Old, sooty things in the damp
When I left Em and took the Victoria line to St.Pancras (she says everyone pronounces it St. Pancreas), I expected the British Library to be an ancient building like so many other landmarks here. Not so. It is a modern complex, lacking somewhat in charm, but I'm sure much safer for their vast collection, which numbers in the multiple millions of documents.
I now have three ID cards from my research on this trip: the National Archives, Dublin, PRONI (Public Records of Northern Ireland), and the British Museum. And in every one of them my obligatory photo has magically transformed me into a bag lady who just rolled out of the gutter. And here I thought the giant woolen muffler I've been wrapping around my neck was rather natty. My head barely clears the massive thing and although I look warm, it's been a bit deflating to realize that it's not necessary to dress like I'm in the gulag.
Bob jokes he doesn't believe I ever lived in Canada because I have absolutely no tolerance for cold (which is anything under 60 degrees) and wear a scarf almost every day except in the summer (school mums can confirm this). Knowing I'd be outside a lot here I've tried layering to some success - it's been a miserable, cold, wet spring here in the UK, and everyone has complained about it no end. I just expected to be this way (as I do in Vancouver) so I wore a trench coat over a couple of sweaters, and when it rained I pulled out my handy mini-umbrella from my bag and soldiered on. I've walked in the last three weeks more than I've walked in the last year, and the coat comes on and off (along with the muffler) in shops, restaurants, the tube, and the library. Another reminder why I left Ontario. Nothing worse than boiling when you pop into someplace, then freezing when you go back out.
At the British Library anything more than a purse and laptop is frowned upon and you can't even get inside if you have anything larger than an airline carryon bag. They search your stuff when you come in, too. Once inside you are directed to lockers and cloakrooms because you pretty much have to strip down to your knickers when you use the reading rooms. And where I was working in the Manuscript Room their rules are the strictest of all.
Here in the hushed inner sanctum where their document collection stretches back several hundred years, people pore over collections on special stands that are designed to cushion the books. They use a thing called a snake (which is a string of little pellets wrapped in a stretchy tube) to hold a page for future reference. Pencils and laptops are allowed, but pens, gum, sweets, coats, hats, briefcases, or dirty hands are strictly forbidden. How they check our hands is a mystery because they don't make you wear gloves when you handle the documents and I saw some sweaty palms in there. I found it quite extraordinary that we could even touch the materials, in my case, leather-bound books of hand-written letters that were attached onto strips of cardboard by one edge and bound into collections by date. The letters I was examining were all from the 17th Century, and as reverently as I handled them I felt a little guilty that I was touching them at all. They seemed so fragile...and damp. At first I was alarmed, but I think the paper just sweats a little, almost as if the water that is part of the paper mixture, is breaking down over time. Returning to it's natural components. But surprisingly most of the letters were in good shape considering their age. Letters are much more interesting to read than the legal documents which are more readily available having been kept at solicitors' offices for generations, but scarce in number.
I was in search of one particular letter - the only one known to exist from Margaret Hamilton, the subject of my research. I'd been told by Lady A's son that this letter was in the library, but it proved to be elusive. An online search came up empty but a very nice Inquiries Desk man with an earring and long, double-jointed fingers searched through some very old directories on a shelf and managed to locate a collection that looked promising. He then advised I go for lunch since requests take about an hour to process. Margaret's letter, I was told in hushed, reverent tones, might be found in a small group of personal correspondence that were catalogued as being from her husband. All dated around 1695.
There is no simple way to search through these large books of collected letters except to turn them over one by one. I've become much better at reading the spindly writing and interpreting some of the language used back then. Yr is your, yt, is yet, ye means 'the', our 'you' depending on where it falls in the sentence and they never, never, never use punctuation, except for the odd comma that seems to appear randomly in sentences that run on for half a page. I don't know how they read these things back then. For those of you who know the wonderful little grammar book, 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves', punctuation can make all the difference in the meaning of a sentence. It could be that wars were started by lack of a comma....
The upside of browsing through hundreds of letters is that you can't help but stop once in awhile at an interesting one, even if it's not what you are looking for. It's a bit like looking through someone's underwear drawer, someone whose life you have a momentary window into, and then that's all you get.
Like the short note from Warren Hastings, who was Governor General of Fort William, Bengal in 1789. Most of the letters to and from him had to do with military and civil matters, from Prime Ministers, army captains, minor civil servants. But there was one note to his brother where he let him know he was exceedingly pleased to send along on a returning frigate, a case of Madeira, which he cautioned his dear brother not to drink all at once, but to pray save a bottle or two for his next visit. And there were the occasional pleas from the wives of men who had been lost in one of Hastings' campaigns, where they would use their womanly wiles as best they could to try to pry more funds from the coffers, "as ye promised when last we met."
I passed up a lot of interesting things because there was a lot to plow through and you can't hurry. Each letter had to be gently picked up and flipped over, then repeated. Eventually I found two letters from Margaret's husband, Mathew, but they were to his son in London, not to her. I'd seen transcribed copies of these letters in Lady A's collection, where father berates son about unpaid bills and the fact he'd ditched college to live in a place called "The Golden Cup". Some things never change.
Search as I did, the elusive letter from Margaret never turned up. But I did find a letter from her daughter to that bratty brother in London and it was so amazing that I transcribed it in its entirety, even though it took almost three hours. This letter was written on two pages, both sides, and then she started on the margins, and finally ended on part of the outer envelope. I'll share this with you next. But now it's late and I have a plane to catch in the morning.
This is sooty London, signing off.....
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
I now have three ID cards from my research on this trip: the National Archives, Dublin, PRONI (Public Records of Northern Ireland), and the British Museum. And in every one of them my obligatory photo has magically transformed me into a bag lady who just rolled out of the gutter. And here I thought the giant woolen muffler I've been wrapping around my neck was rather natty. My head barely clears the massive thing and although I look warm, it's been a bit deflating to realize that it's not necessary to dress like I'm in the gulag.
Bob jokes he doesn't believe I ever lived in Canada because I have absolutely no tolerance for cold (which is anything under 60 degrees) and wear a scarf almost every day except in the summer (school mums can confirm this). Knowing I'd be outside a lot here I've tried layering to some success - it's been a miserable, cold, wet spring here in the UK, and everyone has complained about it no end. I just expected to be this way (as I do in Vancouver) so I wore a trench coat over a couple of sweaters, and when it rained I pulled out my handy mini-umbrella from my bag and soldiered on. I've walked in the last three weeks more than I've walked in the last year, and the coat comes on and off (along with the muffler) in shops, restaurants, the tube, and the library. Another reminder why I left Ontario. Nothing worse than boiling when you pop into someplace, then freezing when you go back out.
At the British Library anything more than a purse and laptop is frowned upon and you can't even get inside if you have anything larger than an airline carryon bag. They search your stuff when you come in, too. Once inside you are directed to lockers and cloakrooms because you pretty much have to strip down to your knickers when you use the reading rooms. And where I was working in the Manuscript Room their rules are the strictest of all.
Here in the hushed inner sanctum where their document collection stretches back several hundred years, people pore over collections on special stands that are designed to cushion the books. They use a thing called a snake (which is a string of little pellets wrapped in a stretchy tube) to hold a page for future reference. Pencils and laptops are allowed, but pens, gum, sweets, coats, hats, briefcases, or dirty hands are strictly forbidden. How they check our hands is a mystery because they don't make you wear gloves when you handle the documents and I saw some sweaty palms in there. I found it quite extraordinary that we could even touch the materials, in my case, leather-bound books of hand-written letters that were attached onto strips of cardboard by one edge and bound into collections by date. The letters I was examining were all from the 17th Century, and as reverently as I handled them I felt a little guilty that I was touching them at all. They seemed so fragile...and damp. At first I was alarmed, but I think the paper just sweats a little, almost as if the water that is part of the paper mixture, is breaking down over time. Returning to it's natural components. But surprisingly most of the letters were in good shape considering their age. Letters are much more interesting to read than the legal documents which are more readily available having been kept at solicitors' offices for generations, but scarce in number.
I was in search of one particular letter - the only one known to exist from Margaret Hamilton, the subject of my research. I'd been told by Lady A's son that this letter was in the library, but it proved to be elusive. An online search came up empty but a very nice Inquiries Desk man with an earring and long, double-jointed fingers searched through some very old directories on a shelf and managed to locate a collection that looked promising. He then advised I go for lunch since requests take about an hour to process. Margaret's letter, I was told in hushed, reverent tones, might be found in a small group of personal correspondence that were catalogued as being from her husband. All dated around 1695.
There is no simple way to search through these large books of collected letters except to turn them over one by one. I've become much better at reading the spindly writing and interpreting some of the language used back then. Yr is your, yt, is yet, ye means 'the', our 'you' depending on where it falls in the sentence and they never, never, never use punctuation, except for the odd comma that seems to appear randomly in sentences that run on for half a page. I don't know how they read these things back then. For those of you who know the wonderful little grammar book, 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves', punctuation can make all the difference in the meaning of a sentence. It could be that wars were started by lack of a comma....
The upside of browsing through hundreds of letters is that you can't help but stop once in awhile at an interesting one, even if it's not what you are looking for. It's a bit like looking through someone's underwear drawer, someone whose life you have a momentary window into, and then that's all you get.
Like the short note from Warren Hastings, who was Governor General of Fort William, Bengal in 1789. Most of the letters to and from him had to do with military and civil matters, from Prime Ministers, army captains, minor civil servants. But there was one note to his brother where he let him know he was exceedingly pleased to send along on a returning frigate, a case of Madeira, which he cautioned his dear brother not to drink all at once, but to pray save a bottle or two for his next visit. And there were the occasional pleas from the wives of men who had been lost in one of Hastings' campaigns, where they would use their womanly wiles as best they could to try to pry more funds from the coffers, "as ye promised when last we met."
I passed up a lot of interesting things because there was a lot to plow through and you can't hurry. Each letter had to be gently picked up and flipped over, then repeated. Eventually I found two letters from Margaret's husband, Mathew, but they were to his son in London, not to her. I'd seen transcribed copies of these letters in Lady A's collection, where father berates son about unpaid bills and the fact he'd ditched college to live in a place called "The Golden Cup". Some things never change.
Search as I did, the elusive letter from Margaret never turned up. But I did find a letter from her daughter to that bratty brother in London and it was so amazing that I transcribed it in its entirety, even though it took almost three hours. This letter was written on two pages, both sides, and then she started on the margins, and finally ended on part of the outer envelope. I'll share this with you next. But now it's late and I have a plane to catch in the morning.
This is sooty London, signing off.....
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
posted by vallie at 3:13 PM
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