Scotland's Industrial Souvenir

The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland have digitised volume 2 of their copy of Scotland's Industrial Souvenir. This is a trade catalogue from 1905 which highlights Scotland's industrial achievements. RCAHMS head of collections Lesley Ferguson, said:

“From Edinburgh’s breweries, brush makers, glue factories and ironmongers, to fish merchants in Aberdeen and confectioners and jute merchants in Dundee, these beautifully detailed advertisements conjure up the sights, sounds and smells of Scotland’s industrial heyday."

The BBC produced a lovely gallery of the images on their site yesterday, which is the second time they've include business archives on the site following the gallery of Bartholomew Archive last week.

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Scottish Canals Heritage Strategy

Scottish Canals have recently launched their draft heritage strategy

They have a great collection of business archives that are a key part of the heritage strategy and one of the aims is to: "improve understanding, condition of and access to Scottish Canals' artefacts and archive." But interestingly their strategy covers a huge range of types of heritage:

This strategy will cover all types of cultural heritage associated with Scottish Canals. As well as engineering structures, buildings and natural heritage, our estate includes archaeological sites, historical documents and artefacts. We also wish to safeguard and promote cultural heritage that is not physical, including traditions, craft skills, language, literature, knowledge and associations with past events and people.

The consultation will close on 14 January 2013, to submit your feedback click here.

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Edinburgh's industries and RCAHMS

As part of Doors Open Days this year the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) is offering a number of talks and tours at their offices in Edinburgh on Saturday 22nd September.  There are two that will particularly focus on the businesses and industries of Edinburgh and its an excellent opportunity to find out more about the work of RCAHMS who contribute much to the business archives sector.

From their website:

Hear experts talking about our extensive collections and view our exhibitions and fi lms. You’ll also get the chance to go behind-the-scenes to discover how we photograph, measure and draw industrial sites, and fi nd out how these unique images form an important record of Scotland’s industrial past and present.

View the programme here.

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Industry from above

This week, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) and its sister organisation in Wales (RCAHMW) and English Heritage launched the Britain From Above website.   It is a treasure trove of aerial photography from across Britain, with 5,000 images online already.

It features some of the oldest and most valuable images of the Aerofilms Collection, a unique and important archive of over 1 million aerial photographs taken between 1919 and 2006.

It is particularly good for seeing some great images of industry such as shipbuilding, steel, locomotives and engineering.  Such as this great one of the Harland and Wolff yard in Govan, 1947.

[from here]

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Network Rail opens up its collections

Image from The Guardian

A great example of a business archive opening up its collections was unveiled last week with the wonderful new Virtual Archive website for Network Rail's collection of engineering drawings and plans.

The archive collection held by Network Rail has more than 5 million records dating back more than 300 years.

The site has categorised items by people, stations, companies, bridges & viaducts and tunnels.

Explore it here.

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Scott's Men

The Scotts' Exhibition at the McLean Museum starts on Saturday 25th June until 10th September 2011.  The exhibition marks the 300th anniversary of Scotts' of Greenock.

Download a poster here.

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British Steel Archive Project

On Friday the British Steel Archive Project celebrated its successful launch in Middlesbrough. The project was an ambitious scheme to catalogue and celebrate the heritage of the steel industry on Teeside, which is still very visible today. The project involved the development of close working partnerships between a variety of different stakeholders to create an ongoing and sustainable improvement to a collection that was sitting in uncatalogued boxes. Although this wasn't a Scottish project (though some of the companies involved did have long-standing roots in Scottish industry) the planning and execution of it were very impressive, and it should stand as a model of what can be achieved in the business archives sector.

Through basing the work at Teeside Archives, the project has improved and enhanced existing facilities (including a new website and CALM catalogue) and set in place a structure, including a volunteer and friends scheme, that will ensure the initial work on the collection can be carried through to completion. I was also impressed with the outreach work performed in schools across the area. Attendance and participation levels were also much greater than anticipated (almost double the initial estimates)

All of which would not have been possible without an initial assessment of the value of the collection by David Powell, the then BACS Surveying Officer, that allowed Dr Joan Heggie (the project leader) to successfully apply for Heritage Lottery Fund money. Congratulations to Dr Heggie and her team on the completion of an impressive and valuable business archives project.

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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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