2025 - November and December - page 24
Image details
| Issue number | 404 |
|---|---|
| ISSN | 2632-7171 |
| Publication date | 1st November 2025 |
| Transcription |
magazine Feature Archives and Institutional Histories of Slavery In this article, Hannah Murphy, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History and Director at the Centre for Early Modern Studies (CEMS) at Kings College, writes about the genesis of the London Records of Slavery Network and the launch of a new toolkit to help record-keepers with these often contentious and difficult records. s an early modern historian, I used to think I knew a lot about archives. My first book was based on the kind of archival work typically referred to as ‘extensive’: two years’ near-daily work in archives in Nuremberg, working through civic and medical documents in German and Latin. I learned languages, palaeography, and got to grips with card catalogues and nineteenth-century archival classifications. Nuremberg’s idiosyncratic archival structure sparked an interest in the history of collection formation, and I have researched and written about the history of record-keeping and its relation to domestic and colonial medicine and rule. Even when dealing with difficult information, I still experience the visceral thrill of a face-to-face encounter with historical documentation. I love archives: I think most historians do. So, when I began a new project, to examine the role of medical expertise in transatlantic slavery, I was committed to a process of archival research. My project kicked off in January 2021, right around the time that new projects were emerging on institutions and slavery in major London institutions, like Lloyds and the Bank of England. It seemed like a natural extension to reach out to those involved, and so I emailed a newly appointed archivist in the City of London, hoping to learn more about the sources available for research. Our meeting gave rise to a different kind of encounter, with a growing number of other curators, librarians and archivists across City institutions undertaking research into their own institutions’ histories with transatlantic slavery. 24 |