The online Rylands Lunchtime Seminar Series highlights the breadth and quality of our unique Special Collections and showcases world-class collections-based research activities. It brings together experts from the University of Manchester Library and University of Manchester academics working closely with the special collections held in the Library.
In this seminar, Bertrand Taithe and Flora Chatt will use items from collections in the University’s recently established Humanitarian Archive to illustrate the lives of three different British humanitarian actors, from Elizabeth Wilson, a ‘Huddersfield housewife’ who fundraised and travelled to support humanitarian causes in the 20th century, to Tony Redmond, an emergency medical doctor whose Manchester based ambulance organisation (SMART) became the UK’s Emergency Medical Team. These stories, which give a different perspective to the official, institutional narratives of organisational humanitarian archives, show how humanitarian work shapes and is shaped by the motivations of those who perform it.
Bertrand Taithe is a Professor of Cultural History at the University of Manchester and Director of Research at and founder of the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI).
Flora Chatt is the Humanitarian Archivist at the University of Manchester
Register for the event here.