Chairman's Statement 2008-2009

The Chairman's Year 2008-2009

Let me begin by setting out the changes to our Executive Committee. Since we last met, Sara Kinsey has resigned from the Executive. Sara joined the Executive in 2003 and became a deputy chair in 2005. She was not only a highly effective deputy, but inspired and led the initiative which resulted in the creation of the multi-institutional project to formulate a strategy for business archives. The many and varied commitments she currently has, not least at HSBC, where she is manager of group history projects, prompted her decision. We will certainly miss her, but I am pleased to announce that the Executive has been able to appoint Judy Faraday in her place as a deputy chair, and I will be seeking your endorsement to this decision in due course. Serena Kelly is also stepping down, having decided not to seek election this year. She was for some years an archivist at The Baring Archive, and latterly has worked for both the Victoria & Albert Museum and the British Library. Her current commitments with Williams Lea leave her little time to attend meetings and she has therefore decided not to stand again. After 15 years on the Executive she certainly merits our sincere thanks for her sterling service to the Council, not least in the areas of training and publications. I should now like to introduce the newcomers to the Executive. Katey Logan, as I am sure you all know, served on the Executive some years ago, and was the consultant whose drive and determination took forward the business archives strategy. She is a highly effective advocate of business archives and we are delighted to have her back on board. Our second newcomer is Mariam Yamin, who has generously agreed to act as editor of Business Archives: Principles and Practice, in succession to Valerie Johnson. Mariam has worked for RBS and is currently archivist of Guardian News and Media. We will be seeking your endorsement of these nominations very shortly. Also a big thank you to Valerie Johnson for serving as editor of Principles and Practice; we are delighted she is staying on the Executive.

The Credit Crunch

The onset of the ‘credit crunch’ provided some resonance with the circumstances which led to the formation of the Council in the 1930s. Then, as now, an economic downturn brought with it risks to the business archives world, either through receivership or mergers and acquisitions. Given the country’s current financial difficulties, it was clearly wise of us to develop our major initiative, the strategy for business archives. This has been much talked about in previous meetings, and in the year under review we produced a strategy for consultation, though the formal launch, at the House of Lords on 9th July 2009, is to be reported on next year. But at this stage I should state that I feel we can make a difference, and that the strategy provides not only an opportunity, but also a challenge, for us to respond with positive actions and activities.

Your Council’s core activities continue to thrive:

Publications: Journal, Newsletter, Web

Business Archives Number 95 (Principles and Practice), edited by Valerie Johnson,
contained important contributions from Nigel Hardman, Maria Sienkiewicz and
Jeannette Strickland on a ‘model archivist’; Janet Inglis and Caroline Venamore on the measurement and control of risk in records management; Vicky Parkinson, Adrian Steel and Jeannette Strickland on business archives and the MLA designation scheme; and Maria Sienkiewicz on the value of an archive to corporate reputation. There was also a tribute to Len McDonald (1933-2007), a pioneer of records management and an important figure in the Council’s history. Number 96 (Sources and History), edited by Mike Anson, contained articles from Roy Edwards on the records of the Railway Clearing House; Drew continued from front page Keeling, our bursary winner of the previous year, on the voyage abstracts of the Cunard Line; Kate Murphy on the pioneering women of the BBC; Kevin Tennent on the use of the dissolved companies files in the National Archives of Scotland; and Lesley Whitworth on the Design Archive as a resource for business historians. Bibliographic contributions to our journal were generously provided by Emma Stagg, Richard Hawkins and Mike Anson. Alan Gall’s four Newsletters continued to be an important medium of dissemination. The Council’s website continues to develop as a major resource, with further enhancements, thanks to Claire Twinn’s work and the assiduous oversight of Moira Lovegrove. Again, I record my sincere thanks on your behalf to everyone concerned in this work.

Conference 2008

On 12 November 2008 we held our annual conference, generously hosted by Christopher Hilton and the Wellcome Trust. The theme was ‘Out of the Ordinary’, intended to tease out the varied ways in which archives are promoted by their parent body. The speakers were: in the morning, Sam Twining, former president of the Council, who reflected on the progress of business archives since the council’s formation in 1934; John Quail, who advocated a legislative approach to the protection of business collections; Richard Wiltshire, from LMA, who spoke on public repository collections; Louise Ray, the Archive Lottery Adviser, who advocated the development of a partnership approach to secure lottery funding for business collections; and Ellen Collins, from MLA London, who advanced the idea of using case studies to highlight a collaborative, public-private sector approach to the exploitation of business collections. In the afternoon, Joan Heggie from the British Steel Collection, Teresa Wilmshurst from the Waterways Trust and Richard Taylor from the National Railway Museum set out the different ways in which they approached the promotion of their collections. Finally, Katey Logan updated colleagues on the progress of the strategy and the consultation process. The conference was once again conceived and organised by Judy Faraday, for which many thanks.

Wadsworth Prize 2008

The Wadsworth Prize reception was held immediately after the conference at Unilever, where our most generous host was Jeannette Strickland, Head of Art, Archives and Record Management. Once again a big thank you to Judy Faraday and Karen Sampson for organising the event. The prize, awarded to a book published in 2007, was won by Professor Peter Scott from the Henley Business School of the University of Reading, for his book The Triumph of the South: a Regional Economic History of Early Twentieth Century Britain, published by Ashgate. Peter was the 30th winner, and to mark this milestone we published a special number of Business Archives, Number 97, entitled Reflections and Speculations. This marked the anniversary and the retirement of Sam Twining as President of the BAC. It allowed us to take stock of the state of business history, and its relationship with archives. Former prizewinners were invited to contribute to a collection of essays edited by Mike Anson, and the response was extremely positive. We received essays from Roy Church, Leslie Hannah, Geoffrey Jones, Christine MacLeod, Robin Pearson and Geoffrey Tweedale. This formidable team discussed issues ranging from the problem of survivor bias in business history to the use of archives by business historians, and the challenge of litigation archives.

Bursary 2008

The winner in 2008 was Felipe Fernandes, from the London School of Economics. Felipe’s area of study was ‘Telegraphs and Shipping: Shrinking Economic Distances, 1850-1914’, and he conducted research at the telegraph archive in Porthcurno. A short article based on the research will be appearing in Business Archives. On your behalf I should like to thank Roy Edwards for organising the Wadsworth judging, and Peter Scott for organising the bursary judging.

Other Activities

Your Executive was active in contributing to training activities. We organised a training day for archives students on 27 January, and played a leading role in another successful ‘Meet the Archivists’ session for graduate students held at Rothschild’s on 15 January.

Karen Sampson and Richard Wiltshire manned the BAC’s stall and promoted business archive collections at the MLA’s ‘Meet student teachers in London’ event on 17 March. The aim was to inspire student teachers to develop learning opportunities using resources beyond the classroom. I should like to thank all those who took part in these events.

This year the Council also provided help and advice on record-keeping to the Royal Warrant Holders’ Association and to the Institute of Financial Services.

I am also pleased to report that work is in progress on an entirely new bibliography of business history. This project is being undertaken by the Council’s stalwart supporters, John Orbell and Richard Storey, and I look forward to reporting on their progress next year.

Finally, I must finish by thanking The National Archives for their generosity in hosting our AGM.

Terry Gourvish

Chairman

24 November 2009