Recovering Stories.
Drawing on the records preserved in the Archive, these essays recover the lived experience behind naval service, Company trade, parish life, and family history. Each narrative follows a thread — a person, a voyage, a household, a career — through the documents that survive, weaving the fragments into a coherent account of lives lived across the centuries.
7 narratives in the collection — added to continuously
Series.
Shining a light on the individuals, families, background stories and themes that thread through the archive.
The context that surrounds an object — transforming a piece of paper into a heartfelt letter, and revealing, behind an institutional document, the man willing to sacrifice for Crown and Country.
A brief encounter with an individual whose story fills the archive. The basic facts of a packed life.
An overview of the families whose fortunes have long been entwined with the Purvises'.
Each item opens a window onto the past. This series weaves those perspectives together to bring the wider picture into view.