• About Us
  • Contact Us

John Rylands Library Special Collections Blog

John Rylands Library Special Collections Blog

Monthly Archives: July 2016

Countdown to War

25 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by Fran Baker in Archives, Cataloguing, John Rylands Research Institute, Resource discovery

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Alexander Werth, Charles Lambert, foreign correspondence, Frederick Voigt, Guardian, Manchester Guardian, Marcel Fodor, Nazi Germany, Robert Dell, Spanish Civil War, W.P. Crozier

Several blog posts last year reported on our John Rylands Research Institute-funded project to catalogue the European foreign correspondence in the Guardian Archive. Sandra Cruise has been continuing this work, and reports on the foreign correspondence dating from 1936-1939:

The Guardian foreign correspondence is a rich source of material for historians, providing a fascinating and detailed narrative of the events and political machinations in Europe in the years leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War.

The correspondence comprises letters, telegrams, dispatches, confidential notes and scribbled messages, exchanged mainly between the editor, William Percival Crozier (or occasionally other members of staff), and five of his foreign correspondents: Alexander Werth in Paris, Marcel Fodor in Vienna, Charles Lambert in Berlin, and the septuagenarian Robert Dell in Geneva; Frederick Voigt, by this time, acts as diplomatic correspondent from the London office, having been removed successively from Berlin and Paris for his personal safety, assisted by Swiss refugee, Max Wolf, and exploiting a network of underground German contacts. From their vantage points in major European cities are viewed the events of the years 1936 to 1939, a period characterised by the growing threat of war, and chronicling the shifting alliances, Hitler’s expansionism, and including the continuing Nazi terror, the Stalinist purge of the mid 1930s, and, from mid 1936, the Spanish Civil War and its repercussions.

It is not so much what the papers say, as what they don’t say; the archive contains a great deal of information which did not make it into, or was never intended for the paper’s columns for whatever reason, be it confidentiality, diplomacy, or simply lack of space: the details of articles and letters omitted or heavily edited; names withheld for the writer’s or subject’s own safety; the views of the correspondents, their interviewees and the editor himself. Most of all, the archive reveals the confidential sources and reports of private conversations previously known only to the correspondents and the editor, sent for the purpose of verifying a story, or keeping the editor informed. A scribbled pencil message from Frederick Voigt to the editor gives confirmation of German and Italian assistance to the rebels in Spain via his receipt of a decoded message from Franco to General Mola: ‘the offensive on Madrid can begin…as soon as the Italian planes are ready…our identity is known to Berlin’.

Scribbled message from Voigt reporting on the content of a decoded message from Franco.

Scribbled message from Voigt reporting on the content of a decoded message from Franco.

Besides being a narrative of the inter-war years, the correspondence also gives an insight into the status of the paper, how the correspondents worked, their relationships with the editor and each other, and also with other papers and journalists. The paper, under Crozier’s editorship, built up a reputation for foreign news, particularly letters to the editor from significant foreign figures. On 2 September 1936 Crozier told his men that the Manchester Guardian led the way in foreign correspondence and letters on topics from abroad, and he frequently urged them to actively encourage people they encountered to write to the paper. The archive contains many letters or accounts from, or about victims of the Nazi persecution, and the Stalinist purge in Russia, whose identities had to be concealed for fear of reprisals, even if the writers were no longer resident in the country in question. The paper led the way in reporting the atrocities of the Nazi regime; Voigt’s pioneering reporting of the German concentration camps had already made him a Gestapo target as, in Crozier’s words, ‘the most serious opponent of Nazi Germany in the English press’, and necessitating his removal from mainland Europe. The paper was banned indefinitely in Germany in September 1936. Of all the English papers, only the Manchester Guardian and the Yorkshire Post were independent; the Telegraph was viewed as the voice of the establishment, while Voigt commented that the Nazis ought to be grateful to The Times for its editing of the articles of its Berlin correspondent.

The dangers faced by many of the correspondents and the immediacy of the situation make compelling reading. Voigt reports picking up fragments from his balcony and hotel corridor when his side of the hotel in the Gran Via in Madrid was shelled.

Extract from letter of 30 April 1937 in which Voigt describes picking up hot fragments of shell on his hotel balcony.

Extract from letter of 30 April 1937 in which Voigt describes picking up hot fragments of shell on his hotel balcony.

Both Voigt and Werth visited Spain during the Spanish Civil War in an attempt to discover the truth about the terror and the reaction of the ordinary Spaniard in the street. Voigt’s desire to venture into unchartered territory was quashed by Crozier, who forbade him to enter rebel territory, as the Germans, who were assisting Franco, would get to know that he was there, and might see it as an opportunity to ‘get rid of him’. Charles Lambert in Berlin, tired of the stress of living in Nazi Germany, expresses relief at being able to live in a ‘normal country’ without being ‘spied on’, whilst covering Paris during Werth’s holiday in August 1938. Fodor was forced to flee Vienna in the American Military Attaché’s car at the time of the Anschluss in March 1938, and spent the next year or so one step ahead of the advancing Germans in Europe, as he moved from place to place. Dangers did not always come in the guise of foreign attackers, however; Voigt faced problems closer to home, as he was more than once libelled by other journalists and writers.

In this telegram of 13 May 1937, Voigt announces that he is leaving Barcelona for Toulouse. Crozier responded to this with a note expressing his relief that his correspondent was well.

In this telegram of 13 May 1937, Voigt announces that he is leaving Barcelona for Toulouse. Crozier responded to this with a note expressing his relief that his correspondent was well.

Managing the team of correspondents was not always an easy task, as the editor strove to manage the different and strong personalities, to avoid any clashes with the paper’s policy and prevent any differences of opinion from spilling over into the columns. Being at the sharp end of events, many a correspondent gives vent to their frustration, particularly at the lack of understanding of the European situation. On a holiday to England in August 1936, the veteran Robert Dell cannot conceal his exasperation:

‘I find opinion here worse than I thought. It terrifies me. The ignorance of people that ought to be well-informed about the real situation on the Continent is alarming and the apparent indifference to what may happen even more so. I saw Blum and Delbos in Paris and I fear that they are both humbugged by Eden and the F[oreign] O[ffice]. They appear to have acquiesced in allowing the Nazis to do as they like in Danzig.’

He concludes that Hitler ‘is likely to be master of Europe in about six months without firing a shot’ and states that if he were in England, he would support Churchill, who ‘recognises the danger of Fascism in England.’ Yet, at the same time, there is an acknowledgement amongst the correspondents that England needs time to re-arm and gain strength, Voigt predicting in August 1937 that England would not be ready until 1939.

One of the archive’s strengths lies in its chronicling of the developing situation in the smaller and lesser known countries of central and south-eastern Europe by the Vienna and Balkans correspondent, Marcel Fodor – areas which were becoming the victims of Hitler’s expansionism and influence. Fodor will be the subject of a future blog post.

The archive continues until December 1939, and gives a snapshot of the conditions for both paper and correspondents in the first weeks of the war – the censorship, difficulties in communication, plus the overriding uncertainty. Crozier wonders how many men he will lose from his staff; the paper, already suffering from a paper restriction in the period before the war, is now restricted to twelve pages. Looking for safe, yet significant news gathering centres in which to base their correspondents had already been a problem; they had struggled to find a suitable haven for Fodor, a Hungarian Jew, after the Anschluss, in a Europe becoming increasingly German dominated; the other correspondents’ futures were now also in question. Lambert was still expecting to return to Berlin after covering for Werth in Paris some ten days before war was declared; after various suggested destinations, he eventually was dispatched to Stockholm. Werth, recuperating in Glasgow after a bicycle accident, returned to Paris to take over from Lambert, while Dell, by now 74, had retired and was contemplating more American lecture tours. Fodor himself, who was also working for the Chicago Daily News, for whom he was in Morocco, Tunis and Algiers around the time of the declaration of war, eventually found himself in the Hague. Evelyn Montague, working in London as Bone’s deputy, was dispatched abroad as war correspondent.

Extract from a letter written by Voigt on 4 September 1939, the day after Britain declared war on Germany. He speculates on potential bombing targets, commenting that there is nothing worth bombing in Manchester apart from the Manchester Guardian.

Extract from a letter written by Voigt on 4 September 1939, the day after Britain declared war on Germany. He speculates on potential bombing targets, commenting that there is nothing worth bombing in Manchester apart from the Manchester Guardian.

Amongst all this, it is sometimes possible to catch a glimpse of the people behind the messages, their characters and their background, such as Dell’s outspoken, heartfelt views, and his penchant for listening to dance music while he worked. Occasionally, the correspondence affords a brief glimpse of domestic affairs; there is a passing reference to the abdication crisis and the activities of King Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpson. Closer to home, Lambert sends Crozier a newscutting from a German paper concerning the discovery of the St John fragment in the John Rylands Library. Interestingly, Alexander Werth also had a connection to the University of Manchester – he acted as senior Simon Research Fellow from 1953 to 1955.

Images in this blog post are reproduced courtesy of Guardian News and Media Ltd.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

The Jeff Nuttall exhibition: thoughts from the developer behind the app visualising his life

14 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by John Hodgson in Archives, Exhibitions, Innovation, Visual materials

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Beat Poets, Data visualisation, Digital humanities, Exhibitions, Jeff Nuttall

Veneta Haralampieva writes:

Hello everyone,

My name is Veneta Haralampieva and I have just graduated from the University of Manchester obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. You might be wondering what a Computer Science student and Jeff Nuttall have in common. Well, I am currently working on a web-based application which aims to provide a visualisation of the relationships between Jeff Nuttall and other artists by utilising his archive held in the Library, which soon you will be able to visit. But don’t worry: I won’t bore you with a bunch of technical things about the app itself. Instead I would like to tell you about my tour around the library.

20160707_133457 (2)

Veneta Haralampieva examines items from the Jeff Nuttall Collection in the Collection Care Studio at the John Rylands Library.

A few weeks ago I and my supervisors and colleagues from the university were offered a unique private tour around the library led by Janette Martin who works there. It is needless to say how excited I was to actually physically see some of the items from the archive I have been working with only digitally (for which I am deeply grateful to Imogen Durant who has digitized all the content).

Our tour started from the Christie Room, which is an exquisite Victorian-style room with wooden chairs and tables where one feels like a hero in a J.K. Rowling novel, exploring the world of magic. We were then taken to the area where the Jeff Nuttall exhibition will be, which was yet another stunning room. I can definitely say that I would love to see how the curators will intertwine the Victorian style of the room with Nuttall’s very modern Sixties look and feel. I am sure it will be a wonderful mix which would make the exhibition even more enjoyable and it will be worth seeing.

What Happened to Jackson

Cover of Jeff Nuttall, What Happened to Jackson (London: Aloes Books, 1978). R226249. Copyright The Jeff Nuttall Estate.

Afterwards, we found ourselves in the most famous area open to the public where one could book a desk and enjoy reading in this marvelous building. After a short wander around we were taken through a metal gate, normally not for use by visitors of the library, which led to a small stairwell. Following Janette and climbing the old stairs carefully we came out into the upper floor of the room, overlooking the visitors below. Janette told us that this is where usually PhD students and researchers have desks to carry out their daily work. How amazing would that be! For a Computer Scientist like me, who has spent the last four years in buildings like Kilburn (where there is little sunlight and definitely no Victorian wooden desks) this looked simply astonishing. Quiet, beautiful and relaxing atmosphere where one could focus without getting interrupted and really engulf in the work to be done. We took the scenic walk around this area and came out of the other side of the room, again taking an ancient looking staircase and exiting through a metal gate.

Our final stop was the research room, which was located in the newer part of the building. The John Rylands Library is outstanding in the way it allows the new and modern to flow into the original style of the building. In there we got to see some of the actual works that will be on display on the exhibition. But don’t worry, I won’t spoil anything for you 🙂 We got a closer look at some of Jeff Nuttall’s publications and his collaborations with other artists which was fascinating. It is incredible how artists from different countries communicated extensively and influenced each other’s work. This is what I truly hope to visualise with the application, the magnitude of the international collaboration. Another thing that I found very impressive is the unique artwork on all the book covers. They seem to illustrate the main ideas of each piece and capture the imagination of the reader. We explored some of the material very carefully (some of it handwritten letters from and to Jeff) and I pondered the fact that we are in fact just seeing a fraction of this man’s life and there will be so much more which has never been recorded and no one will ever know about.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end and so did our lovely tour. So we made our way out and into the rainy streets of Manchester and I returned to my work, with one goal, to try and capture some of the extraordinary life of Jeff Nuttall.

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

The Manchester Histories Festival: What We Learned.

04 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by Jessica Smith in Archives, Cataloguing, Events, Exhibitions, Visual materials

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Archives, C.P. Scott, Exhibitions, Guardian Archive, Manchester Guardian

On the 11th June, the John Rylands Library Special Collections put together a stall for the Manchester Histories Festival which focused upon the Guardian Archive.

Manchester Histories Festival Stall

We had a couple of aims for the day, to publicise the collection and promote its use, and also, if possible, to gather information from the collective memory of Manchester. The second of these objectives evolved whilst material for the stall was being selected. The Guardian Archive contains a number of photographs, many of which were taken by their staff photographer, Walter Doughty.

These photographs show employees at the Manchester Guardian and Manchester Evening News at work, carrying out the various functions required to produce a daily newspaper. The majority of these photographs don’t include descriptions, or dates, and they feature equipment and practices that we were not always able to confidently identify. Our hope was that we might meet someone at the Histories Festival who would be able to assist us.

Luckily for us, we did!

jrl15100037

One of our favourite pictures, of the last horses to retire from the newspaper’s delivery service in 1952, generated a memory in one of our visitors. He remembered seeing an article published at the time the horses were retired which included this photograph, and that described the distinctive chocolate and gold livery of the horses.

We also had the good fortune to have a visitor who had worked for a number of newspapers during the 1950s and 60s, and provided us with details including:

jrl16051010

The employees in this picture are operating linotype machines, which were used for typesetting. The keyboards pictured produced lines of metal text for use in the printing press.

 

 

Guardian Archive Images

The printing press pictured is a Crabtree Viceroy Rotary Printing Press. The size of reels used for printing is determined by the number of pages to be printed. A broadsheet requires a 60 inch reel.

 

 

jrl16051018

The employee in this picture is working as a fly hand, and would remove completed copies of the paper from the press by hand. The paper for each copy was measured in quires, and the speed of the printing press could be altered using the control panel pictured in the top left hand corner of the picture. This could, on occasion, be used by employees to play pranks, as it was easy to amend the speed on a machine in passing and increase the speed of work for an unsuspecting colleague.

 

jrl15100038MEN_cars

There was a date attached to the delivery vans in this photograph of 1955, but a visitor who was more versed in the history of automobiles suggested to us that the cars pictured were far more likely to be from the 1930s.

 

We also heard an anecdote about C.P. Scott, who, in later life, reportedly fell off his bicycle whilst cycling home in the snow, and was aided by a policeman who, not recognising Scott as editor of the Manchester Guardian, expressed indignation that an elderly man had been kept at work so late in inclement weather!

The information we gathered at the Manchester Histories Festival enhanced our knowledge of the collection, and as a bonus, I got to hear people from the city talk about their pride in the origins of the Guardian. My opening explanation that the Guardian was originally the Manchester Guardian proved to be quite unnecessary, as more often than not, it was greeted with: ‘Oh, we know!’

We also learned from a visitor that the John Rylands Library had been built in what was, at the time, Manchester’s red light district…but that may be a story for another blog post.

For more information on the Manchester Histories Festival, please visit: http://www.manchesterhistoriesfestival.org.uk/

Images from the Guardian archive are reproduced courtesy of Guardian News and Media Ltd.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 10,493 other followers

Follow John Rylands Library Special Collections Blog on WordPress.com

Blog Stats

  • 229,270 hits

Recent Posts

  • Heraldry for German Princes by a Prince amongst German Painters
  • Unknown Cranach Work Discovered in the John Rylands Library
  • The Hidden Gems of dsh
  • Opening up the Peterloo Collections at the University of Manchester Library
  • A comprehensive variety: the Chinese collections
  • “Good Blood, Bad Blood”: A Petite Exhibit on Menstruation in the Rylands Gallery #2
  • Hidden Histories in John Rylands: LGBTQAI Icons
  • The Very Visible Suffragettes
  • The Pilkingtons: A Family on the Edge
  • “Peculiar and Marvellous”: A Petite Exhibit on Menstruation in the Rylands Gallery #1

Category Cloud

Academic engagement Acquisitions Archives Cataloguing Chinese Collection care Collection management Digital archives Digitisation Electronic resources Events Exhibitions Fine Art Collection Funding Innovation John Rylands Research Institute Learning Manuscripts Maps Methodist Periodicals Printed books Public programmes Research Resource discovery Uncategorized University Archive Visual materials

Tag Cloud

#histmed #jrlReformation Academic engagement Archives C.P. Scott Cataloguing Christian Brethren Archive Collection care Conferences Digitisation Exhibitions First World War Guardian Archive History of medicine John Rylands Library John Rylands Research Institute Li Yuan Chia Manchester Manchester Guardian Manuscripts medical history Methodist Archives and Research Centre Photographs Photography Poetry Printed books printing Reformation Research Visual Collections

Blogroll

  • Beckett, Books and Biscuits: University of Reading Special Collections
  • British Library Medieval Manuscripts
  • Cambridge University Library Special Collections
  • Chetham's Library
  • Echoes from the Vault: St Andrews
  • Edinburgh University Library and University Collections
  • Faces&Voices: People, Voices, and Ancient History
  • JISC Innovative Technology
  • Reading Race, Collecting Cultures: Collections at the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre
  • The Conveyor: Bodleian Library
  • The John Rylands Library on Facebook
  • The Special Collections Handbook, by Alison Cullingford
  • University Histories
  • University of Bradford Special Collections
  • University of Glasgow Library

Links

  • Archives Hub: union catalogue of archives in UK universities etc.
  • COPAC: catalogues of c.90 libraries in UK and Ireland
  • Elgar: Electronic Gateway to Archives at the Rylands
  • Guide to Special Collections of the John Rylands Library
  • John Rylands Library visitor pages
  • John Rylands Research Institute
  • Luna: Rylands Image Database
  • University of Manchester Library homepage
  • University of Manchester Library Special Collections homepage

Archives

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.com

Top Posts & Pages

  • Unknown Cranach Work Discovered in the John Rylands Library
  • The Hidden Gems of dsh
  • 'The past is a foreign country': L. P. Hartley's The Go-Between
  • Heraldry for German Princes by a Prince amongst German Painters
  • Celebrating Robert Angus Smith, ‘Father of Acid Rain’, born 200 years ago today
  • Stereoscopic Images of the First World War
  • Peterloo: The Forgotten Massacre?
  • About Us
  • Cleansing the Home of Evil Spirits: Sweeping Magic in the Concordantiae Caritatis (Latin MS 69)
  • A comprehensive variety: the Chinese collections

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
%d bloggers like this: