Behind the lens
‘We help inspire the next generation of heritage professionals by offering internships, work experience and volunteering placements.’
The University of Exeter Library’s Heritage Collections team oversees the Special Collections and the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum. We interviewed Interim Head of Heritage Collections, Caroline Walter, to learn about the origins of the Special Collections.
Many dates could be suggested for the establishment of Special Collections at the University. However, looking back to its origins Caroline shares: “The Special Collections department as we know it today may be considered as having come into being with the completion of a dedicated reading room and strong room on the Streatham Campus in 2003 to provide specialist care for the Rare Books and Archives that had been donated to the University.”
The current Reading Rooms are located in the Old Library on our Streatham Campus, and in the Exchange (Level 0) on our Penryn Campus. The Streatham Reading Room is named after Ronald Duncan, a prolific West Country author.
The first recorded archival deposit to the University was the papers of novelist RD Blackmore in 1956 which includes drafts, manuscripts, early editions and other literary fragments. A small, typed catalogue of the manuscript collections produced in 1972 lists 16 archival collections. Five decades later, the University now holds more than 500! Reflecting on the gathering of these materials, Caroline explains that they have been shaped and built up by many guardians over time saying that: “Such material has been acquired throughout the history of the University and by its predecessor organisations, and decades of library staff have cared for these collections.”
Notes from the collector on the inside cover page of the first edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 1897.
The first edition of Dracula with yellow cloth cover.
Dodderidge Library (Parish Library of Barnstaple, Devon) housed in our Special Collections.
Atlas of the Counties of England and Wales by Christopher Saxton, 1590, showing South West England.
The Royal Charter of the University of Exeter, 21 December 1955.
Writing desk owned by Daphne Du Maurier, situated in the Ronald Duncan Reading Room, Streatham Campus.
Our collections are open to everyone (including alumni), not just staff and students at the University. They are also widely used in teaching and seminars for modules in English, Drama, History, Communications, Visual Culture, Modern Languages, Film Studies, Geography, and many other subjects, as well as routinely forming part of research projects, PhDs, and master’s theses and dissertations. The team also has strong links with other regional, national and international institutions, engaging in outreach and collaborative projects which benefit both the University and the wider community.
Caroline shares: “We help inspire the next generation of heritage professionals by offering internships, work experience and volunteering placements, and we entice future University students through school and college visits. In the summer when other University areas fall silent, we remain busy, supporting researchers from other universities who have often travelled internationally to visit our unique collections. Increasingly we are also seeing visits to the collections for creative purposes, or for pure curiosity.”
But within these collections and stacks what can the studious scholar, aspiring archivist or browsing bibliophile hope to find?
Well, the Special Collections is home to items from as early as the 13th Century on media ranging from vellum to digital files. These unique and irreplaceable records span a wide range of topics including literary papers, South West historical and cultural organisations, the Middle East, mining and Cornish politics.
Perhaps one of the most significant early deposits came in 1965 when local Devon writer, Henry Williamson, donated his literary papers to the University. His gift was made expressly in the hope it would encourage other writers to do likewise at a time when many were being offered large sums by U.S. universities for their papers.
This aim was met with success and the collection’s early focus on South West literary papers has continued to be one of our collecting specialisms. Our holdings now include archives from some of the region’s best known 20th century writers, including Ted Hughes, Charles Causley, Agatha Christie, Daphne Du Maurier, and William Golding.
This notoriety has stretched outwards, and the city of Exeter was awarded a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) City of Literature designation in 2019 in recognition of “outstanding contributions to culture and creativity” and the wealth of literary heritage in the city.
Just last year the University was involved in events to mark the 70th anniversary of the publication of ‘Lord of the Flies’, and the legacy of its author: William Golding. The University holds the ‘Lord of the Flies’ manuscript as part of the William Golding Literary Archive in its Special Collections. Written in a school exercise book with the cover torn off, its beginning surprisingly differs significantly from the published version.
So, if like Du Maurier you “like simple things, books, being alone, or with somebody who understands”, taking a visit to our Special Collections is a chapter to add to your story this year.
Visit us
Why not book a visit to reserve a desk in our Reading Room and request materials both from the collections and the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, and discover the treasures for yourself?
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