Students and the archive

Archivist Louise looks at two examples of how some of our collections have been used by students this week....

Based in the University of Edinburgh, we're always delighted to be showcasing our collections to student audiences. Sometimes this means adding sessions in the archive to the curriculum, sometimes suggesting source material for a research project, and sometimes delivering one-off events for student groups.

For example, we've been working with Dr Gayle Davis, Senior Lecturer in the History of Medicine, for some years now. Gayle is a real ambassador for our collections, and is always keen to include a trip to the archive in the courses that she teaches about the history of psychiatry. If you're at all familiar with the material that LHSA holds, you'll know that we've world-class collections on psychiatric treatment and care, covering psychiatric hospitals ('asylums') in Edinburgh, the Lothians and the Scottish Borders. Gayle decided that she'd like to introduce the undergraduate students in her Madness and Society class to some of the sources that LHSA has to offer from two local psychiatric hospitals: the Royal Edinburgh Hospital and Rosslynlee (or Midlothian and Peebles District Asylum).

For many students, this was the first time that they had come into contact with archive material - even for those following a history course, the use of original archives isn't always guaranteed to be included in their studies. Small groups of students were given different archival documents from the Royal Edinburgh Hospital and Rosslynlee, and asked to respond to them without prior knowledge of what was in front of them, assessing how easy they were to understand and if the documents would be good sources to tell you about what life may have been like in the hospitals.

For example, there were pictures of patients from the nineteenth century - sometimes from case books, used to identify individual patients for treatment and in case of escape, sometimes those collected by the heads of the hospitals (Physician Superintendents) in a belief that people's physical characteristics could inform on their mental condition.

Image of patients from Rosslynlee casebook (top, 1890s) and from the collection of the Physician Superintendent of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, collected to illustrate particular illnesses (bottom, 1880s)

A notebook made by John Willis Mason was also one of the items on the tables - Mason was a long-term patient (formally a writer to the signet) who wrote poetry, edited the hospital magazine, produced watercolours, and even patented a world clock, based on the phases of the moon:

Spread from a John Willis Mason notebook, with an original sketch

Of course there were more official records about the running of the hospitals too, such as the inspection reports of the General Board of Control, the body established in 1857 in Scotland to 'police' the asylum system. Despite their appearance, these sorts of documents can provide researchers with information on psychiatric institutions for which other records simply do not survive, such as the many private asylums in operation in the nineteenth century. They also give you an insight into the Inspectors' concerns, from cleanliness of wards, to sufficient activites' being arranged for patients:

This General Board of Control report for 1895 gives a rare glimpse into the lunatic wards of Edinburgh Poorhouse (at Craiglockhart), detailed records of which have long been destroyed. 

I always really enjoy hearing fresh perspectives on the archives during the seminar, and hearing the individual stories of patients from case books that I simply would not have come across had they not been discovered by the students.

It's LGBT History Month at the moment and, for my second 'public engagement' (!) this week, I was lucky enough to be involved in a fascinating event organised by Louise Neilson, LHSA's Access Officer, and members of the University LGBT+ Medics Society. The event centred on the LGBT+ contribution to debates and health campaigns around HIV in the 1980s and 1990s. Scottish LGBT communities were instrumental in information campaigns about HIV from the early 1980s, since (from friends and trips abroad thanks to newly-available budget flights to the US) people were receiving news of how HIV (then unfortunately named GRID - Gay Related Immune Deficiency) was decimating gay communities in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, with little or no response from government agencies or the US medical establishment. Activists realised that a similar situation could develop in Scotland, and were keen that communities should be kept informed.

Louise N used multi-media from our collections that we've made available online to set the scene, explaining how public health campaigns in the region (like the Take Care campaign) were different from UK-wide approaches (such as the infamous UK 'Tombstone' / 'Iceberg' Don't Die of Ignorance ads). You can watch them yourself here.

We have a diverse range of public health material around HIV, and so Louise N also prepared a display showing items such as leaflets, postcards and posters, highlighting how LGBT-related organisations worked with the health service to promote safe sex. Issues of Gay Scotland also documented how debates around HIV were reported, as well as putting the spotlight on LGBT events, meeting places, support networks and the best in 1980s LGBT culture.

Postcards used in the display

As this 1983 issue shows, Gay Scotland was in tune with contemporary debates around HIV, busting myths and helping to keep readers informed about the latest health developments.

Follow our social media to hear about a public event for LGBT history month later in February!