Richard's Story- Popular Presentations of the Past

“the prime function of memory, then, is not to preserve the past but to adapt it so as to enrich and manipulate the present”

Lt. Richard Charles Graves- Sawle

• Born 1888 into a military family
• 2nd division, Coldstream Guards
• Married Muriel
• Killed by sniper's bullet to the head
• Diary ends on day he died
• at home left his parents, wife and sister's Hyacinth and Rosemary

“lay back, let it happen, try out different ideas”

1914

2014

Conclusion

Access

Acknowledgements

Outcomes

Secondary Research

Primary Research

We would like to thank:

Truro Cathedral & Kirsten Gordon, Cornwall Records Office & Chloe Phillips, Byony, Garry & Cornish Story

1. Online exhibition (developed from current one)

Richard's Story

Jill Liddington, ‘What Is Public History? Publics and Their Pasts, Meanings and Practices’, Oral History, Vol.30 (2002)

To be continued...

Audience

Personal

Experience

Representation

Adaptability

Cindy Little, 2003

Rear Admiral

Sir Charles John

1851-1932

Constance

Mary Daniel

1860-1942

Representation

Joan Rosemary

1890-1972

Lt Richard Charles

1888-1914

(married Muriel 1914)

Hyacinth Constance

1895-1936

• Historical Trust
• Sensitivity
• Entwining of Past and Modernity
• Exclusion
• Micro Perspective
• "Placing lived experience at the centre" (Szijarto, 2002)

Research Process

Courtesy of CRO

Association

Primary Research

“opening up of a new space for the extension of learning”

Courtesy of CRO

Robert Darnton, The New Age of Book, 1999

Courtesy of CRO

Cornwall Records Office

National Archives at Kew

St Austell

Accessibility

• Not necessarily a Cornish history, but audience can use for own cultural capital
• Internet enables collective remembrance that is less restrictive
• Digital Micro- History

"History in public space…” “the public” is a term that can encompass a number of possible constituencies, distinguished from each other by age, class, ethnicity, locality and educational attainment but also their willingness to engage at any particular moment with the complexities of nuanced historical interpretation."

Madge Dresser, ‘Politics, Populism, and Professionalism: Reflections on the Role of the Academic Historian in the Production of Public History', The Public Historian, 2002

Courtesy of The National Archives, Kew

“(association) is one of the fundamental ways in which memories become collective; each one of us can associate ourselves with other peoples ‘experience’." (Svetlana Boym, 2001)

Courtesy of The National Archives, Kew

• Reach a larger audience
• More inclusive- audience empowered?
• Just one story amongst many
• Modern media as new platforms for public history
• Enduring
• Online archive

Brief & Aims

Popular Presentations

of the Past

Project Brief

• Truro Cathedral Centenary
• Individual story
• People, not statistics
• Roll of Honour

Aims

1. Create an online resource

2. Engaging for audeience

3. Make it personal

4. Merge real and virtual

Richard Charles Graves- Sawle