February 10th

It’s been a while. With good reason, I might add.

I have been so busy ‘doing’ to have any time to ‘reflect’. And I don’t really have much time to reflect now but I would like to give a little bit of an update.

Despite all the physical and mental health problems I have been experiencing, and still am, I have been academically awesome. Not always. But definitely enough to get me by and through on to the next things.

The next things are: the final BMAG workshop, specifically the collaboration for researchers; my article that will be published in April/May time; my networking with all the tutors I can possibly befriend and talk history with; my collaboration with the museums about last year’s summer research; my second summer research, this time into the Soho Insurance Society; my Global History masters course; my potential year out afterwards to go do research in South Africa on the 1820s settlers funded by mike?!; my PhD!!!!!!

So I have gone on a bit forward in time, and now I need to rein it back in, especially because I missed a lot of things from the above list which are also up and coming.

Like my dissertation. But in fairness, I am in the middle of that, nearly the end so it can hardly be thought of as a ‘next’ thing. It is actually going well, and I am not lying about that. I am happy with where it is going, and if I can sustain my pace I will get there on time.

I know I have a habit of being terrible with deadlines, but I will meet my own personal deadline for this: 1st March, full draft. Gives me the whole of reading week to get on with it, and then will give me over 2 weeks to add edits when I can.

I love being an historian. I could write more but I really just want to get on with my dissertation, I will reflect after that is done because ending projects is a good time for reflection.

More opportunities!

Today’s meeting with my supervisor has brought yet more opportunities from my scholarship research!

I am going to get my research report bound, a copy of it is going to be in the Archive, and obviously I want a copy to keep.

Also, my work will be used to contribute to a museum exhibition in the next year! My name will be in a museum! Wow!

I just have a few minor adjustments to add, such as page numbers and an acknowledgements section and my name and contact details.

It’s all really cool and exciting and overwhelming and my work is done for the immediate now, but it will stay with me and opportunities will follow me along the next few years.

I put effort in and I have begun reaping the rewards.

Starting scholarship write-up

Writing about my scholarship has been kind of difficult to do lately, hence my reluctance to post anything on this blog. If only because my last meeting with my supervisor had left me feeling a little bit low. This stems from me comparing my work with others who have different circumstances and it is something I am working on improving about myself. I compared my extremely difficult ‘looking for a needle in a haystack’ style of research with my colleague’s research which is into male factory workers and so was always going to be a thousand times easier and more fruitful than my own.

With that in mind, it’s now time for me to really start my write up, and to decide where else I want to check in for potential sources, with just a week left if my appointment booking is processed in time.

my planning document for this write up

In my booking for the archives for my final week, I requested to see:

For photographing and rereading:

MS 3789/5/6 Burnishing book

MS 3147/8/42/1-9 Lists of articled men and apprentices

MS 3147/8/43/4-6 Soho Foundry Christmas presents

For fresh info about the Soho Mint:

MS 3782/3/8 &8a Memorandum ledgers

MS 3782/3/69 Packing book

MS 3782/3/106 Copper account between Mint and Cutting-out shop

MS 3782/3/107 Cutting-out shop copper account between Rolling Mill and Mint

MS 3782/3/116 Articles delivered out to the work people at Soho Mint

MS 3782/3/133-135 Memorandum books

MS 3782/3/263 Documents relating to the Soho Mint prior to balancing

3 weeks later

It’s been quite the time jump from last post to this one!

I’ve been incredibly productive and thoroughly enjoying my time in the Soho archives at the Library of Birmingham.

I’m over halfway through the undergraduate research scholarship now and I have been pleasantly surprised by how much relevant content I’ve managed to discover within the archives. The amount of secondary work that even for a moment mentioned women and/or child workers was sparse so I did not have high hopes. Neither did my supervisor. I think he was fully expecting my funding to paid for me to waste my time for five weeks ploughing through documents and discovering not one single item of useful information.

The content that I have found is hardly comprehensive, rather it allows insight into a few varying perspectives of life at Soho.

I’ve found out about women workers as burnishers – 19 workers, all female, all named and all literate enough to write about their duties, and calculate their wages.

I’ve seen that servants were mentioned in correspondence and might be a viable avenue of research if my later choices are fruitless.

I’ve learned the geographical locations male teenage apprentices originated from and the different arts they were instructed in.

I’ve discovered that 22 windows were broken by the boys and apprentices in just one year from the fitting department.

I attempted to trace whether all the boys and apprentices who received Christmas presents were sons of workmen already at Soho, but this has been an arduous task and near impossible because it’s highly likely that the boys who were orphans that Boulton took in and trained up were given the surname of the respectable worker families in whose houses they lodged.

Most of the evidence I have managed to find so far has come from the end of Boulton & Watt Snr’s ‘reign’ and has more of Boulton & Watt Jnrs involvement.

I’d like to find mentions of women workers in correspondence, because I have found a lot of evidence for women workers in the Manufactory from visitor accounts, but no proper documents yet.

My next task, after finishing with the charming Christmas presents lists, which I am calling my favourite primary source, is to find children workers…somehow.

Teenage apprentices are all well and good, but I know there were children working in the Manufactory and I intend to find evidence to support that from within the archives.

Research resumes Tuesday when the archives are next open and I hope to find yet more enlightening and entertaining sources – if I get to browsing the correspondence I’m certain to find the latter!