School histories

Hello Jo,

I was commissioned to write the Hutchins history in 2005, two years before I became Archivist. Although I had researched and written a book previously (Lifeblood of a Colony: a history of irrigation in Tasmania, 1994), as well as some smaller historical papers, the school history was the hardest thing I've ever done - mainly because the sheer volume of material available made it difficult to decide what to include and what to leave out (Hutchins was founded in 1846 and has always had a strong sense of its place in the educational annals of this state, and country - which is probably why it has such a large and comprehensive collection of all sorts of records and items of memorabilia).

A working party was in place to guide me on the first part of the journey (according to the guidelines laid down in the commission contract) and vet the results at regular intervals - but for the most part, they were happy to accept my suggestions on content and style, etc. I did the scanning of photographs myself - as part of the ongoing digitisation of our Collection - and placed them where I wanted them in the text. But I insisted on having a graphic designer do the layout after the editing process was complete - and this really paid off, with the finished article being so much better and more lively than my standard layout could ever have been.

So, after several stops and starts along the way - and an extra chapter added after the initial completion - we now have a rather large (160,000 words and over 750 images) and beautiful book (I may be a little biased), Character Unbound: A History of The Hutchins School, about to be launched on 19 September.

I'm not sure about 'guiding principles in order to select either an author or company that may specialize in the research and writing of a School history' - I guess because I don't see myself as a school history specialist and wouldn't want to be regarded as such. I'd far rather be considered a good historian (and archivist, of course!) - and one with enough creative instinct to be able to produce something interesting and worthwhile in any field.

Certainly have a set of guidelines prepared as to the sort of book you want and the subject areas you want included - but allow the historian some leeway to produce an individual work based on the records, photographs and memorabilia the school has in its collection, as well as interviews and discussions with leading figures in the school's history. The end product is bound to be far more interesting . . .

Margaret Mason-Cox

Hutchins Archives and Heritage Collection

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Margaret Mason-Cox September 4, 2013 at 5:33pm

Hello Jo,

I was commissioned to write the Hutchins history in 2005, two years before I became Archivist. Although I had researched and written a book previously (Lifeblood of a Colony: a history of irrigation in Tasmania, 1994), as well as some smaller historical papers, the school history was the hardest thing I've ever done - mainly because the sheer volume of material available made it difficult to decide what to include and what to leave out (Hutchins was founded in 1846 and has always had a strong sense of its place in the educational annals of this state, and country - which is probably why it has such a large and comprehensive collection of all sorts of records and items of memorabilia).

A working party was in place to guide me on the first part of the journey (according to the guidelines laid down in the commission contract) and vet the results at regular intervals - but for the most part, they were happy to accept my suggestions on content and style, etc. I did the scanning of photographs myself - as part of the ongoing digitisation of our Collection - and placed them where I wanted them in the text. But I insisted on having a graphic designer do the layout after the editing process was complete - and this really paid off, with the finished article being so much better and more lively than my standard layout could ever have been.

So, after several stops and starts along the way - and an extra chapter added after the initial completion - we now have a rather large (160,000 words and over 750 images) and beautiful book (I may be a little biased), Character Unbound: A History of The Hutchins School, about to be launched on 19 September.

I'm not sure about 'guiding principles in order to select either an author or company that may specialize in the research and writing of a School history' - I guess because I don't see myself as a school history specialist and wouldn't want to be regarded as such. I'd far rather be considered a good historian (and archivist, of course!) - and one with enough creative instinct to be able to produce something interesting and worthwhile in any field.

Certainly have a set of guidelines prepared as to the sort of book you want and the subject areas you want included - but allow the historian some leeway to produce an individual work based on the records, photographs and memorabilia the school has in its collection, as well as interviews and discussions with leading figures in the school's history. The end product is bound to be far more interesting . . .

Margaret Mason-Cox

Hutchins Archives and Heritage Collection
David Roberts September 4, 2013 at 10:07am

Hi Jo

Newington College in Sydney published a school history last year as one of our projects for this year;s Sesquicentenary. I wasn't involved in the commissioning process, but I can see if I can get hold of a copy of the brief. In our case, the project was complicated by the fact that we already had histories published in 1963 (Centenary), 1988 and 1999 (a revision and updating of the 1988 one), which affected the approach chosen.

David Roberts
Archivist
Newington College

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School Archives & Records

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