Archive Awareness Campaign 2008

by Kathryn Hadley

Throughout the year, exhibitions, workshops, talks and other activities have been organised by the national and local archives across the UK to celebrate the wealth of their collections and highlight their importance as guardians of history. This December is the last chance to make the most of the some of these events...

Two online exhibitions of parts of the collections from the National Archives and Parliamentary Archives:
Human Rights
A National Archives online exhibition which draws on original documents to provide the historical background to some of the rights that we take for granted today.
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
Parliament and the British Slave Trade, 1600-1807
A database of digitalised archival material, which provides evidence of the issues, processes and people at the heart of Parliament’s relationship with the slave trade.
www.parliament.uk

A talk organised by the Guildhall Library:
Searching for Black and Asian Londoners in the Parish Registers of the City of London
December 10th, 14.00
Guildhall Library
Aldermanbury
London EC2V 7HH
Telephone: 020 7332 1863
Since September, the University of the Third Age and the Manuscripts Section of the Guildhall Library have collaborated in a project to search the parish registers of the city, from the 1530s until 1837, for evidence of Black and Asian Londoners. In this talk the project’s participants will discuss their work and present the results of their research.

It is also the last chance to see a couple of the exhibitions organised for the campaign:
Take Your Place in History
Until December 31st
Museum of Science and Industry
Collections Centre,
MOSI Main Building
Liverpool Road
Castlefield
Manchester M3 4FP
Telephone: 016 1606 0127
This display of the museum’s archive collections reveals Manchester’s trading links with other countries, notably in Asia, Africa and the Far East, and tells the story of the people who left their own countries to live and work in Manchester, contributing to the diversity of Manchester’s population.

‘The Boys’: Triumph over Adversity
Until January 31st
Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre
Holborn Library
32-38 Theobalds Road
London WC1X 8PA
Telephone: 020 7974 6342
An exhibition on loan from the Jewish Museum, which tells the story of the 732 young Holocaust survivors, who became known as ‘The Boys’, who Britain agreed to take in following the Second World War, of their survival and attempts to rebuild their lives and to integrate in the London community.

For more information on the campaign visit
www.archiveawareness.com