Special Collections were asked to contribute to the Finance Department Away Day by giving a talk on the history of DMU as one of several optional activities for finance staff.
We started with a warm-up activity based on old coinage – at least one person knew his bob from his groat and his sovereign from his crown, without needing the crib sheet!
Thoroughly in a historical mood, we then moved on to a presentation about the history of DMU since 1870. This was followed by the chance to look at a display of material from the Archive collection, illustrating the range of items we hold.
The display included our first register of students, press cuttings albums, examples of staff and student work, annual reports, prospectuses, student and staff magazines, a piece of Victorian physics demonstration equipment, events brochures, and the School of Architecture scarf from the 1940s.
We also found a few files of finance work to show the team how much their jobs had changed! Year end certainly seems to have been completed more quickly back then.
The Special Collections team are available to give talks and tours relating to the history of the institution, both internally and externally – please contact archives@dmu.ac.uk to discuss.
Katharine
