RCPI catalogue nearing completion
At the moment I am engaged in one of my least favourite tasks as an archivist - labelling a completed collection. Especially as the College’s archive collection fills over a hundred boxes. I’ve been cataloguing the papers since September last year, and now I am on the final stages of the process, checking that all the material is in the correct folders, which are in the correct boxes. Then labelling the folders and boxes with the reference numbers for each item, and storing them in the correct order in the archive store room. I also have to check the over 1,500 catalogue descriptions for any mistakes. Although a tedious task to carry out, this is a very important part of the cataloguing process. It should mean that the archivist will be able to quickly retrieve any records a reader wants to consult. It also means that in the next couple of weeks the catalogue of the RCPI archive will be made available to readers through the online catalogue and as PDF files to download from the archive web page. Because the collection is so large I’ve split the printed list into five parts;
PART I – Governing Statutes, Administrative and Financial Papers.
PART II – Sir Patrick Dun’s Trust Estate
PART III – Membership of the College, the Association of Member, Faculties and Institutes
PART IV – The Heritage Centre and No. 6 Kildare Street
PART V – The Conjoint Examinations Board, Dublin Pharmacopaeia, Apothecaries Hall, Medical Legislation and Education
Over a series of post, I’m going to look at the kind of records contained within each of the five parts, starting with Part I
Part I contains some of the oldest material in the College archive, dating back to the College’s first charter in 1667, including the 1667 grant of arms and the 1692 charter issued by King William and Queen Mary. There is also an unbroken run of College Journals (or minute books) from 1692 to the present, as well as minute books covering the smaller occasional committees established to discuss a specific issue; such as the outbreak of Cholera in 1883 and high mortality rates in Dublin in the 1880s. The administrative papers also contain an enormous collection of the College’s correspondence from the late eighteenth to mid twentieth century, coving the myriad of subjects the College was involved in over that period.
The financial papers contains the account books and annual accounts of the College from the early nineteenth century, as well as a small number of earlier items, as well as records of bequests and prize funds left to the College. Within the financial papers one set of interesting records relate to the Belgium Doctors and Pharmacists Relief Fund, which was administered by the College. In 1914 a Belgian Dr Jacobs appealed to the medical profession in the UK and Ireland, with the aim of establishing a fund for those medical practitioners who had lost their livelihoods as a result of invasion of Belgium at the start of the First World War, and to provide for the widows and orphans of Doctors who had lost their lives. The Irish College of Physicians and Surgeons held a meeting in November 1914 and the College of Physicians became the collecting point for subscriptions. The archive holds copies of the printed appeals to the medical profession for subscriptions, correspondence between the College, the main fund and D M Watson, President of the Irish Pharmaceutical Society, as well as a large number of complete subscriptions forms, and related letters, sent by members of the Irish medical profession.
Images:
* Inside the archive store room
* College Grant of Arms RCPI/1/1/1
* Belgium Doctors Relief Fund, RCPI/3/10