The National Archives

Today I began my research at the National Archives near Kew Gardens, London. We arrived around 10 a.m. and immediately proceeded to the open computers where I could order my first round of documents. You're only allowed to request three documents at a time, and I had about 26 I wanted to see. Alicia also got a reader's ticket, so we could double our access. That meant six documents at a time. We were thankful the archives were open until 7 tonight! I was also thankful that I had my act together and had already done the legwork to figure out what documents I wanted. I wouldn't be wasting any time on hunting, at least.

After I had entered the first six documents, the computer said the processing time was about 40 minutes. While we waited, we perused the documents available online. About twenty minutes later, our documents were ready for pickup. Impressed by the quick turnaround, we went to the document reading room. This is where historians get a hold of those fabulous original documents. We had to scan our reader cards to gain entry and have our belongings checked. You're allowed to take very little into the actual room. Our bags were in a locker downstairs. All we had were pencils, notebooks, and cameras. You're allowed to take non-flash photos of the documents. I figured I could do that with some of them to save money.

Once cleared, we entered the great glass-walled room. Thirty-three tables are clustered in this room. Ours was Table 4, which was near a large window in the far-right back corner. As I wound my way to my table, I passed people doing a variety of research. One couple had before them a huge bound book that they were carefully opening. The woman smiled at me as I passed. An older gentleman was in the corner near our table wearing white gloves as he gently turned the pages of a thick volume of brown, brittle pages. He had a digital SLR camera mounted above the pages and he was snapping dozens of photos. Two women at another nearby table were doing genealogical research. They were not aware of the one-document-at-a-time rule (either missing or ignoring the clear instructions) and got a sound chastisement from one of the archive employees who regularly patrol the room.

Alicia and I secured seats next to each other at our table and worked on different documents. The first selections were large boxes of individual papers. I only needed four or five from a collection of over 300 pages. So Alicia looked through hers and I through mine. I opened the box and looked down at the stack of lightly browned pages lined with flowing penmanship. It was a box of correspondence. The top letter was dated 1811. It was surreal.

And so the research continued. Alicia was a huge help, acting as my assistant and doing the grunt work so I could actually read the documents and decide if they were necessary for my thesis. As a result, we finished in just a few hours. Out of the 26 documents I originally hoped to view, only about six proved useful. And several were not orderable, because of their size (such as the Sessional Papers of the House of Lords that take up 2804 volumes). I have photos of some of the documents of interest and copies of the others.

As I left the document reading room for the last time, I looked again at the people clustered around the tables. Most of the people handled the documents gently, almost reverently. But a few didn't show the papers any respect at all. One man sat with the contents of a box of old, browned pages and thumbed his way through them like he was reading a magazine. Still another flipped through a binder of papers with no regard for their historical value. Granted, his pages were still white and I assume were not as old as the ones I had been reading. But just because they're not very old now, doesn't mean they shouldn't be handled carefully and with respect. We want those pages to still be around a hundred years from now, so historians of the future have the same opportunity to read them. It sickened me that my fellow historians were so clumsy with the jewels of our trade.

As I sit in my hotel room, enjoying an unexpected free afternoon, I wonder if I missed anything at the archives. I probably did. There are over 11 millions documents on file there. Guess I'll just have to go back! ;-)