Growing an archive: Reflections on working together on the history of the Scottish allotment movement

Abstract

In November 2000 the Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society (SAGS) deposited a collection of their records with the University of Glasgow Archives and Special Collections (ASC). Rather than simply leaving the documents, SAGS worked further with the archives, recognizing the importance of using the past further to present campaigns and protect allotments in the future. This led to an Arts and Humanities Research Council Collaborative Doctoral Award, further post-doctoral research funded by the Wellcome Trust and a Wellcome Trust Research Resources grant to catalogue the collection. The following three articles are reflections on working with this collection; from Judy Wilkinson, a member of SAGS, Sam Maddra, an archivist and Hannah Connelly, a researcher. Allotments are gardens detached from houses and leased to individuals to grow vegetables, fruit and flowers (Figures 1 and 2). Often a local authority owns the land that they are on but private allotments also exist, set up by individuals or various organizations. Allotments are also known as plots and the people who garden them as plotholders. The collection deposited by SAGS is named the Papers of Victor Webb, in recognition of the man who preserved the records. Victor Douglas Eustace Webb was born in 1915 and worked as a Civil Servant in Edinburgh. He first had an allotment in the 1940s and became very active in the Scottish allotment movement in the 1950s, when the Edinburgh Corporation closed his site to build a housing development. Webb led a campaign to save his site which, although unsuccessful, led him to become a campaigner and advisor to other plotholders facing site closures. He became heavily involved in SAGS and the Scottish Allotments Scheme for the Unemployed (SASU). This scheme was set up by the Scottish National Union of Allotment Holders (the forerunner of SAGS) and the Society of Friends (also known as the Quakers), of which Webb was also a member, during the Great Depression to provide unemployed people with plots, seeds and tools. The Friends are known for keeping excellent records and saving letters and diaries – a result of opting out of many formal institutions – and the SASU committee was no exception to this (Walvin 1997, 45–6). Webb carefully preserved the scheme’s documents, including those saved before his time by SASU’s first chairman Harold Sharp, as well as saving accounts, annual reports, letters and minutes from SAGS and the Federation of Edinburgh and District Allotment and Gardens Associations, covering from the 1930s until the 1990s. Webb gave his papers to SAGS shortly before he died and soon after SAGS deposited them with ASC. Since then, SAGS have added to the collection by depositing their more recent minute books and publications. Our reflections show how we have engaged with the Papers of Victor Webb. Judy reflects on how SAGS came to have the collection and the process of using it to further the Scottish allotment movement. Sam reflects on her involvement both as a plotholder taking part in a community heritage project and an archivist working with the collection. Hannah reflects on her time using the collection as a researcher whilst working closely with SAGS, as well as the Glasgow Allotments Forum. We hope our experience will encourage other small voluntary groups or communities, archivists and academics to work actively together with collections in archives.