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FROM THE ARCHIVE
Since my last contribution to the Reporter, there has been considerable activity in the Archive and I am grateful to Dr Michael Sayer, Richard Howell and David Wickens for their continued painstaking work in the never-ending tasks of cataloguing and indexing. Dr Sayer, the founder of the Archive, has sorted and indexed the Andrew Freeman 'stereo' photographs (which have been used to lift copies for enquirers, in preference to the unsatisfactory 35mm negatives taken from the original plates ten or so years ago). He has begun work on sorting and indexing the Jardine contracts, relating them to the drawings index which he compiled twenty-five years ago. Richard Howell has indexed the Harvey notebooks, an important secondary source consisting of 3,716 notes / references in 35 volumes. He has sorted and listed the Hill, Norman & Beard contracts, and has been working on a comprehensive indexing of The Organ which will replace the basic index currently available in the main one (and in the publications by Betty Matthews). It is the intention to produce the Harvey notebook and Hill, Norman & Beard indices as a CD-Rom. Other material has been added to the Main Index as follows: Hill, Norman & Beard Order Book 2 - small orders (1918-1919); the Gray & Davison drawings; and the gazetteer in Dr James Berrow's 'Nicholson' thesis. The Main Index, revised each quarter, and the Directory of British Organ-Builders are available on CD-Rom at the Archive, and on-line through the The National Pipe Organ Register . The latest total in the British Organ Archive Main Index is 22,948 locations (of which an important fraction is cross-referencing), covering 28,251 primary references and 12,546 secondary ones. Publication of the Directory of British Organ-Builders in hard copy is imminent. Some technical difficulties in printing gave the opportunity to bring the revision up to date to July 2001. Other revisions include the handlist, incorporating a complete list of the books and a thorough revision of the Gray & Davison indexing occasioned when it was discovered that only the principal orders in the early ledgers had been indexed thus rendering the Gray & Davison Shop Book Index (BIOS Research Paper 3) out of date. We are now able to include the material from the estate of Michael Gillingham together with some 250 Gray & Davison drawings dating from c.1840 to 1900 and an interesting handwritten, illustrated account of the organs of St Mary Woolnoth by William Henry Essex, sometime organist of that church. The Archive now holds what appear to be the sole remains of works documents from Grant, Degens & Bradbeer, including several bundles of drawings and a fair body of material relating to New College, Oxford. We have had material donated from the firm of A. E. Davies Ltd. of Northampton, successors to Grant, Degens & Bradbeer; this is to arrive in the near future. Papers gathered by Joshua Knott relating to Brindley & Foster have been deposited. Finally, mention should be made of the completion of an inventory of all organ-related sources of documentation held by county record offices in England, Wales and Scotland which will shortly become available on-line, and a recurring annual grant of £500 from the Institute of British Organ Building. The Inventory is intended to act as a primary search tool, i.e., a signpost. It is known, for example, that Hull Central Library has the remains of the Forster & Andrews records; Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies has material relating to Rest Cartwright, Corps, Walker and Alfred Kirkland; West Yorkshire Archive Service at Bradford has large holdings from both Anglican and non-conformist churches, a fair number of which includes material relating to organs, correspondence, plans, historical sketches, etc. The IBO's grant is intended to help the continuing work of the Archive and is also a recognition of the value to the organ world of the Archive as a research tool in both academic and practical senses. We are grateful to the IBO for its interest and willingness to assist our work with this grant. |