Welcome to our new Archivist!

Meet James Neill, who has just joined Special Collections as Project Archivist.

James will be with us for 18 months, working on the Wellcome-funded ‘Putting Flesh on the Bones Project’, a collaboration between Special Collections and Archaeological Sciences.  Working closely with the rest of the project team, James will be cataloguing, digitising, preserving, and promoting the rich and unique archive of pioneering palaeopathologist Dr Calvin Wells.  He will be based in Richmond Building but will also be seen around Special Collections.

James received his archive qualification from the University of Glasgow in 2013.  Since then he has worked for all kinds of arts, heritage and academic organisations,  including the Mercers’ Company, London Metropolitan Archives and the University of Arts London, and on collections ranging from the Estate Papers of Sir Richard Whittington to the counter-cultural comic books of Robert Crumb.  This wide experience will be very helpful in navigating the complications of the Wells material!  Find out more about him on his staff webpage.

Back to “A Land”: Jacquetta Hawkes display and book

Jacquetta Hawkes by a waterfall, Carrantuohill, Co. Kerry, ca. 1951, photo by Nicolas Hawkes (HAW18/5/4)

One of the most significant, exciting and beautiful archives in Special Collections is that of archaeologist and writer Jacquetta Hawkes.  There is now a revival of interest in her great contribution to raising public awareness of Britain’s deep past during the 1950s.  Her masterpiece, A Land, which unforgettably fuses archaeology, geology, poetry  and personal experience, has been reissued by Harper Collins.   This book is explored and revisited, using manuscripts and photographs from the Archive, by Dr Christine Finn in a new exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park this autumn.  Find out more about Jacquetta, the Archive, the book and the exhibition on our Celebrating Jacquetta Hawkes website.