Dockyard Placement days #1 and #2

Friday 15 February 2013

Day 1

As part of my Library Master’s course I’m undertaking a professional placement module in the library and archives at the Historic Dockyard, Chatham. The professional placement is more usually taken by full-time students who have little or no experience of library work, so I’m something of an anomaly, being a part-time student with more than six years of library work under my belt.

I decided on doing a placement for two reasons: partly because my course was severely under-subscribed (by ‘severely’ I mean there are three people on it this year) so there was no guarantee any of the optional modules would run, and  partly because I wanted to get some experience in the archives and museums sector of library work.

I was lucky enough to be offered the chance to work on documents relating to the excavation of HMS Invincible at Chatham Historic Dockyard’s library and archives, as part of their accessioning process. Accessioning is the process by which museums decide if objects or groups of objects should be added to their collections.

The documents that I’m working on are a collection of records, maps, drawings and correspondence produced by the marine archaeologists who investigated the wreck of HMS Invincible, an 18th century Royal Navy flagship, lost off the Hampshire coast in 1758.  Many of the documents are also directly related to physical items from the wreck purchased by the Dockyard, including timbers, ammunition and an inexplicably large number of shoes.

The work itself is important, but labourious. I’m responsible for logging a record of every document, picture, map and book in the Invincible print collection. The records I produce will be used in the accessioning process, and then used as the basis for entering details of the accessioned documents and artefacts into the Dockyard’s artefact database (they use the Vernon CMS).

The logging process is out of the old school – no laptops or SharePoint here, just a sheaf of paper forms and a HB pencil. Although it’s not what I’m used to, the paper-based way of working makes sense in a situation where money and technology are in short supply. My biggest concern about taking records down on paper was inflicting my spider-on-crack handwriting on the poor soul who has to add the information from them to the artefacts database.

My work is being directed by Helen Crowe, Collections and Documentation Assistant for the Dockyard Trust, who has responsibility for  its library and archives. The library is staffed by volunteers, and has no in-situ librarian, and is open to the public by appointment only. The principle aim of my placement is to document all the items from the Invincible collection, which will hopefully speed the process up and allow the volunteers to concentrate on their current duties and projects.

I dived straight into the work on my first day – the most important thing at this stage being to establish a methodology for logging the invincible documents. After consulting with Helen, I decided on a simple Description/Date/Title/Media system of classification, with additional facets for scale, artefact type and date of dive/excavation to be used where appropriate.

The documents I worked on on day one mainly consisted of drawings of the wreck site, artefact drawings and diving logs. It looks like the folders of dive and excavation records will be the most time-intensive material to work on, given the density of the records. I also found some time for some contextual reading on HMS Invincible’s history and excavation – I’ve added some brief notes on the ship at the bottom of this post.

Reflections on day 1

Having thought that I might progress to cataloguing the Invincible records on the Dockyard’s CMS, it looks likely that the pre-accessioning logging process will take up most, if not all of the time allocated to my placement. The process itself is necessarily meticulous, and attempting to rush through the documents will most likely create more work for Helen and the volunteers later on if I make any unnecessary mistakes. I’ll have more of an idea of how long the logging process will take once I’ve finished taking records of the folders of diving and excavation logs.

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Monday 18 February 2013

Day 2

More of the same today, starting with the diving logs in the second box of Invincible documents. I was grateful for the fans and heaters in the Dockyard library – it’s based in an old ropery building, basically a huge, unheated, stone-built 19th century warehouse, and mod-cons are few and far between. The library space itself is handsome but careworn, with wooden panelling and shelving lining all four walls, and a hole in the floor that used to accomodate the masts from a scale model of HMS Victory on the lower floor.

I got through a good amount of the dive logs, but there are so many of them that I asked Helen about collating them rather than logging them individually. She suggested grouping logs by the date a particular dive took place, so this is what I’ll do from now on. I’m also increasingly concerned about the legibility of the paper records I’m producing, as well as the time it takes to produce them.

My tutor, Sue Batley, visited in the afternoon, to discuss the details and assessment of my placement. I agreed with Helen and Sue that the main output of the placement would be the pre-accessioning records that I’m producing. I suggested switching to a spreadsheet-based system of taking down records, based on my concerns about the paper records I’d made so far, and also with an eye on avoiding handing in armfuls of paper for assessment at the end of the placement. Helen and Sue were happy with this, so from next Monday (25 February) I’ll be working in Excel.

Reflections on day 2

It was good to arrange the move over to computer-based record taking. This should speed up the pre-accessioning process, as well as increasing the records’ legibility, longevity and reducing the physical space they’ll take up in the library. I’m becoming increasingly aware of my placement as a learning process, as well as the improvements that can be made to my methodology by drawing on the knowledge of Helen and Sue,  and my own professional skills and experience.

HMS Invincible

(Notes taken from John M.Bingeman’s ‘The First HMS Invincible’)

HMS Invincible started out as L’Invincible, a French ship-of-the-line of the revolutionary 74 gun design. These ships were narrow and fast in the water, with a reduced but more effective battery, compared to their English counterparts. of high and mid-calibre guns.

Invincible was captured off Cape Finisterre after being outnumbered fourteen to one by English battleships. Her quality was recognised by Admiral Anson, who had L’Invincible re-fitted as an English third-rate ship-of-the-line. It was also Anson who instigated the building of English ships based on Invincible, revolutionising the design of the Royal Navy’s frontline battleships. As late as 1805, at Trafalgar, third-rate ships based om Invincible’s design formed the backbone of Nelson’s fleet.

HMS Invincible herself was lost off the Hampshire coast in 1758, en-route to besiege the French colony of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia. She foundered on the Horsetail sandbar, and was eventually abandoned, with no loss of life, before breaking up. Her guns and masts were salvaged by ships operating out of Portsmouth. Invincible’s captain and crew were later cleared of any wrongdoing in her loss at a Royal Naval inquest.

The wreck was re-discovered in 1980 by fisherman Arthur Mack. Initial investigations of the wreck began that year, producing the artefacts and records that were eventually purchased by Chatham Historic Dockyard.

Career (Great Britain)
Name:	HMS Invincible
Acquired:	3 May 1747
Fate:	Wrecked, 1758
General characteristics
Tons burthen:	1793 tons
Length:	171 ft 3 in (52.20 m) (gun deck length)
Beam:	49 ft 3 in (15.01 m)
Depth of hold:	21 ft 3 in (6.48 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Armament:	74 guns of various weights of shot

(Source – Wikipedia)

I’m posting all the photographs I take of the Dockyard on my placement to this Flickr set – there’s also a slideshow below: