In Lasting Remembrance: The Collections of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers
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A presentation given to the CILIP Libraries and Information History Group (LIHG) annual conference at Pusey House in 2015. Introduces the collections and building at NEIMME and how importance provenance is to the collection. (20 mins)
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In Lasting Remembrance: The Collections of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers
- 1. Jennifer Hillyard @mininglibrarian “In Lasting Remembrance” The collections at the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers
- 4. “I Advise and Protect”
- 5. Picture of Wood statue
- 6. Stained glass close up Also coat of arms as later pic?
- 11. “It would be necessary, also, to have a library to refer to on all the subjects within the range of mining, engineering, and the different branches of science which we shall have to cultivate” – Nicholas Wood Inaugural address NEIMME Transactions
- 13. “The Society's transactions also exhibit the pleasing fact of contributions of books due to the liberality of individual members, upon the occasional recurrence of which the Council cannot err in relying”
- 14. A catalogue of the Books, Maps, &c, possessed by the Institute, should at once be begun, as the prosperous state of your funds ought to encourage a more vigorous action on the part of the Library Committee. These two matters we submit would be best attended to by a librarian or person appointed for the purpose, who would give constant attendance at the Rooms on certain days, and afford any information, to the Members requiring it, touching the position of the Society's property.
- 29. @mininglibrarian
- 30. Image credits: Tom Yellowley Sean Elliott Mining Institute AV Festival Sound Strata Eric Fisher Aaron Guy
Editor's Notes
- The mining engineers created a stunning building to house their collections; this is the interior of Wood Memorial Hall where the main book collections are housed on the balconies and in the lower cupboards with their book filled swing out doors – more about those later. It is now Grade 2 star listed and is such a wonderful space to use both as a reading room and for special events.
- And This is Neville Hall from the outside; the Library is at the far right of the picture – you can see the exterior of that stained glass window? To the far left of this picture you can actually see our neighbour, another historic library, the Literary and Philosophical Society – the largest independent lending library outside London. We’re situated very close indeed to Central Station in the middle of Newcastle
- The Institute was formed against the background of the burgeoning Industrial Revolution. The original impetus behind the founding of the Institute was safety. There had been a number of mine accidents which brought these engineers together to work to prevent needless deaths. In Wood’s inaugural address he says: “it is an Institution of practical miners, associated together to endeavour by a combination of practical knowledge - by an interchange of practical experience - and by a united and combined effort, to improve ourselves in the science of our profession, and by acting together as a body, we may be the instruments of preventing as much as practicable, the recurrence of those dreadful catastrophes to which I have alluded; and at the same time, to raise the art and science of mining to its highest practicable scale of perfection, in safety, economy, and efficiency.” [volume 1 page 14] This image is from above the door inside the Library, a gorgeous carving with the Tyne God there in the centre. He has salmon in his hair and ears of corn for plenty but above all he has a basket of coal on his head because coal is king! You can see the safety lamps there as well – developing safe mine lighting was always a key element of their research.
- The man responsible for bringing these engineers together was Nicholas Wood. He was the colliery engineer and viewer at Killingworth Colliery, six miles from Newcastle, where he was closely involved with the work of George Stephenson on early locomotives. Wood published an influential work “A practical treatise on railroads” in 1825 and was very involved in the development of the Newcastle to Carlisle and Newcastle to Berwick railways. The Library is known as the “Wood Memorial Hall” in memory of him, and his huge, more than lifesize marble statue by Wyon dominates the room. This statue is designed to be intrinsic to the space – the base goes right down through the building to support it and was donated by the Wood family.
- His monogram is scattered around the room as well – as part of the stained glass here in the centre along with a representation of his coat of arms on the left – and tucked into carved wood and stone.
- On top of the statue, there are also two portraits of Wood in the Library, and a bust and an image of him downstairs in in the Past-presidents gallery as well! Despite all of this, the name of Nicholas Wood is not well known locally and there is even less published material. Now, using our archives, a dissertation has been written and the Wikipedia entry extended.
- This has linked into the local annual “AV Festival” and this year the focus has been “Sound Strata of Coastal Northumberland”: a musical piece by Susan Strenger based on a twelve and a half metre long geological cross-section diagram by Nicholas Wood from 1838. Strenger used the geological diagram as a graphic score, using traditional Northumbrian pattern and rhythmns and building familiar tunes such as Gresford, The Keel Row and Black Leg miner into the piece. This was then displayed at Woodhorn, a museum based at an old colliery site, Berwick upon Tweed and Holy Island – all places shown on the diagram itself. As part of the project, Wood’s paper which goes along with the diagram “On the Geology of a Part of Northumberland and Cumberland” was made freely available to download from the Sound Strata website. We hope that the project has helped make his name better known! It has had some very positive reviews [ http://www.soundstrata.co.uk/]
- But back to our own building. I have to say I love the past presidents gallery down in the Lecture theatre. They gradually accumulated images of the presidents and originally, secretaries as well. They recorded in 1907 with great sadness that they could not get an image of Mr. Edward Sinclair, honorary secretary in 1852, but that his name would be inscribed. They must then have later run out of space because there certainly isn’t a space without a picture there today! I do love it when a descendant of one of these men gets in touch and I can send them a picture of how their relative is commemorated at Neville Hall. It’s a lovely enquiry to do. There’s some fabulous side burns demonstrated down there too I have to say.
- They’re still going putting the presidents pictures up, although due to health and safety this does now require getting the scaffolding out – as you can see here, it’s all quite high! They will run out of spaces eventually but they have encouraged some recent presidents to serve a two year term instead of one in order to put off this problem further. My great joy is that the current president, elected only two days ago, is Catherine Miller – our first female president!
- From the very, very beginning, in 1851, Wood and the engineers recognised the importance of having a library within the Institute and the breadth of material which it would need to cover.
- They also realised, as early as 1853 that material from abroad would be essential. Their initial method of receiving them sounds very familiar to me today – ask the Members who are living out there to send things back! They also quickly set up an exchange system with other groups producing scientific papers abroad. I discovered recently that copies of our Transactions which were bound intended for this purpose were always bound in green leather rather than the normal brown and a Trustee checked this out on his visit to The Library of Congress and indeed, all their copies are in green leather. From the comments in the following volume of the Transactions, I gather that initially they clearly did not receive as many publications back from these foreign societies as they expected; however when the first three volumes of the Transactions are due to be published, they describe them as “a mass of information well worthy of the notice of such Institutions, and, therefore, entitling the Society to expect an interchange. On this ground the Council advise that communications be addressed to the leading National and Continental Scientific Bodies offering to exchange publications”
- Naturally, they also received books for the library from members living locally; however they did realise it was unwise to rely upon this method for creating their collection Quote - NEIMME Transactions, Vol 2 p x – Annual Report 1853 [pause for reading time] They then pass a resolution “enabling Members to recommend books or documents to be purchased, if approved by the Council: a privilege which, it is hoped, will be more extensively used by individual Members”. An early example showing the difficulties of getting your users to communicate with those in Acquisitions! [Vol 3 p viii]
- As early as 1855 they realise the importance of two crucial elements: a catalogue and a librarian! In that order… [pause for reading time] I like the way they ask for “a librarian or person appointed for the purpose”…. Well it is 1855…. I think there are a few members who do still perceive me as a person there to give “constant attendance” too…
- There is little mention of the Librarian in the Transactions but the first catalogue makes an appearance seven years later in volume 8 – it says it was prepared by the Secretary of the Institute
- Despite their initial resolve to spend the necessary money to improve the collection; the Council wavered for several years about buying the new Geological maps being produced by the Geological Survey: “The Maps of the Geological Survey of Great Britain and Ireland, &c., recommended by your Committee last year, have not been purchased. They beg to renew that recommendation, considering that the funds of the Institute cannot be better appropriated than in bringing together a mass of information not easily attainable by single members.” [volume 7 - 1859] The following year they point out: “The General Committee had not come to a resolution upon it, and nothing had been done.” [vol8 - 1860] There is then a debate over whether they ought to receive them free, and how perhaps if they applied through Sir Roderick Murchison this might be possible although Thomas Sopwith, clearly a very sensible member of Council, gently points out that they cannot give them free to every scientific institution when they are worth £60-70 each. Eventually they resolve that the maps are indeed worth the money! However it takes until 1873 when we see the report: “Thanks to the assistance of some old and valued Members of the Institute, a complete series of Maps, Sections, Memoirs, and other publications of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, together with a handsome and suitable case for their reception, has been added to the library, at an expense to the Institute of less than half their cost.” That wooden map case is still in use, however I have to say it could now do with some surgery to make the drawers open more easily. One for my woodworking volunteers – they’re so useful in an old building!
- The significance of the Library to the Institute cannot be doubted when the Royal Charter is written in 1876. Please excuse this quite long quote but it is key to founding of the Institute: the Society has held meetings at stated periods, at which the results of the said experiments and researches have been considered and discussed, and has published a series of Transactions filling many volumes, and forming in itself a highly valuable Library of scientific reference, by which the same have been made known to the public, and has formed a Library of Scientific Works and Collections of Models and Apparatus, and that distinguished persons in foreign countries have availed themselves of the facilities afforded by the Society for communicating important scientific and practical discoveries, and thus a useful interchange of valuable information has been effected; that in particular, with regard to ventilation, the experiments and researches of the Society, which have involved much pecuniary outlay and personal labour, and the details of which are recorded in the successive volumes of the Society's Transactions, have led to large and important advances in the practical knowledge of that subject, and that the Society's researches have tended largely to increase the security of life They are clearly proud firstly of their series of Transactions which form the core of their Library, even today, but also of their wider collections which enables them to do this research and publish it within these Transactions and actually save lives at a practical level.
- By 1882 the Council have encountered a problem well known in all Libraries. They run out of space. The Library was well designed originally but only with the six open bookcases on the lower walls and that was enough to hold all the books on Mining Engineering and all the allied subjects in 1872. by 1892 these innovative doors were added to them to double the available space
- However in 1882 the committee reports: The shelves are now full of books which are of great service to the members, and it will shortly be the duty of the Council to provide book-shelves for the constant increase in the works which are being received from Foreign Exchanges and by purchase. Along with other improvements to the building in 1898, they go to the drastic lengths of not only adding doors to the lower bookcases as shown on the previous slide but also adding the balconies which provide a large proportion of our shelving today. They have their quirks. They are only half depth shelves under the columns which support the ceiling so you can only shelve larger books in alternate bays which can cause some interesting sequences. The doors, which are a much later addition in the 1950s, have their advantages in that they block the light and dust and mean the books can be phaseboxed without it detracting from the look of the room, however they also jam up regularly and have a slightly alarming tendency to drop off entirely at particular points along the run. Largely for this reason, the balconies are closed access to users!
- To extend space further since 1902 we have also had to add compact shelving on the ground floor! Although that is now full too…
- The archive collections aren’t mentioned in the Transactions or the annual reports until 1885 when they are discussing the new catalogue: A catalogue of these works has been formed, in which an attempt has been made to indicate clearly the contents of the volumes, and draw attention to the large mass of original information contained in the [manuscripts] MSS. in the Bell, Hall, Watson, and other collections, which form a remarkable feature of the Library. I find this line fascinating and I will be doing further research as whilst I know the Bell and Watson collections very well indeed, I have absolutely no idea what the “Hall” collection might have been…. It may well just be another name for one of the others which I know only by soulless numbers and letters but I am very curious to find out.
- Another large archive collection is the notebooks and papers of early mining engineer, John Buddle. There are over 200 items including this lovely leather case in which he carried his current softbacked notebooks.
- He died before the Institute was founded however his published work was extensively used by the engineers who followed him. Their regard for him is shown by his portrait and also a bust of him on a monogrammed plinth in the main library. Shortly I arrived at the Institute, back in 2006, whilst a volunteer was up there changing the lightbulbs, Buddle’s bust was found to have a large crack running down his shoulder so for the safety of both it and those stood beneath, it was removed to be laid flat in the Strongroom. I discovered that the importance of Buddle’s papers had been previously recognised by the Institute – for instance during World War two, they were removed from the Strongroom and stored in a disused gallery in a North East mine! As part of our Wikipedia project, a volunteer later began researching Buddle. I wanted to improve his Wikipedia entry so that I could link to it in the archive records to give people a better understanding of his life. In general we think improving Wikipedia records and adding links back to the Institute where we can, and uploading images to add interest to the pages is a great way to reach researchers. We have to accept that the first place students will look is Wikipedia so we are trying to place ourselves where they naturally look! Anyway, The volunteer, Mark, became really immersed in the research into Buddle and the project grew. When he discovered Buddle’s grave in an overgrown churchyard in the west of the city, he also linked into the church and their newly formed heritage group. The grave was quickly cleared and the whole churchyard mapped and tidied. Then we published a joint booklet to explain Buddle’s life and huge significance to the industry.
- Just as the booklet was in the final stages of production, I received an email from Buddle’s great great great great niece who was interested to find out more about her family history. It must be a genealogist’s dream to walk into an archive and be shown hundreds of notebooks. We put her in touch with the church as well and she was able to visit the grave. She was then kind enough to immediately donate some money to the restoration of the bust,
- And it was carefully conserved and replaced back on the monogrammed plinth at our annual dinner. But it didn’t stop there. Last autumn we had a project called The Seam with a singer-songwriter in residence, Gareth Davies Jones, and one of the items which caught his eye was our booklet on Buddle. He was impressed with the quality of the research and the detail available to him and it quickly became a song – “King of the Coal Trade” – celebrating his life and work. [Soundcloud – Gareth Davies Jones – track available here: https://soundcloud.com/gareth-davies-jones]
- By 1888 they also really have some pride in their collections: there has already been formed a library of over 4,000 volumes (besides an almost equal number of unbound maps, pamphlets, tracts, etc.), which is even now considered to be the most extensive and complete library existing on these subjects. Mr John Marley extols the wonders of the Library collection in his presidential address in 1888 saying: The young members of the present day can scarcely realise their advantages in having this Library, with upwards of 5,000 volumes, besides the 37 volumes of the Institute's own Proceedings, which in themselves constitute collectively a grand collection of mining and engineering facts. In 1868 this Library contained only about 326 volumes. It now also contains the 6-inch ordnance maps of Northumberland and Durham, the whole of the published sheets of the 1-inch and 6-inch Geological Survey maps (with vertical and horizontal sections) of the United Kingdom, besides a number of geological maps of foreign countries. Compare this with the circumstances of 45 years ago, when I and my contemporaries, after walking six to ten miles into Newcastle, could only obtain access to the few volumes of the Natural History Society, which contained a very few papers on coal mining, namely, those by the late Mr. J. Buddle and the late Mr. N. Wood.
- The first hints to other members that they could donate books to improve the library really begin in the annual report of 1891 The library of the Institute is now very valuable, containing many books, pamphlets, and maps which it would be difficult to replace. It has been largely formed by gifts from its members and exchanges with other societies, and the Council suggest that the members can increase its value by presentations of works, etc., which they can spare from their own libraries. The members could also do a considerable service to the profession by leaving their books, reports, plans, etc., to the library of the Institute, where they would be preserved, be available for reference, and keep the memory of the donor in lasting remembrance The phrase, “in lasting remembrance” is used time and time again in these annual reports which do become quite formulaic and repetitive from this point forward.
- I continue to preserve the tradition of “in lasting remembrance” and I carefully record donors and also insert book plates to commemorate donations for rebinding.
- So now I’m happy to take questions now Or later by email or twitter if you’re shy!
- Image credits.