Within the Harold Acton Library is an impressive collection of archives, some of which predate the Institute's founding. I still haven't delved into this hive of information, and so Wednesday's talk by our archivist, Alyson Price, was particularly enlightening. Having worked as a historian, teacher and university administrator, Price has been working with the Institute since 2001, and gave her talk the title: 'Writers, Readers and Actors -The British Institute Archives'.
Price gave an insightful overview of the most important collections of these voluminous archives, talking about the individual stories of many of the characters who lay behind them. For example, the writer Edward Hutton - a prolific writer on all things Italian - was instrumental for laying the groundwork for the British Institute through involvement with the Anglo-Italian Review, a magazine to which the Prime Minister Lloyd George even sent a letter (which is now part of the Hutton collection). Another character was Edward Gordon Craig, who 'changed 20th Century Theatre' through his magazine The Mask and famous treatise On the Art of the Theatre; he settled in Italy in 1911 and created a school of theatrical design in Florence called the Arena Goldoni after the Venetian playwright. Then there is the Vernon Lee collection - the pseudonym of Violet Paget. She was an eminent essayist who in fact was the first person to put the word 'empathy' into print. These are but a few of the illustrious people whose collections form the Institute's archives.
As well as these individual collections, there are also the records of the Institute itself, which come in the form of books, schedules, magazines and journals. Price talked about the stories behind some of our previous directors - not all of which were overly positive, as one director, Harold Goad, was actually a prominent Fascist sympathiser who caused a stir when one of his articles ended up in a British fascist newspaper operating from Greek Street in Soho (which, back then, had a large Italian population and was a recruiting ground for fascists operating abroad). Then there was Francis Toye, director from 1938-58, who bequeathed an immense musical library to the Institute and who played an important part in the revival of Italian opera composers such as Verdi and Rossini. In fact his book Giuseppe Verdi: His Life and Music remains one of the most comprehensive studies of the composer in English to this day.
It is very easy to see this fascinating collection as simply throwbacks, large quantities of books sitting in stuffy rooms gathering dust. But Price made clear that these archives are in fact still very much in demand and in use today, whether for tracing family history or conducting academic research (the writer Norman Douglas and the revived interest in female travel writing being among the most popular subjects of enquiry). These archives, then, really are a treasure trove among the Institute's holdings, and it is great to see that they still rouse plenty of interest today.
Price gave an insightful overview of the most important collections of these voluminous archives, talking about the individual stories of many of the characters who lay behind them. For example, the writer Edward Hutton - a prolific writer on all things Italian - was instrumental for laying the groundwork for the British Institute through involvement with the Anglo-Italian Review, a magazine to which the Prime Minister Lloyd George even sent a letter (which is now part of the Hutton collection). Another character was Edward Gordon Craig, who 'changed 20th Century Theatre' through his magazine The Mask and famous treatise On the Art of the Theatre; he settled in Italy in 1911 and created a school of theatrical design in Florence called the Arena Goldoni after the Venetian playwright. Then there is the Vernon Lee collection - the pseudonym of Violet Paget. She was an eminent essayist who in fact was the first person to put the word 'empathy' into print. These are but a few of the illustrious people whose collections form the Institute's archives.
As well as these individual collections, there are also the records of the Institute itself, which come in the form of books, schedules, magazines and journals. Price talked about the stories behind some of our previous directors - not all of which were overly positive, as one director, Harold Goad, was actually a prominent Fascist sympathiser who caused a stir when one of his articles ended up in a British fascist newspaper operating from Greek Street in Soho (which, back then, had a large Italian population and was a recruiting ground for fascists operating abroad). Then there was Francis Toye, director from 1938-58, who bequeathed an immense musical library to the Institute and who played an important part in the revival of Italian opera composers such as Verdi and Rossini. In fact his book Giuseppe Verdi: His Life and Music remains one of the most comprehensive studies of the composer in English to this day.
It is very easy to see this fascinating collection as simply throwbacks, large quantities of books sitting in stuffy rooms gathering dust. But Price made clear that these archives are in fact still very much in demand and in use today, whether for tracing family history or conducting academic research (the writer Norman Douglas and the revived interest in female travel writing being among the most popular subjects of enquiry). These archives, then, really are a treasure trove among the Institute's holdings, and it is great to see that they still rouse plenty of interest today.
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