December 2012 | The National Archives blog

Posts from December 2012

Mon Dec

2012

A century of British film censorship

Posted by Rebecca Simpson in Records and research

The British Board of Film Censors was established 100 years ago, on 1 January 1913, to censor films “which may be considered in any way opposed to the better feelings of the general public”.

Film poster for '£1,000 Reward' (reference HO 45/10551)

Home Office files in The National Archives record the establishment of the British Board of Film Censors and reveal some instances where the government was concerned about the influence of film and its perceived link to an increase in crime.

The film ‘£1,000 Reward’ by Pathé, which wanted to film an escape from Portland Prison, was subject to consideration by the Home Office following a letter from an official at Portland Prison in which it claimed that “such exhibitions may be detrimental to the good Government and control of the Prison.” The letter from the Home Office on the matter also states that: “There is a risk that prisoners’ friends may be encouraged to traffic with officers in order to furnish them with tobacco, even if with no more serious purpose.”

Fri Dec

2012

Deer in Mo-Ho-Ho-tion

Posted by Ruth Ford (admin) in Behind the scenes

Deer in Motion, 1881, Eadweard Muybridge (COPY 1/54)

The blog will be taking a break over Christmas and New Year (but look out for a special post on Friday 28 December). In the mean time, we’d like to leave you with one of our very favourite records from the archives, this 1881 motion study of a running deer by pioneering Victorian photographer Eadweard Muybridge (catalogue reference COPY 1/54 f.278).

Please ‘continue reading’ to see the deer run!

Thu Dec

2012

A sticky situation: The Christmas pudding palaver of 1952

Posted by Rebecca Simpson in Records and research

With an array of different Christmas puddings now available, you probably didn’t have any problem getting hold of one this year. However, 60 years ago, you might have had a problem getting the ‘correct’ Christmas pudding, files in The National Archives reveal.

Making the Empire Christmas Pudding (catalogue reference CO 956/62)

Wed Dec

2012

Finding Archives: what’s next?

Posted by Sam Meunier in Behind the scenes

What is the Finding Archives project?

For the last 18 months we have been working on Finding Archives which is part of the Discovery project. Finding Archives focuses on the bringing together information describing records held in other archives with the information about The National Archives records so that users can access this in one place, simply and easily-a ‘one stop shop’ for access to records relating to UK history wherever they are held.

Finding Archives focuses on the National Register of Archives (NRA), Manorial Documents Register (MDR), ARCHON Directory, Access to Archives (A2A), Accessions to Repositories and the Hospital Records Database (HOSPREC). These services currently provide descriptive and access information about millions of records held in over 2500 archives in the UK and overseas. At the moment, Discovery displays The National Archives’ catalogue data and digital records. The value of combining Finding Archives data with information about over 20 million records held at The National Archives is enormous.

Tue Dec

2012

Trainee Tuesday: Unknown stories

Posted by Kasia McCabe in Records and research

In my last post (Watch out Aliens!) I discussed the records I had based the Polish Community in Leicestershire project on and described the Alien Certificates and Alien Cards in detail. Today I would like to focus more on the stories told to me by the Poles who came to Britain in the late 1940s. Through visiting and interviewing these generous people, I managed to make several oral history recordings which have been essential to the project.

Winston Churchill and Wladyslaw Sikorski reviewing Polish troops in England (by Anonymous photography, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

The Polish people who came to Britain in the 1940s arrived here as a result of the Second World War. They were either serving under the British Command once Poland collapsed after the attack of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in 1939, or as dependants of relatives in the army. Most of the Poles who settled in Britain originated from Eastern Poland and were deported to Siberia by the Soviets in 1940 and 1941. After the Nazi attack on Soviet Russia, Polish and Russian authorities signed an agreement which allowed deported Poles to leave Siberia and join the Polish Army under the British Command (approximately a million people were taken into Russia and only about 15% of them managed to get out). Continue reading »

Mon Dec

2012

Christmas in the UK Government Web Archive

Posted by Claire Newing in Technology and innovation

A sign in the supermarket yesterday advised me that there were only eight sleeps until Christmas. With that in mind it seemed like a good time to write a post with a festive theme.

Number 10 Christmas card 2009 - The official website of the Prime Minister's Office - archived 4th December 2009

The image above is taken from the website of the Prime Minister’s Office which was archived in December 2009. It shows the image chosen for the official Number 10 Christmas card that year. The accompanying text explains some of the changes the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and his wife made to make Number 10 more sustainable. I think the historians of the future will be interested to see the importance placed on sustainability and the environment.

Fri Dec

2012

My Tommy’s War: Thomas Cross, merchant seaman

Posted by Audrey Collins in Records and research

My First World War Tommy was not in the army, or any of the armed services, but he was called Tommy, and he died for his country. His name was Thomas Cross, and I know a great deal about his death, but very little about his life, except that he was my great-great grandfather. He has no birth certificate, because he was born in Ireland before the start of civil registration there, and although the birth certificates of his children give the date and place of his marriage to my great-great-grandmother, there is no trace of that in Irish civil registration either. He only appears in one census, 1911, because he was a merchant seaman, and was away at sea for all the others.

Medal card BT 351/1

Like many other merchant seamen he was caught up in the war, and when he died in 1917 he was around 52 years old, older than most men in the fighting forces. His ship, the Ermine, had been commandeered by the Royal Navy as a Fleet Messenger, and sank in August 1917. Continue reading »

Thu Dec

2012

‘Come, friendly bombs’

Posted by Andrew Janes in Records and research

Kew and environs, as seen on BombSight.org

The title of today’s blog post comes from the first stanza of the poem Slough, by John Betjeman.

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough!
It isn’t fit for humans now,
There isn’t grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Wed Dec

2012

Introducing The Keeper’s Gallery

Posted by Sarah VanSnick in Behind the scenes

Those blog readers who’ve been to Kew recently will have noticed we’ve carried out a few changes to our museum.

You may not know this, but The National Archives and its predecessor, the Public Record Office, have had some form of museum to display our fantastic collection since the early 1900s and it is a really great resource to have.

The face the old museum presented to those arriving at The National Archives

The museum was completely redesigned in 2008 and, while people really loved the content and displays, the space never really worked the way it was supposed to. So, after carrying out an internal review of the museum this year, we started a project to address the main issues identified: that the space was cold, dark, uninviting and often looked closed and there wasn’t any space or facilities for a large group, limiting our education department’s use of the space. All of these problems resulted in there being relatively little use of the museum, it was often empty and those who did pop in to take a look didn’t stay very long.

Authors