Wednesday, 4 June 2008

Working at the Archives


This summer I will be interning at the City of Westminster Archives, and already I am discovering that this is a hip place to be. Well, for a dorky history major, it's a hip place to be. My first day there I was shown a document issued in 1592 by Elizabeth I, containing an intact royal seal much like the one above. Besides being beyond cool and extremely rare, the detail in the seal was really very good for being made of beeswax and having survived 516 years. The document was written in Latin or else I would also be waxing poetically as to the information the document contained - something to do with land I believe. It is a somewhat surreal experience to have contact with the same documents countless people throughout history have been in contact with. It lends a little intimacy to the study of history that textbooks are very much lacking.

The Archives themselves house three plus floors of documents, records, maps, seals, images and much more, and staffed by a wonderfully nice group of people. My first day we had a conversation that began with Queen Ann, dived into the Stuarts for a bit, touched upon the Mad Hanoverian king and ended with an animated discussion of Queen Elizabeth II, British politics, and the likelihood of Camilla becoming Queen. Tomorrow I begin an inventory in the very cold storage rooms - so much for summer clothing!

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