ARCHIVES
UNPACKING
history
On 31 July 2023, Guyana joined the new Jesuit Caribbean Province, having been a part of the British Province since 1857. British Jesuit Archivist, Rebecca Somerset, visited Georgetown to assess the Jesuit Guyana Archives, and tells us what she discovered.
T
his was my first visit to Guyana, and indeed South America. I was lucky that in the few weeks prior to my trip, Oliver Rafferty, a Jesuit historian, was a visitor to the British Jesuit Archives, and having conducted research in Guyana, he was able to provide some advice on what to expect. I was not surprised, therefore, to discover a warm and humid storage room cluttered with a variety of mostly unsuitable packaging, and a thick layer of dust on all visible surfaces. I also was greeted by a dead cockroach! And so insect traps and an environmental logger were set up on day one. To my relief, the traps did not catch anything significant during my stay, though there was plenty of evidence of historic insect damage in the collection.
day work. There were also a significant number of sacramental registers, though it was suggested that ideally these should be transferred to the Georgetown Diocesan Archives. It was extremely useful to discuss what I was discovering with Paul Martin SJ, as he has been in Guyana for over thirty years and could provide clarifications and context. For example, I noticed that there were a lot of photographs, and Paul shared that, historically, the priests in the interior of Guyana would also be the photographer when celebrating weddings and, on some occasions, would also supply the wedding dress and rings!
I spent the remainder of a rather hot and dirty week sorting through the papers, assessing their archival value and, as far as possible, repackaging some of the collection into acid-free folders and envelopes, wrapping larger volumes in Tyvek (a non-woven material that is inert and PH neutral, and is breathable, waterproof and dustproof). Most of the records I saw were the personal papers of British Jesuits who had served on the mission in Guyana. I came across little to do with communities in Guyana or indeed regional administrative documents. It may be that more of the latter material was retained locally, or even in the filing cabinets which I ran out of time to assess, and/or that less priority was given to record-keeping by Jesuits already overstretched in their day-to-
Such local knowledge demonstrates why conversations with, and indeed recording oral histories of, those who experienced the daily life of Jesuits in Guyana are important. I recorded an interview with Paul, and although this focused more on his personal journey, given the length of his service in Guyana it naturally encompassed the role of Jesuits in the country. Owing to current external research interest in the linguistic material already held in the British Jesuit Archives, mostly among Fr Cuthbert Cary-Elwes SJ’s personal papers, it was particularly interesting to see that there are more such linguistic records created by Jesuits stored in the archives in Guyana. It was also surprising to see a copy of CaryElwes’ autobiography with differing annotations to those in the set held in the British Jesuit Archives. At the time, the discovery of these records excited me the most, but as I have learnt more about Guyana’s Jesuit history I am becoming increasingly interested in the Catholic Standard: founded by the Jesuits in 1905, it was the only independent newspaper in Guyana during the turbulent period of President Burnham’s rule, playing a role in the Guyanese struggle for democracy. The personal papers of Frs Bernard Darke SJ and Malcolm Rodrigues SJ also contained fascinating material, and I am sure more will be discovered as the collection is further studied. My hope is that the storage conditions of this fascinating collection can be improved so that its long-term preservation is assured and that access to it can be facilitated, whether in person or remotely through digitisation.
WANT TO KNOW MORE? Top: cleaning an insect-damaged cover. Bottom: damaged records (Photos: Rebecca Somerset)
Visit jesuitarchives.co.uk to discover more about the British Jesuit Archives and the material they hold relating to Guyana. jesuit.org.uk
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