Borthwick Newsletter - August 2026

Posted on 30 July 2026

Welcome to the Borthwick's August newsletter.

August in the Archives - delve into our catalogues with this month’s featured description.

General list of Captains of HM fleet. with dates from which they are allowed to take post. Appended is a list of masters and commanders of HM ships who have not taken post as Captains, with the dates of their first commissions. Issued 18 August 1704. [Records of Admiral Robert Fairfax, UL3/1/2/ff.192-193]

What's New?

It's been another hot month and a busy one at the Borthwick. The refurbishment of the library foyer is still underway on campus so if you're planning a visit in August, please follow signage to the new temporary entrance to the building, where library staff will be happy to direct you to us. Work on our lift is also still ongoing so do let us know if you require lift access during your visit and we can provide access via our staff lift instead.

New Accessions

We accepted 15 accessions in July, 9 of these being additions to our existing University of York Archive, including multiple additions to the growing Student Life collection and photographs of the historic King's Manor in the city centre. We also added 11 copies of The Goonist Movement newsletter from 1956 to the Goon Show Preservation Society archive. One of the issues includes a short story 'Walking Backwards for Christmas', written by Spike Milligan and released on record the same year.

If you're a York local you may have fond memories of York Cycleworks on Lawrence Street, which closed last September. We were pleased to accept a copy of the 1983 publication: 'Getting started at York Cycleworks: the nuts and bolts of a workers' co-operative' into the archive, written by Hugh MacPherson and Martin Midgley to tell the story of its establishment in 1980 and early development.

Photograph of The Retreat Hockey Team of 1926-1927

The Retreat Hockey Team of 1926-1927

Talking of York landmarks, we were kindly gifted a small cache of records collected by two employees of The Retreat hospital. The records date from 1909-1955 and include photographs of staff members and the hospital hockey team in the 1920s, several publications, and two boxes of staff service medals.

Our last new accession must remain a mystery for now, but we can say it caused much interest and excitement when it arrived after its long lorry journey, and that it brought with it a touch of showbiz glamour! Watch this space…

New Catalogues

Number of archival descriptions on Borthcat on 1st August 2026: 164,735

In July we added a substantial part of the catalogue for the Pace and Sims architectural archive. The catalogue includes all of the project files and business records for the firm, which specialised in ecclesiastical projects. You can read more about it in our 'Archive of the Month' below. The archive also includes a large number of rolled drawings which have not yet been catalogued, but all projects have an accompanying file and many of these include copies of the drawings so please do get in touch if there is a particular project you are interested in.

We also added the catalogue for the Papers of Elise Lincé. The archive spans the 1930s to the 1970s and focuses in particular on Lincé's work for the Methodist Missionary Society in colonial-era Southern Africa. The archive contains detailed letters, reports, magazines and photographs from her time as a teacher at the Tegwani Training Institute in what is now Zimbabwe, and at the Chipembi Girls School/Training Institute in what is now Zambia. Both schools had been established to provide education and occupational training to black African children, albeit along strictly Christian lines. In 1943 Lincé also served as a member of the government's African Education Advisory Board. Her letters home in the late 1930s and 1940s are particularly interesting for their references to the rise of National Socialism in Germany, as well as the deprivations suffered by staff and pupils during the Second World War.

Student cartoon from the Chipembi Girls School magazine, 1963.

A humorous student cartoon from the 1963 magazine of Chipembi Girls School

On a similar theme of religion and education, you can now browse the complete catalogue for the Papers of Alexander Adkins and Dominic Tye (SSM), two former members of the Society of the Sacred Mission who studied and later taught at the Society's theological college at Kelham. In retirement the pair turned their attention to sorting through their extensive personal archives of letters, photographs, and related papers from their time at the college and afterwards, and the result is a wide ranging collection which has been carefully arranged by theme and date and enriched with contextual essays, chronologies, memoirs and notes. Across eight ringbinders and several boxes of related original materials researchers can find out about life at 'The Cottage' where ordinands studied, the classes and characters of Kelham itself, and the events that led up to the controversial closure of the college in 1974.

Borthwick Out and About

In July we welcomed attendees of the 2026 Rare Books School to the Borthwick. The school, which is based at the University of Virginia, runs classes on the global history of printing and the material text and this year classes used items from our Rare Books collection to explore the rise of periodical print culture, 1700-1830, and the culture and craft of wood type.

One of our tithe maps was used by Sue Lang in her detailed research on the history of Woolley Hall in Wakefield, undertaken for the Yorkshire Gardens Trust (YGT) whose archive we also hold. The present Woolley Hall dates to c 1635 and the 1839 tithe map was used to investigate the site of its walled kitchen garden.

You can watch another of our York Festival of Ideas talks on YouTube. 'Making Waves: The art of Japanese woodblock print' with Oleg Benesch, Eleanor Jackson, and our very own Helena Cox, University Art Curator, is now available to enjoy. You can also hear Helena discuss the history of artistic copies and facsimiles with Gary Brannan and Dr Sammi Lukic-Scott in the latest episode of the Curator and Keeper podcast.

Gary recently generated considerable excitement on social media by sharing a long lost monologue by the great Alan Bennett, discovered in our Galton and Simpson Archive. The monologue is available to watch online through the York Discover digital library and the timestamp for the Bennett monologue is 09:12.

Looking ahead to August, the annual conference of the Society of Bookbinders takes place at York from the 14-16th with an opportunity for delegates to visit the Borthwick for a behind the scenes tour with our conservators. There will also be a display of rare bindings and the chance to view our existing exhibitions: 'Radical Print in the Long 18th Century' and 'Dante at the Borthwick', featuring high-quality facsimile volumes from the series La Biblioteca di Dante.

Then on the 19th August, Acting Keeper of Archives Laura Yeoman will be talking to Ryedale Family History Society about our probate collection, which was recently made available through Ancestry, and what this greater level of access means for genealogists.

Archive of the Month: Pace and Sims Archive

What is it? The surviving records of the York-based architectural practice established by George Gaze Pace in the 1940s and continued by Ronald Sims.

Where can I find it? The business records and project files are now fully catalogued on Borthcat. The project files are arranged alphabetically by location.

Why is it Archive of the Month?

The Borthwick holds a wide range of architectural records but by far the largest single collection is that of Pace and Sims. Comprising more than 5500 files and nearly a full aisle of rolled drawings, the archive dates from 1933 to 2008 and includes projects from more than 800 different cities, towns and villages in the UK and overseas, alongside extensive business records and personal papers.

A page from George Pace's 1970 diary (PS/901/16)

A page from the diary of George Pace, 1970

Specialists in ecclesiastical architecture, George Pace and Ron Sims worked as Diocesan Architects and Cathedral Surveyors, overseeing projects of national significance, including the King George VI Memorial Chapel at Windsor Castle, the bell tower of Chester Cathedral, the William Temple Memorial Church in Greater Manchester, and the Chapter House at Southwark Cathedral.

While many of their own designs are modernist in style, their extensive restoration work - at the cathedrals of Southwark, Chester, Llandaff, Durham, Newcastle and Sheffield, as well as in innumerable chapels and parish churches - was notable for its sympathetic blend of the old and the new, utilising traditional crafts and methods to repair, restore and update the historic buildings in their care. This approach can be seen right here in York, where George Pace's new church of the Holy Redeemer in Acomb, built in the 1960s and strikingly modern in its outward appearance, nonetheless incorporates the remnants of the demolished medieval church of St Mary Bishophill Senior, including its doorway, windows, south arcade and Viking carvings. In the 1970s Ron Sims would do the opposite with St Paul's Church in Heslington, preserving its traditional 19th century exterior while completely remodelling the interior to create a modern, open plan space, with an extension to the rear for meeting rooms and a vestry and kitchen.

South arcade of the medieval St Mary Bishophill Senior incorporated into the 1960s Church of the Holy Redeemer

Where the old meets the new: the medieval south arcade of St Mary Bishophill Senior inside the 1960s Church of the Holy Redeemer.

The surviving archive is a treasure trove for anyone with an interest in ecclesiastical architecture, including as it does detailed files for the majority of their projects, filled with correspondence, sketches and draft designs and plans, specifications, reports, and photographs, allowing us to follow the work from the initial idea through to completion. In some cases there are even sample scraps of fabric for coverings, carpets or upholstery.

For those with less of an interest in church building, fear not. While they may have focused primarily on ecclesiastical work, both Pace and Sims took on their fair share of secular projects, from shops and factories to private houses and even high streets. The archive includes more than 100 files for work carried out at Castle Howard, as well as multiple files for extensions to Palace Green Library at the University of Durham, for the restoration of Acomb Manor House, and for work on the British Sugar Corporation factory in York, as well as Skeldergate Bonding Warehouse and numerous houses and shops around the city.

Photograph of part of Skipton High Street in the 1960s (PS/363/1)

A reference photo of Skipton high street in the early 1960s, taken by George Pace

Some of the most interesting files in the archive are those relating to the redevelopment of the town centres of Darlington and Skipton, the latter of which includes an array of photographs and original sketches capturing the town in the early 1960s, alongside a rather scathing review of its then-appearance which, according to George Pace, left much to be desired. 'The flower boxes are distracting and undignified' was just one of the memorable comments on his report.

While the complete listing of the rolls and drawings remains a project for the future, the cataloguing of the business records and project files unlocks a wealth of information about architectural practice in the UK, and beyond, over a period of more than sixty years. Why not browse it for yourself and see what you find.

We'll be back in September with more news and events from the archives!