The Men In Grey

"Accountancy has a reputation for dullness but its history is the history of civilisation itself" according to this article in the BBC News online Magazine published on Friday. The article looks at the almost silent role of "grey" accountants in history. By looking at events such as the Holocaust and Highland Clearances, it demonstrates how the records created by these individuals are a key source for telling the stories of these events.

Financial records are an often neglected record type commonly found in business archives. I don't think this is so much because of a fear of maths or numbers but because of what can seem the baffling relationships between cash books, day books, ledgers and the double entry book-keeping system. So, this light-hearted yet informative article in the BBC News Magazine really brought home the value of these records and their potential.

Double entry booking can seem like a dark art to many, but if you speak to a historian of accounting (they do exist) they'll tell you that it is the most important development in the world. Ever.

Jolyon Jenkins will cover more on this subject in a ten-part series A Brief History of Double-Entry Book-keeping daily on BBC Radio 4 from Monday 8 March at 1545.

A couple of years ago, the Business Archives Council of Scotland ran a training day for archivists on financial records and the double entry system books of accounts. The training materials explaining the main books of accounts and tracing transactions through various documents from this day are available on the BACS website here.

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King Coal! Archive film and talk in Bo'ness

Brian Murray of the Scottish Mining Museum and a former coal surveyor will be introducing a film show at Bo'ness Hippodrome on Wed 28 April 2010 at 11 (refreshments available from 1030).

Launched in conjunction with the BFI's "Britain's Industrial Heritage" project, the archive films used provide an insight into an industry which came to define 20th century Britain. Early films will include "A Day in the Life of a Coal Miner" (1910) to 1940s animation and 1980s documentary footage shot during the Miners' Strikes. The Scottish ballad, "The Blantyre Explosion" will also feature, commemorating the disaster at Dixon's Colliery at High Blantyre in 1877 in which over 200 miners perished.

Tickets costs:
Screening plus refreshments: £5.25
Screening only: £2.60

The Hippodrome, 10 Hope Street, Bo'ness, EH51 0AA.
Box Office: 01324 506850

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Consultation is Coming!

Well, this does seem to be dragging on a bit but we're almost there with the final draft of the strategy. We're waiting on a little information from a key partner and ironing out a couple of corners and then we will be ready to put it out to public consultation.

Kiara and I would like to thank all the people who have taken the time to speak to us, answer our questions and generally allowed us to pester them in getting this far with the draft. Thanks!

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Insights from banking archives

An article in last weekend's Times discusses new insights into the life of Lewis Carroll from his bank account records.  Read more. (Thanks to Maria Sienkiewicz for sending this to the Archives-NRA Listserv.)

There has also been a bit of discussion on the listserv about the records of nationalised banks eg Northern Rock and whether they should be considered public records and what this would mean for their long-term preservation and care.  The discussion raised some interesting points (see here) and emphasised again the importance of a business archives strategy and its successful implementation to protecting vulnerable business archives from all sectors.

It turns out the Northern Rock records have been deposited with Tyne and Wear Archives.  Details here.

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December into January

Whoops, we've been a bit quiet of late but hopefully that will be remedied over the coming weeks!

The final draft of the Business Archives Strategy for Scotland is in the final throws of preparation and should be public within the next few weeks for comment. Watch this space for more news!

Scotland is now formerly represented on the Crisis Response Team that has been established by the Business Archives Strategy for England & Wales. This small team has been established to help co-ordinate rescue work and offer help and advice where business enter into receivership liquidation so that archives can hopefully be saved for the nation. The team will work closely with local archive repositories and other organisations with an interest in business heritage.

It is recognised by the English & Welsh strategy that business, trade and industry do not stop at the border between Carlisle and Berwick. So, for example, First Quench owners of the Thresher and Victoria wine retail chains is very much and English company. However, they also owned the Scottish chain of Haddows so it is sensible that Scotland takes an interest in the records of the parent company and offers support. Scotland is represented on the team by David Powell, the Surveying Officer of the Business Archives Council of Scotland.

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