This week, LHSA interns Claire and Judith
have had a couple of afternoons out, to visit Edinburgh University Anatomical
Museum, housed within the Medical School Building on Teviot Place and the Royal
College of Nursing Archive, on South Oswald Road.
On Tuesday
afternoon, together with musical instrument interns Luca and Michela, we were
fortunate to be given a behind the scenes tour of the Anatomical Museum, by
curator Malcolm MacCallum. Home to an impressive collection of historical and
anatomical specimens, the Museum was originally founded
and developed by the Monro dynasty. The collection grew significantly in the
late 19th and early 20th century, under Sir William
Turner who was both Professor of Anatomy from 1867 to 1903 and Principal of the
University from 1903 to 1917. Today, the Museum houses newer acquisitions
alongside objects from the original Museum, with the whole collection comprising around 12,000 objects, illustrating
the story of 300 years of Anatomy teaching at the University. More information on the history and collections of the
museum can be found here, where you can also download an app for a virtual
tour!
The entrance hall to the Anatomical Museum, image taken from the website above
This visit
afforded a new perspective on the curatorial and conservation challenges of maintaining such a collection.
In conversation with Malcolm, we were able to get an insight into some of the
ethical challenges of caring for a collection which includes human remains. Human remains have a unique status within
museum collections. They have the potential to make a contribution to the
public good, through research, teaching and, when appropriate, display.
However, because of their origin, there is a particular responsibility on the Museum to consider the way they are acquired, curated and displayed. Today, a number of interested parties may
claim rights over some human remains. These include genealogical descendants,
cultural communities and scientists. Institutions holding remains have to
evaluate these potentially competing interests and acknowledge the complex
legal and moral considerations. There is a need to deal sensitively with these
issues and to draw a careful balance between the attitudes and beliefs of
different groups. It was fascinating to be able to talk to Malcolm about these
challenges.
On Thursday afternoon we visited the
Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Archive, which is based in Edinburgh. The Archive
holds collections for the entire UK organisation and includes corporate records
dating back to 1916, as well as a wealth of personal papers, oral histories,
photographs and objects.
It was a pleasure to meet Fiona
Bourne and Neasa Roughan, the Archivists at the RCN, and get an insight into
what they do and see some of the treasures they hold. The RCN is run by members
and the decisions taken at a governance level reflect what members have asked
for. The corporate archive ensures that these decisions, along with all the
work undertaken to implement them, is recorded and is an immensely important
collection. Our favourite part of the archive though is definitely the personal
archive, including the personal papers of individual nurses from 1822 to the
present day and over 700 oral history interviews with nurses.
Personal archives are a wealth of
information on day-to-day life. Corporate archives might show high level
institutional history but personal stories, whether on paper or audio-tape,
allow historians, researchers and curious individuals to really know what life
was like for a nurse. These archives give us an insight into what their work
involved, how they lived, what they did in their spare time, and what life was
like in different hospitals and different wards across the country. For an
organisation such as RCN, their personal archives can help them show how the
work they do has affected the working lives of nurses over the last 100 years.
The RCN archive is a great
example of how diverse collections can be, and how important each type of
collection is. Without the corporate archive the RCN would lack accountability,
and would have no reference to when or why past decisions had been made or
actions taken, and without the personal collections the RCN would have less
information on how their decisions or actions had affected the lives of the
nurses they aim to support. We really
enjoyed our visit to the RCN and are looking forward to learning even more
about the history of nursing through the coming weeks with LHSA.
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