SOCIAL HISTORY: MIXING IT UP ‘LET’S CELEBRATE’

In my first six months at Brent’s Museum and Archives, I’ve been helping to compile an inventory of a collection of photographic negatives from the Guinness factory …in the early 1930’s the Park Royal Estate was the largest industrial zone in southern England with over seventy factories producing a variety of goods – foodstuffs like Heinz, consumer goods like pens and radios and capital goods like lorries and vehicles whilst employing at its’ peak over 45,000 people across many sectors. A major stakeholder was the Guinness Brewery which opened in 1936, made up of five purpose buildings for the brewing process in the Malt House on the south side to the Vat House on the north side.

Me and Ziggy (another volunteer) are halfway through a recently unearthed collection of 25 archive boxes of negatives, photographs and slides recently acquired by Brent Archives, which tell the story of the hundreds of men and women from all over the UK who played a part in the Arthur Guinness success story. Without revealing too much at this early stage – people the world over still enjoy a glass of Guinness – so students and historians wanting to research family connections or local history with Guinness are in for a treat!  We’ll be happy to have seen the project through from start to finish and we have already started with me being posted on twitter during National Archives Week 2016 – so I’ll keep you updated throughout 2017!

Nadine in the Brent Archives search-room at The Library at Willesden Green

 

I’ve also been on a 6-week WEA (Workers Education Association) Course linked to the museum’s permanent collections that charted the experience of immigrants in Brent – our shared history of struggling  to belong, survive and achieve. So I was pleased to read Mark Rimmer’s ‘My Council’ in the Winter 2016/17 edition of Brent Magazine, where Mark has presided over 5000 people in civil partnerships, same-sex weddings, citizenship ceremonies and marriages at venues and other places of worship as the borough’s lead registrar. After 29 years, Mark retired  in December 2016 – but what happy memories he must have of celebrating diversity – from the  first Citizenship Ceremony in the UK to happier times for Asian and Afro-Caribbean families, Irish and Jewish communities and other minority groups.

This made me think about how we could look at this subject from the perspective of Brent Museum and Archives’ collections and I am interesting in looking at what we can find in the collections to explore this.  What do you think about a display celebrating Brent’s cultural diversity with ‘donations’ from your ‘special day’? In this ‘make do and mend’ age it could be hand-made wedding invitations,  table place-settings for the wedding feast, poems, verse or vows you wrote yourself to exchange at the ceremony or photographs and other mementos – depending on what you can part with to share with others  about rites and customs in  your community. The Museum and Archives are always looking for donations that tell the story of local people and communities, so if you’re interested, get it touch!

Bye for now

Nadine

Brent Museum and Archives Volunteer