20 December 2012
Cold Comfort: Royalty and Polar sovereignty
Artwork for the British Antarctic Territory: 1963-69 3d deep blue. From the Crown Agents Philatelic and Security Printing Archive held at the British Library [copyright restrictions apply]
Wednesday was a busy news day but most will have seen the announcement that part of Antarctica is to be renamed Queen Elizabeth Land in order to commemorate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. In a year where tributes have ranged from river pageants to daring entrances to the Olympic Opening Ceremony this perhaps seems an odd or remote decision, but its geopolitical significance is already being noted.
The naming of territory has always been an important part of underscoring sovereignty claims. The history of the Americas, for example, is populated with many instances of names being applied to places in order to stake or sure up colonial ambitions. Within the name game Royal monikers have always resembled top trumps, with the British and other nations using monarchic associations to back up claims.
Such a heritage means that areas of the Arctic and Antarctic named after British monarchs are fairly common. During the nineteenth century search for the Northwest Passage, Victoria Island was named by Dease and Simpson in 1839 and Prince of Wales Island was named in 1851 by Captain T. H. Austin during his search for Franklin. The etching of these names onto the map of the Arctic took place at a time when the geopolitics of the area were intense and the potential gains from locating a Northwest Passage thought to be huge. As a result you can also find many items from these expeditions in the Library’s collections; Simpson writes about the work he and Dease conducted between 1836 and 1839 in a work held at Shelfmark 1424.h.2, and a map of Austin’s discoveries can be found at Maps.982.(48).
Continuing this theme, Queen Elizabeth II also has the honour of providing a name to an Arctic territory with the Queen Elizabeth Islands being re-named to mark the coronation in 1953. These islands had been noted by William Baffin in 1616 and were rediscovered in 1818 by Sir John Ross. Again, books and maps relating to these expeditions can be found in the collections. It is worth noting that the 1953 re-naming of these islands coincided not just with the coronation but with a resurgence of Canadian interest in the Arctic as a result of its status as a theatre of the Cold War.
Going back to the Antarctic, we should also note that Queen Elizabeth II is not the only British monarch to have part of the continent in her name. In 1841 Captain Ross took a break from splashing his name (and that of his ships) across the land and named a large part of the continent Victoria Land. Published works by Ross are also held here, with his 1847 ‘A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions’ [Shelfmark: 2374.f.6] and other works available for consultation in the reading rooms.
This work (Frontispiece from J. Ross, A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions, 1847) identified by British Library, is free of known copyright restrictions. [BL Shelfmark: 2374.f.6]
Needless to say, I will be trying to acquire anything relevant to the naming of Queen Elizabeth Land - and our new Broadcast News service in the reading rooms will have already picked up the news reports.
[PJH]
22 November 2012
Mapping risk: Goad's Fire Insurance Plan of Québec
This work (Charles E. Goad, Fire Insurance Plan, City of Québec, 1910) identified by British Library, is free of known copyright restrictions.
One of my current projects at home has been to find the first OS map that shows the development of the street I live on from a track to a row of houses. Seeing the area around the street develop and change over time is fascinating and explains some of the road’s current quirks – it also illustrates why we have a fascination with old maps.
Hopefully the illustrations for today’s blog will have the same effect for some. While not the oldest map of Québec the Library holds (see here and here for some of those), the Charles E. Goad ‘Insurance Plan of the City of Quebec’ [BL Shelfmark: Maps 147.b.24(1)] is a fascinating depiction of the city in the early twentieth century.
Goad was a British migrant to Canada who started producing fire insurance plans in 1875 before opening a highly successful branch of his business back in London in 1885. The function of his plans was to show companies the fire risk in different areas or buildings in urban locations; and this resulted in a unique visual illustration of the city.
This work (Charles E. Goad, Fire Insurance Plan, City of Québec, 1910) identified by British Library, is free of known copyright restrictions.
The above sheets are an overview of the city, showing which areas are covered by particular parts of the plan. The detail sheets, operating at 1:600 scale, are a mix of vividly coloured blocks. This design helps the different materials of each building stand out and means fire risks can be easily identified. Today they are also a record of what has changed in the city and what remains the same – and for those buildings which remain unchanged, the maps provide a wonderful insight into the construction of urban landmarks.
What further complements these maps and others like them in our collections are the Canadian photographs that were collected between 1895 and 1924 (you can read a bit more about them here. These can provide views of the streets and businesses depicted on Goad’s (and other) maps, creating a useful hybrid view. This is one of the reasons we are currently working on digitising the photographs, a sneak preview of which you can see here, courtesy of the Europeana WWI project (Europeana Collections 1914-18)
[PJH]
15 November 2012
From the Collections: Captain Cook and the Nuu-Chah-Nulth
‘A View of the Habitations in Nootka Sound’ plate held at BL: 456.h.24
This work (A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean...,London: W & A Strahan, etc., 1784), identified by British Library, is free of known copyright restrictions.
Once again I’ve been calling up some of the many works of Captain James Cook from the Library's storage areas, this time to look at his notes and illustrations relating to his searches for the fabled 'great southern land' and the North-West Passage. While my reason for calling the items up was more concerned with the frozen seas of the Arctic and the Antarctic, as usual I was waylaid by some other writings and illustrations that I came across.
In October I was able to take something off my long ‘to-do’ list when I visited UBC's Museum of Anthropology. The collections held there, together with the various economic and political issues affecting today’s inhabitants of British Columbia made me think of the dramatic changes that have happened subsequent to Cook’s contact with the area. With this in mind I let myself wander to a series of plates dedicated to the people and material culture of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth.
‘Various Articles at Nootka Sound’ plate held at BL: 456.h.24
The illustrations of the area (I think done around Yuquot), its people and material culture, are both interesting and useful records. But, as with many travel accounts of the period, they (together with the notes and images which document all of Cook’s three voyages), are indicative of an imperial way of seeing the various peoples encountered, an emphasis being placed on their 'Otherness' to European eyes.
‘The Indie of a Hippah in New Zeeland’ plate held at BL: 456.h.24
The materials relating to Cook’s voyages have been published in many forms, including the exhaustive ‘A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean…’ [BL Shelfmark: 454.h.9 -11], with which these plates are associated [but stored separately at BL Shelfmark: 456.h.24]. The Library also holds various accounts of Nuu-Chah-Nulth culture and post-contact history, although many of these need to be searched for using the term Nootka (as used in the works’ titles).
[PJH]
08 November 2012
Tecumseh's warriors: First Nations and the War of 1812
This work (Correspondence, addresses, &c. connected with the subscriptions of various Indian tribes in Upper Canada, in aid of the funds for the re-construction of Brock's monument on Queenston Heights, by publisher: R. Stanton), identified by British Library, is free of known copyright restrictions.
While at the Library I had the opportunity to sift through a variety of resources related to the War of 1812. As I dove feet first into historical documents and current research, it became clear to me that the reverberations of the battles fought were far-reaching both geographically and historically. Recently, many communities and groups in North America have been organizing re-enactments and celebrations to commemorate and explore the period. For example, the Royal Canadian Mint has honoured national heroes such as Sir Isaac Brock, Tecumseh, and Laura Secord with special issue coins.
The War of 1812 affected many cultural groups and highlights the complex relationships between European settlers and First Nations. One item which caught my attention in particular contains a collection of official communications between Canadian government officials and First Nations leaders. “Correspondence, Addresses Etc. connected with the subscriptions of various Indian tribes in Upper Canada, in aid of the funds for the re-construction of Brock’s Monument, on Queenston Heights” [BL Shelfmark: C.42.b.1] contains a series of letters which connect various First Nations groups to the aforementioned British war hero, Sir Isaac Brock (who was killed in the Battle of Queenston Heights alongside his British and First Nations comrades). It begins with an appeal for fundraising, but fast becomes a fascinating record of the thoughts and feelings of various groups, including the Chippewas, Hurons, Wyandotts, Munsees, Oneidas, Mississagas and Mohawks, regarding their involvement in the war effort. These formal statements express outrage towards the defacement of Brock’s final resting place and their commitment to honour Brock’s memory, and by proxy that of their relatives who fought alongside him. By making financial contributions towards the re-erection of Brock’s Monument, the First Nations strove to commemorate their own involvement in many of the same battles in which Brock and, famously, Tecumseh had fought.
These letters are made even more telling when one considers that the American Army would not accept First Nations men amongst its ranks, whereas the British showed some encouragement to them to join in the conflict. An article entitled “Canadian Indians” in the March 9, 1813 edition of the Montreal Gazette [BL Shelfmark: MC270] reports that President James Madison mocked the British for fighting alongside the “red people”. The author makes it clear that while Madison had a negative view of First Nations people, not all Americans subscribed to this judgement; in fact, he draws on personal experience to counter Madison’s stand. These documents give us a sense of not only the politics of the conflict but also the role of the First Nations groups who had an important stake in its outcome.
[B.C.]
01 November 2012
A History photographed: Canada in World War 1
Joker, patriotic fund collector
This work (Joker, waiting for the call, shelfmark HS85/10, by creator: D. Will McKay, producer: British Library), identified by British Library, is free of known copyright restrictions.
A milestone to celebrate with you all today. After much selection, work-flow organisation, scanning, quality checking and metadata addition, a selection of photographs of Canadian troops departing for war in Europe is now available via the Library’s Digitised Manuscripts catalogue. The photographs are a small part of the Library’s contribution to the Europeana Collections 1914-1918 project and will be co-hosted on the British Library and Europeana sites.
The Canadian WWI photographs are part of a collection we’ve written about here before; it contains the work of Canadian photographers who copyrighted their work between 1895 and 1924. As a result, the collection contains a number of photographs relating to the war, although almost all of them are produced on Canadian soil. These have been digitised for the Europeana project and just over 150 pictures of regimental mascots, soldiers leaving for Europe, Canadian war work and military inspections are available to search and view in detail.
26th Batt. departing
This work (Scene at embarkation of 26th Battalion and ammunition column, by creator: D. Smith Reid, producer: British Library), identified by British Library, is free of known copyright restrictions.
The bulk of the pictures are battalion panoramas and the scale of these always drives home to me the horror of the war – rows and rows of individuals marching off to a mechanised war which consumed the lives of so many. With that in mind, making these items available online is perhaps a good way to mark the centenary of the war; a forceful reminder of the individual and social cost of the conflict.
If you would like to browse the whole collection of photographs the best way to do this (at the moment) is to use the search function on the homepage of Digitised Manuscripts. Simply add ‘Canada’ as a keyword and reduce the date range to ‘1875 – 2000’, this should bring up just over 150 results. There are a few teething problems to sort out and we’re working on them right now, but if you find any you have my apologies.
[PJH]
05 October 2012
James Evans and the Cree Syllabary
Evans’ Cree syllabary as it appears in John MacLean’s biographical work, James Evans: Inventor of the Syllabic System of the Cree Language, published in 1890 [BL Shelfmark 4907.ff.6].
We're pleased to say that our ex-intern Brendan Cull has stayed in touch with us, and has sent us this blog from Canada:
As part of nineteenth-century religious education in the Americas, European missionaries made efforts to develop instructional and religious texts in the languages of the diverse First Nations groups which they endeavoured to convert to Christianity. Many of these resources employ the use of the modern English alphabet to phonetically describe words in print; however, with the help of a Wesleyan Methodist missionary named James Evans (1801-1846), a new system of written communication was created to visually represent the Cree dialects of Hudson Bay in the early 1840s. Instead of methodically spelling out the phones (or sounds) which make up a word, he devised a series of symbols which corresponded to common syllables. By doing so, he had created the first Cree syllabary.
Evans was born in Kingston-upon-Hull and educated in England. He arrived in Lower Canada with his parents in 1822 and was soon married. After a few years of teaching, he became involved in the Methodist Church, was ordained in 1833 and embarked on missionary work throughout Upper Canada. His ability to quickly and proficiently learn First Nations languages was encouraged by the church and he began to develop grammars and dictionaries for publication. He also began working on a more efficient way to record the Ojibwa language in print and began work on an Ojibwa syllabary.
He was sent to Norway House, a Hudson’s Bay Company trading post in present day Manitoba, and it took him only a couple of months to apply his idea to the local Cree language. He was then faced with the challenge of producing texts without access to a printing press, typeface, ink or even paper. Determined to develop his project further, Evans whittled handmade wooden type and printed on birch bark, using ink made from chimney soot. Later he gleaned lead from tea cases and bullets to make cast metal typeface. In 1841 Evans sent a letter, along with examples of his syllabic typeface, to his brother in London asking the Wesleyan Missionary Society to encourage the Hudson’s Bay Company to send a printing press to Norway House. With help from other members of the society, both a printing press and typeface were sent to Evans.
The end of Evans’ career was much less positive than its beginnings. In 1843, George Simpson, governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, moved Evans and his family out of Norway House and into nearby Rossville due to Evans’ purported interference in Hudson’s Bay Company business. Coupled with allegations of sexual misconduct and the accidental death of his good friend by Evans’ gun, his physical and mental health began to deteriorate. Evans was subsequently summoned to London for an investigatation of his conduct but he was soon acquitted. He died of a heart attack in Lincolnshire on the 23rd of November 1846.
Evans’ idea has had a lasting impact on the languages of the First Peoples of Canada; in fact, his work continues to be employed by many First Nations groups as well as the Inuit as their primary means of written communication in their respective languages.
[B.C.]
07 September 2012
Not Just Anne of Green Gables: Canadian Literature and the Library
'The Wrong Room', an illustration from Thomas Hutchinson's, The Clockmaker [1838, Second London Edition; BL Shelfmark 12654.c.6]
I’ve been reading Reingard Nischik’s, History of Literature in Canada and, with the Giller Prize Longlist also just announced, thought I would try and inspire a few of you to come and use the Library’s collection of Canadian literature. Team Americas have written about early Canadian writings before, although these were published in France rather than the country with which they were concerned. Whether published in Europe or Canada Francophone Canadian writing features strongly in the collections in the form of newspapers, periodicals and books, the below, Une de Perdue, being just one example.
Front cover from an early Francophone Canadian adventure novel, George de Boucherville's, Une de Perdue... [1874 edition' BL Shelfmark: 1509/3550]
Despite this depth of Francophone material the Anglophone collections are stronger historically, largely due to the possibility of obtaining English language publications via copyright deposit. That said, the Library’s Anglophone Canadian materials display the same format strengths as the Francophone materials, with newspapers (dating back to the eighteenth century), periodicals (such as the Acadian Recorder) and books being the main sources.
The collection also reflects the development of Canadian literature’s international scope as the copies held of important early works such as Goldsmith’s, The Rising Village [BL Shelfmark: 11644.bbb.40(2.)] and Haliburton’s The Clockmaker [BL Shelfmark: G.17989] are London rather than Canadian editions. Further, because of the linguistic scope and historical depth of the collection you can also perceive how Canadian literature develops, positions itself in relation to prevailing trends and reacts to the winds of national and international politics.
Such things are still true today as the Library continues to collect (by copyright deposit and purchase) Canadian work in a variety of languages – which now stretches far beyond a simple Anglophone / Francophone split. I’m also pleased to say we occasionally manage to be part of the CanLit scene, something illustrated by the fact that Giller Prize winner Elizabeth Hay is speaking here next Wednesday lunchtime. If you are interested the event is free (with hot drinks and biscuits provided) and there are more details here.
[PJH]
28 August 2012
A Bond formed with conviction: linking Australia and Canada
Detail of Hobart from 1839 map of Van Diemen’s Land [BL Shelfmark: Maps 92405.(2.)] illustrating the town roughly as it would have been found by Canadian convicts
The rebellions of 1837-38 are perhaps a lesser known part of Canadian history in the wider world. Yet these rebellions and the resulting changes to Canadian governance were to have consequences across the British empire. In particular, the Canadians who participated in the rebellions were transported to Van Diemen’s Land and New South Wales.
So this is another one of my blogs which links the Americas and Australasian collections, and is also an opportunity to point out that the Library holds a number of sources on the Canadian rebellions - for example, The Life and Times of W. L. Mackenzie, with an account of the Canadian rebellion of 1837… [1862, BL Shelfmark: 010882.g.7] and The Canadian Rebellion of 1837 [1896, BL Shelfmark: 09555.c.3].
I was also struck by the materials held which give an insight into the situation awaiting these Canadian transportees upon their arrival in the settlements of the Great Southern Land. Of particular note is Hobart, where 92 followers of Mackenzie arrived in 1840. The above map gives a sense of what Hobart was like (one year before their arrival) and publications are also held by the Governor of Van Diemen’s Land at the time. This was Sir John Franklin, whose name we associate with colder climes, but who spent some of his career considering and administering convict discipline. A record of these thoughts (from 1838) can be found in, Convict Discipline in Van Diemen’s Land [BL Shelfmark: 7002.d.10].
[PJH]
Americas and Oceania Collections blog recent posts
- Delayed Promises and Steadfast Dreams: Mapping Out a Young Black Loyalist’s Fictional Journey
- Tales from the Philatelic Crypt: The ‘Haunted Canada’ Postage Stamp Series
- Verse and Reverse: Uncovering the work of the Toronto Women’s Press Club
- Cold War Whiteness: Literature and Race between Canada and Czechoslovakia
- Antislavery Print Culture in Nineteenth Century Canada West
- “The Flying Researcher”: South Asians and Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific Northwest
- On my desk – On Spirit Lake: Georgian Bay Stories from Church Street Press
- E-resources: Performing Arts in the Americas
- French Quebec Imprints, 1764-1990
- On my desk: Double Persephone by Margaret Atwood
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