HIDDEN TREAURES OF cAMBRIDGE dIGITAL lIBRARY

Since its launch in 2011, Cambridge Digital Library (CDL) has had more than 20 million page views from over 2.2million users accessing its collections from every country on the globe.

As “a home for the discovery of digitised material", the Digital Library brings together research and archives from the University of Cambridge and beyond, offering free access to rare and unique collections for researchers and the public.

With more than half a million images of almost 40,000 items, there are many unexpected discoveries to be made and the chance to learn more about the world around us.

Here, we look at some of the lesser known collections in the Digital Library and their significance and importance.

Cambridge University Library (UL) is home to extensive archives from the Royal Greenwich Observatory consisting of all the surviving historical paper records from 1675 until circa 1980.

In 2014, through a joint project between the UL, the National Maritime Museum and the AHRC-funded Board of Longitude Project, some of the paper archives were digitised and made available to the public.

The RGO collection is home to the complete surviving papers of the Board of Longitude which ran from 1714-1828. Made up of 22 commissioners, including parliamentarians, administrators, scholars and naval officers, the Board was tasked with judging proposals for determining longitude at sea and to fund experiments to find viable solutions.

The collection includes copies of the Board’s minutes, extensive correspondence with petitioners, some financial accounts, as well as a number of individual accounts such as the papers of Nevil Maskelyne, Astronomer Royal from 1765.

The AHRC grant paved the way for further digitisation projects of the Royal Greenwich Observatory archive.

The RGO archives is also home to a collection of 35 drawings and watercolours created by the women who worked at the Royal Observatory and called it their home. Digitised in 2018 as part of a competition for UL staff, these artworks not only provide a record of the history of the observatory, they also provide a window in to the female experience of living and working at the observatory.  

In 1830, George Airy, who would later become Astronomer Royal, married Richarda Smith, and in 1836, the family moved in to Flamsteed House at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. Richarda took an active interest in her husband’s work, and as a talented amateur artist, Richarda would provide sketches of George’s lectures.

There are some 1.3 million maps in the Map Department at the UL, as well as more than 40,000 atlases and books on cartography. For centuries, maps have provided us with the tools for navigation and allow us to follow in the footsteps of those who lived before us.

The maps and atlases in the collection cover the whole world in a variety of scales, from world maps showing ocean currents to hand drawn maps of the Cambridge backs. The collection dates from the 15^th century up to the present day with many being regarded as works of art in their own right.

The collection also includes an almost complete illustrated copy of the Shahnamah (Book of Kings), an epic poem written by the Persian poet Firdawsī between 977 and 1010 CE, thought to be the longest poem written by a single person and considered a literary masterpiece.

The poem, with Iran as its focus, narrates the history of humanity, starting at the creation of the world and continuing until the Arab conquest of Iran in the 7^th century.

May 2020 marked 75 years since VE Day and the end of the Second World War in Europe. It is sometimes forgotten that troops continued to fight around the world, including Asia, where the surrender of the Japanese did not happen until September 1945.

While war raged in Europe, in the Far East, British civil servants remained in their posts and civilians continued to run their businesses to support the war effort. The attempted evacuation of women and children from Malaya (now Malaysia) in December 1941 was thwarted by the speed of the Japanese invasion, and many civilians fled to Singapore. Weeks of shelling followed and three days after the surrender of Singapore, on 17 February 1942, all remaining British civilians of European descent were required to report for internment at camps in Singapore, initially at Changi and later at Sime Road . Some 2,500 civilians were confined.

Some internees took to using their artistic talents to record their experiences. Mary Angela Bateman was an art teacher, who was interned in Changi, and was interned in Changi, drew this sketch of men at work in the camp sometime between 1942-1945.

The completeness of this collection is, in part, due to the efforts of Hugh Bryson who, as Secretary of the British Association of Malaysia and Singapore, collected the original documents from its members and reached out to encourage them to write about their memories and their lives  whilst interned in the camps.   

The collection was digitised with thanks to the Wellcome Trust and the complete collection can be explored here.