enterprise and Empire. Sir William Mackinnon and his Business Network, 1823-1893 (Boydell Press, 2003). The award was presented by our President, Sam Twining, and Sir Ian Hay Davison, a member of the Prize panel. Congratulations to the winner, and our thanks to Sarah Millard and the Bank of England for generously acting as hosts.
Bursary
Following the award to Stephan Schwarzkopf last year, the fruits of which we expected to see in print very soon, I am delighted to announce that we have another worthy winner, after a competitive round of judging. Mr Hiroki Shin of St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge has won the 2005 award and will use the funding to research ‘levels of confidence in the Bank of England note’, with particular reference to archives in Wales and Scotland.
Business Records Development Officer
But above all, our greatest achievement, for which Sara Kinsey deserves much of the credit, has been in persuading TNA and other members of our Business Archives Round Table to support an exciting new initiative in business archives, the funding for a two-year post of records development officer, to be based at TNA in Kew. The Council dug deep into its pockets to come up with £16,000 over the two years, but is delighted to find that its entrepreneurial spirit has been matched elsewhere. In addition to support and accommodation from TNA, we have received commitments to fund from the Society of Archivists, MLA, CyMAL, and the Economic History Society. The development officer will fill gaps in the business archives map and deal with special cases and emergencies. The venture, I feel, is a tribute to wide acceptance of the view that we should all be making a pro-active stand on the business archives issue.
New Executive Members
I should like to introduce our new executive committee members, who have joined us since last year:
Judy Faraday, Partnership Archivist for the John Lewis Partnership, who has organised our events here today; and two business historians:
Dr Gerben Bakker, from the Department of Accounting, Finance and Management, University of Essex, who was formerly at the LSE and the European University Institute in Florence; and
Dr Roy Edwards, from the School of Management, University of Southampton, also formerly at the LSE.
Valedictory
Finally, and rather sadly, it is time to pay tribute to some resignations. First, it is with regret that I announce that Melanie Aspey of Rothschilds is to step down from the Executive. Melanie has been a loyal and effective supporter of the Council since the days she was an advisory officer. She has been a trustee for some years, and was my predecessor as Chair from 1999 to 2003. I hope that she will be able to rejoin the Executive at a later stage.
Eamon Dyas of News International has also resigned from the Executive, and we will certainly miss his support. Again, I hope that he will be able to rejoin the Executive at a later stage.
Regretfully, I also have to reveal that Fiona Maccoll of Rio Tinto, is stepping down after seven years of sterling service on the Executive. Fiona has acted as Deputy Chair and Secretary since 2003. The secretarial baton is to be passed to Karen Sampson of Lloyds TSB, and I have no doubt there will be a seamless transition from one sound and supportive colleague to the next.
Terry Gourvish
Chairman
8 November 2005
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The Chairman’s Year 2004
Your Council maintained its commitment to the core activities it has identified, and had a successful year in its mission to promote the preservation, use and dissemination of business archives. My function was made easy by the support I received from two very able officers: Fiona Maccoll as Deputy Chair and Executive Secretary, and Edwin Green as Hon. Treasurer. With our finances healthy, we have been able to direct our energies towards campaigning, publishing and policy-making.
1. Campaigning for Business Archives
The Council has continued its important lobbying and advocacy role. At the beginning of the year the first meeting of the Round Table on Business Records was held under the auspices of Chris Kitching of TNA. A further meeting was held in October. This group brought together representatives of archival, academic and business organisations to discuss the problems facing business archives, their custodians and users, and to suggest possible solutions. The first meeting was followed by a wide consultation among the archival community. We hope that the Round Table initiative will be the beginning of a strategic and collaborative approach to the problems, which have been identified, and we shall continue this work in the coming year.
We also responded to important developments in the archives world during the year. We wrote to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport on the publication of the MLA Archives Task Force Report; we lobbied Paul Boateng, the Treasury Chief Secretary, in support of the recommendations of the Goodison Review on proposed legislation to provide tax-relief for businesses maintaining corporate archives. Our thanks are due to Sara Kinsey, who led these initiatives on the Council’s behalf.
We have also endeavoured to intervene with Transco on the future of the National Gas Archive; and of the Warner Textile Archive in Essex (we have since heard that the textile collection and archive are to be kept together in Braintree). We have also maintained a watching brief on the records of Lafarge/Blue Circle in Kent.
2. Dissemination
Our Conference Proceedings for 2003 appear on our Website.
This year’s conference follows the AGM. It has a stimulating and varied programme, and our thanks are due to Karen Sampson and Fiona Maccoll for organising it.
Our Journal saw two substantial issues by our outgoing and incoming editors:
Principles and Practice – where the editor, Lucy Jones, is standing down (we hope temporarily): many thanks to Lucy for all her support and hard work.
Archives and History – the new editor is Dr Michael Anson, from the Bank of England.
Our Newsletter and Website are in the capable care of Jane Waller. Thanks to Jane, our newsletter continues to inform, and we now derive benefits from a wonderful and ever improving website. Many thanks to her for all the hard work she has put in.
Your officers and executive committee members had a busy year campaigning for business archives. To illustrate from my own experience, in December last year I spoke to a conference on ‘European Osmosis’ organised by the Archives of the National Bank of Greece in Athens, then in May this year, with Edwin Green and Sara Kinsey I contributed to an EABH Conference in Athens sponsored by the Alpha Bank on with the theme ‘The Human Factor in Banking’. I also sat on a TNA Advisory Panel convened by Elaine Baldwin, with the aim of drawing up guidelines for retention of a number of classes of business record within TNA’s domain, and in particular dissolved companies. Earlier this month I also attended an important workshop organised jointly by TNA and the Institute of Historical Research to evaluate the implications of the Freedom of Information Act for historians and other social scientists, which comes into force on 1 January.
3. Awards and Prizes
Honorary Membership for Henry Button
Aged 94, Henry is one of our most loyal supporters. He joined the Council some 40 years ago and was reviews editor serving under Lord Twining and others. Your Executive regarded it as most appropriate to offer him honorary membership. He recently wrote to our Treasurer with some reminiscences of the old days. In particular he noted that ‘by courtesy of Lord Denning, the President, the AGM was held in his court when the court’s business had finished for the day’.
Wadsworth Prize
Prof. Martin Fransman won the prize in 2003 for his book Telecoms in the Internet Age: From Boom to Bust to …? (Oxford UP, 2002). This year’s prize will be awarded this evening at the Bank of England. Our thanks are due to Iain Black, for organising the prize before ill-health forced him to resign from the Executive Committee, and to Peter Scott, for helping me sustain it in his absence.
Bursary in Business History
Stefan Swarzkopf, Birkbeck College London. Stefan is researching the history of British advertising agencies.
4. Strengthening the Executive
Your Executive has recently been strengthened by the co-option of two leading business historians: Dr Gerben Bakker, from the University of Essex; and Dr Roy Edwards, from the University of Southampton. I am sure they will play a part in enhancing the work of the Council and trust that you approve of these appointments.
I am also pleased to announce that Judy Faraday, from John Lewis Archives, is willing to stand for the Executive Committee, and we will take the necessary steps to co-opt her.
5. People
I am sorry to have to refer to a sad event. The unexpected death of Michael Cudlipp only a few weeks ago not only deprived us of a speaker for our conference, but took away someone who did much to promote the retention and use of business archives. His work in securing the position of ‘HAT’ - the History of Advertising Trust - in Norfolk, is I am sure well known to you all. It has been one of the success stories of the last decade. He has left a good legacy behind, and it is up to us to make sure it is perpetuated.
The BAC is moving ahead with new initiatives and new personnel, and this is a good point to thank three archivists who are retiring this autumn, and who their various ways served the Council loyally and effectively over many years. They are Jessie Campbell, Vic Gray and John Orbell. All have done much for the cause, but John perhaps deserves special mention as someone who has been continuously involved in BAC operations for nearly 30 years, first as a member of staff, then as a member of the Executive. He has been a major influence on our survey work (notably the two banking surveys) and publications.
They are retiring from their posts, but we do hope they will continue to play a part in our work. We need you!
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The Chairman's Statement 2003
1.Lobbying
The Council considers it imperative to maintain a voice in public debates about archives, heritage and related matters. Since there is no other body which represents business archives exclusively. To that end we gave evidence to the Archives Task Force in August 2004. Here we highlighted a number of ways in which the currently challenging environment facing business archivists might be mediated. TheGovernment should encourage private sector businesses to maintain archive services, for example, by offering tax incentives, facilitating trust arrangements, etc. National Archives should take the lead in assessing and placing archives jettisoned by a parent company after takeover, merger or liquidation. The Business Archives Council undertakes to raise awareness in the wider business community and among academic institutions. We have appointed from within our trustee base a current awareness and lobbying officer to better co-ordinate efforts of this kind.
2.Publications
The Council is determined to maintain the strength and excellent quality of its journal, Business Archives and the two annual issues, 'Principles and Practice', and 'Sources and History.' We also intend to maintain the usefulness and attractiveness of our Newsletter.
3.Annual Conference
The Conference is an integral part of BAC life and a particular resource for our membership, since it acts as a recognised platform for debate and contact. The Trustees put on an impressive programme for our November 2003 conference on 'Business Records in a Changing Archival Landscape' and will make every effort to maintain this standard in future years.
4.Wadsworth Prize
This Prize is firmly established as the premier award in British business history, and it is our firm intention to maintain it on an annual basis.
5.Bursary
The bursary, awarded every two years, has not been vigorously promoted within the community of scholars. However, the Council intends to re-establish it as an annual prize, and see that it flourishes as a support for scholars wishing to embark on defined programmes in the exploitation of business archives.
Where possible other activities will be continued, but only if the resources, both financial and staffing, are available. Thus:
6.Surveys
The Council has been particularly successful over the years in producing archival survey volumes of high quality and we welcome the publication of the pharmaceutical industry survey. It is unlikely that new projects will be undertaken in the short-run, but future surveys should not be ruled out, particularly where these were undertaken in partnership with an academic institution. Advice would be taken from the community of business historians as to opportunities for new work.
7. Training
The Council is currently no longer in a position to provide training courses and workshops. However, it will maintain its support to the Liverpool University archives course, where Sara Kinsey is convenor of the business archives module on the Council's behalf. Additional training events in partnership with others may be considered in the future.
8. Advisory Service
Without an office and appropriate administrative support, the Council is currently unable to sustain an advisory service. It will however continue to act as a point of contact for inquiries about preservation and listing.