‘It was the night before Christmas, and not surprisingly, Kelly Jane Davidson was wide awake. It wasn’t that she wanted to be. It wasn’t as if she believed in Santa and expected to catch him coming down the chimney onto the coal-effect gas fire in the living-room. After all, she was nearly eight now…’
Front cover of Stranded (Flambard Press, 823.914 MCD)
So goes the opening of the short story ‘The Girl Who Killed Santa Claus’ by renowned crime writer, Val McDermid. The story can be found in her collection Stranded which was published by Flambard Press in 2005.
Flambard Press was a North East-based independent press which published a range of poetry and fiction, as well as some non-fiction and visual-art books. It was particularly focused on publishing new and neglected writers in the North of England, as well as promoting live literature.
These 3 postcards consist of images taken on the wards of the 1st Northern General and feature both patients in flannel suits and ties, Royal Army Medical Corps personnel in uniforms, nurses, and the matron.
During the First World War the building that now houses the Hatton Gallery was requisitioned to house the 1st Northern General Hospital. This was normal practice throughout the war years, as army hospitals were needed across the country and on a large scale. The Fine Art building in which you are now standing was then part of Armstrong College, Durham University.
A note on the back of all 3 tell us they were taken around Christmas 1915 on wards on the ground floor of the Armstrong Building and were sent by a ‘D. Robinson’ to an address in Corbridge, Northumberland.
Jane Marcet was an unusual woman. She believed that girls as well as boys should be educated in science and economics and that scientific knowledge should not be hidden behind a requirement for proficiency in Latin and Greek. She loved to learn and was keen to share her enjoyment of learning with others. When she was unable to find books that satisfied her own curiosity, she wrote them herself.
Jane Marcet the hostess
Born in 1769, Jane was educated alongside her brothers under the guidance of her father Francis Haldimand, a rich Swiss merchant established in London. The household was a lively one, often gathering groups of friends and intellectuals. After her mother’s death, Jane took on the role of hostess and relished the stimulating and intelligent company of her father’s friends. In 1799 Jane married medical doctor and chemist Alexander Marcet. Jane’s father lived with the couple and their growing family, and the culture of gathering for conversation and learning continued.
Jane Marcet the student
It is clear that Jane was a sponge for knowledge. At around this time in London one of the entertainments available to the fashionable elite was attending lectures and demonstrations on scientific subjects. Some of the best, which Jane and Alexander attended together, were given by Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution. Jane was somewhat frustrated not to understand everything she heard and saw, but after each lecture she discussed the topic with her husband and their guests, seeking clarification and deepening her understanding. She described her experiences, writing about herself in the third person, in the preface to her first published work.
“On attending for the first time experimental lectures, the author found it almost impossible to derive any clear or satisfactory information from the rapid demonstrations which are usually, and perhaps necessarily, crowded into popular courses of this kind. But frequent opportunities having afterwards occurred of conversing with a friend on the subject of chemistry, and of repeating a variety of experiments, she became better acquainted with the principles of that science, and began to feel highly interested in its pursuit.” 1
She invited Humphrey Davy and wife to dine and so drew them into her social circle.
Jane Marcet the educator
In response to her own increased enjoyment of scientific lectures, once she had acquired some background knowledge, Jane was motivated to share her joy of learning. Her first book Conversations on Natural Philosophy, written in 1805, was not initially published, but her second, Conversations on Chemistry was published anonymously in 1806. Although anonymous, she made it clear in her preface that she was a woman. Her books were aimed at young women in their teens. In Conversations on Chemistry, she dismissed concerns that science was not suitable for girls simply by stating that public opinion was changing and therefore she considered it suitable.
Pulleys, wheels, the inclined plane, wedge and screw, drawn by Jane Marcet for Conversations on Natural Philosophy: in which the elements of that science are familiarly explained and adapted to the comprehension of young pupils (Wallis (Peter) Collection, Wallis 910 MAR)
Jane wrote textbooks intended for the non-expert at a time when this sort of simplified text was largely unknown. Simplification did not lead to stagnation, however. Her work was based on the latest ideas and she worked hard in subsequent editions to keep her books up to date, substantially revising them by adding the latest thinking and new discoveries and removing anything out of date.
After chemistry she tackled economics, publishing Conversations on Political Economy in 1816. Conversations on Natural Philosophy was eventually published in 1819. She followed these with Conversations onVegetable Physiology in 1829 as well as stories for younger readers. She put her name to her work in the 12th edition of Conversations on Chemistry in 1832.
Since “conversing with a friend” – probably primarily her husband – had been such an important means of her own learning, she emulated this, adopting a conversational style within her writing. Each of her textbooks is a conversation between a teacher, Mrs Bryan and two pupils, Caroline and Emily. These were not confined to the stilted question and answer style of many contemporary schoolbooks but instead were an approximation of normal lively conversation between a dedicated teacher and curious pupils. That this was a well-considered pedagogical technique was acknowledged by her contemporaries: “For Marcet, the dialogue is a teaching method, a means of conveying established knowledge as well as of helping young people to reorganize their own thoughts and experiences.” 2
The conversations frequently centre around experiments. The reader is able to experience and witness these vicariously through the questions, reactions and increased understanding of Caroline and Emily. This use of experimentation as a teaching method was innovative and, like the use of conversation, reflected her own learning experience.
To say that her books were a success is something of an understatement. Conversations on Chemistry ran to 16 English editions, Conversations on Natural Philosophy 14, Conversations on Political Economy 14 and Conversations on Vegetable Physiology 3. They were translated into Dutch, German, Spanish and French and there were many American editions where her work was widely plagiarised due to lack of international copyright laws.
Throughout her works she makes no claims to original thought but presents the ideas of others in innovative and clear ways. She is not afraid of tackling controversial subjects or the latest theories. The books had a mixed reception with critics, being praised by some and dismissed as unsophisticated by others, however they were widely read and provided a useful introduction to each subject for adult readers as well as the schoolgirl audience for whom they were intended.
After the death of her husband, Jane continued to be influenced by the diverse intellectual circle of friends that she nurtured around her. Conversations on Political Economy was based on what she had learned in conversation with thinkers in her social circle such as Thomas Malthus and, most significantly, David Ricardo. Her publication predates Ricardo’s own work Principles of Political Economy. A friendship with naturalist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle inspired Conversations on Vegetable Physiology.
The Common Pea, Pisum vulgaris, drawn by Jane Marcet for Conversations on Vegetable Physiology: comprehending the elements of botany, with their application to agriculture (Alderson (Brian) Collection, MAR CON)
Jane also published books on grammar and stories for young children including, in 1835, Mary’s Grammar which became a classic text and was still widely used until the early 1900s.
Jane Marcet the influencer
One of the early readers of Conversations on Chemistry was an apprentice book binder called Michael Faraday. He was inspired to attend Humphry Davy’s lectures himself. His insight and understanding made a favourable impression on Davy who later employed him as his assistant. He then rose to prominence in his own right. Jane befriended him and from 1833 incorporated his new discoveries into later editions.
Another member of Jane’s intellectual circle was Harriet Martineau. Martineau was inspired by reading Conversations on Political Economy to include the ideas in her own work. The two became friends although they did not always see eye to eye politically.
Jane Marcet the polymath
In her youth, Jane had travelled to Italy with her father and became interested in painting. She studied with Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Lawrence, nurturing a talent that resulted in her illustrating her own work with simple clear and stylish diagrams. She read both English and French fluently.
Despite having become proficient enough in science and economics to have written successful textbooks, she remained modest. Her friends wrote of her propensity for listening rather than talking. Having listened, it is her ability to communicate in a direct and engaging manner in her writing that is her legacy.
Her originality lay in both considering science and economics suitable subjects for girls, and in her pedagogical style, using dialogue and experimentation to help learners to organise and re-evaluate their thinking based on her own learning experiences. Emphasis is placed on understanding rather than rote learning or memorisation. The pupils in her conversations are expected to be active participants in their own learning, to think for themselves and to ask and answer questions. Marcet, through the voice of Mrs Bryant, guides the students and uses examples with which they will already be familiar from other disciplines as well as from everyday life. Commentators have suggested that Marcet was influenced by writers such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Maria Edgeworth and Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and while this is certainly possible, it is likely that her style drew its most significant influence from her own desire for knowledge and understanding, experience of wanting to learn, and achieving success through “conversing with a friend”. 3
Jane Marcet in Special Collections
There are many of Jane Marcet’s publications, in numerous editions, held across our collections, including in the Wallis (Peter) Collection; the Alderson (Brian) Collection; the Butler (Joan) Collection; the Bell (Maurice) Collection; the Medical Collection; 19th Century Collection; and the Blavatnik Honresfield Library.
This Treasure of the Month is brought to you through our Special for Everyone project to celebrate and highlight diversity across our collections.
Notes
1. Marcet, J. (1813) Conversations on Chemistry: in which the elements of that science are familiarly explained and illustrated by experiments. 4th / rev., cor. and considerably enl.. edn. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown.
2. Letter from Michael Faraday to Auguste de la Rive quoted in Henderson, W. (1994) ‘Jane Marcet’s Conversations on Political Economy: a new interpretation’, History of Education, 23(4)
3. Letter from Michael Faraday to Auguste de la Rive quoted in Henderson, W. (1994) ‘Jane Marcet’s Conversations on Political Economy: a new interpretation’, History of Education, 23(4)
Approximately 35 years after Akyaaba Addai-Sebo – a Ghanaian-born activist – established Britain’s first-ever ‘Black History Month’, the UK continues to celebrate the achievements and contributions of Black people every October. This annual celebration aims to promote a better understanding of Black history, with events taking place all the way from London to Aberdeen this year.
To coincide with this important month, Newcastle Robinson Library has collaborated with Seven Stories to host a city-wide exhibition on Black Britain and children’s literature. Embodying the message, ‘Listen to This Story: From History to Our Story’, the exhibition features some of the most interesting picture books, nursery rhymes and illustrations, told from the material within Newcastle University’s Special Collections and Archives. The exhibition is running from 20th October 2022 – January 2023, on Level 2, Special Collections and Archives exhibition space, Philip Robinson Library – free and open to all.
Analysing these archived children’s works has enabled us to look back over centuries of British literary history, allowing us to present a unique insight into how race relations have changed within the UK. Many of the books show how, historically, literature for young people has played a prominent role in transferring problematic ideas about race and power. Indeed, it becomes clear that texts even for the very youngest of readers, such as ABC books and nursery rhymes, have depicted non-white people in derogatory and stereotypical ways.
Front cover of Ten Little Niggger Boys by Jean Cumming [on loan from Karen Sands O’Connor’s Collection.
In a similar way, we can see that young people’s texts also presented people of colour as being white children’s ‘play-things’, such as toys, dolls, and gnomes. Presenting Black people like this was historically used to justify white oppression as it effectively demonstrated people of colour as needing parental care and governance.
An example of this can be seen in William Nicholson’s The Pirate Twins (1929). In which, Nicholson presents two childlike pirates; miniature Black people who are cared for (and controlled) by a young white girl called Mary.
Illustration from The Pirate Twins, by Nicholson, William (1929) [Butler (Joan) Collection, 823.912 NIC]
These dehumanising caricatures became so normalised in British society that they could be found not only in children’s books but on postcards, perfume bottles, games, and jam jar stickers (to name but a few examples). They worked to elevate Eurocentric, white standards and devalue Black individuals, cultures, features and histories.
As a way to counteract and resist these harmful depictions, many authors, publicists and illustrators worked hard to create humanising stories which normalised and celebrated Black people.
It is clear, then, that a lot of progress has been made in the world of children’s literature.
However, with only 15% of published children’s books featuring a character of colour in 2020, we still have a long way to go to ensure that everybody is represented equally!
Written by exhibition placement student, Ella Fothergill.
We have sought to ensure that the content of this blog post complies with UK copyright law. Please note however, that we have been unable to ascertain the rights holders of some of the images used. If you are concerned that there may have been a breach of your intellectual property rights, please contact us with the details of the image(s) concerned at libraryhelp@ncl.ac.uk and we will have the specified image(s) taken down from the blog post.
This year World Architecture Day falls on 03 October 2022, and, as one of the cataloguers of the Sir Terry Farrell archive it seems fitting to write another blog where we can revel in some of Sir Terry’s interactions with listed buildings and the conservation process.
If you spend a small portion of your day indulging in architecture news to keep abreast of current trends… just me then… a key theme that crops up is a concern, maybe an aversion, towards redesigning listed buildings. The reasons for this aversion include, but are not limited to, the protective legislation around listed buildings of various grades and the extent to which, or how, they can be extended and modified. Restrictions may relate to the types of materials used, styles emulated, and building techniques required, not to mention which local authority is involved. It’s a heady mix to comprehend, regardless of if you are an architect wanting to demolish a listed staircase, or a member of the public who wants to refurbish their home.
Never-the-less, architects willing to engage with the listed building planning and application process do exist and Sir Terry Farrell was one of them. He appears to have been very engaged with the redevelopment opportunities afforded by listed buildings, and developed innovative solutions to satisfy building inspectors, local planning authorities, clients and contractors. Sir Terry Farrell appears to have had logical reasons for preserving listed buildings: if a building is still serviceable, why destroy it. The reasons are also sentimental: architects should respect rather than erase what they find on the ground because buildings are containers for lived experience and memory. By repairing and modifying the original fabric of the building, as an architect you contribute to the tapestry of living history.
Grey Street – Newcastle-upon-Tyne
To start, something a bit local to Central Newcastle; the refurbishment of Grey Street. 52-78 Grey Street was designed by John Dobson for Richard Grainger in the 19th century (c. 1836) and is currently situated within the Central Newcastle Conservation area with a Grade II listed status. In 1995 Newcastle City Council approved a scheme by Terry Farrell & Company Architects in which Numbers 52-60 were restored and extended to the rear and the facade of Numbers 62-78 was retained to provide a frontage to a new open plan office space. Early planning applications included an archaeological survey, and the Sir Terry Farrell archive holds an array of earlier material detailing historic research and early building use plans. There are also some examples of pre-existing interior detailing that are not just random pieces of wood.
Example of historic floorplan (c1920-1925) detailing use areas along Market Lane and Pilgrim Street.Examples of interior joinery details and associated photocopies of joinery profiles for 52-78 Grey Street.
Most of the external façade of Grey Street had to be retained during the redevelopment; however, the internal reconfiguration was extensive, improving access throughout 52-78 Grey Street and redesigning the courtyard spaces between High Bridge Street and Market Lane. So, whilst the external appearance of Grey Street looks unaltered, the internal layout has been greatly changed. Just something to consider next time you are off on a stroll from Grey’s Monument.
The Royal Institution – Albermarle Street, London
Axonometric Impression drawing detailing key improvements to the Royal Institution.
The Royal Institution was founded in 1799 and is based in a row of houses designed by John Carr and built in 1756. A later façade was added to the front of the terrace in 1838 by Lewis Vulliamy. The rooms behind remained largely in their original layout; they were poorly connected and, by the 1980s, were also run-down and confusing to visiting members of the public. Rodney Melville and Associates were initially tasked with conducting an Impact on Heritage Assessment which influenced the refurbishment plans based upon the Grade I listed status of elements of the building. These listed elements included the external façade, main staircase, lecture theatre, and ‘Conversation Room.’
Terry Farrell and Partners were selected as architects for the redevelopment of the Royal Institution project which ran from 1999-2008. In the final design, circulation routes were reinvented and the difference between public and private spaces clearly demarcated. The aim was to create clear horizontal and vertical connections and, at the same time, re-allocate what had become a jumble of different functions to logical defined spaces. The result was a ground floor of interconnected public spaces, with a basement level public exhibition space largely focused on the Young Scientists Centre, a first-floor lecture theatre and library suite, whilst third floor offices and laboratories were located on the top floor. The director’s flat was changed from the second floor to the fourth floor, replacing the caretaker’s flat. The listed ‘Sad’ staircase nearer the rear of the building was refurbished and extended to the lower ground floor.
Key to the straightforward zoning was provided by a rehabilitated rear courtyard of workshops which formed an atrium, and a new central lift component was installed and glazed over. This project demonstrates how extensive structural changes can be made within a listed building whilst appreciating its existing fabric.
Tobacco Dock Shopping Village – Wapping, London
This project comprised the restoration and conservation of a significant historic Grade 1 listed dockside building dating from 1818, representing part of the early 19th century expansion of London docks. The project lasted from 1985-1990 and was completed in 2 parts; the first being the restoration of the original building fabric, and the second part involved the insertion of shopping and entertainment facilities and rebuilding the original dockside.
Restoration methods included the repair and the replacement of missing sections of the warehouse structure with fragments of the same type from buildings of adjoining sites which were threatened with destruction. Material from the archive demonstrates how remnants of industrial heritage around London influenced the finished appearance of the Tobacco Dock, and provide minutely detailed instructions for the refurbishment of salvaged material.
Instructions and photographs for the refurbishment of salvaged telephone boxes to use at Tobacco Dock.
There is also evidence of the ingenious decisions made to protect the existing structure of the building, such as retaining sub-soil moisture to prevent timber supports from drying out by discharging rainwater pipes below the basement floor.
As the above projects demonstrate, the archive of Sir Terry Farrell is full of material detailing how listed buildings can be sensitively repaired, retained and modified for their overall improvement. Unfortunately, there is no time to share evidence of the extensive communication that occurs with the planning application process of a listed building or conservation area. However, if you are interested in research matters relating to building conservation or other architectural interests within the Sir Terry Farrell archive you can contact the cataloguing project team, either Jemma Singleton at jemma.singleton@newcastle.ac.uk or Ruth Sheret at ruth.sheret@newcastle.ac.uk who will be happy to assist.
Sir Terry Farrell’s archive has been generously loaned to Newcastle University Library and is currently being catalogued. Once catalogued it will be made fully available to the public. All rights held by The Terry Farrell Foundation.
Our Gertrude Bell website (link:http://gertrudebell.ncl.ac.uk/) features transcripts of thousands of Bell’s letters and diary entries, alongside over 7,500 of her photographs. Thanks to a generous donation from the Harry and Alice Stillman Family Foundation we have been able to digitise and catalogue the letters Bell wrote to her family, her diaries and photographs to modern day archival standards and this process has allowed us to uncover details beyond what has previously been recorded in the transcriptions.
The homepage of the current Gertrude Bell website
Original transcripts of Bell’s letters and diaries were created in the 1990s and published online in the early 2000s. While these provide an excellent resource for exploring their content, cataloguing and digitisation has revealed new details and insight into how Bell communicated with her family, how those letters reached home, and the early 20th Century world she lived in.
When travelling in the Middle East, as she did on several prolonged trips in the 1900s and 1910s, Bell often used her letters to chronicle her journey. She regularly continued writing the same letter for several days, adding a new section each day and posting it when passing through a town. The original transcripts of Bell’s letters treat each day’s addition as a separate page on the website, however cataloguing and digitisation has revealed how often Bell wrote the same letter over multiple days, and sometimes, how rarely she passed civilization and an opportunity to post a letter.
Envelope of a letter posted by Gertrude Bell to her step-mother from Turkey in July 1907, including stamp, postmark, a changed address and later annotations.
The envelopes Bell’s letters were posted in also provide clues about their journey after they were posted home. Her father, a wealthy industrialist, and her step-mother lived between their family home at Rounton Grange in North Yorkshire and Sloane Street in London. Bell would choose one or the other address to post the letter to and if the letters arrived at the address the intended parent was not at they would be forwarded on by crossing out the address and adding the correct one. This was not unlikely when postage from the Arabian Desert to Rounton could take several months! Indeed, the envelopes or letters themselves often contain hand written dates telling us when a letter was received by her family, providing an insight into the speed and efficiency of inter-continental postage of the day.
As records of their journey back to Britain the envelopes also have stamps affixed, postmarks, and during the First World War had stickers applied to signify that they’d been passed by a censor. The stamps provide a small insight into the countries Bell was posting her letters from and their changing political landscapes. This is particularly the case for the time that Gertrude lived and worked in what is now Iraq, during and after the First World War, where the changing face of the British occupation is reflected in the stamps on the envelopes of Gertrude’s letters home.
The front and reverse of an envelope from a letter written by Gertrude Bell to her step-mother in November 1916. The envelope has had a red stamp on its front and label on its rear indicated it has been opened by a censor. A pencil note also shows that this letter was not to be included in the later published work of Bell’s letters.
The letters also reveal clues as to how they’ve been used and managed in the time since Gertrude’s death in 1926. Following her death, Gertrude’s step-mother compiled and published two books containing text from many of Gertrude’s letters. The process of deciding what was and what wasn’t included is seen by the crossing out in pencil of sections of letter, or marking on the envelope that a letter was not to be copied. These are often sections where Gertrude talks about family matters or where Gertrude offered her (typically forthright) opinions of the people she met and worked with. Sometimes brief instructions were scribbled on the letters or envelopes themselves, particularly if a letter was not to be copied.
Letter written by Gertrude Bell to her father in March 1903. The letter includes a section which has later been crossed out in pencil and a postscript which Gertrude added after signing the letter.
Thus, the process of cataloguing and digitising Gertrude Bell’s rich archive of letters allows us to explore facets of Bell’s life and her letters that are not immediately obvious from their content alone. Marks which help us understand how she lived and communicated with her family, how the political and cultural landscape of the lands that Bell lived in changed, and how Bell’s family managed her letters can all be explored through the newly digitised and catalogued archive.
Thanks to project funding from the Harry and Alice Stillman Family Foundation a brand new Gertrude Bell website in early 2023. This will make the digitised images, transcripts and a new archival catalogue available alongside each other, providing a step-change in access to this internationally important archive.
Newcastle University is currently in the process of cataloguing the Sir Terry Farrell Archive, a collection of professional practice material from renowned architect, planner and urban designer Sir Terry Farrell. In amongst all the plans, correspondence and reems of project based material you would expect from an architecture firm there are also some more whimsical items. Namely caricatures and cartoons of urban features, people and the natural world.
Caricatures of employees often crop up in the collection. These caricatures entitled ‘The Tycoon Twins’ were intended to be hung in the company offices. They were created by Sir Terry depicting Stefan Krummeck and Gavin Erasmus, Directors of Farrells, Hong Kong. The correspondence note reads ‘I think the side by side pictures made them look as though they are arguing or not speaking, with the original option, one above the other, they look as though they are working together.’ The side-by-side option was clearly seen as being more effective.
Memos and presentation options for ‘The Tycoon Twins’ (uncatalogued collection).
‘The Tycoon Twins,’ by Sir Terry Farrell 2008 (uncatalogued collection).
Other caricatures are less formalised and are dotted throughout the concept and design sketches, possibly as a moment of distraction or procrastination.
Stylised drawings also make an appearance in some project work. Here are some sketched images showing the historical development of the Hungerford Bridge District, London from 1669 at Hungerford House and the construction of the suspension footbridge in 1845. These were also displayed in the company offices.
Stages of development of Hungerford Bridge from 1669 – 20th century (uncatalogued collection).
Sketching on the move is a common theme that runs through this collection. Caricatures form some of the material presumably produced by Terry when he was on his various travels. These images were located in a peculiar folder titled ‘Train portraits’. Maybe someone you know has been unwittingly sketched by Sir Terry.
‘Train Portraits,’ by Sir Terry Farrell 2006 (uncatalogued collection).
Aside from buildings and people, there are also some beautiful drawings of elements of the natural world which have been anthropomorphised. These trees form a series of artworks titled ‘The Old Men of Maytham,’ and include an Oak, a Beech and a Spanish Chestnut.
‘The Old Men of Maytham,’ by Sir Terry Farrell, April 2010 (uncatalogued collection).
‘The Old Men of Maytham,’ by Sir Terry Farrell, April 2010 (uncatalogued collection).
Material has been used with permission of Farrells. Sir Terry Farrell’s archive has been generously loaned to Newcastle University Library and is currently being catalogued. Once catalogued it will be made fully available to the public. All rights held by The Terry Farrell Foundation.
July 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the UK’s first Pride march, held in London on 1st July 1972. The first Pride saw around 2,000 participants marching together. Over the past 50 years that number has grown considerably, with the 2019 London Pride seeing 1.5 million people taking part to celebrate LGBTQ+ rights.
The official theme for this year’s march was #AllOurPride, uniting the collective past, present, and future of Pride for all members of the LGBTQ+ community. After a two-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this year’s London Pride Parade took place on Saturday 2nd July, beginning at Hyde Park, where the first Pride march in 1972 ended.
2022 also marks the 50th anniversary of the Tyneside Campaign for Homosexual Equality, a branch of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) which was established in Lancashire in 1964 and grew to have local groups throughout the country. The archive for the Tyneside CHE contains documents relating to the group’s many campaigns for equal rights. For example, the archive covers the fight for the age of consent for same-sex couples to match that of heterosexual couples, and campaigns against Margaret Thatcher’s 1988 Section 28 legislation banning local authorities from ‘promoting homosexuality’ by discussing LGBTQ+ issues in schools. As well as campaigning, CHE also provided a social and support network for gay men and lesbians.
Within the Tyneside CHE archive, it is possible to look back at Pride marches across the past five decades. The first Pride march in 1972 took place 5 years after the Sexual Offences Act 1967 which decriminalised sex between gay men over the age of 21 in England and Wales. At the time of the first Pride, however, the LGBTQ+ community still faced much discrimination – for example gay marriage was not legal, and gay and bisexual people were banned from joining the armed forces.
The Pride movement was influenced by the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York. The riots were a response to a violent police raid at the Stonewall Inn gay bar and were a catalyst for LGBTQ+ equality movements worldwide. The significance of Stonewall is reflected in the Tyneside CHE archive, as the marches of 1979 and 1989 commemorate the 10th and 20th anniversaries of this watershed moment in the LGBTQ+ liberation movement.
Throughout the years, Tyneside CHE organised annual trips to the London Pride marches. A coach was arranged, and ticket prices were ‘related to people’s earnings, so everyone can afford to come down on our bus’. Pricing tickets in this way promoted inclusivity and ensured LGBTQ+ people from across the socio-economic spectrum could participate in Pride.
The London march was not the only way to celebrate Pride, however, with the CHE Tyneside newsletter from 1987 outlining that some events were planned in Tyneside itself.
The Tyneside CHE archive also contains paraphernalia from Pride festivals across Europe, including from the very first EuroPride. EuroPride is a pan-European festival hosted by a different European city each year. The first EuroPride took place in London in 1992 and was attended by over 100,000 people. Not only does 2022 mark 50 years since the first Pride, but it also marks the 30 year anniversary of EuroPride.
Looking through the Tyneside CHE archive it is clear that a lot of progress has been made since the first Pride march 50 years ago. However, with 1 in 5 LGBTQ+ people in Britain experiencing a hate crime, and with conversion therapy still being legal in the UK, there is still a long way to go to achieving true equality.
CHE materials are used by kind permission of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality.
We have sought to ensure that the content of this blog post complies with UK copyright law. Please note however, that we have been unable to ascertain the rights holders of some of the images used. If you are concerned that there may have been a breach of your intellectual property rights, please contact us with the details of the image(s) concerned at libraryhelp@ncl.ac.uk and we will have the specified image(s) taken down from the blog post.
The cataloguing project for the Sir Terry Farrell archive is just over one year old and although we’ve only scratched the surface of what the archive has to offer, we thought now would be a good moment to share some of the gems that we’ve found so far… inbetween cataloguing thousands of architectural plans.
My name is Jemma Singleton, and I am the Senior Archives Assistant assigned to the Sir Terry Farrell collection along with Archivist, Ruth Sheret. Working within Newcastle University Special Collections team, our jobs are to catalogue, re-package, and promote the collection so that it can be publicly accessible and used as an excellent resource for teaching, research and exhibition purposes. As the Farrell collection is so large, it is currently being stored at Newcastle University’s off site research reserve facility.
Archive Context
The Farrell Collection holds the retained records of professional practice for Sir Terry Farrell through all the iterations of his working life. There is also a small assortment of work from Sir Terry’s student days and from his working life prior to setting up his own architecture firm. If you would like to know for example about the working relationship between the Terry Farrell Partnership and Ove Arup during the years 1980-1987, or the many revisions to details on projects like Alban Gate, then this archive is a great place to start!
When the collection was deposited with Newcastle University, we knew very little about the plentiful and detailed content contained within it, as it arrived uncatalogued. Our role is to work through the many boxes we received, mainly organised by project prior to us receiving them. Over the remaining 18 months of the project we are going to systematically work through each box, catalogue the detail contained within, with the aim of creating a searchable catalogue for the collection and making it a usable resource for all.
One aisle of the archive store.
Plans and All Revisions herein.
Within the Farrell collection there are over 1000 tubes of drawings that represent projects from the initial tender stages of design through to contract and construction drawings, including the many revisions for each of these. They are mainly divided by building project and can contain anywhere between 10 and 70 drawings. There could be upwards of 40,000 individual planning drawings within the collection. The number of drawings retained for a project varies greatly across different designs, for example Alban Gate has over 500 individual drawings, whereas the Royal Institution project has around 200.
One of the activities for us when working with the architectural drawings is to repackage them into appropriate tubes for long-term storage purposes, enabling them to be appropriately conserved and available for years to come. We check for damage to plans, split the contents of tubes up if they are over-filled, and then repackage them into resilient archival standard tubes.
An example of a working drawing from Jencks House consisting of rear elevation sketches.
Stakeholder Correspondence, Contractor information and Public Inquiry Records
Another large division in the collection is the considerable amount of correspondence between the Terry Farrell companies and other groups of contractors. It is dense material consisting of long chains of correspondence, often in email format, ordered chronologically and it is well labelled. This type of correspondence allows researchers to follow a narrative thread of the development of a building, how an invoice has been negotiated or how a snag list has been contested. You may also get a snapshot in time about what a typical business lunch consisted of in 1995!
A blue plaque in the Newcastle area related to one of Sir Terry’s professional partnerships. Bonus points if you can guess where.
Models
A particularly appealing aspect of the Farrell collection are the architectural models. There are 90 models of various sizes held within the store. They can be small enough to carry by hand or large enough to be a logistical challenge to move. There are mock-ups of individual buildings that were used for concept design or exhibition purposes, designs for architectural installations that were never built, and large-scale masterplan models in multiple sections that connect. We have carried out an extensive condition report for all the models in the collection. Each model requires a different level of conservation from structural repairs like mending roof struts or realigning shrubbery, through to cleaning and dusting. There is the potential for a selection of the models to be used in exhibitions, so one of the important aspects of our project is to develop model care, conservation, and transportation protocols for Newcastle University Library to support using this section of the collection.
An example of a design model for the Home Office building in Marsham Street.
Project Development Documents
Sir Terry Farrell is known as an architect with significant interest in and experience of urban design which forms a significant part of the collection. We are finding a huge range of masterplans within the collection from compact civic planning at Westoe (South Tyneside), through to regional redevelopment ideas in the Thames Gateway (London). As research tools these masterplans provide excellent historical context material for a chosen project and are an excellent distillation of his ideas about how particular sites could be arranged.
Publicity material
The collection also holds an eclectic range of publicity material for some of Sir Terry Farrell’s more landmark buildings. This material demonstrates the weird and wonderful things that an archive, even a professional one, can contain, along with the imaginative ways that buildings enter the public consciousness. Notable examples include snow globes of the Peak (Hong Kong), and a vodka bottle from the launch of the James Bond film Skyfall, in which the Terry Farrell designed MI6 building is destroyed. There are also numerous magazine features and press cutting collections about different building projects or masterplan designs that Sir Terry Farrell has been involved with throughout his career.
One of the many snow globes initially found in the Sir Terry Farrell collection.
A Little Bit o’ This
Within a lot of project documentation there are draft drawing collections for specific buildings, along with larger design and presentation artwork. They provide interesting context to visual design and construction narrative within the rest of the collection. Additionally, there are boxes of slides which make for appealing visual aids in displaying the different states of building design. These physical materials largely disappear from the collection once these capturing processes became digital. This type of visual content continues within the collection as born-digital objects. In layman’s terms, the drawings are still present in the collection but located on a floppy disc, or CD. This change in format has raised practical questions into how these records are going to be preserved, catalogued and made accessible for research in the future.
Access to the Archive
It may be that you have some ideas relating to the Terry Farrell collection; maybe you want to know more about masterplans in relation to urban design or enquire about some images for a specific building. Maybe full immersion into a built environment public enquiry process is more your jam. If you have a Farrell related architecture enquiry, then Ruth or I are best placed to assist you in your research efforts. Whilst cataloguing is underway much of the collection is not fully accessible and will be more available when the completed catalogue goes live at the end of the project. However, we are happy to help with research enquiries if we can, so please do get in touch using the following email address jemma.singleton@newcastle.ac.uk. Stay tuned for future blog pieces about Sir Terry Farrell and his architectural prowess.
Sir Terry Farrell’s archive has been generously loaned to Newcastle University Library and is currently being catalogued. Once catalogued it will be made fully available to the public. All rights held by The Terry Farrell Foundation.
These papers were originally accumulated by the office of William Dickson, overseer of the Alnwick Corn Exchange from its opening in 1862 until 1880. Dickson, a solicitor in Alnwick and local benefactor, in fact raised the money for the building of the Alnwick Corn Exchange, and then oversaw the building of the Exchange, before then taking responsibility for its running for the next twenty years.
The Alnwick Corn Exchange Archive contains correspondence and legal agreements relating to the purchase of the site and the subsequent building programme; correspondence about similar markets in Berwick and Kelso, a Broadside announcing the opening and detailing the functions of the new Exchange, as well as accounts and correspondence for the period 1862 – 1880.
These papers are particularly fascinating as the Exchange was used not only as a market but also as a venue for entertainment, and both the accounts and correspondence files contain much information about the acts which were booked during this period.
A fundraising pledge letter for the building of the Alnwick Corn Exchange, 1860. W Dixon of Warkworth pledges to take one £50 share in the Exchange building (ACE/01/01-1).
Official declaration of the opening of the Exchange by the Keeper of the Exchange (Robert Wardhaugh), 7th May 1862 (ACE/02/01-1).
Scale of Charges at Alnwick Corn Exchange, 1862 (ACE/02/01-2).
A letter from the National Opera Company to Alnwick Corn Exchange, 1876. The Managers of the Company ask if they can book the Exchange for March 10 to 15 inclusive. They go on to write that if those nights were available they would be happy to give up the room during the day time, and that if the full six nights were not available would three or four consecutive nights be possible (ACE/05/01/02-1).
A flyer for an act playing in Barnstaple, part of correspondence making arrangements for the act to visit Alnwick (ACE/05/01).
A mixed review for the Dunbar and Cogan Theatre Company, 1869! The cutting accompanied a letter from William Cogan to the Alnwick Corn Exchange requesting a booking at the Exchange later in the year, “for a period of two to three weeks for theatrical performance” (ACE/05/01/05-1).
