The Arts Society Heritage Volunteers help to conserve our heritage both in Britain and in parts of Europe. Conservation and preservation of our heritage are tremendous burdens on the limited resources of museums, National Trust properties, historic houses, libraries and gardens. Volunteers help them in non-specialist but vital ways by caring for collections, recording documents, guiding and stewarding.
Heritage Volunteers help to keep them accessible for all. If you are interested in volunteering please contact a member of the committee or send an email.
VOLUNTEER FROM HOME PROJECT for THE ROYAL PHILATELIC SOCIETY of LONDON
THIS SUCCESSFUL PROJECT HAS NOW ENDED.
BACKGROUND
The Royal Philatelic Society of London (RPSL) has an ongoing project to make archived material available online for research purposes, and has asked for help from The Arts Society’s Heritage Volunteers. The RPSL houses a vast archive, included in which are the records of the Perkins Bacon Company (PB) which was established in the 1820s as a Security printer. The RPSL purchased PB’s records in the 1930s, when the firm collapsed. PB are best known for printing the famous Penny Black, but postage stamps were only about 5% of their business. Their primary business was with UK regional banks printing bank notes, cheques, etc, but they also produced company and personal letter heads, business cards and many other items.
PROJECT
This project deals with PB’s Engraving Books, or ledgers, of which there are 17, each containing 150-200 pages. These ledgers have been scanned, and the RSPL needs volunteers to read through these scanned pages, picking out and listing key words and phrases. Once the project is completed, researchers will be able to look through these documents online to find the pages relevant to their studies.
CONTACT
Jane Howlett, South Devon Society is the contact for volunteers, and will provide any guidance required. Her email address is lisajane800@gmail.com
FURTHER INFORMATION
The ledgers have been split into batches of ten pages. Volunteers will be sent one batch at a time as a Microsoft Word document, similar to (but much larger than) that shown below. Each page of the document will have an image of a ledger page on the left hand side, and space for you to type in the keywords and phrases on the right hand side. A full transcription is not needed, simply the important phrases that a researcher might put into an online search engine. Guidance notes will be provided to help you determine which these keywords would be.
Page 18
28 Apr 1840 to 13 May 1840
Derwent Bank
Fourth Plate Queens head
Revd Matheson
Grote & Company
Barnsley Bank
The completed document should be returned to Jane, and the results will be checked by someone at the RPSL. Volunteers can work on as many or as few batches as they choose.
A sample of the end-result of the project can be viewed here:
https://rpsl.org.uk/rpsl/PerkinsBacon/EngravingBook_PB136023/PBEngravingBookPB136023.html
The results will be made available on the web for everyone to view, including family tree researchers and numismatists, as well as philatelists.
VJ/20201230