by Gillian Crawley
The Manpower Services Commission is currently sponsoring a photography project for the Kent Museums Service at West Malling. The project employs five people: myself as supervisor, three photographers - Bas Barnes, Nigel Blacker, and Peter Cordrey - with Evelyne Newby as clerical assistant.
Peter Cordrey working in the photographic studio. Photo: Bas Barnes.
The present Kent Museums Service emerged during local government reorganization in the mid-1970s and now covers the day-to-day running of seven or eight museums within the county. When the Museums Service centralized the records from these museums, it was soon found that there were inconsistencies in how the records and archives had been collated. Our project was conceived to provide a photographic archive of all the artifacts of archaeological interest within the care of the Museums Service. The archive, when complete, will be important in many ways, particularly as it will be a visual document of archaeology in Kent. In effect, the archive will upgrade the standard of documentation of many articles to the same consistent standard.
As part of the M.S.C. project Nigel Blacker and Gillian Crawley prepare a pot for photography and are in turn photographed by Bas Barnes.
The archive is to be stored at West Malling, where it is hoped scholars, students, professional and amateur archaeologists alike will come and consult it as part of their research program. It will be beneficial to researchers to peruse the museum's collections without having the inconvenience of traveling to several museum stores. As the archive's producers, we hope that it will fulfill a wider role than one of pure reference. We would like to see the photographs used in displays, in exhibitions, and for publication (copyright permitting).
Anyone interested in consulting the archive should contact the Museums Officer, Kent County Museums Service, West Malling Air Station, West Malling, Kent, ME19 6QE.
