The Queen's College Record 2023
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Reports and <strong>College</strong> Activities<br />
A YEAR IN THE ARCHIVE<br />
Michael Riordan<br />
<strong>College</strong> Archivist<br />
Much of the work we do in the Archive contributes to longterm<br />
projects. I’ve been concentrating on our project to<br />
recatalogue the entire Archive according to modern<br />
international standards, whilst our Assistant Archivist, Amy<br />
Ebrey, has been working on projects that include digitising<br />
student files and providing archival boxes for the books in<br />
the Archive. This year we commissioned 48 bespoke boxes<br />
from the Bodleian; they measure each volume with the<br />
book equivalent of the device for measuring children’s feet!<br />
Amongst this routine work there have, however, been a<br />
few highlights. <strong>The</strong>se include some important and exciting gifts from Old Members.<br />
Alan Mitchell (Engineering, 1968) has given us two leases that he purchased at<br />
auction. <strong>The</strong> first dates from 1592 and is a lease of <strong>College</strong> land near Newbury. It<br />
has the signatures of the Provost and senior Fellows and would have been given to<br />
the tenants. <strong>The</strong> <strong>College</strong> once had a counterpart copy signed by the tenants, but<br />
given that the <strong>College</strong> also had the lease copied into a ledger (which is still in the<br />
Archive) the <strong>College</strong> was unfortunately persuaded to sell its early modern leases in<br />
1930 and most of them have ended up in the Special Collections department of the<br />
University of Kansas!<br />
<strong>The</strong> other lease dates to 1792 and relates to a house in Southampton. It is signed<br />
by the tenants Nicholas and Elizabeth de Carteret, though Elizabeth signs with a<br />
cross, so was presumably illiterate. This was the copy given to the <strong>College</strong> and so<br />
must have once been in the Archive; it was presumably part of the leases sold in<br />
1930, but somehow got separated from the rest of the collection. It’s wonderful to<br />
have it restored by Alan to the Archive, along with the earlier lease that makes up<br />
for the loss of its counterpart to the other side of the Atlantic.<br />
A selection of material presented to the<br />
<strong>College</strong> by Paul Jackson<br />
Another exciting acquisition comes to the<br />
Archive from Old Member Paul Jackson<br />
(PPE, 1974), whose extensive personal<br />
‘archive’ of material includes correspondence,<br />
lecture cards, buttery tickets, menus,<br />
ball invitations, photographs, and other<br />
material, and spans his time as an undergraduate<br />
at Queen’s from his initial offer<br />
letter all the way through to invitations to<br />
post-Finals parties. Paul’s interest and<br />
participation in student politics and drama<br />
shine through, and the material offers<br />
44 <strong>The</strong> Queen’s <strong>College</strong> | <strong>College</strong> <strong>Record</strong> <strong>2023</strong>