Borthwick Newsletter - March 2022

Posted on 28 February 2022

Welcome to the Borthwick's March newsletter

March in the Archives - delve into our catalogues with this month’s featured description

Handbill issued during a dispute between Manchester doctors, March 1815. This handbill reprints copies of letters to the editor of The Manchester Mercury written by Drs Edward Carbutt and Henry Hardie. The handbill was issued by Carbutt to refute the charges that he has been denigrating Hardie's abilities with a voter in the election for Manchester Infirmary physician. This is a good example of how the open elections to the honorary posts of physician or surgeon to a hospital were subject to ruthless competition and canvassing for votes by candidates [RET/8/8/2, or view the original document at the Wellcome Collection]

What’s New?

We’re shining a spotlight on art this month. Artworks might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the Borthwick Institute, but we actually have quite a lot of them among our archival collections and moreover we are responsible for the university’s extensive art collection of over 900 items dating from the 1500s to the present day. The university collection includes work by acknowledged masters, such as Barbara Hepworth, Sydney Nolan, Paul Nash, Joan Eardley, Keith Vaughan, Jacob Epstein, Mary Fedden, John Hoyland, Patrick Caulfield, R. B. Kitaj and Elizabeth Blackadder. It also holds pieces by prominent local artists, including Austin Wright, John Langton, Russell Platt, David Lloyd-Jones and Sally Arnup. The breadth of the collection encompasses ancient and modern ceramics, textile-art, sculpture, painting, printmaking, book-art and photography.

Sidney Nolan - Central Australia

In January we welcomed a new Art Curator, Helena Cox, to the team. Helena’s work will focus especially on making sure the collection substantially contributes to teaching and research at the university and enriches the student experience on many levels, from academic and practical hands-on sessions to enhancing wellbeing. She is also keen to open up the university campus to the public, making the art collection a destination for culture vultures in York and beyond. She writes, ‘I have high hopes for the collection to have a vibrant presence in the city centre as well as on the campus, and I plan to introduce a series of temporary exhibitions that will attract the general public as well as enrich the cultural environment of the campus. Working with the university art collection is an absolute dream-come-true for me and I cannot wait for what the future brings for art on our beautiful campus!'

New Accessions

It’s been a busy month for new accessions. We’ve added a new enclosure award, dating from 1806, and a colour map from 1795 to the parish records of Rufforth, as well as documents and photographs concerning the development of a custom prosthesis to the British Orthopaedic Association Archive. We’ve also taken in the first part of a fascinating new collection of records for closed branches of the North East Federation of Women’s Institutes. This initial deposit comprises records for thirty four different Yorkshire branches, including four - Baldersby, Birdsall, Great Smeaton, and Slingsby - that date back to the 1920s. Records of further closed branches will be deposited in due course.

We’ve added three new boxes of material to the archive of comedy writers Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, including scripts for The New Statesman and Birds of a Feather, as well as outlines, scripts, production notes and programmes for many other productions on stage and screen. Finally we have added a further deposit to our collection of Joseph Rowntree Foundation social research reports, which will sit in our Rare Books library. These include typescript reports, articles and publications covering a wide range of issues relating to social inequality in the UK and overseas.

New Catalogues

Number of archival descriptions on Borthcat on 1st March 2022: 88,859

February saw the completion of the cataloguing work on the Hickleton Papers (the records of the Wood family, Earls of Halifax) and its related archives. While the bulk of this work was included in the previous newsletter, we added a few smaller pieces this month. The most interesting of these is the photograph album of Sir Charles Peake who served as Press Officer to the 1st Earl of Halifax during his time as British Ambassador in Washington, USA, in the Second World War. Sir Charles had been appointed Head of the Foreign News Department and Chief Press Advisor to the Ministry of Information in 1939. His photographs cover the journey of Lord and Lady Halifax to America in January 1941 and there are further letters between Sir Charles and Lord Halifax in the Hickleton Papers.

In addition, the searchroom team have continued to expand our parish record archives, with full catalogues now added for the parishes of Howsham, Warter, Thornton le Clay, Terrington, and Full Sutton. Of these, Terrington has a particularly interesting history. The present parish church dates to at least the eleventh century but may actually be Saxon in origin. A window lintel made from a recycled gravemarker of the 8th or 9th century is an intriguing hint of an earlier church on the site. The present church was rebuilt and expanded in the twelfth and fourteenth century and then restored by the Victorians, although parts of the medieval structure remain. Its archive is similarly rich, including (in addition to the expected parish registers) churchwarden accounts giving details of doles to the poor in the nineteenth century, and poor law records such as bastardy and removal orders from 1718 onwards. Perhaps the most unusual record however is a 1933 album of photographs of local people taken by the rector. The photographs are listed with villagers’ names, occupations and descriptions of their parish and church activities, offering a unique glimpse of a Yorkshire community in the first part of the twentieth century.

Borthwick in the Media

The university art collection and curator Helena Cox were featured in the Yorkshire Post in February: 'Hidden treasures worth £4m at the University of York to be brought to life as first ever art curator is appointed'.

Amongst many plans for the collection, undergraduate students from the 'Curating and Art History' course are working on a unique exhibition using the university Art Collection. Working closely with the university curator and the art collection team, the students have selected an array of artworks from the collection. The artworks will celebrate the architecture of the original 1960s campus, as well as reflect on the evolution of the student experience over the decades. The intention is to make the exhibition accessible and attractive to visitors from across the University as well as to the wider local audiences. The collaborative nature of curating this show will hopefully set a precedence for a close working relationship between students and the Art Collection team. The university Art Collection is a fantastic resource for students and scholars, and curating in-house shows is just one of the many ways that the Collection can enrich the cultural life of the university. The exhibition will open in May and closer to the time there will be regular updates on social media across the university so watch this space!

Archive of the Month: J.W. Knowles & Sons

What is it? The business, personal and research papers of the Knowles family, glass painters, restorers and church decorators whose business was based in Stonegate, York

Where can I find it? The J.W. Knowles & Sons Archive catalogue can be found on Borthcat.

Why is it Archive of the Month?

Continuing the artistic theme of this month’s newsletter, the firm of J.W. Knowles & Sons was founded by John Ward Knowles around 1861 and continued by his son John Alder Knowles. The archive is an important record of a specialist York business, comprising letter and order books, wage information, sketches and designs for commissions, catalogues of work and photographs. The firm is particularly remembered for its work on St Lawrence’s Church in York, as well the restoration of the St William and St Cuthbert windows in York Minster.

If this was the sum total of the archive it would be a very valuable addition to the Borthwick’s collections, but the archive also includes the historical research papers of John Alder Knowles on stained glass, adding a rich historical context to the records of the family business. Knowles collected original manuscripts relating to notable stained glass painters William Peckitt and Clement Heaton, took photographs of stained glass in York and elsewhere, carried out detailed case studies of glass in York Minster, and published numerous articles based on his research. For many years he also edited the Journal of Stained Glass, the publication of the British Society of Master Glass-Painters. Given his particular interest in the 18th century York based Peckitt, he would have greatly enjoyed our recent accession of Peckitt’s manuscript journal, including as it does his notes on mixing colours and painting in miniature.

A page from the designs catalogue of J.W. Knowles, early 20th century

Knowles’ stained glass can still be seen in the Minster and at St Lawrence’s Church in York - but there is one other location that many are not as well aware of. John Alder Knowles lived and worked at number 35 Stonegate and although the building now houses a branch of the Oliver Bonas shops, examples of Knowles’ wonderful stained glass can be found throughout, creating an eclectic mix of the early modern, the Victorian, and the modern.

We’ll be back in April with more news!