{"id":1594,"date":"2026-06-22T11:10:53","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T11:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/memsnews\/?p=1594"},"modified":"2026-06-30T11:13:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T11:13:34","slug":"a-glimpse-into-the-archive-my-placement-at-lambeth-palace-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/memsnews\/2026\/06\/22\/a-glimpse-into-the-archive-my-placement-at-lambeth-palace-library\/","title":{"rendered":"A Glimpse into the Archive: My Placement at Lambeth Palace Library"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Written by MEMS PhD student, Eleanor Hex<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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For me nothing in this world beats a day in the archive. The smell of old books, the sensation of gently turning edges of century old paper with your fingertips. Sitting in a silent room surrounded by other researchers who are also busily working away on their own manuscripts. A sense of quiet, companiable camaraderie spreading across the room. My favourite archive without a doubt is Lambeth Palace Library (LPL). Home to the national archive of the Church of England and nestled down the bottom of the Archbishop of Canterbury\u2019s private garden at Lambeth Palace, LPL is an oasis of calm in the middle of the hustle and bustle of central London. With the friendliest, most helpful team of archivists and librarians you could hope to come across, it truly is the most fantastic place for a day of study!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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My research for my thesis centres around the Bishop of London\u2019s role as \u2018the Bishop of the Colonies\u2019 and focuses in on Virginia in the 17th<\/sup>\u00a0and 18th<\/sup> centuries to look at how this impacted clergy, parishioners and minority groups in the colony. Lambeth has been my main research hub being home to the Fulham Papers, a collection of over forty volumes worth of documents covering Anglican affairs across the British colonies in the Americas and the West Indies. Of these forty plus volumes four focus on Virginia and have been the main archival base for my research, but I am always curious to explore further. To know what was happening in the other colonies and to begin to map together a wider understanding of how the church was operating from place to place. I have been truly blessed throughout the last three years of research to meet wonderful scholars, archivists, and curators who are also passionate about uncovering a clearer image of what this wider picture looked like. Through my work with my CHASE funded Collaborative Doctoral Award partnership with Fulham Palace Trust – the historic home of the Bishop of London – I was able to connect with the team at LPL to discuss what work could be done with them for a CHASE funded placement. They were super easy to approach, and we had a good discussion about how I could fit into the work being undertaken at the library, and assist with this whilst also developing new skills of my own.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In recent years the wider Church Commission have been doing their own work into the legacies of the CofE and slavery. As part of Project Spire, the churches investment of \u00a3100 million of reparations for its involvement in Transatlantic Chattel Slavery, two full time archivists and project coordinators were appointed to LPL to conduct further research into mentions of race and enslavement within the archive held there. It was my honour to spend three months this spring working alongside Dr Annabelle Gilmore and Kwesi Ochosi on one aspect of this truly important and timely project.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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My specific focus was on the legacies of the Codrington Plantation, a case where we can confirm with certainty that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), the missionary arm of Church of England was involved in the trade and forced labour of enslaved people. My main task while working at the library was to read through files held there relating to the Codrington plantations and rewrite the descriptions to make them more accessible to library users. These were last catalogued in the 1960\u2019s when there was not the same emphasis on slavery and race as a subject of research, meaning examples of this were often missed by the cataloguer. Of the ninety-five Codrington sources held at LPL fifty-five contain mentions of enslaved people, however, until now all this information was thought to be administrative and impersonal. It is not uncommon for the enslaved to go unnamed and dehumanised by archival practices, however, through this work I was able to discover one singular case where an enslaved person was mentioned by name: Andrew. Andrew was the enslaved servant of Commissary Garden of South Carolina, and he was subsequently sent to Barbados to work upon the Codrington Plantation. Now that Andrew has been uncovered further work and cross-referencing is going to be done by Dr. Gilmore to trace Andrew across the wider archives. It is a possibility he may appear in SPG records held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, as well as other written records about the society \u2013 but this is something that will need thoroughly cross-referenced. Andrew highlights the importance of the archival work being undertaken by Project Spire at LPL revealing people and histories that have previously been forgotten and bringing them into the light.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One of the key outputs of the Project Spire work has been making the information found in the archives accessible to the public and encouraging people from all backgrounds to engage with these histories. Whilst I was on placement, I had the privilege of being asked to speak about the work I was doing at their Routes in the Records series. These talks took place over three events one in person at the library, one Zoom session for the public, and a further online session for those who work for the National Church Institution (the administrative side of the Church of England). Across these events we had a wide range attendees, including clergy members from across London, academics, members of the UN, barristers, interested members of the public and even the High Commissioner of Barbados!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Although I left LPL at the end of April my time working on Codrington related projects is not yet over, and I begin a new placement next month with the United Society for the Partnership in the Gospel (the modern iteration of the SPG) looking at their records on the Codrington estate. This work will once again focus on making sources more accessible to the wider public, working with their records that are held in the Bodleian and being part of efforts to digitise and transcribe these using AI.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It can be all too easy to lose sight of the impact one\u2019s work can have when working on the PhD. I often get myself tangled in knots and patterns of overthinking, but the time on placement allowed me to remember that I am part of something bigger. That there are other researchers, archivists, and members of the public who deeply care about the wider narrative. My advice to anyone during this PhD process is to keep reaching out to others in your field, whether that be on LinkedIn, at a conference or even in your favourite archive! You never know what incredible opportunities lie around the corner.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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We are always looking for members of our community who would like to write blogposts for MEMS Lib<\/a>. If you have been to an interesting conference or talk, found an incredible source or want to share information about an upcoming event and would like to write a blog post of this email us at mems.lib.ukc@gmail.com<\/u><\/a>, and pitch us your idea! <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by MEMS PhD student, Eleanor Hex For me nothing in this world beats a day in the archive. The smell of old books, the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82691,"featured_media":1595,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[124],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/memsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1594"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/memsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/memsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/memsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82691"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/memsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1594"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/memsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1597,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/memsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1594\/revisions\/1597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/memsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/memsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/memsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/memsnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}