By Lucy (Work placement volunteer)
Throughout my six-week placement at The Story, I have been lucky enough to discover pieces of history that, without the help of the archive, would often be lost to time. When I began my placement here, I was mainly interested in significant historical events and how Durham and my home country, Ireland, could fit into that picture. However, as I spent more time perusing the extensive collection of artefacts held at The Story, I began to become more interested in the parts people consider ‘insignificant’ in our history.
Journey of a schoolteacher
My favourite artefact of this genre was the journal of a schoolteacher in which she had to record the daily happenings of school life from the 1880s into the 1900s and here, I got an insight into the everyday life of students in Durham in this time period. This journal meticulously recorded the events of every school day at one specific school and as I read on, I was able to paint a picture of what school life was like back then.
Schoolteacher’s journal entry
Schoolteacher’s journal entry
One particular page that I found very entertaining was an entry in which she had to send a student, E. Cummings home, because she hadn’t done her work to the satisfaction of the teacher. Then this teacher became even more worked up when she had a talk with this girl’s father and discovered that Mr. Cummings was ‘evidently of the same opinion as his daughter’, and saw no need for school! Individual stories of ordinary people such as this were what began to interest me as I continued my work experience as I felt that one of the unique things about an archive instead of a history book, is its ability to record the seemingly insignificant stories that may one day become a useful indicator of what daily life was like hundreds of years ago.
Connections between Durham and Ireland
In addition to this exploration of daily life, I also enjoyed researching the small mentions of Ireland throughout Durham’s history. As I am Irish, I was interested to see if there would be any connections between Durham and Ireland and there were quite a few. Most notable was a newspaper clipping dated 22 September 1939, in which it detailed the court case of a self-confessed member of the IRA, (Irish Republican Army) who had admitted to planting a bomb in a house. This was part of a bigger bombing campaign by the IRA in 1939 which was planned as a pushback against British rule.
What I found interesting about this particular newspaper clip was that it was side by side with a notice outlining rules for football clubs to follow taking into account the outbreak of World War II. This newspaper clipping then simultaneously captured the beginning of the repercussions of World War II and the end of that particular campaign for the IRA, a movement that would take the backseat in the following years thanks to the outbreak of war. Therefore, in this one newspaper clip, a lot can be gathered about the state of the U.K. and Ireland during this time period. I found this article fascinating because it demonstrated how much history can be packed onto one small piece of paper and showcased a connection personal to me that I would not have been able to find in a regular history book.
Exploring working with Archives
While these two pieces were my favourite things out of everything that I had the opportunity to explore while at The Story, there were countless more that I was able to examine and learn about which furthered my interest both in history and in the work of an archive. In having this opportunity, I was able to discover what I enjoyed about archive work and consider it as a possible career in the future. While here, I was able to see the process of creating an archive and the endless amount of work that goes into gathering items, inspecting each artefact, categorising them and often then digitalising them. This extremely simplified version of what takes place at The Story does not do justice to the amount of work that the staff put in both to making history accessible to everyone and ensuring that the present day events will be historicised as inclusively as possible, so that one day in a few centuries there may be another volunteer writing about discovering our ‘insignificant’ daily lives as I have had the opportunity to do here.
Beyond
Visit The Story to embark on your own journey. Whose story will you discover next?