There are four contributions on day three of Catalogue Week 2021. Philippa Hellawell discusses the letter books of the Royal African Company during the period 1672-1750. Patricia Ainley and Bruno Pappalardo highlight the connection between those enslaved at Cape Coast Castle in 1796 to the Royal Navy Captains’ letters of the Napoleonic Wars project. We then get an overview of cataloguing 19th-century artwork and advertising from Katherine Howells. And lastly Chris Heather updates us on the cataloguing of Railway Accident Registers, a project which has been running since 2018.
Approaching T 70: The letterbooks of the Royal African Company 1672-1750
In her presentation for Catalogue Week 2021, 18th century record specialist Philippa Hellawell discusses the letter books of the Royal African Company during the period 1672-1750. The records are collected in the series T 70, and in her talk Philippa guides us through the records and sets out plans for cataloguing parts of the series.
Connecting the enslaved at Cape Coast Castle to Royal Navy Captains’ letters 1793-1815
I started volunteering at The National Archives in September 2018 as part of an on site volunteer team on the Navy Board cataloguing project. I was keen to learn more about the Royal Navy and maritime history.
The project in progress when I started was near completion, and from late 2018 we have been working on the Royal Navy Captains’ Letters project. As the name suggests, this project, which is scheduled to complete in 2024, involves cataloguing the letters written by Royal Navy Captains to the Admiralty, specifically during the Napoleonic Wars period (1793 to 1815). These letters are held by The National Archives in 564 boxes in the series ADM 1, filed according to the initial letter of the Captain’s surname, and by year.
Cataloguing 19th-century artwork and advertisements
In her talk for Catalogue Week 2021, Katherine Howells tells us about a wonderful collection of artwork and advertising material held at The National Archives in a series called COPY 1. She provides an overview of the history and nature of the records in the collection, before talking about the important volunteer cataloguing project which is currently in progress.
The Railway Accident Project
Chris Heather, Transport Records Specialist at The National Archives, talks us through The Railway Accident Project which has been running since June 2018.
