Introduction to the Lancashire Textile Project

Introduction to the Lancashire Textile Project

Postby PanBiker » Sun Jul 21, 2013 11:36 am

THE LTP ARCHIVE.

An introduction and explanation by the author, Stanley Challenger Graham.


The Problem
All archives present problems to researchers, how do you find the information you are seeking? This is much easier now we have modern searchable databases but in my experience, being presented with a hundred references to the search item is not much of an improvement. Probably the most helpful thing in the first instance is to know what the genesis of the archive was and how it is structured. This short introduction is my attempt to give you this grounding.

The Structure

THE LANCASHIRE TEXTILE PROJECT.

During the 1970s, as engineer at Bancroft Shed in Barnoldswick, I was responsible for running the steam engine that drove the mill, and maintaining all the pipework, shafting and structure. In order to do my job properly I had to have a working knowledge of all the processes in the mill and the people that performed these tasks.

It soon dawned on me that what I was doing was a nineteenth century job. A weaver from 1870 could have walked into the mill and felt completely at home with it. They could have set on weaving immediately, nothing had changed. This being the case, and knowing that the industry was dying, I thought it would be nice to have some photographs. One thing led to another, the pictures came to the attention of certain people and I was encouraged to record Bancroft Shed and the social history of the town using a combination of high quality pictures and sound recordings.

Five years and a lot of work later we had an archive of 191 forty-five minute sound tapes, all transcribed, corrected and indexed and a large body of images. This was placed in the library at Lancaster University, with copies elsewhere, and everyone apart from me promptly forgot about it.

Twenty five years later I decided to start work again on my copy of the archive and to re-transcribe all the tapes on to computer so that they could be made more accessible. After two years of work, half the archive has been processed and it was at this point that I approached the North West Sound Archive [NWSA] and we agreed that all the work should be deposited with them and made properly accessible to the public. This is the Barnoldswick Archive (BA). This introduction is written in February 2003 as part of this first deposit at Clitheroe Castle. The work will proceed until all the LTP material is processed and deposited.

THE SUPPORTING MATERIAL.

The NWSA is primarily a repository for sound tapes and transcripts. However, it has long been my contention that in order to gain maximum benefit from Oral History, we need to have supporting material which can enable the researcher to add some flesh to the bare bones of the interviews, to place them in context. To this end, I have been working for thirty years now to build up a body of parallel research which performs this function. The result, though necessarily imperfect, is a larger body of text and images which reinforce the interviews and begin to approach the status of a description of a town. Hence the decision to create the Barnoldswick Archive and deposit all the material together at Clitheroe to make it more accessible.

The main item in the supporting material is, paradoxically, something which cannot be easily transferred to the BA. This is a card index which I have built over the years as my personal means of keeping track of the material. This is in constant use, is being added to all the time and would be enormously expensive to reproduce. So how do we solve this problem?

Over the years, I have produced many articles and research papers based on this index and these are all digitised and therefore, searchable by electronic means. All this material will be deposited with the LTP and because it contains the same material as the index, it will serve as a substitute until I die and the index itself can be placed in the BA. This seems to be an adequate solution to the problem and serves the primary purpose, buttressing the LTP and widening the scope of the material available.

In addition, there will be other items which, whilst not being part of the core information, add a further dimension to the prime material. It is worth mentioning here that I have always regarded myself as an informant for the LTP as well as being the researcher and interviewer. I lived in the town, worked in the industry and had my own body of information based on experience to contribute. Therefore my technical input and social history is just as valid as any of my informants. This is the 78AI series of transcripts.

Perhaps there is a pointer here to why the quality of the information in the LTP has been regarded so highly by its assessors. I was not some academic parachuted in to act as a fly on the wall. I was a member of the club, a fully accredited worker. I will leave you to make your own judgements about this.

So how do I suggest you start?

My advice is to take the same route that the research did. Start with the transcripts and soak up the informants. When you are triggered to find out more about a subject, first look at what other informants have to say. You will find it helpful when doing this to recognise that all the full series of interviews follow a pattern dictated by Dr Elizabeth Roberts’ list of questions used in her survey of social history in Lancaster. These were used in the same order in all the interviews so a response about washing day will be found in the same place in all the transcripts. A copy of these questions is available in the archive.

In some interviews you will find the workers describing what they were doing on a particular photograph. Eventually, all these pictures will be available as digital images. At the moment, the priority is to digitise the transcripts, the images will follow.
Recognise that the digitised transcripts are not verbatim, I have edited them lightly to eliminate repetition and anything else that gets in the way of the raw information. If you are a linguist or grammarian, go back to the tapes and raw transcripts in the NWSA for the accurate version of what was said. Beware of the original typescript transcripts. Although they are the highest standard obtainable at the time, and are close to the original, they were produced by humans and there are errors.

When you have exhausted the informants, go to the general database and look for references to your interest in the supporting information. I have almost certainly written an article or done a paper on what you seek. If all that fails and I am still alive, come to the source. The archivist will tell you how I can be contacted.

Conclusion

We all need a bottom line. Mine is that the reason for all the effort that has been put into the LTP and the BA is in order to give the people of Barnoldswick a voice. For too long history was taught in terms of Kings, Government and Church. These are vital elements and we should be aware of them but if you want to really understand a town like Barnoldswick, it is foolish to start your search in London. Start on the ground with the ordinary people who fuelled the whole system. They produced the wealth, suffered the hardships and, for far too long, had no voice. Listen to the tapes and you will hear that voice, it is not loud, it is modest and unassuming, but it is the truest record you will ever hear. This is the Prime Source. Thanks for listening.


SCG/22 February 2003


A final word written in March 2004.

This introduction was written a year ago in the middle of the massive effort to digitise the whole of the archive. I am now adding this postscript as a final revision before finalising the LTP archive prior to distribution.

The final disposition of all the materials is now certain. It is as follows:

All original materials apart from photographic negatives are held in the University Library at Lancaster.

The original negatives of the weaving processes at Bancroft are the property of S C Graham and are in his possession. The original negatives for the spinning section done at Spring Vale Mill were entrusted to other hands as they are the property and copyright of the Crown. They have fallen from sight.

All copy tapes and transcripts are held in the North West Sound Archive at Clitheroe Castle.

Digitised versions of all the transcripts and pictures are held at both Lancaster and Clitheroe. Clitheroe will eventually hold all the supporting material produced during S C Graham’s general research into the local history of Barnoldswick. This combination of the LTP materials and SCG research is known as the Barnoldswick Archive.

See the separate file named ‘Copyright’ for a full description of the copyright position and conditions of use of all the material on the LTP archive CD.

The pictures are all digitised. Look for the folder that best describes the subject you are researching. You will find high quality B&W images numbered to correspond with the text you are interested in. There are also miscellaneous pictures which, whilst not part of the interviews, are pertinent to the transcripts, for instance, portraits of the informant.

Perhaps the most profitable way of getting into the archive is to start with the 78AI series which were made by SCG and include a description of all the weaving pictures. This is his overview and therefore will serve as yours as well.

SCG/04 March 2004

ANOTHER POSTSCRIPT IN 2013.

Due to a major refurbishment of the website Oneguyfrombarlick I find myself re-visiting the LTP materials and trying to get them into a format which aids researchers. The transcripts are titled with the informant's name. Go to the section 'LTP Other Documents' and look for the catalogue of transcripts. This identifies all the informants, gives the unique file number of their contribution and briefly describes their area of expertise. The transcripts are loaded as single large files (two parts for some large series) and are designed to be downloaded to your computer and searched using your word-processing application. If you look for the copyright information you will find that all materials in the project are free to air for non-profit or educational use, all we ask is that you credit the site and the project. An alternative is to look on the Oneguyfrombarlick site for the complete download of a zip file containing the whole of the project.

It's 35 years since this journey started and I admit to a feeling of satisfaction as I look at the material. We did a good job and now that the industry has gone and society moves on the LTP is a unique and comprehensive source which can never be repeated. Please spread it as widely as possible.

There is much general background material on the Oneguyfrombarlick website and in the books I have written which can be found on lulu.com. Please enjoy!

SCG/02/07/13
Ian
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