Borthwick Institute for Archives

Happy Yorkshire Day! What better day to share how delighted we are to have been reaccredited by The National Archives, for another 6 years 🎉

https://buff.ly/3YqeCgQ

Newly accredited archive service - The National Archives Following a recent Archive Service Accreditation panel, the UK Archive Service Accreditation Committee is pleased to announce that Christ Church Archives, Oxford, has been awarded accredited status for the first time.

What links foxes, Doctor Who, 19th century Australia, and horseracing? The new Borthwick Newsletter of course! Find out more about our latest accessions, catalogues, news and events via the link below...

https://www.york.ac.uk/borthwick/news/2024/borthwicknewsletter-july2024/

As we head into June and (hopefully) some sunnier weather, why not have a read of what we've been up to in the archives? This month featuring some additions to our writing and performance collection, an 800 year old archive, and a brand new photography exhibition.

https://buff.ly/3X50GIC

May has arrived and so has our new newsletter! This month featuring women breaking down barriers in the Church of England, a new addition to our television archives, drama in the parish magazine collection, new blogs...and a bonus fox cub 🦊

https://buff.ly/3xWsioF

It's the start of a new month which means your regular update from the archives and research collections here at the Borthwick! Read about our new exhibitions, accessions, catalogues and blogs in our April Newsletter

https://buff.ly/3TUJ1Bx

One of the reasons behind why Toffee Crisp was such an instant success is possibly down to television advertising. Mackintosh launched the product with a television marketing campaign, and

was able to track down some of the advertising plans in the archives.

Toffee Crisp launched in 1963, and in 1964 Mackintosh were looking to produce 2250 tonnes of bars (roughly equivalent to 59 million of today’s bars). It was the first product produced at a new factory complex in Halifax, and was even being exported to the USA within a year or so.

In case you missed it, our Access & Digital Engagement Archivist Laura featured on today’s episode of BBC World Service podcast The Food Chain. She was on the trail of John Henderson, the alleged inventor of the Toffee Crisp!

The Food Chain - The real W***y Wonkas - BBC Sounds What’s it really like to work in a chocolate factory?

It's Women's History Month and we're thrilled to see that our fantastic Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Archive has inspired a blog on 1970s community activist and 'one woman pressure group' of Teesside, the indomitable Maureen Richardson. The blog is written by Chris Corbett, Community Engagement Officer at Teesside Archives and you can read it at the link below.

Marvellous Maureen Written by Chris Corbett, Community Engagement Officer, Teesside Archives ([email protected]) Image reference; LS/TC/15 Contents page of Clean Air for Teesside booklet (searchr…

March has arrived - and so has another exciting edition of the Borthwick newsletter! This month featuring the fruits of our Collections Development Week, a new blog, and things to read this Women's History Month.

https://www.york.ac.uk/borthwick/news/2024/borthwicknewsletter-march2024/

Our searchroom team were also really pleased to have the chance to visit the amazing collections Library and Archives and to share collections care and research service practice with our brilliant colleagues there. The images are just two of the many highlights - the York Gospels and the Pavement Hours 😍

Our Access and Digital Engagement Archivist, Laura, and Collections Information Archivist, Sally-Anne, have also been busy cataloguing. Sally has catalogued four boxes of papers relating to Dame Christian Howard, and Laura has catalogued two smaller archives as well as some parish material (and had a proper look at cartulary)!

Time for a sit down! We look forward to welcoming our researchers back from 9.30am on Monday 12th February.

You might have seen that our Keeper of Archives and Research Collections, Gary, was out and about at graduation earlier this week. He’s also found time to list a further 10 boxes of the Ernest Maxim archive, including material relating to Morcambe and Wise. You can now find these on our online catalogue, Borthcat!

Nick, one of our archive assistants, also ran two training sessions for staff on digitising various audiovisual formats, using the equipment in our transfer suite. 💿 📼

Our searchroom team has been working through our backlog of parish accessions. Collectively they’ve managed to add 263 new files to our parish lists, added 288 entries to Borthcat for the parish of Riccall, and potentially found a fragment of St Cuthbert’s coffin!

They’ve also been busy preparing all the documents for our research appointments next week, including hospital casenotes, records of church buildings, tree surveys, maps, and rare books 📚 📜 🗺️

This week, our Conservation team have removed, cleaned, and replaced the covers on 13 large book sofas, 11 small book sofas and 56 cloth weights - as well as cleaning 134 snake weights. They’ve also been covering up writing on a substantial amount of of our previously used boxes, so we can reuse them!

This week we’ve been closed to researchers for our annual Collections Development Week. Having a closed week allows us to tackle some of our cataloguing and cleaning jobs, which we can’t do when we’re open. As we finish up tonight, we thought we’d share some of our achievements over our next few posts!

Pinch, punch, it's the first of the month - and that means a new Borthwick Newsletter! This month featuring our new Art Store, a time capsule, a rare book from the 1530s, rugby...and vampires?

https://york.ac.uk/borthwick/news/2024/borthwicknewsletter-february2024/

From all of us at the Borthwick, we'd like to wish you a very happy Christmas and New Year. Here's to more archival discoveries in 2024!

[Image from Magazine, 1891-2]

Not sure what to get the historian in your life for Christmas this year? our colleagues over the Centre for Lifelong Learning have LOTS of exciting new Learning for Pleasure courses starting in January? With face to face and online options, one-day and longer in-depth courses, there's something for everyone! You can even find out more about the archive of the Company of Merchant Adventurers of the City of York, with our very own Laura Yeoman, on Saturday 10th February (10am to 1pm, online). Why not start exploring and learn something new in 2024? Find out more at https://buff.ly/2V9JiRL.

We've flown through another month which means it's time for a new Borthwick Newsletter, catching you up on a bumper crop of new accessions, a very exciting new archive catalogue, and some new additions to our team.

Borthwick Newsletter - December 2023 Welcome to the Borthwick's December newsletter.

This week is both week and York Disability Week! To mark the occasion, we'll be showcasing some archives relating to the history of disability TOMORROW (30th Nov) in the Yorkshire Room, in the University of York main library. Open to all, 10am to 3pm!

And if you want to find out more about some of our key collections relating to the history of disability but can't attend the event, you can also check out our updated Disability History research guide, available on our website: https://www.york.ac.uk/borthwick/holdings/research-guides/disability/

Smooth as chocolate...tasty as toffee.

Did you know the Caramac was created by John Mackintosh & Sons, the firm that brought us Quality Street, Toffee Crisps and Rolos? The name is a combination of caramel and Mackintosh and the bar was launched in 1959 in various sizes, and later also flavours. There was a Nut Caramac made with almonds and a Caramac with Minty Fudge too.

In 1969 Mackintosh merged with Rowntrees of York to form Rowntree Mackintosh but the Caramac retained its 'Mackintosh' label right through to the 1980s when the company was taken over by Nestle.

The Borthwick holds the archive of John Mackintosh & Sons, Rowntree & Co. Ltd, and Rowntree Mackintosh and you can search them all on our online catalogue: https://borthcat.york.ac.uk/index.php/

Remember, remember the 1st of November... That's right, it's time for another Borthwick Newsletter! This month featuring our brand new Disability History Guide to mark

[Illustration courtesy of the Mount School Magazine 1904]

https://www.york.ac.uk/borthwick/news/2023/borthwicknewsletter-november2023/

October has arrived and with it a brand new Borthwick newsletter! We have a very exciting accession to announce this month - and a bit of a new look too... The orange felt very appropriate for autumn 🍂

https://buff.ly/3RzmxoR

If you were one of the 175 people who visited us today - THANK YOU 🎉

It was great to talk to you and share our collections with you. Thank you to our fab student ambassadors too - we couldn’t have done it without you!

We’re back again tomorrow (Saturday 9th) for the next Open Day and looking forward to meeting everyone ☀️

If you’re on campus for today’s Open Day, come and visit us on the ground floor of the Burton library! We’ve got some treasures from the archives out and staff ready and waiting to answer any questions 😊📜

It's the first of the month so time for another Borthwick Newsletter. This month we feature probably our biggest accession yet (in length, anyway) and some fantastic new online resources dating from the 1670s to the 1930s - and all available to access for free!

https://buff.ly/3smx2RY

It's Yorkshire Day! Why not celebrate by reading the latest Borthwick newsletter - complete with a photo of our delicious 70th birthday cake 🎉🎂

https://www.york.ac.uk/borthwick/news/2023/borthwicknewsletter-august2023/