CITIZENS

020 7738 2348
Feature
October 2015
Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today 13
online: www.KCWToday.co.uk
Left:
Divorce
papers of Jane
Campbell and
Edward Addison
1801.
Right:
The Victoria
Tower that
houses the
Parliamentary
Archive
Photographs © Parliamentary Archives
Parliamentary
Archives
By Max Feldman
In the era of Wikipedia it is easy to
feel complacent about information.
Any fact or statistic is just a lethargic
Google away, but rather than utilising
this hitherto unimaginable access to
knowledge to better ourselves the mind
can feel drowned by the sheer amount
of information out there. The instant
availability of information is actually
supposed to be having a negative effect
on short term memory as we never have
to strain ourselves. Articles are often
skim-read as the sickly glow of a laptop
screen often saps the will to read (and
indeed to live). However during a recent
visit to the Parliamentary Archives in
the Houses of Parliament’s Victoria
Tower, I found my 21st century anxieties
of information overload unexpectedly
overwhelmed.
The history of our parliamentary
democracy is a long and winding one
whose tendrils curl through huge
swathes of global events, both major
and minor. It is a history written in ink
rather than blood and it’s hard not to
feel the immense weight of that history
whilst standing amidst the hundreds
of tightly bound documents which
make up the matrix of laws and acts of
parliaments that have bound the country
together since 1497. From certificates of
naturalisation to the warrant for Charles
I’s sudden reduction in height, there are
thousands of stories contained within
the Parliamentary Archives. Rather
than feeling that familiar pressure of
drowning in data, the physical presence
of documents both ancient and modern
engenders a grounded sense of wonder
and curiosity.
The acts themselves range in size
from small dagger-like rolls to slabs that
more resembles the rings of an oak tree
than a roll of parchment. The largest
of the Acts held in the archives (an
1821 act concerned with the raising of
taxes) unfurls to a monstrous 348m (a
full quarter of a mile) which reportedly
would take two men an entire day to
rewind. The reason for its unwieldy size
is because it contains the full name of
every single one of the approximately
65,000 commissioners appointed to
collect the tax. This ties into another
aspect of the Parliamentary Archives’
work, in that rather than simply serve
as a repository of information, they
also work alongside other archives in
order to trace the personal histories
of the individuals mentioned in their
documents. This ‘living history’ serves to
keep the archives materials from feeling
impersonal and distant by keeping the
focus on the personal as much as the
historical.
Alongside the more dramatic
parliamentary documents stored in the
repository of the archives, there are also
many more ostensibly prosaic articles
such as naturalisations (which until 1844
could only be accomplished via an act
of parliament) which the Archives work
through seeing what records of these
individuals lives they can trace and follow
in the years after their naturalisation.
This attention to details causes these
documents, which would otherwise
potentially fall by the wayside compared
to more obvious fascinations like the
official act abolishing slavery, to maintain
their own individual mystique and adds
to the matrix of stories that the archives
contain and explores.
The tradition of storing all bills
and acts of Parliament at Westminster
itself began in 1497, a period where acts
were written on sewn together goatskin
membranes. Regrettably London’s
turbulent history has led to dramatic
and unforeseen consequences such as
the Great Fire of 1834 which destroyed
most of the records for the House of
Commons alongside the majority of the
Palace of Westminster. After this disaster,
the Government of the day made
stipulations that the newly reconstructed
Palace of Westminster (the iconic and
seemingly eternal neo-gothic design of
the modern Houses of Parliament by Sir
Charles Barry was actually chosen via a
competition) should contain “Fireproof
repositories for papers and documents”
in an attempt to try and prevent so much
keenly important information from ever
being lost again. Initially Barry, who died
the same month as Victoria Tower was
completed, was convinced that it would
be this edifice rather than the Big Ben
housing Parliament’s clock tower that
would be his legacy and had Victoria
Tower’s elevation engraved on the bronze
of his tomb.
Far from being the jealous
guardians of history (like the ones I
was seemingly destined to eternally
encounter in my academic years)
Westminster’s archivists’ raison d’être
seems to be ensuring that the wealth of
documents that they possess are available
to any and all concerned. In addition
to hosting exhibitions of materials
exclusively from the Victoria Tower, they
also obtain complementary documents
from other archives and collections,
recently assembling the four surviving
engrossments of the Magna Carta as a
celebration of the 800th anniversary of
the primogenitor of democracy’s sealing.
The Archives semi-regularly hold
exhibitions and it’s always worth keeping
one’s eyes open for what’s planned.
For those who are keen to dip into the
archives resources, appointments can be
made to visit reading rooms.
When one thinks of the building
of a nation it tends to be in bold,
Hollywood terms. All blood and
conspiracy peppered with acts of
heroism and despotism. The silent
weight of history that the Parliamentary
Archives in the Victoria Tower contains
offers a far broader scope than the
Hollywood story.
In both the broad strokes of era
defining acts like the Civil War or the
execution of Mary Queen of Scots and
the smaller personal stories of individuals
who both profited and protested the acts
of parliament throughout the centuries,
the archive contains a history of a nation
that is not dead and buried, but alive
and pulsing with life. Preserved both for
posterity and the present, the archives
sheer scope paradoxically provides an
antidote for information overload.
For more information, please visit
www.parliament.uk/archives.