̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Polonsky Foundation

‘A sunlit picture of hell’: Sassoon’s war diaries go online for first time

jfp40 — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 08:35:56 +0000

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library is home to the world’s foremost collection of Sassoon material, and has digitised 23 of Sassoon’s journals and two of his wartime poetry notebooks. They are now available to all at the Cambridge Digital Library (https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/), where they sit alongside the papers of Isaac Newton and other priceless treasures of the Library’s collections.

Until now, much of the archive has remained beyond the reach of both researchers and the public because of the documents’ poor physical condition. ̽��ֱ��only person to have had unrestricted access to Sassoon’s journals and notebooks to date was official biographer Max Egremont.

̽��ֱ��digitisation of the Sassoon material, which includes draft copies of his ‘Soldier’s Declaration’ as well as poetry, prose and sketches, fulfils an objective formulated during the Library’s £1.25m fundraising campaign to purchase the Sassoon Archive in 2009. ̽��ֱ��campaign, spearheaded by Egremont, was also supported by Sir Andrew Motion, Michael Morpurgo and Sebastian Faulks.

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Librarian Anne Jarvis said: “ ̽��ֱ��war diaries Sassoon kept on the Western Front and in Palestine are of the greatest significance, both nationally and internationally, and we are honoured to be able to make them available to everyone, anywhere in the world, on the 100^th anniversary of the First World War.

“From his ‘Soldier’s Declaration’ to his eyewitness accounts of the first day of the battle on the Somme, the Sassoon archive is a collection of towering importance, not just to historians, but to anyone seeking to understand the horror, bravery and futility of the First World War as experienced by those on the front lines and in the trenches.”

̽��ֱ��digitisations make available online for the first time 23 of Sassoon’s journals from the years 1915-27 and 1931-32, as well as two poetry notebooks from 1916-18 containing rough drafts and fair copies of some of his best-known war poems. Sassoon wrote in a small and legible hand, frequently using his notebooks from both ends. ̽��ֱ��images of them are both powerful and evocative, showing mud from the trenches and spilled wax, presumably as he sat writing in his dug-out by candlelight.

̽��ֱ��journals give a fascinating insight into daily life in the trenches. Sassoon described the first day of the Somme as a ‘sunlit picture of hell’ and the diaries also record the moment he was shot by a sniper at the Battle of Arras, as well as a psychological profile of ‘the soul of an officer’. ̽��ֱ��poems include previously unpublished material along with early drafts of some of his best-known works including an early version of ‘ ̽��ֱ��Dug-Out’ with an additional, excised verse.

Sassoon’s journals represent much more than a simple diary record. ̽��ֱ��notebooks were small enough to be carried in the pocket of his army tunic, and he used them to draft poetry, make pencil or ink sketches, list members of his battalion and their fates, make notes on military briefings, and draw diagrams of the trenches.

“ ̽��ֱ��great array of activities, difficulties and dangers that faced him as a serving officer, and the recurring inspiration of his creative responses to his conditions, are represented in the range of uses to which he put these notebooks,” said Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library’s John Wells. “Unlike edited, printed transcriptions, the digitisations allow the viewer to form a sense of the physical documents, and to appreciate their unique nature as historical artefacts.”

̽��ֱ��Sassoon collection joins other collections being delivered through the Cambridge Digital Library, which aims to make the Library’s great collections openly available to the world. ̽��ֱ��Digital Library was launched in 2011 and made possible through a generous donation from the Polonsky Foundation.

Siegfried Sassoon’s First World War diaries – some bearing traces of mud from the Somme – are among 4,100 pages from his personal archive being made freely available online from today, almost 100 years since Britain declared war on Germany.

From his ‘Soldier’s Declaration’ to his eyewitness accounts of the first day of the battle on the Somme, the Sassoon archive is a collection of towering importance.

Anne Jarvis

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Digital Library

̽��ֱ��Soul of an Officer, a sketch from one of Siegfried Sassoon’s journals. 1916

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̽��ֱ��longitude problem: 300-year-old archive opened to the world

sjr81 — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 09:12:37 +0000

Now, for the first time, the full story of attempts to solve the longitude problem - unravelling the lone genius myth popularised in film and literature - will be made freely available to everyone via Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library’s Digital Library.

Launched today, the complete archive of the Board of Longitude, held by Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library, and associated National Maritime Museum collections, will take their place alongside the works of Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton at cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk.

Treasures of the Longitude archive, available to view in high-resolution for the first time, include accounts of bitter rivalries, wild proposals and first encounters between Europeans and Pacific peoples. This includes logbooks of Captain Cook’s voyages of discovery, the naming of Australia and even a letter from Captain Bligh of HMS Bounty, who writes to apologise for the loss of a timekeeper after his ship was ‘pirated from my command’.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� Library’s Digital Library project was launched in June 2010 following a £1.5m gift from the Polonsky Foundation. ̽��ֱ�� Librarian Anne Jarvis said: “With the digitisation of this incredible collection, we have taken another important step towards realising our shared ambition of creating a digital library for the world.”

̽��ֱ��Board of Longitude collection is the largest project undertaken to date by the Cambridge Digital Library team, comprising more than 65,000 images. Funded by Jisc (http://www.jisc.ac.uk), a charity which provides digital services for UK education and research, the collection has been developed in partnership with a wider five-year research project by Cambridge’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science and Greenwich’s National Maritime Museum.

In July 1714 an act of parliament established a £20,000 prize, worth about £1.5 million today, for the discovery of longitude at sea: determining a ship’s position east and west from a fixed meridian line.

Cambridge historian Professor Simon Schaffer said: “ ̽��ֱ��problem of longitude could be a lethal one. ̽��ֱ��act of parliament established the Board of Longitude – think the X Factor, only much more money and much more important – that would reward anyone who could solve the problem of longitude.

“ ̽��ֱ��longitude story is a spectacular example of expert disagreement and public participation. As well as attracting the greatest scientific minds of the day, the board enticed people who belong to one of the most important traditions in British society; the extreme eccentric.”

̽��ֱ��hugely significant archive preserves detailed minutes from the first recorded meeting in 1737 right through to the Board of Longitude’s dissolution in 1828.

Royal Museums Greenwich’s Dr Richard Dunn, who is currently curating a major exhibition inspired by longitude, said the archive proves that John Harrison, while a towering figure in the story, is not the start and end point for all things longitude.

" ̽��ֱ��archive places the familiar story of Harrison in its richer context. He was a crucial figure but the story is much broader. It takes in the development of astronomy, exploration and technological innovation and creativity during the period of the Industrial Revolution, the work of the first government body devoted to scientific matters, and public reactions to a challenge many considered hopeless.”

As the schemes for longitude needed to be tested on long voyages, the archive includes much detail on Britain’s maritime interests, explorations and encounters with other cultures. It also played a major role in plans for voyages by James Cook and successors into the Pacific in the 1770s - and into the Arctic in the opening decades of the 19th century. ̽��ֱ��archive includes four eyewitness accounts of Cook’s Second Voyage and contains the first Western maps and descriptions of many Pacific places and peoples.

̽��ֱ��Board’s work continued long after longitude was effectively solved and its many interests and long duration makes the archive a hugely important primary source on the development of science and technology in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It also provides valuable insight into the social history of the era with thousands of names featuring in its files; from Isaac Newton, to eccentric inventors who berated the Board for not following up on their ideas.

Indeed, the archive contains two volumes of ‘impractical’ schemes submitted in the hope of finding a reward. They were later bound and prefaced with title pages such as ‘wild proposals resulting from dreams’. They came via a diverse cross-section of society, from prisoners seeking release in return for their ‘solutions’ to citizens like Mr William Lester, who proposed solar experiments to find longitude that involved igniting points on a globe with a lens. ̽��ֱ��board underlined his statement that if the globe is correct and properly adjusted ‘you will set fire to London’.

Flickr Gallery of images from the Cambridge and Greenwich archives can be seen here

Inset image: Sextant, made by Jesse Ramsden. Copyright National Maritime Museum

It was the conundrum that baffled some of the greatest and most eccentric experts of the 18th century - and captivated the British public during an era of unprecedented scientific and technical transformation.

̽��ֱ��problem of longitude could be a lethal one.

Simon Schaffer

Introduction to the Board of Longitude

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