Low Down Articles
Echoes from the Past
Article 80 of 111
This article first appeared in the "Echoes from the Past" column of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
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Taking Stock
About fifteen years ago, once I had retired, I was engaged by Pierre-Louis LaPointe of the Quebec National Archives in Hull to take inventories at the Lapêche Municipal building in Masham and the West Hull Municipal Hall in Old Chelsea.
This job entailed removing everything from the vault, listing each item as removed and then return it to the vault in orderly fashion.
LAPÉCHE
The inventory taking was important as four or five communities had just amalgamented (sic) under Lapêche's direction. The records of each had been dumped in the vault at Masham but no record has been made of the discarded papers. It appeared quite a challenge to bring order out of chaos.
Two separate oddities must be remarked upon. The first was that the secretary of one community had the habit of slitting all incoming mail envelopes, dealing with contents, (presumably) and reinserting the letters in their original covers and filing same in a carton. What made it remarkable was the range of postage stamps, which was from the reigns of Queen Victoria, King Edward VII, Kings George V and VI, ending with that of Queen Elizabeth II. One might say a king's ransom for philatelists. My report mentioned this treasure trove but I never did hear the outcome.
The next notable item was a collection of parking tickets and a number of other infractions of the law by wayward motorists. The surprising thing was that the majority of slips were of the 1942-3 vintage. Surely by the time of this inventory taking the criminals had paid their debts to society.
WEST HULL
Apart from the recording the usual documentation was a collection of books in which were kept the minutes of council meetings. The collection was complete from No. 1. until the method of recording was changed. As a word-picture of the lives and styles of long since departed inhabitants of what is now the Chelsea Municipality these old minute books are priceless to researchers and history writers. It is to be hoped that the current mayor and council have taken steps to place them in fire and flood proof storage, or at least had photocopies made page by page, for the same purpose. Our communal heritage must be preserved whatever the cost.
AYLMER
The next task set me by my boss was to take stock at the Greater Hull School Board in Aylmer. Again there was a situation where amalgamation had taken place. At first glance the chore was daunting in the extreme. In a large classroom or assembly room of the old school house were row upon row of tables laden with piles of school records. By tackling the job in "one-thing-at-time" fashion the task, while taking much longer than the ones at Masham and Old Chelsea to perform, was brought to a satisfactory conclusion.
An archivist has since been employed who in refining my work has made of it a documentary of earlier education in the region.
Perhaps the most remarkable happening was finding quite by chance the attendance and education record of one Halder Kirby, then aged 10, who was in time to become the Mayor of West Hull Municipality. There was certainly no hint in his school record that Mr. Kirby would achieve the exalted position he was later to fill.