Preserving records. Recovering stories.
Every object is preserved as evidence. Every life is recovered through research. Here, archive and narrative are not separate pursuits, but one practice.
A Note from the Editor
Behind the archive
For generations, the Purvis family refused to throw things away. Letters were carefully stored, notebooks bundled into boxes and commissions filed. Kept alongside were the stories that gave these items their meaning. An object without its story becomes misunderstood, and a story without its object drifts into legend. This archive carries that work into the digital age.
Most of the collection follows a branch of the Purves family that left Scotland, anglicised their name to Purvis, settled in Suffolk, then moved to southern England and became deeply connected with the Royal Navy. Their correspondence and institutional papers create a window into 18th- and 19th-century Britain. The documents preserved here have already supported two published biographies by Iain Gordon: Admiral of the Blue, based on the life of Admiral John Child Purvis, and Soldier of the Raj, on that of Richard Fortescue Purvis.
The Purvis Papers site is split into two sections: The Archive and The Narratives. The first stores the objects themselves — the heartfelt letters, the institutional papers and the genealogical research collected over the centuries. Disparate in period, form and subject, they are held together by their connection to the Purvis family. The second aims to bring the items housed within The Archive to life. By giving context, offering additional research and placing them within a narrative, what was once just a piece of paper now regains its full significance.
If you have research that complements what is held here, or if something here prompts a memory or a question, I would be very glad to hear from you.
Harry Purvis
Digital Librarian at the Society of Genealogists · Contributor to The Genealogists' Magazine and the Jane Austen Society London Branch Newsletter
I have a particular interest in preserving documents and recovering the lives they record. Interested in working together? Enquiries welcome on writing, research, and digitisation