YEMEN UPDATE
YEMEN
REVIEWS
- Gillian Grant
- Middle Eastern Photographic
Collections in the United Kingdom.
- Middle East Libraries Committee
Research Guides, 1989
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- Reviewed by Barbara
Evans
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- [Yemen Update
43(2001)]
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- "Almost thirty years ago, my late
colleague Elizabeth Munroe and I, thinking that Britain's
moment in the Middle East was coming to an end, started a
collection of unpublished papers which would illustrate
it."
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- Gillian Grant and her colleague then
invited diplomats, officials, businessmen, missionaries, teachers,
former residents or families to send them any documents which had
been kept. The results were astonishing; a vast mass of letters,
diaries, and other papers was revealed. They are now deposited in
the Middle East Centre at St Anthony's College in
Oxford.
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- With them are many old photos, some of
which are from quite early in the nineteenth century. As
archivist-in-charge, Gillian Grant had the idea of making a survey
of similar collections countrywide, and again the results were
surprising. Several million photos exist in British collections,
and give an idea of the depth and variety of the Britsh experience
in the Middle East.
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- Collections are listed by the names of
towns where they are held. Some are in the National Libraries of
Scotland, Wales and Ireland and other copyright libraries of the
United Kindom. Others are in county record offices, some in
universities within several different collections, but many are
held otherwise, for instance in regimental or navy museums
throughout Britain, Bank of England, British Bank of the Middle
East, Customs and Excise, the Companies Register Office, the
British and Foreign Bible Society, the Leprosy Mission, the India
Office, Lambeth Palace Library, private collections (such as the
Rodney Searight Collection) and so on. David Kennedy of Sheffield
University gave advice on aerial photographic archives; indeed
Hunting Surveys and RAF material are held in Sheffield
itself.
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- As far as the Yemen is concerned,
although Aden and the Hadhramaut are very often listed, there are
fewer references to Yemen itself. However, as an example, a few
of the collections in London alone which do make mention are held
by:-
- • The Architectural Association
Slide Library (vernacular architecture)
- • Foreign and Commonwealth
Office, Yemen 1911, Robert Deutsch collection
- • Royal Geographic Society,
Yemen in the 1890s, and others
- • Royal Air Force
Museum.
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- The book is a guide, not large but
packed and well worth consulting, when pursuing research on
Yemen,
