Progress Report 14

June 2001 - July 2001

Contents:

General Summary

Modules

• Archives
• Printed and Audio-Visual Resources
• Collaborative Collection Management
• Awareness Raising, Outreach and Training Initiatives
• IT: Project Web Site, Database and Subject Gateway

Action Points for July - August 2001

Project Personnel: DW (David Ward - Project Director); Julie Evans (Project Manager); RSB (Roiyah Saltus-Blackwood - Project Researcher); CD (Carol Dixon - Project Officer)

1. General Summary of Activity

Throughout June the two main priorities for the CASBAH team have been:

• the completion of the Leicestershire archive survey, and
• distribution of the questionnaire and guidance documentation for the UK-wide library survey of printed sources and a-v collections

RSB and CD spent the 18th-21st June at the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland surveying archival materials pertinent to both Caribbean Studies and the history of Black and Asian people in the region. Preparatory research at the HMC and discussions with the County Archivist, Mr Carl Harrison, helped to give an indication of the range of collections available and their potential for providing relevant information for the CASBAH survey. Full details about the Record Office and the collection descriptions that were collated are detailed in the Archives section of this report.

Following up information provided by Carl Harrison about current research being conducted on Black and Asian peoples in the region RSB and CD were also able to visit the Scarman Centre (University of Leicester) and the Department of Historical and International Studies at De Montfort University. Background information on the research work and publications of both centres is detailed in the section on printed and audio-visual materials, below.

Throughout June CD finalised the content and format of the CASBAH printed sources questionnaire and its associated guidance document and began distributing the information to the libraries, resource centres and archives within our sample of 80 UK repositories.

All members of the team have been involved in a range of awareness raising and outreach activities which have included presentations at conferences in London, Coventry and Nottingham, attendance at the RSLP's dissemination event and writing articles for university newsletters.

With continued support and guidance from Frances Blomeley at the ULCC steady progress continues to be made on the design of the MySQL database and, as a result of RSB's efforts in particular, 5 batches of archive survey data have been uploaded to the test server for evaluation.

2. Modules

Archives

The Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland

CD and RSB spent the 18th-22nd June in Leicester sampling collections at the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland. In total 23 collections were reviewed during the visit and it was decided to create descriptions for 17 sets of records. In terms of resources for Caribbean Studies, most of the information centred on summarising collections of family papers which featured correspondence between landed families in Leicestershire and their relatives on estates in Jamaica and Grenada. RSB and CD compiled ISAD(G) collection-level descriptions for the following record series:

• DE2638 - Additional Shirley Family Papers
• DE2837 - Family Papers of Slater family of Uppingham, 1661-1897
• DE3624 - Records of the Morley Family of Leicester
• DG9 Herrick Manuscripts (Correspondence 1697 - 1874)
• DG/ 24/ 1 - 1091 - Papers of Halford of Wistow (DG/24/1051/2 - Statistics of slaves on Estates in Grenada)
• 23D57/1 - 3561 - Brayne of Stanford Accumulation

A substantial amount of archival material was available on the history of Black and Asian people in the Leicestershire region, so preparatory research using information from secondary sources by Marett (1989), Nash and Reeder (1993) and Brown (1997) helped to steer the survey work towards the following key collections:

• DE3653 - Records of the Harborough Mail, Office Diaries, 1952 - 1968
• DE4505 - Leicestershire Racism Awareness Consortium
• DE5685 - Slides Recording Leicestershire Religious Life
• L370 - Leicester Corporation Education Committee
• L614 - Leicester Corporation Health Records
• L614 - Leicester Council Health Reports
• Leicester Oral History Archive

Other collections highlighted by staff at the Record Office as potentially relevant to the survey included:

• 18D33 - Letters, petitions and statements from bonds people requesting freedom at the British Court in Lagos
• DE1633 - The papers of Henry Eyrl (Private, 1st BN.HM. 19th Foot ) entitled 'A brief sketch of my life, from the period of my leaving home and taking up with a military life' - documenting his experiences during WW1.
• Information from 19th century parish registers about Black people in Leicestershire. For example, one register contained an entry about a woman called Rasselas Morjan who was listed as an 'Abyssinian' (b.1811) and slave to the Palmer family of Leicestershire, buried in Wanlip graveyard in 1839. Full details about Rasselas Morjan's entry in the parish register are given below and other records relating to her life that are listed and indexed by the Record Office include articles from the following local newspapers: Leicester Mercury 28 April 1982, p. 14; Leicester Mercury, 7 January 1993, p. 16 (grave illustration); Leicester Mercury, 30 August 2000, p. 4 and 2 December p. 19.

  PARISH PRINTOUT OF SAINT NICHOLAS, WANLIP, LEICESTER, ENGLAND (1561-1838) BATCH # C 3487-1

Marett's research on immigrant communities in Leicester informed the survey methodology even further by emphasising the importance of local newspaper articles as sources for research into the life experiences of Black and Asian peoples in Britain. Speaking about the Leicester Mercury she states:

"The provincial press is particularly influential in shaping public opinion in the sphere of race relations. In a detailed study of levels of racial antipathy in Leicester and Manchester, Troyna argued that the Leicester Mercury helped to highlight and reinforce the conception of "race as a problem" in the city. He cites its treatment of the Ugandan Asian refugees in 1972 as particularly important." (Source: Marett, Valerie (1989) Immigrants settling in the city, London: Leicester University Press p. 53; Reference: Troyna, B. Public Awareness and the Media: A Study of reporting on Race (CRE, 1981), p. 61.)

In view of the above the last day at the Record Office was spent sampling articles from local newspapers to get a sense of how race relations issues have been covered over time. A collection-level description was written about the Leicester Illustrated Chronicle's microfilm collection, (1856 - 1979) focussing in particular on a sample of reports written for the 1961 series entitled 'Strangers in the City'. Similar information from the Leicester Mercury's series of articles from1959 entitled 'Settling Down in Leicester', was also reviewed.

Lastly, records from the archives of the following charitable organisations and trade unions were also scheduled to be surveyed but, due to lack of time, were not sampled:

• Charity Organization Society (COS) - containing information about the COS's involvement in community work for immigrant groups in Leicester.
• Leicester Hosiery Union - specifically records on the employment of Asian women in the hosiery industry

References:

1. Brown, Cynthia (1997) Living History Unit Guide to Local Research (5): Immigrant Communities in Leicester, © Leicester City Council - 4 page leaflet
2. Nash, David and Reeder, David (eds) (1993) Leicester in the twentieth century, Dover: Alan Sutton (ISBN: 0750904879)
3. Nash, David (1991) Twentieth Century Leicester Archives, Leicester: Leicester City Council in association with the Centre for Urban History at the University of Leicester
4. Marett, Valerie (1989) Immigrants settling in the city, Leicester: Leicester University Press (ISBN: 0718512839)

Further details about the work of the Record Office, their collections and opening hours can be obtained c/o:

The Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland, Long Street, Wigston Magna, Leicester, LE18 2AH. Tel: 0116 2571080 E-mail: recordoffice@leices.gov.uk Web site: http://www.leics.gov.uk/museums/index.htm

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Printed and Audio-Visual Resources

In addition to completing the archive survey in Leicestershire CD and RSB followed up contacts provided by Carl Harrison at both the University of Leicester and De Montfort University to find out about current research being conducted in the region relevant to the work of the CASBAH project. In both institutions research into the history of Black and Asian peoples in Leicester has been ongoing for many decades and, consequently, both libraries have built up extensive research collections. On Thursday 21st time was spent at the Scarman Centre looking at collections of race relations resources, followed by a visit to the Department of Historical and International Studies at De Montfort on the 22nd to meet academics working on a new book entitled 'Asian Leicester' due to be published later this year (details below).

Scarman Centre, University of Leicester For information the Scarman Centre was established at the University of Leicester in 1987 and undertakes research, teaching, professional training and consultancy work on issues such as criminal justice, policing, crime prevention, security, risk management and health and safety management. Their resource centre has a wide range of books, journals and a-v materials covering information about the above-mentioned subject and a substantial collection of resources dealing with race relations issues in Britain. Three archives are also housed at the centre, one of which was donated by Dr Valerie Marett featuring thousands of newspaper articles on aspects of race and ethnic relations in Britain between the 1960s and the 1990s.

Recent publications by researchers at the Scarman are particularly relevant to the CASBAH project's work. Most notably the research reports written in 1996 which provide a socio-economic profile and needs analysis of African Caribbean people in Leicestershire. Written by John Benyon, Bola Dauda, Jon Garland, Stephen Lyle and the Afrikan Caribbean Support Group, the 3 reports document the communities' experiences of racism and identifies strategies for alleviating discrimination and disadvantage in the region. through partnership initiatives between community groups and local authorities. Full details about these reports, and other Scarman Centre publications, are available at http://www.le.ac.uk/scarman/research/cppu.html and information about the centre's current research projects can be found at http://www.le.ac.uk/scarman/research/cpre.html.

Contact details:

Address: Scarman Centre, The Friars, 154 Upper New Walk, Leicester, LE1 7QA. Tel: +44 (0)116 252 3946/2458 Fax: +44(0)116 252 5788 E-mail: scarman.centre@le.ac.uk Web site (Home page) http://www.le.ac.uk/scarman/

 

Department of Historical and International Studies, De Montfort University On 22nd June CD and RSB visited the Department of Historical and International Studies at De Montfort University and met with Dr John Martin and Professor Panikos Panayi to find out about recent research being carried out featuring the life experiences of Black and Asian peoples in Leicestershire. John Martin provided details about his forthcoming publication Asian Leicester (ISBN: 0750922265), co-authored with Professor Gurharpal Singh and Professor Panayi gave an overview of work on wider immigration issues which referred to the history of Black and Asian settlement in the region since 1945.

For information, Asian Leicester chronicles the lives of Asian settlers in the city and their contribution to the Leicester's cultural and economic development since 1945. It is divided into 8 chapters that focus on issues such as family life, work and business, leisure, environmental impact, festivals, creative arts, religious institutions and involvement in local civic life. The book will be published later this year by Sutton Publishing Limited.

Also during the meeting Professor Panayi, a specialist on the history of immigration in Europe, drew our attention to the work of Lorna Chessum, who has recently published a book entitled From Immigrants to Ethnic Minority: Making Black Community in Britain. The book has a comprehensive bibliography detailing key sources of information on the history of Black and Asian peoples in the region and covers chapters on the following themes: Researching black history: problems and issues; The background to African Caribbean settlement in Leicester; Race and immigration in Leicester local press, 1945-1962; Somewhere to live: African Caribbeans and housing, 1945-1981; Race and class: the operation of the colour bar and its consequences for the class position of African Caribbeans, 1945-1981; Too many 'immigrants': the schooling of African Caribbean children, 1960-1981; Fighting back: anti-racist organisations and the far right, 1962-1981; Leisure and religion, 1945-1981; Conclusion: from immigrants to ethnic minority and emergence of a community, 1945-1981.

Further details about these publications and the work of the Department of Historical and International Studies at De Montfort University can be viewed at http://www.cta.dmu.ac.uk/

Collaborative Collection Management

CD's CCM report was circulated with the May progress report and will be discussed at the forthcoming Steering Group meeting on 19th July.

Awareness Raising, Outreach and Training Initiatives

CD contributed a short article about the project's progress since January 2001 for the ICS newsletter on 4th June. A presentation about CASBAH's work to-date was also given at the AGM of the Black and Asian Studies Association on 9th June at University College London. On Thursday 14th June JE, RSB and CD represented CASBAH at the RSLP Dissemination Event at the Business Design Centre (Islington, London).

JE gave a talk about CASBAH as part of the programme for the launch of the West Midlands Cultural Diversity Network on 18th June at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry. About forty people from museums, archives and libraries within the West Midlands Region participated in the event, the purpose of which was to disseminate information about both national and local initiatives and to consider how the Network should develop. One of the speakers, Jerry Weber, talked about 'Profiles', a new Re:source-funded nine month project which is building on the work of CASBAH within archives, libraries and museums across the West Midlands region. More information about Profiles can be found at the website of West Midlands Regional Archives: http://www.westmidlandsarchives.org.uk/

RSB and CD attended the Society for Caribbean Studies conference at the University of Nottingham, 2-4th July, and CD gave a seminar presentation about CASBAH's survey work and database developments on 3rd July.

In addition to the above RSB has continued to circulate information about conferences, events and publications related to Caribbean Studies and Black and Asian history studies for the CASBAH-RSLP listserv throughout June.

Largely due to increased public awareness about the CASBAH web site an increased number of research support queries/requests were sent to the project during June, covering issues such as:

• Strategies for conserving the history and heritage of Black performance art (esp. dance theatre) in Britain
• Racism in the NHS: the experiences of Caribbean nurses in the 1950s/60s
• The existence of racism in Britain during World War Two

IT: Project Web Site, Database and Subject Gateway

Web Site: Since the web site re-launch in May CD has updated the 'News and events' and 'Links' pages and will be working on uploading new information to the 'Progress reports' and 'Project database' pages in July.

Like last month there has been a dramatic increase in the number of visits to the site. Over 22,000 hits were recorded in June, compared to 13,000 in May, as shown in the table below:

Listserv: There are now 102 members of the CASBAH-RSLP listserv and a total of 7 messages were posted to the list during June 2001.

MySQL: RSB has continued to export batches of data from the Wolverhampton Archive, IRR and LMA surveys to Frances Blomeley at the ULCC.

3. Action Points / Priorities for July-August 2001

General:

1. There will be CASBAH Steering Group meeting on Thursday 19th July, 2.30pm, Menzies Room, Institute of Commonwealth Studies. JE will circulate the agenda during w/c Monday 9th July.
2. The team will attend the BASA Research Resources Working Party (formerly the BAAWP) meeting on Wednesday 11th July (venue: London Metropolitan Archive, 1.30pm)
3. The project team will finalise the programme for the CASBAH Black History Month event at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 15th October 2001, and send invitations to the individuals and groups we hope will participate by the end of July. The event will be advertised on the CASBAH web site from August onwards.

Archives:

1. RSB will continue to work on recording archive survey methodologies for the survey tool document.
2. Preparatory research for the forthcoming Glamorgan survey will take place during the first two weeks in July, with a visit to the HMC scheduled for 13th July and the survey Monday 23rd - Friday 27th July.
3. RSB will circulate her survey reports to NMLH and the GMCRO (Manchester) by the end of August.

Printed and Audio-Visual Resources:

1. Printed sources survey questionnaires will continue to be distributed to the sample of 80 academic, public and special libraries up to 16th July 2001.

Collaborative Collection Management:

1. CD will circulate information to all the libraries participating in the Printed Sources survey from 20th August onwards asking for volunteers to participate in a CASBAH Collaborative Collection Management Module Group. The first meeting of this group will be scheduled for November 2001.

Awareness:

1. CD will circulate batches of the new CASBAH leaflet to UK libraries, archives, museums, resource centres, education authorities, partner institutions and groups serving the African Caribbean and Asian communities to promote the work of the project.

IT:

1. CD and RSB will continue to export batches of data from the archive surveys to Frances Blomeley at the ULCC on a fortnightly basis throughout July and August.
2. CD will continue to make amendments and revisions to the CASBAH web site http://www.casbah.ac.uk on a monthly basis.
3. CD will prepare a short summary of the work completed during the Leicestershire regional archive survey for inclusion on the CASBAH web site in July.

CD 6th July 2001