Subject Guide: Education: Archives and Special Collections

Preparing students to go out and educate has been a core part of the university’s work. For much of its earlier existence, that educating was in a more specifically Christian context, ie preparing students to become clergy, but the educating has subsequently both had a broader remit in that students have not just gone out to educate in the Christian faith, and has also become more focused as Education itself has developed more as an academic discipline. This has been reflected also by the establishment of Teacher Training colleges in Durham: Diocesan ones at St Bede for men (in 1839) and St Hild’s for women (in 1858), and a Council one for women at Neville’s Cross (in 1921). These have been variously increasingly associated with the university, having students on university courses, with the diocesan colleges eventually becoming the wholly university college of St Hild and St Bede in 1979, but with Neville’s Cross going on to form part of the separate New College in 1977.  

The university association with university education does not extend just to Durham even in the North-East, with what is now Newcastle University being part of the university from the College of Medicine there joining the university in 1852 until the creation of Newcastle University in 1963. What are now the universities of Sunderland and Teesside have also variously been associated with Durham (1930-1963 and 1992-1995 respectively). Furthermore, the university’s Institute of Education had teacher training college members from around the North-East. Overseas, affiliated colleges were part of the university in Barbados (1875-1965) and Sierra Leone (1876-1967), and worldwide theological training colleges were associated with the university from 1876. Albeit it owed its foundation to the Protestant Dean and Chapter of Durham, the university also counted the Catholic seminary of Ushaw College as a licensed hall of residence 1968-2011.  

All of this is reflected in the university’s own archive, along with the establishment of the Science and Education site in Durham in 1923 with the aim to produce Science teachers, the creation then of the Education faculty with Arthur Robinson as the Professor of Education and Psychology, and then the creation of the Education department in 1939. There is much on this in central, faculty and departmental files of the university, in the records of the meetings of its various committees from Senate and Council down, in the exam papers, pass lists and mark sheets for the subject, and the university’s publications of such as the Gazette, Calendar, Journal, and Vice-Chancellor’s Reports, and newsletters and the like. Much on the need for such an educational institution in the North-East, and Durham in particular, and its early establishment is to be found in the correspondence of Bishop William van Mildert, Warden Charles Thorp, and Professor Temple Chevallier (which last also has much on Cambridge University of the time). 

More material on school education is to be found in some of the family collections, such as the Headlam Family papers (19th century) and the Duff papers (20th century), and also some of the estate collections, such as the Earls Grey (Howick and Chevington etc schools in Northumberland in particular). Papers of some of the more major figures in the collections also contain much on their working visiting schools etc in their wider roles, extending from Dame Enid Russell-Smith in Britain (1903-1989) to Prince Abbas Hilmi II in Egypt (1874-1944). Records of schools themselves include the papers of Rivington School in Lancashire (1639-1860), relating to legal cases over land endowed to the school mostly in Co Durham, and St Michael’s Convent Grammar School Finchley, run by the Sisters of the Poor Child Jesus. 

Established in 1808 as a Catholic seminary, the archive of Ushaw College near Durham contains an abundance of material relating to the Catholic education of its seminarians and also the pupils in its junior seminary. From the early 1840s many Ushaw men took external degrees from the University of London, and as the nineteenth century progressed, the College also began to send men to take degrees at Durham University. The Big Library at Ushaw is consequently of considerable importance in the history of education as it was specifically developed in order to facilitate and support undergraduate research. As such, it contains an eclectic mix of theological and secular works. The Ushaw College History Papers cover a broad range of subjects including teaching and administration at the College whilst the Lisbon College Teaching Papers comprise a small selection of items connected with courses taught at the English College in Portugal. There are also some related records such as the archives of the University Catholic Federation of Great Britain, the Catholic Student Council, and the Young Christian Students, and also the papers of Basil Butler, headmaster of Downside School 1940-1946. 

The university began to admit women to some lectures from the 1870s and gained a separate charter to admit them to degrees in 1895. In Durham, a college for resident women students (later St Mary’s College) and a society for women students living at home (later St Aidan’s College) were soon established by 1900. There was already St Hild’s Diocesan College for teaching women (founded in 1858) and Neville’s Cross College was established in 1921 by the County Council for training women teachers. Both colleges also came to admit women on to university courses as well. All this is reflected in the university’s own archive. There are also the letters of  Elizabeth Copley (1801-1887) which relate to her Protestant mission to Catholics in Ireland, based on a school and model farm at Ballinglen, Co. Mayo, as well as a Protestant educational mission to girls and women in Syria and Lebanon. There is also much on women’s education in Africa in the Sudan archive with the Ahfad University for Woman collection and the papers of I.M. Beasley and R.W. and O.A. Gray, and the headmistresses E. Jackson, L.P. Sanderson and K.M.E. Wood, and the Unity High School collection.  

The Local Collection on open access in PGL in the Barker Research Library is redolent with histories of the university and its colleges, and also histories of other universities and schools in the area. The Local periodicals section also has various serials and publications, including prospectuses, of the university, its ‘sibling’ at Newcastle, others in the North East, and a number of runs of publications from schools in the area, such as Durham, Bow, Johnston, Barnard Castle, Yarm and Sedbergh schools. There is also much to be found about all educational institutions in the North-East, including often names of staff, in the various directories, with the trades sections often revealing a number of individuals who set themselves up as schoolmasters or mistresses or even professors. 

All the rare book collections to some extent have an educational aspect to them, but perhaps the one that is most patently that of an academic is that of the patristics scholar Joseph Martin Routh (1755-1854), who was president of Magdalen College Oxford, and purposely bequeathed his extensive book collection of some 16,500 titles to Durham, rather than his own college, to support its educational development. It is strong in patristics and scripture, church history, religious controversy (especially English), and English political controversy of the 17th and 18th centuries, liturgy, classical and antiquarian studies, European and British history, and bibliography. Another collection purposely built up for an educational institution is that of Richmond Grammar School which has many books on the classics - texts, authors, histories, grammars - many being in Latin, with some general history, biography, music and literature, with some copies of Punch, indicative that there needed to some entertainment as well as education in such a collection for a school’s pupils.