The 2023 Summer Research Scholarship Programme provided an opportunity for three second-year students to gain research skills and abilities to enhance their own research dissertation heading into their final year. The first project entitled, ‘Un/dis covering the Andrew Walls Archive: Documenting the decolonisation process in Missions’, was for two students working closely with the archive of Prof. Andrew F. Walls. Each student focused on a separate category of the archive; namely, Correspondence and the Unpublished writings and notes of Andrew F. Walls, aiming to organise the material into sub-categories, already identified, and sort alphabetically or chronologically.
The Andrew F. Walls Archive is an invaluable resource for the era of the decolonisation of missions’ ca. 1950 -1980, a process marked by the appearance of new structures for study, research and teaching in various parts of the world. The collection comprises lecture courses, lecture scripts and notes, reports, sermons, files of notes and abstracts, manuscripts of various sorts, pamphlets and ephemera relating to events and institutions around the world, and a large quantity of correspondence of the pre-digital era, gathered in the course of six decades or more, and reflecting events or processes in six continents.
The third student, worked closely with PhD scholar Oliver Mumford, and the archives of two of Hope’s founding colleges’; Sisters of Notre Dame Mount Pleasant Training College, and S. Katharine’s College, on the research project, ‘Mapping the Empire’, investigating Liverpool Hope’s imperial past. All three students also assisted in setting up and facilitating the 2023 Andrew F. Walls Centre Conference. Here they are to tell us in their own words of their personal experiences in working with archives.
Annie
My name is Annie Hawley, I’m 24 years old and just finished my second year of my History degree. When I received the email, explaining that I was successful in obtaining the summer research scholarship working in the Andrew F. Walls Centre in the Archives and Special collections, I was very excited. As a history student, I love any opportunity to get my hands on documents written years before I was born, it’s a tangible piece of history that I get to experience.
This summer, I have been sorting and cataloguing the correspondence of Prof. Andrew F. Walls, founder of the research Centre for the Study of African & Asian Christianity. It has been a mammoth task, I mean the man kept everything from leaflets to email conversations to receipts for books. From the personal correspondence from friends and the students he taught all over the globe, it is quite clear that Andrew was well known and regarded by all that knew him. When sorting through his correspondence, I got a sense of Andrew’s personality. He comes across as a personable; humble and friendly man with a good sense of humour.
thank-you card, dated 1985-86.
My favourite correspondence that I came across was a letter to a publisher on a piece of text that Andrew was to submit to them. Andrew’s response was as follows (paraphrased);
“I am sorry for the delay in getting this to you. Students may or not find it helpful anyway, nevertheless here is the text as promised.”
From what I can remember, this letter was late-on in Andrew’s career so he was well established, but the fact he downplays his own contribution, speaks of a modest demeanour.
When I first approached the task, I couldn’t get over how much correspondence there was and it wasn’t in any particular order other than grouped by the years on the letters themselves, so I knew this would be a long process. What was decided upon, was to chronologically order the piles of correspondence by month and year, where possible, and place them in the categories of ‘professional’, relating to Andrew’s career and the various roles he held. And ‘personal’, relating to correspondence from his family and friends throughout his life. I’ve had to scan through the correspondence and decide where it should be categorised. In doing so, I have found out that Andrew held multiple roles, such as when he was a councillor, and was an extremely hardworking man, displaying dedication and quality to whatever work he was engaged in.
I have really enjoyed sorting through Andrew’s correspondence because I have gained experience on working in archives. To be able to hold and sort through documents has been really exciting. They have been kept in remarkable condition and to read what was happening at the time, brought Andrew’s career to life.
by Annie Hawley
Rachel
My name is Rachel Humphries and I am single honours history student. This summer I had the wonderful opportunity to apply for a research scholarship delving into the works of Professor Andrew F. Walls. As a history student this was a dream project to work on. The project was to sort through the hand-written and printed works of Professor Walls. As someone who hopes to work within archives and collections this was a special project with an opportunity to handle tangible pieces of a person’s personal heritage.
This was no ordinary or small task. Professor Walls was a man of many thoughts, opinions and outlooks. All of these were confined to numerous boxes of his handwritten notes on various subjects with theology. This was a huge undertaking as Professor Walls wrote on anything from the back of personal correspondence to official notebooks. At times there was no rhyme nor reason to the order of these thoughts.
It was very daunting at first, when confronted with the sheer amount of work I had to go through. I am a medical secretary by trade so my first thought was to look at the categories that I had been given and approach each piece of work with this in mind. A methodical approach was the only way to power through!
Once I started to work through the pieces of work, I realised there was no particular pattern. Some works were not even connected however it could not be denied that this was a man whose mind was constantly working. An image of him came to mind, of someone who would, whilst going about his day, have a thought on a particular subject and have the need to record it immediately.
As I delved deeper into the work, I was surprised at the range of topics that he was able to relate back to theology. My favourite was finding pieces written about Jane Austen. As my favourite author it was exciting to see her work analysed in a way I had not even imagined. Linking the church and its impact on Jane’s work given the parallels of her personal life with her father being a clergyman.
This project has been an absolute joy to work on. It gave me a small sense of what a profound thinker Professor Walls was. His dedication to the subject is unmatched. Also, the space in which we worked was amazing thanks to Karen, who made us feel so welcome and was on hand to help with anything we needed. It is of some small sense of pride to have had a hand, albeit a small one, in recording the works of what seems to be the hardworking, well respected deep thinker that is Professor Andrew Walls.
by Rachel Humphries
Jasmine
My name is Jasmine Williams, I’m a 20-year-old second-year History student at Liverpool Hope University, and I have recently had the pleasure of working alongside PhD scholar Oliver Mumford, Dr Jody Crutchley, and Karen Backhouse, Special Collections Librarian, during a 3-month long internship programme from June to September 2023. The research project, Mapping the Empire, involved investigating Liverpool Hope’s imperial past. I dedicated a total of 100 hours to the project, and I gained valuable skills and experiences along the way. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to handle fragile texts within the archives that date back as far as 1895, and I was able to have an insight into how primary source research is conducted within the archives.
I started my internship by partaking in the Andrew F. Walls Conference on the 24th and 25th June 2023, where I helped to ensure that it ran smoothly by assisting the attendees and helping with the Zoom broadcasts.
Following the conference, I conducted my research in the archives from the 14th July until the 11th August, where I looked at the locations of overseas graduates from Liverpool Hope’s founding colleges, S. Katharine’s and Sisters of Notre Dame, to assess their engagement with the transnational teachers movement within the Empire.
Ultimately, I found that from the years 1906-1957, S. Katharine’s engagement with Empire was extremely limited. Some students were indeed sent abroad to locations such as the Bahamas and Canada. However, most students went on to teach locally after graduation. Moreover, many of those who went abroad did so much later, as many as 20 years after their graduation, as they were often pursuing degrees in their country of choice.
Sisters of Notre Dame, on the other hand, seemed to have a much more direct engagement with Empire than its sister college. From 1895 to 1910, 132 out of 730 students went on to teach abroad. Most went to teach in Ireland, however, some went much further afield to places such as Madras in India and Kenya.
Although the research project focused on Liverpool Hope’s engagement with Empire, there were some other aspects that I took a personal interest in. Some of the registers would record the locations of their students, and other interesting aspects of their lives for several years after they graduated.
For example, some of the graduates went on to become nurses during the First and Second World War and sadly one graduate was admitted to an asylum a few years after her first teaching job.
To finish off my project, I have completed a poster to show the locations of all the overseas graduates from both Sisters of Notre Dame and S. Katharine’s, as well as providing some information on the graduates including when they were stationed abroad, the grades they achieved, and
other information found from letters from the former students to the college.
Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in the internship programme over the summer. I gained some valuable experience and skills that will help me with my dissertation, and future career opportunities. Moreover, I enjoyed getting to know and working alongside people at the university who I otherwise would not have had the pleasure of working with.
by Jasmine Williams
Realms of Gold 