Re-housing glass plate negatives

An ongoing task has been the re-housing of LHSA’s collection of glass plate negatives which relate to the teaching of Obstetrics at Edinburgh University from the 1950s to 1970s. These were designed to be used with a lantern box to project the images onto a wall or screen. A small number are made from cellulose acetate film.

The plates were originally stored in individual envelopes in wooden chests of drawers, which put them at a high risk of being damaged either from scraping against each other or being trapped at the back of a drawer. The paper the envelopes are made from is acidic and will corrode film emulsion over time. Additionally the chests are very heavy and awkward to move, again risking harm to the plates and injury to staff.

Glass plate negatives before re-housing

Re-housing is carried out as follows: the plates are accurately measured and sleeves cut from Photon paper to fit them exactly. Each plate is assigned a reference number and all information from the original envelope is transferred to the sleeve. The plates are then put into 4 flap folders in sets of 4 and placed upright in archive standard cardboard boxes. The size of the boxes has been chosen so that when full they can be comfortably lifted.

Glass plate negatives after re-housing

As a result of this re-housing, the plates are protected from damage and take up less space in the stores.

Preparing case notes for consultation

About 5,000 patient case notes from the LHB1 C/C JW Struthers series were recently requested for consultation by a reader. These case notes are 80 years old so access was subject to a successful application to the Director of Public Health. While Laura, the Assistant Archivist, did the necessary paperwork to ensure proper access according to current legislation (the Data Protection Act 1998), I made sure that the case notes were physically accessible.

The case notes were in quite poor condition after they had been stored in folders that had caused a lot of creasing to the sheets. The case notes had also been used over the years so there was lots of tearing and surface dirt too.

Struthers case notes before re-housing

The case notes were surface cleaned and re-housed to ensure that they could be handled by the reader without causing further damage. It’s a labour intensive task but the end result is well worth the effort. I used the method for re-housing case notes that LHSA established over the course of several Wellcome Trust funded projects to re-house similar material. For more information about LHSA’s work to preserve our important case note collection please see our website.

Struthers case notes after re-housing

Original Florence Nightingale letter made available online.

This week, Assistant Archivist, Rosie Baillie tells us about LHSA's prized volume of Florence Nightingale letters.


The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh's Lady Superintendent of Nurses, Angelique Lucille Pringle was a regular correspondent of Florence Nightingale in the late 19th Century.  This friendship resulted in a series of motivational letters addressed to the Infirmary's nursing staff written to inspire them to keep up their good work!

Angelique Lucille Pringle, LHSA Photographic Collection



One of the treasures of LHSA's Archive collection is a bound volume of letters written by Florence Nightingale collected by Miss Pringle.  We have recently made the first letter in this volume available to view online using http://www.issuu.com/.  This website provides online 'page-turner' technology, as shown below.

Open publication - Free publishing - More royal

The letter, dated 6 December 1878 begins:


'My dear friends: our good nurses

Often I do wish that I could go amongst you all, at least twice in the year.  I feel as if I were always with you in the work, and indeed I am always with you in prayer'.

Florence Nightingale, LHSA Object Collection, P4



We have a small selection of other LHSA records available to consult via www.issuu.com/lhsa

LHSA Outreach – Talks

LHSA receives frequent requests from local history organisations, Women’s Guilds and others to give talks about the Archive and its records. This week I gave a talk to Portobello Local History Society where I used our Public Health records to build a picture of life in Portobello and Edinburgh from 1900 to 1950.

More information on the Public Health Department of the City of Edinburgh.

Edinburgh appointed its first Medical Officer of Health, Henry Duncan Littlejohn, in 1862. When Portobello became part of Edinburgh in 1896, responsibility for public health there fell under the jurisdiction of the Edinburgh Public Health Committee (PHC). It collected lots of information in its quest to improve living conditions and reduce disease; the annual reports produced by this body provide a fantastic snapshot of conditions at the time including birth and death rates, causes of death, and the results of inspections of public premises such as ice cream parlours. The records show that in 1900 the ward of Portobello East had the highest death rate of the entire city at 27.16 per 1,000.

One of the PHC’s biggest concerns was the quality of the housing stock; up until at least the end of WWI, a large number of residents lived in overcrowded and dirty conditions in tenement buildings which contributed to the spread of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. From the 1920s Edinburgh City Corporation undertook a massive building programme to move residents into more sanitary housing which helped to prevent illness in the first place and reduce the spread of infectious diseases that did occur.

I discovered one of my favourite quotes that I’ve ever come across in the Archive in the PHC Annual Report for 1930 (pictured below). It likens housing stock to a gun, and the responsibility for its cleanliness to the person holding the gun!

Public Health Committee Annual Report, 1930. LHSA reference: LHB16/2/31

The talk was very successful and has introduced our records to a new group of people, several of whom are now enquirers using the records to conduct their own research.

Please contact us for more information.

LHSA enquiry into surgeon Alexander Miles (1865-1953)

This week I have been assisting with a fascinating enquiry about the well known Edinburgh surgeon Alexander Miles (1865-1953).

I began by looking in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Registers of Doctors (LHSA reference: LHB1/119/1-2), and was able to find entries for him first as a resident surgeon in 1888-1889 and then as a supervisor to the residents from 1910 onwards. The resident physicians and surgeons were newly qualified doctors who were receiving further training at the Royal Infirmary.

More information about the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh Residents.

Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh Residents, Summer 1889. Alexander Miles is seated on the floor in the centre of the picture

I then looked in the published UK Medical Directories (available to consult in the Centre for Research Collections Research Support Collection).  I was able to trace each of the addresses Miles worked at from when he qualified in 1888. This source also stated that he was elected as a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1890.

I also looked at LHSA’s reference library and found a detailed biography of Miles in The Edinburgh School of Surgery After Lister by James A Ross, 1978, Churchill Livingstone. (LHSA Reference: Ref 8/47). Miles went on to become a lecturer in anatomy in Edinburgh University, surgeon to Leith Hospital, lecturer in surgery at the School of Medicine of the Royal Colleges.  He wrote a Manual of Surgery with Alexis Thomson in 1904. He was also joint editor of Edinburgh Medical Journal 1911-1935 and wrote The Edinburgh School of Surgery before Lister in 1918. He was secretary, treasurer, then president of the Royal College of Surgeons. He was in his day considered “the best all-round surgeon in the Royal Infirmary”. 

This enquiry response shows the variety of sources which LHSA has to hand to help answer the many enquiries we receive each week.

LHSA objects go on display in Edinburgh University’s School of History, Classics and Archaeology

We’re delighted to be loaning Edinburgh University’s School of History, Classics and Archaeology a number of items from our object collection. They will go on display in the exciting exhibition spaces created within the newly refurbished department.

Miniature Medicine Cabinet, LHSA Reference M172

LHSA staff have worked with representatives from the School to select objects that fit the themes of their exhibition, but that are also robust enough to withstand a period of prolonged display. Where items that were selected by the School were deemed too fragile to be loaned, we have provided digital image facsimiles. LHSA is keen to make our unique collections as accessible as possible but we must make sure that access is not to the detriment of long-term preservation. 

Microscope, LHSA Reference M78

We also work to protect collection items on loan in other ways. We liaise with the borrowers to ensure that the display conditions are of a high enough standard, draw up transfer paperwork that ensures that the collection items are properly protected during the loan period, and carry out a conservation assessment to record the condition of the items before they leave LHSA storage areas.  We delivered the objects to the School today and arranged them in the display case.  The results are fantastic as you can see! 

School of History, Classics and Archaeology

Bring a Badge Day - 10th February, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh

As part of the Unsung Heroes project, LHSA took part in 'Bring a Badge Day' held at the Sanctuary in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Little France on Thursday 10th February.

Nurses and ex-nurses were invited to come along, bringing their nursing badges to show project staff and eca (Edinburgh College of Art) students.  LHSA provided a small display of nursing badges, a selection of Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh photographs, and showed the "Ever Open Door", a silent film made by the Infirmary in the 1930s promoting the hospital, its services and new departments. 

A representative from the Royal College of Nursing was also present with a fantastic display of badges from their 3,000-strong collection.  Also present were staff from the eca, who described to the various visitors how their badges were made and designed.

There was a good turnout, including a number of 'Pelicans', nurses who trained at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and received their pelican badge on completion of their training and one year of service.

The pelican was chosen to represent the charity and self-sacrifice of nurses, pelicans being known to feed their young from their own blood.  What came across from chatting to the pelicans was how special their badges were to them as a symbol of the hard work put in to their training and the dedication required.  They proudly wore their badges throughout their careers, and treasure them after they have retired.  One ex-nurse said that being a pelican was like being in a club, where ever you went across the world, (and many went on to work all over the globe), you'd bump into other pelicans and they were like old friends, even if you hadn't previously known them. 

We also heard some great stories about life as a nurse, living in the Infirmary nurses home.  From toga parties using hospital sheets as costumes, to nurse's boyfriend's sneaking in fish and chips for patients via ward windows!  Part of the Unsung Heroes project is to record these memories so that they can be saved for the enjoyment of future generations.

For more information about the project, visit their blog.

To view a slideshow of a selection of LHSA's enamelled badges, visit flickr.