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Four Contents |
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A
Year In The Life Of The International Heritage Centre - Gordon
Taylor
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A year ago (in October 2001) the Heritage Centre moved with other staff from International Headquarters to the William Booth College at Denmark Hill. As most readers will know, we were moving because of plans to redevelop the site in Queen Victoria Street. This involved demolishing the 'new' IHQ building, which had been opened in 1963 to replace the 'old' IHQ building, which was destroyed in 1941 during the Blitz.
We at the International Heritage Centre have special reason to remember the old IHQ building, not because we were there, but because so many valuable archives were lost in
the fire that destroyed IHQ on 11 May 1941. As a result, we have spent much of our time in the last 20 years trying to rebuild an archive collection which had been decimated by the loss of countless irreplaceable documents and files, despite efforts to salvage as much as possible from the ruins. We were anxious that the relocation of IHQ in October 2001 would not be accompanied by a similar destruction of valuable records from the
post 1941 era.
Fortunately, we were able to plan for the relocation, to safeguard as many of the significant records as possible, and those that we could not accommodate at Denmark Hill are being stored in a warehouse, with the contents of our museum, which is packed in boxes until we have space to bring everything together again. We have lost count of the number of visitors (mainly from overseas) who have come to the college hoping to see the museum. We share their disappointment, and hope that this disruption to our service will be only temporary.
Meanwhile, we have been as busy as ever, answering research enquiries, and indexing and arranging some of the large collections of documents and museum items which have been waiting our attention, in some cases for several years. We now have more than 1200 boxes of archive material, which shows how much the archive collection has grown since the days when Lt-Col Cyril Barnes set up the archives in one small office at IHQ. For the time being, we are located in House 14 on the college campus, a building that was originally the Women's Health Lodge when the college opened in 1929.
After we finished the initial unpacking following the move, we started responding again to the research enquiries we receive daily by post, telephone and e-mail from all parts of the world. During the last 12 months, we have answered 1100 enquiries on a wide range of topics, including family and corps history, social work, emigration, SA doctrines, uniforms, badges, music, and poetry, as well as requests for the use of photographs in books, magazines and TV programmes. Some enquiries we can answer in an instant; others may take several hours.
We feared that visiting researchers would have difficulty finding their way to Denmark Hill and that many would look for more accessible resources in other libraries and archives, but in practice we have been pleasantly surprised to see that our research visitors have not significantly diminished. During 2002, we have welcomed researchers from USA, Canada, Finland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy, France, Japan, Hong Kong, and New Zealand, as well as officers and cadets from the William Booth College, officers and employees from IHQ and the UK Territory, and students from British universities undertaking undergraduate and postgraduate research.
After moving twice in the last three years, this has been a year of recovery and consolidation. In July, administrative responsibility for the International Heritage Centre was transferred from IHQ to the UK Territory, but the service we provide is unchanged and we hope to continue to develop our facilities in the future, when resources become available.
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| Editorial |
| The
Salvation Army Philatelic Convention 2002 |
| A
Year in The Life Of The International Heritage Center |
| Corporal
William Clamp V.C. |
| The
Start Of The Salvation Army In Croydon |
| 1985
Carols at Christmas Benham's Silk Covers |
| Building
The University Of Humanity In Camberwell |
| An
Unusual Record Label |
| A
Forgotten Hero |
| Book
Reviews |
| S.A.
Regal 78 Association |
| Salvation
Army Films |
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