I have recently joined Brunel as an Archivist on the Heritage Builds Bridges Project. I studied at University College London and I come to Brunel from the Nottinghamshire Archives. In my new role I will be cataloguing the Maria Grey College Archives, the Shoreditch College Archives and papers from the British and Foreign School Society, I will also be involved in selecting material for the construction of a website.
The Heritage Builds Bridges Project is a Heritage Lottery funded partnership between Brunel, the London Borough of Hillingdon and the British and Foreign School Society. Its aim is to bring together a range of existing locally based Archive collections with the goal of creating an integrated fully searchable website resource. The University’s contribution to the project will include the Maria Grey College Archives and Shoreditch College Archives.
Maria Grey was a pioneer of women’s education and of teacher training. The college was in existence from 1878 to 1976. The collection includes papers on the Teacher Training and Registration Scheme. The scheme was initiated as a result of pressure from the Women’s Education Union, a group set up by Maria Grey.
Shoreditch College, now on the University’s Runnymede campus, offered teacher-training courses in design and technology from 1951 to 1980. Held with this collection are the archives of the Institute of Craft Education Archives.
The British and Foreign School Society Archive is an important archive of nineteenth century elementary education and teacher training records. The British and Foreign Schools Society adopted its name in 1814 and had grown out of the Royal Lancasterian Society, which had supported the work of Joseph Lancaster from 1808. Lancaster had founded the Borough Road School for the education of the poor in 1798. Borough Road College, Stockwell College, Saffron Walden College and Darlington College records form a major part of this collection.
The London Borough of Hillingdon Local Studies and Archives collection originated from the former Middlesex County Library local collection and in part from the Uxbridge Library local collection. Records cover the area of the present London Borough of Hillingdon and also the former County of Middlesex, London and Buckinghamshire. The collection of Uxbridge material began in the 1930’s on the opening of the public library encouraged by H. T. Hamson the editor of the Uxbridge Gazette. The collection is heavily biased towards Uxbridge material for this reason. The records comprise of the Museum Collection, which includes domestic and agricultural items, and The Archive Collection, which consists of the official records of the four constituent local authorities that went to make up the London Borough of Hillingdon. There are also some 10,000 photographs in Hillingdon’s Local Studies and Archives Collection.
The project will not only unite archive collections of national and local importance, it will create a resource to inspire learning and encourage involvement with heritage, a unique resource with the potential for future growth. I look forward with great anticipation to being a part of such a progressive project.
For further information please contact: brunelarchives@brunel.ac.uk