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On Arabel Moulton-Barrett

Posted on by Amara

By Amara Thornton (Co-Investigator)

I first came across “Miss Moulton Barrett” in the summer of 2020 as I started exploring the history of archaeology in the Caribbean. Her name was mentioned in connection to a late 19th century excavation at an estate called Retreat or Retreat Pen(n) in St Ann’s, Jamaica. Retreat had been owned by a “Mr Moulton Barrett” and “Miss Moulton Barrett” had conducted excavations there. I dug around for more information (online, it was during lockdown). I happened upon a digitised and text-searchable copy of Jeanette Marks’ 1938 book The Family of the Barrett: a colonial Romance, charting the family history of famous Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. A sentence in this book stopped me in my tracks:

“[…] there was born to Charles John [Moulton Barrett, EBB’s brother] by a woman of colour, a child.” (p 612)

Another child followed a few years later. Two daughters, Eva and Arabel, both born to Charles John Moulton Barrett and Elizabeth Barrett. Both Eva and Arabel grew up at Retreat in the late 19th century. These two girls were the Mixed-heritage Jamaican nieces of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

I wasn’t sure whether Eva or Arabel was the “Miss Moulton-Barrett” of the archaeological reports I’d been looking at. But as I pursued my enquiries, I contacted the staff of Eton College Collections where the Moulton-Barrett family papers are held. They informed me that the “Miss Moulton Barrett” I was investigating was most likely Arabel – in 1880 Eva married John Casserly (listed on their marriage certificate as a planter living at Oxford Estate, Trelawny). Even more thrillingly, in looking through the archive on my enquiry the Eton College Collections staff had discovered six letters (written from Jamaica by Arabel (“Bel”) Moulton-Barrett to a relative (Edward F. Moulton Barrett, or “Edward of Albion” as she addresses him). The letters held at Eton College were written between 1945 and 1953.  Arabel Moulton-Barrett was by then a very elderly woman, and one of Jamaica’s most celebrated women poets.

In the 1890s, during an explosion of archaeological work in Jamaica, the Jamaica Gleaner published a report on the discoveries “Miss Moulton-Barrett” had made during her informal excavations at Retreat Pen. This report included a short description in her own words. By this time, she had loaned some of the artefacts discovered for display in a well-publicised exhibition on Jamaica’s pre-Columbian past, held in late 1895 at the Institute of Jamaica.

We added “Miss Moulton Barrett” to our database early in the Beyond Notability project (find her entry here). Her engagement in archaeology reflects a wider colonial context which we are mapping (including women with ancestors appearing in the Legacies of British Slaveownership database, listed here). But Arabel’s story and her letters are also particularly intriguing for me personally, as a Mixed-heritage researcher with close family ties to the Caribbean. 

Arabel Moulton-Barrett’s engagements with archaeology also highlight an important element of the context of women’s work in archaeology, history and heritage in Britain: empire. As a team, we are continuing to discuss how best to reflect and incorporate this imperial context into the database that forms a key part of our research project.  Through the project we want our database to be a framework and a model for situating these historic engagements with archaeology, history and heritage in Britain (as we know it today) alongside similar work happening within the British empire broadly conceived.

The paragraphs that follow explore three aspects of Arabel Moulton-Barrett’s story: her family background, the context of her archaeological work (assuming that Arabel Moulton-Barrett is the same person as “Miss Moulton Barrett”), and her later life. I refer to the letters held by Eton College throughout the piece. Written at the end of her life, when she was reflecting on her childhood and her childhood home, they are a poignant insight into her memories. While she doesn’t discuss her archaeological work explicitly in the letters, she does reveal the special place Retreat Pen, her childhood home, held in her heart.

The Family

The Barrett family had been associated with Jamaica since the 18th century, holding plantations across several parishes, including St Ann’s and Trelawny. While some members of the family resided in Jamaica others like Arabel Moulton-Barrett’s paternal grandfather Edward Barrett, lived in Britain. Edward Barrett received thousands of pounds worth of compensation after the abolition of slavery. His son Charles John (known within the family as “Storm”), had moved from Britain to Jamaica to manage Barrett estates as a resident proprietor. These estates included Retreat Pen, “The Retreat”, the plantation between Brown’s Town, St Ann’s and Stewart Town, Trelawny. Arabel’s mother Elizabeth Barrett was herself a Mixed-heritage woman. Arabel noted in a letter (2 Feb 1945) that Elizabeth’s father was Charles John’s “uncle Sam”, making Elizabeth and Charles John cousins.  Arabel did not mention the name of her maternal grandmother, though she appears to have known her.

In the six letters held at Eton, Arabel discussed her parents’ relationship in some detail. She emphasised their love for each other and mourned the fact that they had been prevented from marrying. Almost defiantly she wrote

“I consider myself as more truly born of wedded parents than any other woman whose mother bears a wedding ring”

“Bel” Moulton-Barrett to “Edward of Albion” 2 February 1945

Arabel revealed that Charles John gave Elizabeth a house and land in Stewart Town, Trelawny, bordering St Ann’s to the west. She noted that Elizabeth had acquired an education on her own, and “had a nice little library – theology, travel, autobiography & poetry were all represented.” (2 Feb 1945) 

Arabel and her sister Eva were brought up by Charles John at Retreat Pen – “my beloved home” Arabel called it (7 March 1956). Of Charles John’s parenting Arabel stated

“He did the right and honourable thing acknowledging his two little daughters. No father could have done more than he did […]”

“Bel” Moulton-Barrett to “Edward of Albion” 2 February 1945

According to Jeanette Marks the girls were educated in France. Charles John, Eva and Arabel travelled to Britain in 1867; Arabel recalled her visit to her uncle by marriage Robert Browning at his home in London in one letter, describing his voice as “Deep – rich – full” (2 Dec 1952). By the 1870s financial disaster loomed. Charles John’s brother Septimus was heavily in debt. Arabel recounted how Charles John spent all of his money and sold all the family properties clearing Septimus’s debt to save the Barrett name (30 Apr 1950). According to the Jamaica National Heritage Trust’s 2019 Archaeological Impact Assessment, Retreat Pen was sold in 1893. The only part of the estate that was not sold was the burial ground – this, Arabel noted in a letter, “still belongs to me.” (5 April 1950)

Arabel Moulton-Barrett’s complex family history encapsulates both the context of sexual exploitation of Black and Mixed-heritage women by White planters during the era of slavery, and the lives of the resulting Mixed-heritage population in the period after slavery. Some of these Mixed-heritage descendants, including Arabel, led relatively comfortable lives with the time to devote to intellectual pursuits.

Archaeology, Tourism and Jamaica

It is not clear exactly when Arabel Moulton-Barrett undertook her investigations of the mounds at Retreat, though it took place before the estate’s sale in 1893. By this time interest in Jamaica’s pre-Columbian past had intensified, tied to the colonial government’s plans for increasing tourism to the island.

In the late 1880s and 1890s, Jamaica had as its Governor one Henry Blake, who had joined the colonial service from a post in the Irish Constabulary. Before coming to Jamaica, he had been Governor in the Bahamas and (briefly) Newfoundland. Henry Blake was married to Edith Bernal Osborne, an artist and writer with a deep interest in archaeology (find her entry in our database here).

As Governor, Henry Blake wanted to put Jamaica on the map, drawing tourism and other development opportunities to the island. He worked to facilitate a large-scale international exhibition held in Jamaica in 1891. Edith Blake also took part in this work. In addition, she was increasing her own collection of Caribbean antiquities, writing and publishing on the history and archaeology of the Caribbean, and conducting her own explorations of sites.

The Blakes were involved in the Institute of Jamaica, a learned society which by the mid-1890s had begun to encourage and lead formal archaeological investigations . In 1895, Institute of Jamaica curator J. E. Duerden organised the “Anthropological Exhibition”, borrowing artefacts from collectors in Jamaica and beyond for the display. In a volume of the Institute’s Journal Duerden recorded the efforts of these resident collectors and excavators, including Edith Blake and Arabel Moulton-Barrett.

Duerden’s report makes clear that Arabel Moulton Barrett’s exploration at Retreat Pen centred around two hills connected by a ridge. These had once been fields enslaved workers had farmed for their sustenance – among them, possibly, Arabel’s maternal ancestors. In her notes on the work, published in the Gleaner and reprinted in Duerden’s report, Arabel recorded that the ridge featured small mounds where pieces of pottery described in the Gleaner as “of the same type as the aboriginal examples obtained elsewhere”, the bones of coneys (a mammal similar to a rat), and pieces of shell were recovered at and just below surface level. It would probably have been estate workers, under Arabel’s direction, who dug below the surface on the ridge. The Institute of Jamaica subsequently organised further investigations of the site, and Duerden reported that the previous cultivation of this area by enslaved people had resulted in damage to the mounds in question. It is entirely possible that the enslaved population working in the fields before Arabel’s explorations had themselves discovered further evidence of Indigenous life. A West India Company soldier who collected ancient stone tools in Falmouth, Jamaica in the 1860s noted in a report that formerly enslaved people had first recovered many of these tools.

Later Life: Arabel, the Published Poet

The 1893 sale of Retreat Pen seems to have ended Arabel Moulton-Barrett’s archaeological investigations. Perhaps, as she no longer had access to the family property, there was no opportunity for her to continue her interests. And her father’s impoverished circumstances must have played some part. She stoically references her long-standing financial worries, which were eased to some degree by her father’s brothers after his death.  “I have had to work hard all my life” she noted “but work is good for body and mind.” (30 April 1950). By 1913 she was living in Kingston, and it was there that she won first prize in a poetry competition. Her poetic response to the competition’s set question, “If I Were Governor”, was printed in the Gleaner in December 1913.

Between 1919 and 1925 three of Arabel’s short stories were published in The Catholic World. During the 1920s, she became more involved in the literary scene in Jamaica, and her work was included in the 1929 anthology Voices from Summerland, published in London but representing the work of the Jamaica branch of the Empire Poetry League. She continued to be a part of the Jamaican poetry league through the 1930s and 1940s, her poems published in League “Year Book” anthologies of 1940 and 1941, alongside the verses of many others, including Tom Redcam, Astley Clerk, Lena Kent and Constance Hollar. Her poem “The Lost Mate” (published in Voices from Summerland) features in a 1950 Anthology of the poetry of the West Indies.

Impoverished and suffering with loss of vision towards the end of her life, she records in a letter in the Eton collection (30 Apr 1950) that a group of writers had clubbed together to send her badly needed funds. She died soon after the letter was written. I hope she is buried in the family burial plot at Retreat as she wished, “close to my beloved father” (5 April 1950).

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Stephie Coane, Michael Meredith and Laura Carnelos, Katherine Harloe and Debbie Challis. Text of Arabel Moulton-Barrett letters reproduced by permission of the Provost and Fellows of Eton College.

References/Further Reading

Cuming, H. Syer. 1868. Proceedings of the British Archaeological Association. Journal of the British Archaeological Association 24 (4): 391-404.

Duerden, J. E. 1896. Jamaican Anthropology. Discovery of Aboriginal Shell Mounds in St Ann and St James. Jamaica Gleaner, 21 February, p 4.

Duerden, J. E. 1897. Aboriginal Indian Remains in Jamaica. Journal of the Institute of Jamaica  2(4).

Green, Cecilia A, 2006. Hierarchies of Whiteness in the Geographies of Empire: Thomas Thistlewood and the Barretts of Jamaica. New West Indian Guide 80 (1/2), 5-43.

Institute of Jamaica, 1896. Annual Report on the Institute of Jamaica for the year ended  31st  March, 1896. Kingston, Jamaica: Institute of Jamaica.

Jamaica Gleaner, 1913. ‘If I Were Governor.’ An Interesting Subject that attracted a good many competitors: Miss Arabel Moulton Barrett Secures First Prize. 13 December, p 7.

Jamaica National Heritage Trust Archaeological Division, 2019. Archaeological Impact Assessment, p 35.

Marks, Jeannette Augustus, 1938. The Family of the Barrett: A Colonial Romance. New York: The Macmillan Company.

McFarlane, J. E. Clare, 1945. The Challenge of Our Time: A Series of Essays and Addresses. Kingston, Jamaica: New Dawn Press.

Modest, Wayne, 2018. ‘A Period of Exhibitions’: World’s Fairs, Museums, and the Labouring Black Body in Jamaica. In Tim Barringer and Wayne Modest (Eds.). Victorian Jamaica. (pp. 523-550). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Moulton-Barrett, Arabel, 1919. ‘Melia. Catholic World, CVIII, 517-525.

Moulton-Barrett, Arabel, 1920. The Little Brown Bird. Catholic World, CX, 29-36.

Moulton-Barrett, Arabel, 1925. The Star-Child. Catholic World, 228-236.

Moulton-Barrett, Arabel, 6 letters to Lt Col E. F. Moulton Barrett, 1945-1953. MS 681 01 02 03: Eton College Collections.

Poetry League of Jamaica, 1940. Year Book of the Poetry League of Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica: New Dawn Press.

Poetry League of Jamaica, 1941. Year Book of the Poetry League of Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica: New Dawn Press.

On Friends and Friendships

Posted on by admin

By Katherine, Amara, and James (Project Investigators)

Constructing an ontology around relations between people is (relatively) straightforward when those relations are formal or familial: person X was taught by person Y, person A shared a house with person B, person P was the daughter of person Q. Where it gets difficult is when those relations are not familial, are less tangible, and we feel those relations are both significant and not unambiguously captured in our sources: for example, when two or more people appear to have been friends and that friendship appears to have been important to their lives.

Wikidata does not have a property for friendship, and as a project team we decided – after lengthy discussion and disagreement – that creating a property for friendship was unwise, because ‘friend’ is highly ambiguous. For example, ‘friends’ is used in ‘friends, Romans, countrymen’ to hail a group of people who are not necessarily friends, but rather to encourage those people to treat the speaker – or the institution they represent – as if friends. Similarly, the expression ‘friends of the British Museum’ is an organisational usage that describes a loose group of patrons, donors, and/or sponsors who are not necessarily ‘friends’ with the organisation but are rather well-wishers and/or supporters.

Wikidata – which Beyond Notability treats as a guide, though something short of a model – gets around this issue with the ‘significant person’ property, defined as ‘person linked to the item in any possible way’. That is, the property is used to define a range of relations that are significant to the subject: for example, between pi and William Jones (the latter named the former), Albrecht Dürer and Willibald Pirckheimer (the pair were noted correspondents), Hispano-Suiza and Marc Birkigt (the latter founded the former), 284 AD and Diocletian (the latter became Roman Emperor in 284 AD), Sarah Bernhardt and Betty Callish (they were friends).

For us, adopting this approach would have three disadvantages. First, it is non-specific, and a key rationale for creating our own knowledge base – rather than simply augmenting Wikidata – is to allow us to drill into the specificity of relations that our domain demands. Second, it is implemented in Wikidata without the requirement for evidence (to get technical, there is no property constraint for P3342 that requires a valid reference). Third, and more philosophical, is the emphasis on ‘notability’ (both of the subjects involved and of the relationships between those subjects), and the positional work that implies – notability thresholds depend on whosenotability counts and which relationships are considered to be significant. In a project seeking explicitly (it is in the title!) to go beyond notability, we have already resolved to always to make explicit that we are ascribing to people aspects of identity and self-image perceived by us in our interpretation of our sources. In turn, constructing our own notability thresholds for things like friendships between people – for, per Homosaurus “Connections based on affection and trust between two or more people” (and the various cascading private and public specificities thereof) – struck us, after much debate, as unwise.

So, what ascriptions or expressions of connections of this ambiguous kind are we encountering in our sources?

We know that Maria Millington Lathbury and Jane Harrison lived for some time at the same address – Chenies Street Chambers, a women’s residence in London. They were interviewed together in Pall Mall Gazette about lecturing work, and Harrison was described by Lathbury’s daughter in a published memoir as one of the “friends” who sought to help her establish her career as a freelance lecturer.

We know that Lucy Toulmin Smith wrote an obituary for Mary Kingsley, and Kingsley’s biographer, Stephen Gwynn, described her in his 1932 work as a “friend”.

We know that Agnes Conway dedicated her 1917 book to Jane Harrison describing her (in Latin) as a “beloved teacher” (“magistra dilecta”); and that Conway’s diaries reveal Jane Harrison was a hugely influential mentor for her for many years after she left Newnham College. For Amara, who has extensively researched Conway’s diaries, this amounts to friendship.

And we know that Anna Anderson Morton and Mary Brodrick ran a business together, travelled together, and were likely to have shared an address for part of their lives. Morton also arranged public appearances for Brodrick, announcements for which appeared in contemporary newspapers.

Based on our discussions, ontological observations, and analysis of evidence, our solution – for now – is to create the property ‘has personal connection to’. We plan to use this property to capture instances where evidence exists of non-familial and personal connections between people (beyond merely using the words such as ‘friend’ in a formal manner) and that is a more modest way of asserting connections between people that evoking ‘friendship’. For example, we have used this property to capture the personal connection between Ethel Henrietta Rudkin and Margaret Alice Murray as evidenced by Murray writing a foreword to a book written by Rudkin and by Murray having been noted as encouraging Rudkin’s work. This usage is then similar to Wikidata’s usage of ‘significant person’ in that its use is likely to be sparing – we don’t anticipate that every women in our knowledge base will have a ‘personal connection’ statement associated with them. However, it differs in placing an emphasis on the personal, and in not picking out ‘significant’ relations but rather trying to amplify the significance of other statements that suggest personal connections – in making ‘personal’ the evidence that links flatmates, colleagues in an excavation, or committee members.

Election of Women Fellows to the Society of Antiquaries

Posted on by Ammandeep

By Ammandeep K Mahal (Research Fellow) 

Since its foundation in 1707, The Society of Antiquaries has been a hub of archaeological, historical, anthropological and art research, all of which fell under the broad term – ‘Antiquary’. Members of the Society of Antiquaries are known as Fellows. In order to become a member, a person must first be elected by existing Fellows of the Society, and they must be ‘excelling in the knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other nations’ and be ‘desirous to promote the honour, business and emoluments of the Society’. Once elected, Fellows are able to use the Post-nominal letters – FSA (e.g. Dr Rose Graham, FSA).

As part of the Beyond Notability project, the team have been combing through the archives at the Society of Antiquaries. A set of documents that has enhanced our understanding of the Society’s fellowship are the ‘Fellows Lists’. These are a set of printed lists, kept in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries and were collated every year. Each year comprises a list of the full name, address and year of election for each ‘Fellow’. The Fellows Lists also provide an annual record of the Society of Antiquaries Council and Committee members as well as its Local Secretaries.

The Council were elected from the Fellowship and met to decide matters of policy, the Committees assisted the Council with the management of specific areas of the Society and were split into the following; Finance, Library, Executive and Research. Local Secretaries were designated for different regions. Their tasks were varied and included reporting on recent discoveries, locally published books or periodicals and threats to monuments. The Local Secretaries were also required to gather information on current excavations, collectors of antiquities, recommend artefacts for exhibition, and to supply the Society with rubbings of engravings found at monuments or on stones. Therefore, the Fellows Lists provide an insight into the management and structure of the Society as well as the roles of the Fellows within it. They also show that the Society was involved in activities beyond its walls. The Beyond Notability team will investigate the role of the Local Secretaries further and then aim to integrate this work into our database, where relevant.

Women started to be elected as Fellows of the Society in 1920, and one of the earliest examples we have is that of Rose Graham. Rose was selected by the Council of the Society of Antiquaries to be proposed as a Fellow in 1920. Once she was proposed, she was supported by existing Fellows and then elected as a Fellow. Rose Graham, interestingly, was also elected to the Council of the Society in 1926, something that was also reflected in the Fellows Lists.

As part of our research at the Society, the Fellows Lists were photographed every five years, from 1920 to 1950 (the timeframe of this project). From these photographs, I was able to collate a tally of the numbers of men and the number of women Fellows. The total numbers of men and women fellows in each year were then used to construct a graph (Figure 1), enabling the visual comparison of men and women Fellows. 

The Fellows Lists have been an important dataset for us to consult as they provide comparable data that was not available from other archival sources. As can be seen in Figure 1, that the overall numbers of Fellows were increasing from 1921 to 1950, showing expansion of the Society of Antiquaries, not just through the election of women Fellows. Although the numbers of women Fellows were increasing, they were still incredibly low in comparison to the numbers of men being elected as Fellows. There seems to be relative stagnation for women Fellows in the years of the 2nd World War (reflected here in the data for 1935 and 1941) and a decrease in the numbers of men Fellows for the same time period. Thus, the events of wider society are reflected within the Fellows Lists.

This is important information that contextualises the data we are adding to our knowledge base using the fascinating documents held at the Society of Antiquaries. It forms a baseline from which it is now possible to map the growth of the Society in terms of both men and women Fellows. The numbers of women Fellows may also be used to form a comparison with similar data collected from other scholarly societies (where that data exists). This data comes from a period of great social and political change in Britain, a time that marked women’s entry into differing aspects of public life, thus the data illustrates for the first time, how such a change was reflected in the Society of Antiquaries.  

More Working Lives at the Society of Antiquaries

Posted on by Amara

By Amara Thornton (Co-Investigator)

The Beyond Notability team has been busy going through records at the Society of Antiquaries. Among the lot are the Society’s Council Minute books. Alongside fellowship administration and the scholarly agendas of the day. the Council Minute Books also reflect the day-to-day logistics of running the Society.

Keeping my eye out for mentions of women in the Council Minute books, I came across one woman whose work for the Society was integral to its day-to-day functioning in the Victorian era. This woman is Mrs Baldwinson, who was married to the Society’s Porter, Mr George Baldwinson.

The minute noting her work at the Society was made as part of a Council Meeting in June 1874. George Baldwinson had asked for a raise for himself and his wife (whose first name is, sadly, not recorded), and the minute included information on their work and pay. Mrs Baldwinson’s rate of pay was quarterly, with an annual sum for making tea, in contrast to her husband’s weekly salary. After her death a few years later, a Mrs Knight took over her duties. Another very recent find was a reference to “two girls” (unnamed) who were to help with the Library Catalogue in 1884.

As I tweeted on our launch day, The Antiquaries Journal also includes brief references to other staff who helped the Society function on a day-to-day basis. There we can find acknowledgement of the work of Louisa Hurren, the Society’s housekeeper, who retired in 1945 after 40 years working at the Society.

In 1935, another staff member’s departure was acknowledged in The Antiquaries Journal – this was Miss Warrand, who was leaving the post of ‘Library-cataloguer’ at the Society after 10 years of working. It appears from the Journal that she was one of two cataloguers employed, and that her post was not to be filled because the cataloguing work had been so thoroughly done it was felt that the Society could manage with only one catalogue from that point.

We want to acknowledge the lives and work of these women in the Society’s history, and make sure that their work is recognised alongside the contributions of the Fellows to the Society. We hope that this brief post is a start.

International Women’s Day!

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The Beyond Notability project is taking over the Society of Antiquaries Twitter feed for this year’s International Women’s Day!

As part of this event, we are featuring two audio recordings from the correspondence of two women who are now featured on our database: Eliza Jeffries Davis, a historian, and Margerie Venables Taylor, an archaeologist.

These recordings of letters in the Victoria County History (VCH) archive have been created by Professor Catherine Clarke (Davis) and Claire-Louise Lucas (Taylor). The project is particularly grateful to Victoria County History for permission to record the extracts and make transcriptions of them available here. We’re also very grateful to Professor Catherine Clarke and Claire-Louise Lucas for agreeing to record them.

Eliza Jeffries Davis worked for the Victoria County History as a researcher and writer in the first decade of the 20th century. She became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1929.

Margerie Venables Taylor worked for the Victoria County History at the same time as Eliza Jeffries Davis. She became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1925.

These two recordings feature letters sent to William Page, the general editor of the VCH, by Davis and Taylor respectively. They illuminate the working lives of these two women. Davis’s letter is celebratory, sent on the publication of the VCH volume on which she had worked. In it, she makes suggestions for publicity and in so doing highlights her non-VCH working life, as a London County Council teacher. Taylor’s letter, sent after she had been working for some years at VCH, reflects her continuing concerns about the rate of pay for VCH researchers. She also reveals the expansion of her research work beyond VCH, enabling her to push more effectively for a salary increase.

Eliza Jeffries Davis

VCH Archvie EJ Davis read by Catherine Clarke March 2022

Eliza Jeffries Davis letter to William Page, dated 5 Oct 1909, on London County Council Moorfields Training College, White Street, Moorfields E. C. letterhead (VCH 2/22/3)

Transcript:

Dear Mr Page,

Thank you for your note. I am glad the London volume is really coming out at last – though I shudder to think of the negligences + ignorances in my part!

I am writing to suggest that you tell the publishers to send a prospectus of it to the heads of various London schools and colleges. I think we discussed this once, + you asked me to remind you again. It would be so very useful in teaching, + luckily the board of Education is awake to the importance of local history just now, so the heads of schools might think it worth while to spend so much money on a book!

In the case of institutions under the LCC it would be well if the notices were sent as soon as possible, as the “Requisition” for new books (only allowed once a term) are made up about the beginning of November. I enclose lists which may be useful.

Yours sincerely,

EJ Davis

Margerie Venables Taylor

Extract from MV Taylor letter to William Page dated 24.IV.1910 from 48 Watton Crescent, Oxford (VCH 1/3/210)

Transcript

Dear Mr Page, 

I have been considering the question we discussed since I last saw you. I should very much like to work for the History again, but I think I ought to have more than 1/6d an hour. If you work out £2.10 a week, working 5-6 hours a day, inclusive of all holidays etc, it comes to more than that. At the present moment for Research work at the Bodley I am paid 2/- an hour + other workers-transcribers are paid 2/6 an hour, while the ordinary, not very skilled, catalogue assistant receives 1/6 an hour. So that I think I ought to have 2/- an hour, especially when it is not certain that the work will continue for more than two years. I put the facts before you so that you will understand my position. I really feel it is not fair to take research work at 1/6 an hour, after some years’ experiences. I am sorry to trouble you in this way, but I think you will understand + tell me exactly what you think.  […]

**If you would like to explore the lives of Eliza Jeffries Davis and Margerie Venables further, you will find them on our database at: https://beyond-notability.wiki.opencura.com/wiki/Item:Q153 (Davis); https://beyond-notability.wiki.opencura.com/wiki/Item:Q133 (Taylor).

Introducing Our Database

Posted on by Amara

We are now three months into Beyond Notability. We gave our first overview presentation of the project at the Society of Antiquaries Christmas Miscellany last month, for which we pulled together some initial findings. It’s the start of a new year, and so it seems an opportune moment to introduce the first iteration of one of the main project outputs: our research database. 

The research database was set up by Co-Investigator James Baker, and currently operates on WbStack, a shared hosting platform for Wikibase sites. You can find it at the web address https://beyond-notability.wiki.opencura.com (though note the address will change in Spring 2022 when we migrate to Wikibase.Cloud, a new service that will be managed and maintained by Wikimedia Deutschland). You can also find a link to it on our website, by clicking on “Database” in the menu. This post will take you through a few key parts of the database at this early stage of its development. Please note:  if you are using Chrome as your browser, you may need to make sure your language settings are set to British English in order to see all the data.  

And so, to begin. At the top of the main page of the database site you will find a short description of the aims of the project. This section also links to our statement of project values, which has a related bibliography. 

Screenshot of the main page of the Beyond Notability project database, Jan 2022.

Below the first section you will find a section called “Where to start”. The links under this section will take you to a list of all the items (currently) in the database, each of which has an individual Q number, the unique identification number for each item. The list includes people, organisations, events, titles, publications and sources, all linked in some way to individual women’s records. You will also find a list of properties in this section. These are words or phrases that allow us to link items together, or qualify information in a given item (with, for example, an approximate date for the information given, or a reference to source material).  

We have begun creating records for women who were proposed as Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries.  For these entries we began by using the information available in one key source for our project, the Certificates of Candidates for Election (also known as “blue papers”). The “blue papers” have been bound into volumes, each volume representing papers from roughly a 10-year period. The volumes are held in the Society of Antiquaries’ archive. Eventually, we intend to add to these entries with information from other sources. 

Scrolling down the page, under the Additional Resources section of the website you will find a link called “Meta“. This will take you to a page where we will be documenting our decision making and our source material. Under the “Item Templates” section is a list of information we will be prioritising in our dataset, and also information we intend not to prioritise. The following section “Key Sources” will link to pages with descriptions of some of the most important sources for our dataset, such as the “blue papers”, with details on why they are useful for our project.  

Let’s look at an individual entry. 

In 1924, the archaeologist Marjerie Venables Taylor became the first woman proposed and elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries through the same route as a man – that is to say, she was proposed by another Fellow and not by the Society’s Council.  We have extracted data from the  “blue paper” for M. V. Taylor (as she was more commonly known) to begin representing Taylor’s life; our current efforts are on our website at this url: https://beyond-notability.wiki.opencura.com/wiki/Item:Q133. This url will be the main ‘address’ for Taylor on our database for the present, and in due course more information from other sources will be added to supplement the information given on Taylor’s “blue paper”.  

Screenshot of the Beyond Notability database entry for Margerie Venables Taylor, Jan 2022.

The box at the top indicates Taylor’s name as it was given on the blue paper. Alternative names are also listed under “also known as”.  The alternative names are important as women frequently appear in different sources with different names (this is particularly true if they were married).  

Below the top box, is the “event” of the proposal, given as a single statement. This includes the property “election to SAL proposed by“, with the name of the person who initially proposed Taylor (who we have assumed is the first signatory on the list) following. The property “evidence (free-text)” is next, enabling us to transcribe of the information on the blue paper. Another property “point in time” is used to indicate the date that the blue paper was submitted. All the people who signed her blue paper are listed with the property “proposed election to SAL signed by“. Each person has been given their own Q number, and are included in the list of “items”. The property “is elected” allows us to indicate whether or not the person was admitted as a Fellow.  The property “evidence (item)” is used where we have created individual items for individual pieces of evidence, such as a job, or a publication, that were used as supporting details for admission to the Fellowship.    

Below this are separate statements with properties to indicate an individual’s sex/gender, whether or not they are already included in Wikidata, whether they have been given a person ID by the Archaeology Data Service (which links to a list of their publications), their residence including locality (given in the blue paper), employment or degree information.  

The information given in the blue papers can sometimes be difficult to isolate as an item. In Taylor’s case, while there was specific information about the positions she held at the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, there was also an explicit statement about her “distinguished service to the study of Roman Britain”. To capture this more ambiguously framed but important information, we have created a free-text property called “area of expertise“.  Each of the statements described above has been given a reference, using the property “stated in“, which links to the item “Society of Antiquaries Certificates of Candidates for Election“. 

There are currently three statements on Taylor’s page that do not come from her blue paper, and they show the potential for adding information from other sources to enrich the data given in the blue papers. Two of these – “described at URL” and “Archaeology Data Service person ID” – link outward to other websites that describe Taylor’s life and work in the form of statements, connecting our data to those sites, and enabling cross-referencing and querying. The third uses the property “member of” to indicated that Taylor sat on the (item) “Society of Antiquaries Research Committee“. This information has come from another recently added item, the publication “Camulodonum: The First Report of the Excavations at Colchester“. This excavation was conducted in the 1930s as a collaboration between the Society of Antiquaries (through the Research Committee) and the (item) “Colchester Excavation Committee“. Creating the publication as an item enables us to use it as a reference for the work of other women mentioned in the report. From the “Camulodonum” item, you can use “what links here” on the left-hand menu to see the other women included in the report. Some of these women were proposed and elected as Fellows in the years that followed. We will be adding their blue papers in the months to come. 

Detail from Margerie Venables Taylor’s page showing the what links here link (see bottom left hand corner), Jan 2022.

We hope that this post will help you navigate our database site, which grows larger every day. This site is a work in progress, and the ways in which we are cataloguing the data will change as we continue discussing, thinking about and analysing the records. We encourage all of you to take a look at the women we’ve already been able to represent with the data available to us to date. And we hope that you enjoy engaging with the data as much as we do. 

Gertrude Rachel Levy in the Archives

Posted on by Amara

By Amara Thornton (Co-Investigator, Beyond Notability)

My first guest post for the project is on Gertrude Rachel Levy (1883-1966) who was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1947, while she was working as Librarian of the Hellenic & Roman Societies in London. I focus on her work in the 1920s and 30s in Mandate Palestine and Iraq, and spent a morning in the archive of the Palestine Exploration Fund to track her down, coming across many other women in archaeology, history and heritage along the way! “Gertrude Rachel Levy in Mandate Palestine” is published on the Institute of Classical Studies blog.

The Congress of Archaeological Societies

Posted on by Amara

By Amara Thornton (Co-Investigator, Beyond Notability)

We are continuing to explore the various archives held in the Society of Antiquaries that may be relevant to understanding the range of women’s activities in archaeology, history and heritage. Recently, we examined the papers of the Congress of Archaeological Societies (CAS), which are part of this group. This historic organisation was before a few weeks ago unknown to me, but it has already proven to be significant.

Image of the front cover of the Minute Book of the Congress of Archaeological Societies, 1894-1918. Copyright of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
Congress of Archaeological Societies Minute Book 1894-1918 (CAS/001). Reproduced with permission of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Established in 1888, the Congress of Archaeological Societies brought local archaeology and history societies throughout the UK “in union” with the Society of Antiquaries. As the Report of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society put it in 1892, following the Congress’s Third Annual Meeting: “Members will be glad to know that this Congress seems to supply a long-felt want in bringing the various county societies into closer communication one with another, and in promoting systematic research.” 

The Congress issued summary pamphlets on the work of its various Sub-Committees who spearheaded the “systematic research” being supported or undertaken by the Congress. This included, between 1891 and 1914, annual Indexes of Archaeological Papers published in a significant number of local antiquarian, archaeological and historical societies and field clubs across the UK (England, Scotland, Wales, and all of Ireland). These yearly Indexes were complemented in 1907 by Laurence Gomme and Alice (Merck) Gomme‘s Index of Archaeological Papers 1665-1890.  Looking at these Indexes more closely gives us an important overview of the names and numbers of women publishing papers in local, regional and national journals relating to archaeology, history, ethnology, anthropology and folklore. 

Many FSAs were deeply involved in the Congress as members of the Standing Committee, cementing the close relationship between the two.  Among the early schemes that the Society either supported or organised were a Photographic Survey of England, Transcription and Publication of Parish Registers, and a framework for recording Church Inscriptions. In 1901 the CAS formally established its Earthworks Committee, which also issued annual reports giving an overview of sites discovered, at risk, and under active exploration, as well as an earthwork-specific bibliography of papers published that year. Women’s names can be found there too.

One or more representatives of the Societies subscribing to the Congress sent delegates to its Annual Meetings. These events were held at the rooms of the Society of Antiquaries at Burlington House, and comprised of verbal reports on the work of the Congress Sub-Committees and the progress of the various schemes the Congress was engaged in, as well as discussions among the delegates. Events after the meetings occasionally included visits to archaeological exhibitions held in the Society.

The Society of Antiquaries library has bound copies of the printed Congress reports as well as the Congress’s archive; these sources are complementary and should be read together.  The printed meeting reports include lists of the Congress’s affiliated Societies, with the name and address of an individual to contact. By 1908, the first women’s names appear. Amy (Leslie) Johnston, the Viking Club (later Society)‘s Honorary Secretary and co-editor with her architect husband Alfred Wintle Johnton of Old-Lore Miscellany, and Agnes Sophia Griffith (later Johns) for the Oxford Architectural and Historical Society (Griffith’s brother was Egyptologist Francis Llewellyn Griffith).  Amy Johnston was a delegate for the Viking Club at the Congress of Archaeological Society’s Annual Meeting in July 1911, where she spoke on the issue of restoration of churches.

In 1917, another milestone was gained for women at the Congress of Archaeological Societies: the election of Nina Layard to the Congress’s Council. Layard’s publications had been included in the Congress’s Indexes of Archaeological Papers since 1899, and as the First World War drew to a close, at the meeting of the Congress in November 1917 she was proposed by William Dale and Dr David Cranage, both of whom were Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries, for election to the Council. Just a few years later, in 1921, she was proposed by the Council of the Society of Antiquaries for election to the Fellowship.

At the Congress’s meeting in November 1919, Layard discussed her ongoing work at Mundford, Norfolk, where flint tools had been uncovered in the course of ploughing in 1918. Layard’s subsequent excavation of the site intended to discover the original position of the tools. The Congress’s report highlighted that Layard had already presented a paper on her findings at the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia.

There are many facets of the Congress’s work where women might be found. At present, we are going through the Congress’s Indexes of Archaeological Papers in order to gather data on the women included in these Indexes and the local archaeological and historical societies with which they were associated. Nina Layard is an important example of where the Society of Antiquaries and the Congress of Archaeological Societies intersect in terms of women’s participation. But she will not be the only one. 

References/Further Reading

CAS Committee and Council Minute Books, Society of Antiquaries archive CAS/001.

CAS Annual & Special Reports 1888-1920, Society of Antiquaries Library.

Congress of Archaeological Societies in Union with the Society of Antiquaries, 1903. Scheme for Recording Ancient Defensive Earthworks and Fortified Enclosures. London: Harrison & Sons.

O’Neil, B. H. St J. 1946. The Congress of Archaeological Societies. Antiquaries Journal 26 (1-2): 61-66.

Saga-Book Archive, Viking Society for Northern Research.

Townsend, J A B, 1986-9. A Memoir of Alfred Johnson by his Nephew. Saga-Book 22, 457-62.

Our First Trip

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By Amara Thornton (Co-Investigator, Beyond Notability)

On 6 October, the Beyond Notability team took its first steps into the Society of Antiquaries archive. This will be a key research area for us, as the Society’s archive is one of our main record sets in starting to map women’s work in archaeology, history and heritage between the late 19th and the mid-twentieth centuries.  

The Society has been in existence since 1707 (more on its history here).  Its recently appointed archivist, Kat Petersen, was our guide to getting to know the SAL’s archive a bit better. She is currently going through the entire archive herself, to ensure that ultimately the Society’s rich institutional history will be discoverable through the Collections website. 

Our goal with this initial visit was to look at a cross section of the Society’s archive to get a better sense of the kinds of ways in which women’s work was recorded.  The Society’s Blue papers (records generated when a person is proposed as a Fellow of the Society) are an obvious starting point. However, women were not admitted as Fellows until 1920, so references to their work before that point can only be found by looking beyond that particular set of records.  

The Society’s various Minute Books are another key resource.  There are series of Minute Books for various groups within the Society, including the Executive Committee, the Council and the Finance and Library Committee. Women can be found in the Executive Committee and Council minutes before 1920 if they are sending artefacts for exhibition at the Society, reporting on discoveries made, or offering books or artefacts to the Society (Fig. 1). Another activity we’ll be tracking and highlighting is instances of women seeking to use the resources of the Society for their own purposes (Fig. 2). 

Fig. 1. Detail from the Society’s Executive Committee Minutes from 3 July 1913, showing that a “Miss Cobbe” offered the Society a group of manuscripts relating to Bedfordshire. © The Society of Antiquaries of London. 
Fig. 2. Detail from the Society’s Executive Committee Minutes from 18 June 1914, showing that a “Miss Portal” applied to copy extracts from a manuscript held by the Society. © The Society of Antiquaries of London. 

A further valuable record set is the Special Committee Minute Books. We looked through one volume of these, dating from the years immediately after the Second World War. We found the names of FSAs Marjerie Venables Taylor and Kathleen Kenyon among the members of some of the Committees. On the Society’s Apulia Committee, gathered to organise excavations in this region of southern Italy, we spotted the name of another woman, “Mrs J. S. P. Bradford”. “Mrs Bradford” accompanied her husband John Spencer Purvis Bradford, FSA, on a scoping mission to Italy prior to a formal application being made to excavate.  

Thanks to Francesca Radcliffe’s biography of John Bradford, a bit more information about Patience (Andrewes) Bradford is available. Prior to her marriage, she attended the Courtauld Institute, and was part of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) during the Second World War. Radcliffe’s research reveals that during her lifetime Patience Andrewes Bradford was considered to be an expert in medieval archaeology and art – and that in the 1960s, she took over the management of the Apulia Committee.   

Through our project, we will be bringing together archival records at the Society of Antiquaries with information from other associated archives and sources, ensuring that we can view each of these women as individuals within the context of their time, and as a network linked across time. The first step in our programme is to understand how the Society’s institutional archive is constructed and what parts of the Society’s activities over time it represents, all the while taking note of the ways in which women appear in the records. 

We can’t wait for our next trip!