Catalogue description British Council: Bristol Regional Office: Photograph Album

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Details of BW 150
Reference: BW 150
Title: British Council: Bristol Regional Office: Photograph Album
Description:

A single photograph album compiled at the Bristol Regional Office, showing typical scenes from British Council organised courses and visits in the Bristol area. There are a few photographs of other British Council regional offices.

The album in this series contains a large number of photographs taken between 1944 and 1960 (at which time the practice of pasting photographs into the album seems to have been discontinued), mostly of the Bristol office, visitors to it, and local points of interest which were on the visitors' itineraries. There are a small number of photographs of other regional and local British Council offices.

The photographs are not indexed, but run chronologically through the album, and are generally well described with explanatory notes. The subjects are, by the nature of the album, diverse, but some of the frequently featured scenes include the Bristol Aeroplane Company factory, the Llandoger Trow public house in Bristol (which is situated close to the site of the regional office), Bristol Zoo and the docks at Avonmouth. Many of the photographs feature formal tribal dress of the visitors, and there are one or two photographs of performers, including the Dagenham Girl Piper Band. The majority of the photographs feature visiting dignitaries and students.

In addition to the photographs, some visitors' business or calling cards have been pasted into the book, along with some itineraries, programmes and lists of students attending courses. Also, a brief historical summary of the site of the office, prepared in 1947 by the Bristol City archivist, has been pasted into the front of the album.

With one or two exceptions, the identity of the photographer is not known. A few of the later photographs in the album were not taken by British Council staff, but are proof prints provided by local newspapers, and the copyright on these will continue to reside with the proprietors, not with the Crown.

Date: 1944-1960
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Not Public Record(s)
Language: English
Creator:

British Council, Bristol Regional Office, 1944-

Physical description: 1 photographs and volumes
Access conditions: Subject to 30 year closure
Administrative / biographical background:

The British Council's office in Bristol was opened during the Second World War as the regional headquarters of the South West England and South Wales region of the Home Division. It was charged with providing English language teaching to resident foreigners in co-operation with local education authorities, and also with providing cultural support to the large communities of refugees, servicemen and merchant mariners which settled temporarily in Great Britain during the war, especially in the major ports. After the war, the regional offices remained open, and continued providing cultural support to visiting foreigners, and especially to visiting students studying in the regions.

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