A new history of the Queen Square Institute of Neurology has recently been published. The book, Queen Square: A History of the National Hospital and its Institute of Neurology celebrates its fluctuating fortunes, and engrossing history, from foundation to its eventual amalgamation with University College London Hospital (UCLH) in 1996, and the absorption of the Institute of Neurology into University College London (UCL) in 1997. The book is over 550 pages in length and includes over 120 photos and images, along with biographies of many deceased former members of staff.
The objective of the authors (Simon Shorvon, Alastair Compston, Andrew Lees, Michael Clark, and Martin Rossor) is to place the story of the hospital within the wider contexts of British social history and the development of British neurology in the modern age. A broadly chronological approach has been adopted in the narrative, divided into three distinctive periods; 1859–1902, 1903–45 and 1946–97. The authors also revisit certain themes throughout the book to show that these have on repeated occasions influenced the course of the history of the hospital and its reciprocal engagement with the wider national and international community.
Queen Square: A History of the National Hospital and its Institute of Neurology will be available to purchase in early November 2018 online at https://www.nationalbrainappeal.org/how-to-support-us/shop/ with all proceeds of sales going to the National Brain Appeal.
WBA/BT/11/15/1/12 – 78-82 Snig Hill, Sheffield store, 1896
by Hannah Jenkinson
In November 2015, Boots Archive embarked on a five year project to re-catalogue the entire archive collection held at the Boots Head Office in Nottingham. The ambitious project was funded by a Research Resources Grant from the Wellcome Trust, and a catalogue relating to the first two years of the work is now available online.
The Boots Archive collection reflects the history of a high street healthcare retailer from the 1840s. The collection lends itself to multiple fields of interest: Boots has been manufacturing since the 1880s; the company has conducted extensive pharmaceutical research; it’s an early example of progressive industrial welfare, and it has been a horticultural and veterinary medicine producer and retailer. The company has also operated libraries and cafes, sold audio and sporting goods, artist’s materials and stationery and run cook shops. Also since the 1930s, Boots has operated more than 1,000 stores throughout the UK, meaning insights from the collection can inform nationwide trends.
For over 20 years the collection has been predominantly used as an internal resource with the team dedicating the majority of their time to promoting and supporting the use of the archives within the business. In more recent years, the Company Archivist started to investigate opening up the collection and expanding its availability externally to academic researchers.
Historically, the collection had been managed in a very simple way, which meant that records would be easy to retrieve. As the service was internally focused, records had been listed on a database and placed in concurrent boxes as they were accessioned. This allowed the team to provide an effective reference service to the business, which wasn’t complicated by contextual information or seemingly complex hierarchies and structures. Unfortunately this was not ideal for users of the catalogue beyond the archive team, and a survey of the collection in 2014 highlighted that one of the most significant challenges to wider access was that the current finding aid was ‘unfit for purpose.’
The first basic requirement for developing access was a relational database which would help impose some structure for users to navigate their way around the collections. It would also allow users to understand the complexities of the collection with a more structured database. We chose Axiell’s CALM – a widely used, tried and tested system which complies with professional standards. It would also allow researchers online access, and provide a sophisticated search functionality.
CAIS 2237 – Boots Athletic Club cycling team, 1897/1898 season
The archive service is linked to the company’s record management system, so when thinking about a structure for the catalogue, we had to bear in mind the constantly evolving nature of the collection. We also needed to consider the other significant assets within the collection, which include Dollond and Aitchison, with records dating from the 1750s, Optrex Ltd (1930s-1990s), and Timothy Whites and Taylors Ltd (1880s-1980s). We created a structure to show the relationship between the different businesses, with parent companies showing their subsidiaries, and so on.
We also adopted functions at our series levels to reflect the many and various departments of the company, which makes sense given how Boots has developed and how often departments have moved or changed name, and may change again in the future (this information will be reflected in the administrative histories). Also functions, we hope, can be easily interpreted by our researchers.
The beauty of having a clearly defined structure with functions and series from the start, means that you can approach the cataloguing in a slightly less structured way. Creating the structure at the start has allowed the project team to sort through the varied boxes of material and allocate them with a meaningful reference number with ease. Unfortunately we have been unable to justify the resources needed to physically re-arrange the entire collection, so the ability to at least re-structure it intellectually has been crucial.
At the project’s current point, the team are almost half way through cataloguing 5,000 archive boxes. We have created over 27,000 entries published on our online catalogue, with over 4,000 digitised images. There are also over 1,700 people authorities, 3,600 places, and 140 company brand histories available to search and cross-reference to the collection. Not only will the new resource make access to our collections easier, but the cataloguing process is allowing the team to enhance their understanding of the potential informational value of our records too.
WBA/BT/10/30/24/12 – International product label. Boots’ first overseas sales division was established in India in 1919
In November 2017, Gwent Archives was generously awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Resources Grant to catalogue our unlisted hospital and medical collections.
Our project ‘From “A Penny in the Pound” to “Free at the Point of Delivery”: Cataloguing the pre- and post-1948 hospital records of Monmouthshire’ started in May and will run for a year. It is led by a full-time project archivist who will catalogue the unlisted medical collections and retro-convert any existing card catalogues using our collection management software.
The project archivist will be joined in the latter half of the project by a part-time preservation assistant who will clean and package the newly listed records. Our aim is that catalogues for all of our hospital and health records collections will be complete, standardised and feature on the Gwent Archives website by the end of the project.
The collections to be newly catalogued represent a broad range of archival documents that relate to the provision of hospital and health services in (old) Monmouthshire during the 20th century. They include registers; plans; statistics; minutes and staff records from various hospitals in the county. Our work will make the following collections accessible to researchers of all disciplines:
The Obstetric Morbidity & Mortality Reports of obstetrician Dr Leonard Alexander Ogilvie of St James Hospital, Tredegar and Nevill Hall Hospital, Abergavenny. Dr Ogilvie compiled these reports between the years of 1946-1979 and they contain a wealth of statistical information on incidents such as still-births, forceps deliveries and complicated labours.
Records of the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board. This large 20th century collection is representative of a number of hospitals in Monmouthshire including the Tredegar Park Cottage Hospital which had close connections with Aneurin Bevan and inspired his development of the NHS. It predominantly contains records which reflect the day to day running and activities of the hospitals, for example, ward reports; admission registers and operation books.
Caerphilly District Miners’ Hospital. This is a mid-late 20th century collection of maternity records which includes case registers; daily report books and birth registers.
A small but varied collection from Monmouth General Hospital containing some fascinating turn of the century archives including a photograph of the medical officers in 1903 and the architect’s design sketches for the new hospital building.
The Midwives Records 1943-1968 collection comprising of the professional records of a number of district midwives working in Monmouthshire during this period. The archive includes maternity case registers; drugs books and patient records.
A large collection of Hospital Plans representing a variety of Monmouthshire hospitals including the Royal Gwent Hospital and Pen y Fal asylum. The plans reveal the structural designs for the new main buildings and additional wards or departments that were built during the 20th century.
These records, alongside Gwent Archives wider hospitals and health collection are significant on both a local and national scale as they detail the administration and operational practices of hospitals in Monmouthshire during a period of great change in healthcare due to the Great War, increasing use of drugs in medical practice and the birth of the NHS. As closure periods pass, researchers will also benefit from the wealth of personal and professional information on people, places and institutions that these documents contain.
As we commemorate the 70th anniversary of the NHS, it is our hope that the improved access to these collections made possible by this project will inspire further academic and public interest in the history of hospitals and healthcare in Monmouthshire.
Please see our blog for more information and updates about the project:
The Faculty of History and Philosophy of Medicine and Pharmacy still have places on the History of Medicine, and “Ethics and Philosophy of Healthcare Courses” starting on 8 September 2018.
The History of Medicine offers a range of classes from ‘Greek and Roman Medicine’ to ‘Ayurvedic Medicine’, ‘Psychiatry’ into modern medicine. The Ethics and Philosophy of Healthcare encourages conversations, debate on current issues of ‘Global Ethics, Divine Command Morality, Autonomy, Consent and Confidentiality’ and more. For information on courses – see here.
The courses run for a year leading to the Diploma examination, DHMSA or DPMSA. The course is open to everyone and we have a mix of professionals, students and retired individuals on the course. If not sitting the examination a ‘Certificate of Attendance’ can be provided. There’s lots of course materials, reading lists, visits, access to past papers; and dissertations. The course days are mainly held at Apothecaries’ Hall, one Saturday a month and in one of the oldest Livery Halls in London.
The course fee is £800 and for students it is £600. There are still a few examination bursaries left which discounts the full rate of the exams. The examination fee is separate to the course fee and is payable closer to the deadline date. Please see ‘Examinations’ – click here. Once you complete 70% attendance required to sit the exam, you have up to three years to take the exam itself including the year you begin the course.
Other bursaries are available.
Quotes from the courses
The course is excellent value for money
Fantastic speaker and interesting topic
I thought that this lecture was very clear and engaging in dealing some complex topics; thank you!
The lecturer’s approach is to be especially commended for its rigour
I really enjoyed discussing everyone’s cases and would love to do them again
Fabulous session, only complaint is it could have been longer
I was very pleased to participate in the Society for the Social History of Medicine conference this year, which took place from 11-14 July at Liverpool University. This report will particularly focus on the ways in which researchers discussed accessing and using archival resources, but I wanted to start by saying that the event was extremely well organised, and had a very international and welcoming feel. The standard of the papers was excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed myself and learned a great deal, so many thanks to all the organisers.
This was a very academic conference and by far the largest contingent came from higher education institutions with consumers, rather than custodians, of historical sources presenting the majority of the papers. As you would expect presenters talked a great deal about their use of archives, and referred to, and showed, documents and items including newspaper and magazine cuttings, letters, diaries, photographs, sketches, reports and pamphlets, held in a very wide variety of international archives, in their presentations. Archives were acknowledged and archivists often thanked for their support. It was interesting to see that presenters often displayed photographs alongside details of their Creative Commons licences, suggesting they are enjoying their increased ability to display archive images free of charge.
Researchers most commonly mentioned their use of big, national, UK archives. Kew often came up in connection with Department of Health records, and the British Library was clearly being used a great deal for research involving magazines and newspapers. I sat behind one delegate who was accessing the online catalogues of both these institutions while listening to a paper, trying to locate the sources mentioned and many people acknowledged and welcomed their increased ability to access important collections remotely. Some delegates, including myself and academics from Manchester University working on the NHS at 70 project, also talked of their work developing online archival collections, particularly in the field of oral history. The Wellcome Collection was also commonly cited and thanked as a research funder. Presenters mentioned hospital and university archives less commonly, although they are clearly using these resources. Key note speaker Ruth Richardson, author of ‘Death, Dissection and the Destitute’, spoke of her experience of being locked into St George’s archives as a result of chronic understaffing. There was no one to supervise her while she worked so they simply locked the doors to safeguard the documents.
In a similar vein, interestingly, although perhaps not surprisingly, many people expressed frustration about the lack of access to certain records, particularly papers relating to clinical matters, and the need for increasingly extensive and complex ethics reviews in order to unlock potentially sensitive material. Researchers commented that their inability to access such records often prevented them from representing the voices of patients in their work. There was some dismay, also, about the ongoing threat to records, even those held in national institutions such as Kew, especially in regard to NHS paperwork which is so copious that it apparently undergoes a regular process of filtering and destruction. People also spoke of records going missing, with one particularly interesting example provided by Hannah Mawdsley, PhD student at Queen Mary University, London, in her presentation on the 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic. She traced a box of letters giving first-hand accounts of the pandemic, which should have been in the Imperial War Museum archives, to the attic of the private home of Richard Collier, who originally collected the correspondence, just before house clearers went through the property’s contents.
Image taken from the lecture, ‘The Modern Memory of a Forgotten Pandemic The Centenary of the 1918-19 Influenza’. Courtesy of Hannah Mawdsley.
One fascinating, and more surprising, revelation, was the inability to access, and sometimes even the complete lack of, private sector organisation archives, which should be key sources of information where companies have played a vital role in health related matters. For example it was shocking to hear that international consultancy firm, McKinsey, don’t have an archive at all, a policy designed to protect the privacy of their clients. Academics at Liverpool University described how this had been an issue in their attempts to research the 1974 restructuring of the NHS, and how they had tried to fill the gap in the sources by using duplicates of correspondence in government records and organising witness seminars involving former McKinsey consultants.
The panel that I attended that provided the richest information on potential audiences for medical archives focused on the campaign to secure acknowledgement for the damaging effect of Primados, a hormonal pregnancy test used from the 1950s to 1970s, on the development of foetuses. A journalist, a campaigner, a lawyer and a historian talked about their experiences of trying to access two depositaries, the Landesarchiv in Berlin and the Bayer / Schering Archives which hold the records of the pharmaceutical company that produced the drug, with varying levels of success. Although all researchers reported that the archives in Berlin had been helpful they also mentioned that at both institutions material was available very much at the archivists’ discretion, and that only the historian had had any success in accessing the records at the pharmaceutical company.
Given the nature both of delegates and of the research presented I would have thought that the SSHM conference would be an extremely fruitful event for promoting archival collections with a particular focus on health and medicine. However, with the exception of the Wellcome Collection, which was very well represented, very few archivists were present at the event. It may be useful and beneficial to both researchers and custodians to consider ways to use the conference to promote lesser known collections in future years.
Sarah Lowry
Oral History Officer, Royal College of Physicians of London
