Progress Report 17

October - November 2001

Contents:

General Summary

Modules

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

Action Points for December 2001

Project Researcher's November Report

Project Personnel: Julie Evans (Project Manager); RSB (Roiyah Saltus-Blackwood - Project Researcher); MR (Mairi Robertson - Project Archivist); CD (Carol Dixon - Project Officer)

1. General Summary of Activity

• Throughout October and November the main focus has been adding more records to the CASBAH database. Both material from the regional archive surveys and collection descriptions created from the printed sources questionnaire returns have been indexed and added to the database.
• A new project archivist, Ms Mairi Robertson, was appointed and joined the team on 27th November. Mairi will help with the summarising and indexing of archive collection descriptions, particularly resources housed at the Public Record Office and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies.
• With considerable technical support from Frances Blomeley (University of London Computer Centre) progress has also been made on the design of the database search pages and the creation of indexes for subjects, personal- and corporate names contained in the database records.
• Team meetings were held on 12th October, 26th October and 21st November, primarily focussing on database developments, summarising data entry guidelines and arranging an induction programme for the new project archivist. Members of the team also attended a BASA Indexing Training Workshop facilitated by Louise Craven (PRO) on 29th November, where guidance was given on the use of the UNESCO Thesaurus for indexing archive records related to the history of Black and Asian peoples in Britain.
• All members of the team have continued to disseminate information about the project to libraries, archive repositories and community organisations around the country. A summary about the CASBAH web site was submitted to the National Grid for Learning web portal, organised by Becta (British Educational Communications and Technology Agency), at http://www.ngfl.gov.uk/ and our web site's home page now displays the NGfL logo. Presentations were also given about the project's work to-date at the CASBAH Black History Month Dissemination Event on 15th October and the annual conference of the Black and Asian Studies Association on 27th October.

2. Modules

Archives

The last regional archive survey was completed in mid-September and since that time RSB has completed detailed reports for the repositories surveyed in Manchester, Leicester, Belfast and Glasgow and has sent them to our contacts at the respective record offices for initial feedback. Each report contains background information on the social history and population demography of the region, an overview of the survey's scope and thematic coverage, information on the survey methodology undertaken, a list of the records reviewed during the visit and selected samples from the collection descriptions produced. Although some work still needs to be done on the Cardiff survey considerable progress has been made on this aspect of the archive module and ultimately these full reports will replace the project officer's regional summaries currently on the CASBAH web site.

In view of the fact that the project did not have sufficient time to complete a full survey of the Public Record Office collections time was spent searching the PRO's online catalogue for relevant collection- and series-level records to incorporate into the CASBAH dataset and provide an appropriate sample of the research resources available there. Around 40 series-level records from the following 6 major collections were selected:

• Records of the Commission for Racial Equality and predecessors 1965-1991 (Ref: CK)
• Records of the Colonial Office, Commonwealth and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices, Empire Marketing Board, and related bodies 1570-1990 (Ref: CO)
• Records of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and predecessors 1950-1990 (Ref: FCO)
• Records created and inherited by the Foreign Office 1567-1993 (Ref: FO)
• Records created or inherited by the War Office, Armed Forces, Judge Advocate General, and related bodies 1568-1990 (Ref: WO)
• Records of the Admiralty, Naval Forces, Royal Marines, Coastguard, and related bodies, 1205-1992 (Ref: ADM)

Most of the records selected contain information about Britain's historic, colonial links with the Caribbean region but several series-level records have also been identified because of the information they convey about the history of Black and Asian peoples in Britain. For example:

• 'Community Relations Commission: Minutes and Papers, 1965-1977' (Ref: CK 3)
• 'National Advisory Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants: Minutes and Papers, 1963-1965' (Ref: HO 230)
• 'Home Office: Commonwealth Immigration (British Subject Immigration (BSI) and Commonwealth Immigration (CWI) Symbol Series) Files, 1949-1979' (Ref: HO 344), etc.

The team are grateful for the guidance given by the Pro's representatives on the CASBAH Steering Group, Mandy Banton and Jone Garmendia, in helping to compile the survey sample.

CD visited the George Padmore Institute on 22nd November to collate information about the GPI collections for the CASBAH database. The GPI is a library and educational research centre located above the New Beacon Bookshop, Stroud Green Road, Finsbury Park, London. The Institute has been collecting materials about the political and social history of Black peoples of African, Asian and Caribbean descent living in Britain and has a wide range of archive materials, journals and newspaper collections. As the Institute is in the process of cataloguing its collections and preparing its premises for public access (scheduled for public access in 2003) it was decided to summarise some of its key collections, namely:

• Records of the Caribbean Artists Movement, 1966-1972.
• Archive material on the Black Supplementary School Movement, 1960s - present.
• Archive of the New Cross Massacre Action Committee, 1981
• Publications of New Beacon Books, 1966 - present.
• Records of the Macdonald Inquiry into Racism and Racial Violence in Manchester Schools (The Burnage Inquiry), 1986-1989

Lastly, the National Archives of Scotland have submitted a list of references to Black peoples sourced from the records of the Privy Council, baptismal registers, family and estate papers and church files, and dating from as early as 1693. Because most of the data refers to individual entries in baptismal registers or references to Black Scots in individual archive documents the data has not been added to the CASBAH database but will be listed in the archive report on methodologies for uncovering information about the history of Black and Asian peoples in Britain, referred to in earlier reports as the 'Survey Tool'. Some examples of entries on the source list include the following:

• Privy Council considered a case of public disorder, and granted certification against persons involved in the tumult, which occurred after the annual horse race at Leith on Thursday [2?] March 1693. Among the servants etc. was '[blank] Robiesone Blackamore servant to the Laird of Prestoungrainge' (p.643), who was named more fully as 'Pass Sugnall alias Robertsone' (p.644). (NAS Ref: PC1/48 pp.642-5) Date: March 1693.
• North Circuit Court Book. Reference to 'Bell, alias Belinda - a black girl from Bengall [sic] in the East Indies slave or servant of John Johnston of Hanginshaw, Balgownie, Fife'. (NAS Ref: JC11/28) Date: 13 September 1771.
• Case of Joseph Knight, seeking freedom from his owner, Sir John Wedderburn. Decree of Perth Sheriff 20 May 1774. (NAS Ref: SC49/6/134) Date: 20 May 1774.
• Letter, Sir John Hall of Dunglass to Mr Braham, arranging for transport back to India of Betty Malboro, the black nurse of a natural daughter of Alex Hall of Dunglass.(NAS Ref: GD206/4/30) Date: 7 September 1768.
• Minute book of Rose Street United associated Congregation, regarding petition to abolish black slavery. (NAS Ref: CH3/950/1) Date: 1830.
• Edinburgh High Court records detailing an Incident where two prostitutes stole £9 from an Anthony Illery Bellot, medical student in Dunfermline, 1832. Further reading shows Bellot is twice described as "a man of colour" and once as "a black man". All those involved received 7-14 years transportation. (NAS Ref: AD14/32/420) Date: 1832.
• Letters regarding transport to Scotland of Peggy Hall, natural daughter of deceased Alex Hall, including a list of his possessions. "One Slave Woman named Betty, one chest of wearing apparel belonging to Betty". GD206/4/33 Date: 26 August 1767
• Letter, Sir John Hall of Dunglass to Mr Braham, arranging for transport back to India of Betty Malboro, the 'black nurse of a natural daughter of Alex Hall of Dunglass' (NAS Ref: GD206/4/30) Date: 7 September 1768.

Printed Sources and A-V Materials

50 collection descriptions for printed and audio-visual materials housed in UK libraries have been uploaded to the CASBAH database, currently housed on a test server. In addition some of the repositories that submitted details about special collections have also been incorporated into the dataset. Subject-indexing terms from the UNESCO Thesaurus continue to be added to the records, along with updates to the 'Site Details' database table (containing contact addresses, web site URLs, information on access conditions and opening hours for all the repositories).

The team are particularly keen to have more public libraries represented on the database, so follow up requests and printed sources questionnaires have continued to be circulated to selected local authority library and information services. Several academic libraries that didn't complete the initial questionnaire circulated in August have also been contacted again for collection descriptions to improve the sample's regional balance, which is currently skewed towards libraries in London and the South East of England.

Collaborative Collection Management

The Collaborative Collection Management Module Group meeting scheduled for 15th November was cancelled to enable the team to concentrate on database developments and this work has now been deferred until the New Year.

Awareness Raising, Outreach and Training Initiatives

The project hosted a successful Black History Month dissemination event at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies on Monday 15th October 2001. The main aims of the event were:

• to share information about the survey work CASBAH has conducted in archives and libraries throughout the UK,
• to enhance peoples understanding of the nature of the research process for Black and Asian British history and Caribbean studies and the issues involved,
• to raise awareness about the role and importance of archives (and other repositories) in facilitating research output and
• to advertise new publications and promote the work of other projects and institutes which produce/house resources for Caribbean studies and Black and Asian history studies in the UK.

Resource displays from organisations such as the Archives and Museum of Black Heritage, Black and Asian Studies Association, Birmingham Black Oral History Project, New Beacon Bookshop and the Commonwealth Institute were provided and presentations were given by the following invited guests: Marie Bastiampillai (Head of Library Services, Commonwealth Institute); Dr Roshi Naidoo (Education and Outreach Manager, Archives and Museum of Black Heritage); Marika Sherwood (Black and Asian Studies Association); Linda Bellos (Focus Consultancy Ltd.) - who gave a presentation of her research on the contributions of Black and Asian service men and women during WW1 and WW2; Jonah Albert (Channel 4 Black and Asian History Map Project Co-Ordinator); Lou Kushnick (Project Director, Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Archive); Professor Jean Stubbs (Caribbean Studies Department, University of North London) and DR Avi Melech Ben Israel (Hermeneutic scholar from the community of African Hebrew Israelites, based in Dimona, Israel) - who gave a demonstration of a recently produced interactive Black history exhibition and web pages from the African / Edenic Heritage Museum web site at http://www.kingdomofyah.com/museum.htm; Freddy Macha (Tanzanian writer and performance poet). Dr Sandra Courtman (Chair of the Society for Caribbean Studies) concluded the event with the presentation of a seminar paper about the use of photograph archives as a research resource, drawing on her own research into the life experiences of post-war Caribbean migrants to Britain and interspersing her presentation with slides of studio portraits from the Dyche Studio Photograph Archive (Birmingham Central Library). Between 50-60 people attended the event throughout the course of the day and the team have received positive feedback about the day from attendees.

On 27th October CD gave a short presentation about the CASBAH project at the BASA conference held at the Channel 4, Horseferry Road, London. The conference looked at past, present and future issues concerning Black and Asian peoples in Britain and included presentations of the following areas of research: a presentation by John Ellis on Black soldiers in the British Army in the 18th and 19th centuries; research by Caroline Bressey on Black women in Victorian London , drawing on archive materials from the National Portrait Gallery and documentary photographs from the Barnardos archive; research by Marika Sherwood on the 1900 Pan African Conference; presentation of a research paper by Linda Ali on NHS recruitment of Caribbean women in the 1950s/1960s; reminiscences on the development of the Black Supplementary School movement and anti-racist education campaigns, presented by Winston Best; a presentation on the political campaigns of the Indian Workers Association by Makhan Bajwa; and a concluding conference presentation by Hakim Adi about future educational needs with regard to Black and Asian history in Britain.

On 9th November CD and RSB met with Dr Stephen Stuempfle, Chief Curator at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida, to share information about the CASBAH project and provide contacts and information for a forthcoming research project that is being developed by a team of HMSF researchers and information managers. Their proposed research project will investigate the transatlantic dissemination of calypso music during the mid-20th century and analyse the historical, social and political context of the genre. Ultimately the project team will produce a travelling exhibition of textual, audiovisual and photographic resources to support their research, create a project web site and hold a series of public conferences in Port of Spain (Trinidad), New York, Miami and London from 2004 onwards. Full information about the HMSF project proposal will be posted on the CASBAH web site's news page in the New Year as part of our spotlight reports series.

IT: Project Web Site, Database and Subject Gateway

Work is continuing on the design of the web page interface for the CASBAH database. With technical support from Frances Blomeley (ULCC), 6 new pages have been created and linked to the records on the test server. Options to browse records according to the type or name of repository, retrieve relevant records from freetext searches, and also search for subject keywords, personal/corporate names and place names from alphabetical indexes are now in place, along with some basic 'Search Help' guidelines/instructions.

Eric Doumerc, from the University of Toulouse-Le-Mirail, has contributed a short report for the CASBAH 'News and Events' web page about recent research into the impact of the Caribbean oral tradition on Black British performance poetry.

October and November saw record numbers of visits to the CASBAH web site, primarily as a result of listing and promoting Black History Month events on the site's news page throughout October. Recent usage statistics are given below:

Listserv: There are now 93 members of the CASBAH-RSLP listserv. 26 messages were posted to the list throughout October-November.

3. Action Points / Priorities for December 2001

• Continue circulating follow-up requests to libraries and a-v repositories from the printed sources survey sample
• Transfer selected records from the Public Record Office and Institute of Commonwealth Studies collections to the CASBAH database.
• Continue to select, index and transfer records from repositories that participated in the BASA archive survey and the CASBAH regional archive surveys to the CASBAH database.
• Complete and transfer archive survey reports to the web pages on the test server.
• Continue to update and check 'Site Details' and URL links for all repositories on the CASBAH database.
• Web site updates and revisions.

Carol Dixon: 3rd December 2001

Project Researcher's October- November Progress Report

General Summary

Over the last two months the aim has been to conduct the last collections survey at Glasgow City Archives, draft the archive pilot survey reports and upload archive collection descriptions to the CASBAH server. Time has also been spent attending Black History Month events hosted by CASBAH's partners and other organizations. Another important activity over the last two months has been disseminating information about various aspects of the project to interested organizations and groups working to develop project proposals for similar projects. Over the last month, I have created webpages which will provide supporting documentation on the pilot surveys and provide links to accompanying best practice guides, survey tools, and related resource materials.

Finally the post of CASBAH project archivist was filled and I am happy to extend a warm welcome to Mairi Robertson.

Archive survey reports

The following repositories have received reports on the surveys conducted on site by CASBAH staff :

• Greater Manchester County Record Office Report
• Manchester University: Labour History Archive and Study Centre
• The Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland
• The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
• Glasgow City Archives

Action points (December 2001)

• Complete the Glamorgan Record Office Survey Report
• Complete the Butetown History and Arts Centre Survey Report
• Incorporate amendments and comments made by the archivists and record mangers at the respective sites and upload reports to CASBAH website
• Make necessary changes to the Partners' and associates survey reports

Archive Collection Descriptions - completion schedule (Nov 2001- March 2002)

Data from the following sites has been uploaded to the test server and is ready to be summarised:

1. Greater Manchester County Record Office 2. Manchester University : Labour History Archive and Study Centre 3. The Record Office of Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland 4. Glamorgan Record Office - part one 5. Glasgow City Archives - part one

Collection descriptions from the following sites will be completed in December 2001:

6. Butetown History and Arts Centre 7. Glamorgan Record Office - part two 8. Glasgow City Archives - part two

Collection descriptions from the following sites will be completed between 15 January & March 2002:

10. Lambeth Archives 11. Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Local Studies 12.Collection descriptions relating in particular to the history of people in the UK with links to Africa and South Asia that will be gathered from targeted repositories around the country. The targeting of the sites will be based on the information gathered from archive questionnaires sent out by the Black and Asian Studies Association (BASA) in 1998, and CASBAH's follow-up questionnaire sent out in 2000.

Project Website and Database

1. Archive collection surveys
2. The survey reports
3. Other related survey documentation

Awareness raising and outreach

In September, the aim was to collate as much information as possible to go into the numerous Black History Month event publications and circulars - both by CASBAH and other organisations. In October,the aim was to attend events hosted by CASBAH's partners and associates, and other organisations to not only lend support but to make contact , explore the activities of other projects and organisations, and disseminate information about the progress of the CASBAH project. Full information on CASBAH's Dissemination Event can be found in Carol Dixon's report (see above).

Selected activities undertaken or events attended between September and November:

• CASBAH details posted in London Tourist Board
• London Metropolitan Archives - Moving Experiences: Building a New Life in London, 1952 - 1970. Exhibition focusing on 'the experiences of Black and Asian people building a new life in Britain'.
• Black and Asian Studies Association - Erasing the Colour Line (one day conference)
• Archives and Museum of Black Heritage - one day conference at the Victoria & Albert Museum (one day conference)
• Heritage Lottery Fund - Black Heritage Matters. Event seeking to promote the aims of HLF to Black and Asian groups and associations

Roiyah Saltus - Blackwood: 26 November 2001