Portrait of W. J. Holloway, taken in 1893. Copyright National Portrait Gallery.

It is not often that you can hear the voice of someone born more than 180 years ago. Actor W. J. (William James) Holloway was born in Westminster in 1843 but at the age of thirteen his family decided to settle in Australia, a voyage on which his mother died. He took up acting in 1862 and the following year married, a union which produced four children. His second wife already had a daughter known as Essie Jenyns (1864-1920) whose talent Holloway developed - apparently driving her to fame as Australia’s greatest Shakesperean actress, and exhaustion. When she married brewery heir John Robert Wood in 1888 she gave up the stage altogether. The Holloways returned to England the following year and W. J. Holloway stood in for an indisposed Henry Irving by playing King Lear at the Lyceum in 1892 opposite Ellen Terry for a short period. His company continued to tour, most notably in South Africa, and he managed Terry’s Theatre in London from 1894. W. J. Holloway died at Clapham Common in 1913.

In 1909 Holloway made some speech recordings for the Odeon label. While many famous recordings exist from this period of great Shakesperean actors such as Lewis Waller, Sir Henry Beerbohm Tree and even private recordings of Henry Irving, these all display aspects of theatrical, declamatory delivery that sound almost risible to the modern listener. Holloway’s discs do not, and this may be because they were made with the object of reproducing the spoken English language in the clearest possible way for study purposes, rather than as a souvenir or an entertainment, as in the case of those mentioned above.

Holloway label, Seven Ages of Man

W. J. Holloway, Seven Ages of Man

 

Holloway label, Polonius's advice to his son

W. J. Holloway, Polonius's advice to his son

From a technical point of view and date of recording, the recorded sound is extremely clear and it seems that the discs were recorded in a special way developed by Wilhelm Doegen. I am indebted to Jolyon Hudson for unearthing the following information about this process.

Until the introduction of electrical recording in 1925, the recording process remained almost unchanged since its invention by Edison in 1877. Essentially, this process consisted of a horn, usually conical in shape, which funneled the sound to a recording diaphragm mounted at the horn's apex. Through a stylus, this diaphragm cut the groove into a wax master.

The energy available for cutting the record was limited to the small fraction of acoustic energy picked up by the horn. The experimental distance test recording that Nellie Melba made in 1910 vividly illustrates the reduction in amplitude and the loss of frequencies as she moved away from the horn.

In addition to this limitation, there was the difficulty of capturing both upper and lower frequencies, the distortion created by the mechanical process, and the significant challenge of recording sibilants.

We do not know exactly how Wilhelm Doegen achieved the enhanced recording quality in his work. However, a photograph of Doegen and fellow linguist Alois Brandl, taken in 1916 during the First World War at the Wahn prisoner-of-war camp as part of the Königlich Preußische Phonographische Kommission project to collect recordings of the languages and dialects of internees, provides a clue.

The internee is shown standing with his face very close to the recording horn, while Doegen holds the back of his neck with his left hand. In his right hand, Doegen holds a prepared text for the prisoner to read. As someone by then well-versed in achieving satisfactory speech recordings, Doegen presumably adjusted the prisoner’s head position relative to the horn, giving him greater control over the process. He may have pressed the prisoner’s head closer to the horn to emphasize sibilants or achieve better sound quality where the recording process was at its weakest sensitivity.

Doegen also developed a special gramophone for post war recordings, known as the Doegen Lautapparate. The gramophone, like his records, was produced by the Odeon company. It featured two separate reproducing horns connected to the tone arm and reproducer, or ‘sound box.’ One horn, made of wood, was directly connected to the tone arm, while the second horn, made of metal, was connected to the tone arm via a longer route through a metal tube.

The design had two main purposes: first, the faint sibilants reproduced through the metal horn would reverberate more, and second, the slight delay caused by the different horn lengths would create a subtle echo effect. It is possible that a similar arrangement was used in reverse for the recording process.

Outside of speech recording, none of Doegen’s improvements would have made any difference to the sound quality of music recordings, the mainstay of the recording industry then as now. Moreover, persuading artists to record under such conditions would have been virtually impossible.

Blog by Jonathan Summers and Jolyon Hudson 

We are deeply saddened to report the passing of Patrick Sellar who died in November at the age of 95.

Patrick Sellar co-founded the wildlife section in 1969 along with BBC natural history broadcaster Jeffery Boswall. Though Patrick never worked for the sound archive in an official capacity, he was a constant source of support, advice and ideas, without ever trying to control the direction of the section. He helped build the foundations of the collection which today is one of the largest and most comprehensive archives of wildlife and environmental sounds in the world. With connections across Europe, Asia and Africa made through a lifelong love of ornithology, Patrick played a pivotal role in obtaining so many of our most important natural history collections. He was well known for his excellent fieldcraft and experience of travelling in harsh environments, especially in Scandinavia and the Arctic, and was a popular figure among scientists, naturalists and broadcasters alike.

For me, Patrick was always there to offer advice and encouragement during my early days as a wildlife administrative assistant and especially when I took on the role of curator. His kind words and confidence in my abilities helped guide me through my first couple of years within the sound archive and I honestly don’t think I could have done it without his support.

We interviewed Patrick for the Oral History of Wildlife Sound Recording series and a couple of excerpts can be heard in this blog post recounting an expedition in 1981 to track down polar bears. He was a wonderful storyteller and I always enjoyed listening to his many tales.

He also regularly donated recordings to the collection and some of my favourites of his are accompanied by his evocative commentary, such as this example where he describes the beauty of Fair Isle while other visitors to the island are being attacked by a very angry seabird. Amazingly he remained unscathed.

Aside from his contributions to the wildlife section, Patrick was also one of the founding members of the International Bioacoustics Society (IBAC), becoming Honorary President in 2005. Since its inception in 1969, IBAC has grown from a handful of enthusiasts to a society of hundreds of scientists, naturalists and field recordists working on some of the most cutting edge research within the field of Zoology. He was a great travelling companion and we always travelled together to IBAC conferences, the last of which was in Brighton in 2019. Below is one of my favourite photos of Patrick, taken at the 25th IBAC conference in Murnau, Germany in 2015.

Patrick was a man of boundless optimism and enthusiasm, was never unkind and was always great company. He was rightly proud of how the wildlife section developed and was pleased to see how its remit and use expanded over the years, particularly in terms of education and the arts. He lived a full and rewarding life and will be deeply missed by all who knew him.

Cheryl Tipp, Curator of Wildlife and Environmental Sounds

Poster advertising the launch of the first National Lottery draw on the 19th Novemeber 1994. Image by Jonathan Player

This November we’re celebrating the National Lottery’s 30th Birthday! For three decades now the National Lottery has been a driving force behind countless heritage projects across the UK. With the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s generous support the sound archive have been able to preserve, catalogue and share many collections for the nation to enjoy now and in the future.

The Lottery have supported multiple National Life Stories projects over the years, helping to both record and archive interviews to add to the sound archive collections. In particular, with their support, the sound archive have preserved a cluster of collections documenting the experiences of people living with, or personally impacted by, HIV. These include powerful testimonies of those living with HIV and oral histories of healthcare workers who cared for people with HIV at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s.

The impact of these oral histories has been far-reaching. For example, two collections[i] have been used as evidence in the ongoing Infected Blood enquiry. Selected recordings have also been used in a BBC documentary series entitled AIDS: The Unheard Tapes, which tells the story of the HIV epidemic in the UK from the early 1980s until the mid 1990s as experienced by the UK’s gay community. The documentary uses the audio from the archived interviews with each narrator's voice lip-synched for television by an actor. You can read more about this process and the collections in this blog post: Putting AIDS the Unheard Tapes in context. 

Another unique collection to highlight is the Pinnacle Club for Women Climbers collection. The Pinnacle Club is a national women’s climbing club founded in 1921 – and to commemorate the club’s centenary year, and with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, they recorded oral history interviews with 24 past and present members. These have all now been archived here at the British Library. The oral histories reach back to memories from the 1940s and 50s, recalling a time when opportunities for, and expectations of, women were restricted. Many spoke of being frustrated by the limitations of girls’ education at the time, and low expectations of women’s athletic performance. When the club was established climbing was a very male dominated activity, but clubs like the Pinnacle Club allowed women to find like-minded female climbing partners and climb unhindered by the stereotypes of the day.

We cannot celebrate the National Lottery’s birthday without mentioning a major project that they made possible: Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH), a UK-wide initiative to preserve, digitise, catalogue, and copyright clear the most vulnerable recordings across the United Kingdom. It is widely acknowledged that the formats in which sounds have been stored throughout history – such as wax cylinders, vinyl, reel-to-reel, and cassette – will one day become inaccessible as they age, making them inaudible and inaccessible. By acquiring cutting edge technology, and setting up centres of expertise across the country, the project digitally preserved at-risk collections, ensuring the voices and sounds they hold are not lost forever.  It garnered wide support, not least from the nation’s favourite conservationist, David Attenborough.

The project digitised over 115,000 physical items, generating over 368,000 recordings, which were then catalogued. These recordings and collections ranged widely in their content and format. One exciting example is the Glastonbury New Bands Collection, consisting of more than 4600 demo tapes. In the early 2000’s Glastonbury ran a competition for unsigned acts, with the prize being the chance to perform on one of the festival’s main stages. The Emerging Talent Competition, launched in 2004 as the Glastonbury Festival Unsigned Performers Competition, is still part of the annual festival today. From 2010 onwards applications were processed online but up until 2009 emerging acts had to physically compile an application bundle consisting of an entry form, a biography and a demo CD. Thousands of demos found their way to Glastonbury; offering a contemporary witness of the music created at the beginning of the 21st century by unsigned bands and musicians in Britain and beyond. They also provide a valuable representation of youth and DIY culture at the turn of the century, captured through the demo designs and song lyrics.

Listening desk by Emily Peasgood

If you’re interested in hearing some of the recordings digitised by the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project – why not visit the Listening Desk at our St Pancras site? A cross between a gramophone horn, a desk, and a touch screen, the sound sculpture allow users to engage with sound in a fun and playful way. It’s located on the upper ground floor, outside of the King’s Library. Or if you’d like to explore some of our digitised recordings from the comfort of your own home, then download our podcast All About Sound. Hosted by author and poet Lemn Sissay, with a range of special guests including Shami Chakrabarti and Kae Tempest, it explores a variety of contemporary issues through archival sound recordings.

[i] ‘Haemophilia and HIV Life History Project’ and ‘HIV in the Family: an oral history of parents, partners and children of those with haemophilia’.