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Archives and Special Collections

Welcome to the Black History Resources Guide

This resource guide highlights archives and books at the University of Exeter Heritage Collections that relate to the diverse histories, experiences, stories and voices of Black people. Many of these resources may not be visible or easily identifiable via our webpages or catalogues, so we hope this guide will provide a more accessible means of exploring this material. The resources highlighted in this guide have been identified using our catalogues, but are not exhaustive. If you come across any other sources within our collections that you think should be included in this guide, we would be very pleased to hear about them.

For the purposes of this guide, the term ‘Black History’ is used to refer to the histories of people of African and Caribbean descent, though we acknowledge that there is ongoing discussion concerning terminology about ethnicity. Several of the archives and books featured below are written from a white perspective and document the colonisation and oppression of Black people. These collections may contain offensive terms or terms that have changed meaning over time. In some cases these terms are included in our catalogue descriptions in order to provide information about the content and nature of the source. The inclusion of these terms does not reflect the views of the University of Exeter Heritage Collections and we apologise for any offence that may be caused. 

To discuss our resources in more detail, please contact us at libspc@exeter.ac.uk. We also welcome your feedback on our approach to this resource guide, its content and the terminology used.

Archives and rare books held by Special Collections and the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum are available to everyone. More information about accessing the collections can be found in our Visiting Heritage Collections LibGuide. Please note that there may be some restrictions on accessing and copying (including photography) material in the archives and books held by Special Collections and the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum in line with current data protection and copyright legislation. Always make sure to check the access conditions on the archive catalogue and email Special Collections before your visit for more information about specific restrictions.

A large range of archives relating to Black British history are held by institutions such as the Black Cultural Archives and The National Archives.

The University of Exeter Library has created a LibGuide relating to Black History and Black Lives Matter. A summary of online databases for Black History research available through the University of Exeter Library can also be found at the end of this guide.

The University of Exeter Library also holds the Arab World Documentation Unit {AWDU) and the Ghana Collection, both based in the Old Library on Streatham Campus, Exeter.

University Archive

The University of Exeter archive contains records relating to the University of Exeter and its predecessor institutions. The lives of staff and students at the University can be researched through a wide variety of material, including photographs, student magazines and newspapers, and admissions registers. The University Archive is extensive and largely uncatalogued, but box lists for some of the material are available on request.

Find out more about this archive in our online guide to the University Archive

[Image: Report on the establishment of an 'Afro-Asian Society' at the University of Exeter's Guild from the student newspaper 'The South Westerner', 17 Mar 1966]

Ethiopian religious manuscripts

Manuscript Ethiopian Folding Prayer Book, also known as a Sensul (EUL MS 352)

A small parchment folding manuscript prayer book, sometimes known as a sensul. The manuscript comprises three sections, which are stitched together, and is bound in leather with a tie at one end. The text is written in Ge'ez and forms one column, which is decorated with three illuminated drawings.

Find out more about this item on the online catalogue

Manuscript Ethiopian Bible (EUL MS 199)

A manuscript Old Testament Bible (Psalter and Ethiopian Canticles) dating to the 19th century. It is written in Ge'ez in black and red script, and includes minor decorations, some pencilled writing and drawings throughout. It consists of 306 pages, and is formed of 19 sections sewn together and bound between two wooden boards.

Find out more about this item on the online catalogue

The Hypatia Collection

The Hypatia Collection exclusively contains books and journals by or about women (19th-20th century). It includes autobiographical, fiction and non-fiction works by Black writers, as well as books concerning the experiences, work and representation of Black women. Click the tabs at the top of this box to see reading lists for fiction and non-fiction texts. Please note that these lists are not exhaustive, and further items of relevance may be found within the collection. If you identify any books within the collection that could be added to the list, we would be very pleased to hear about them.

Content Advice: some of the books listed under non-fiction relate to discrimination against Black people

Fiction and autobiographies in the Hypatia Collection include:

Non-fiction books in the Hypatia Collection:

  • The Heart of the Race: Black Women's Lives in Britain (1985) by Beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie and Suzanne Scafe [Hypatia POL/BRY] 

Racial discrimination in England: based on the PEP report (1968) by William Wentworth Daniel [Hypatia POL/DAN] 

  • Women, Race & Class (1982) by Angela Y. Davis [Hypatia CRIT/DAV]
  • Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History (1990), edited by Ellen Carol DuBois and Vicki L. Ruiz [Hypatia POL/DUB]
  • The Character of the Word: The Texts of Zora Neale Hurston (1987), by Karla F.C. Holloway [Hypatia CRIT/HOL]
  • All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies (1982), edited by Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith [Hypatia CRIT/HUL]
  • Strangers & Sisters: Women, Race & Immigration: Voices from the Conference "Black and Immigrant Women Speak Out and Claim Our Rights," London, England, 13 November 1982 (1985), edited by Selma James [Hypatia POL/JAM]
  • Common Differences: Conflicts in Black and White Feminist Perspectives (1986) by Gloria I. Joseph and Jill Lewis [Hypatia CRIT/JOS]
  • The Omni-Americans: Some Alternatives to the Folklore of White Supremacy (1983) by Albert Murray [Hypatia CRIT/MUR]
  • Women in Southern Africa (1987), edited by Christine Qunta [Hypatia CRIT/QUN]
  • The Black Woman (1980), edited by La Frances Rodgers-Rose [Hypatia CRIT/ROD]
  • Black Literature in America: A Casebook (1970), edited by Raman K. Singh and Peter Fellowes [Hypatia CRIT/SIN]
  • Mary Seacole: Teacher's Pack and Learning Resources (1992) by Alex Attewell, Sam Walker, the Black Cultural Archives and the Florence Nightingale Museum  [Hypatia NUR/SEA/X]
  • Black Women Writers at Work (1983), edited by Claudia Tate [Hypatia CRIT/TAT]
  • Racist and Sexist Images in Children's Books (1975) by the Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative (London) [Hypatia LIT/RAC/Pamphlet]
  • Magazines and journals in the Hypatia Collection, such as Spare Rib [Hypatia JOU/SPA], also contain many articles concerning Black women's experiences [browse all magazines and journals in the Hypatia Collection here].

To search the entire Hypatia Collection, enter *HYPATIA* in the search field on the Library Catalogue. You can also search *Hypatia* + *Keyword* or *Hypatia* + *Author* or *Hypatia* + *Book Title*. Then under *Refine your results* and under *Location* select *Special Collections Old Library*

Enslavement and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

The Gale and Morant Family Papers relating to enslavement on plantations in Jamaica (EUL MS 44; EUL MS 44 add. 1; EUL MS 130)

The Gale and Morant Family Papers include correspondence, accounts and other papers (1731-1939) relating to the management of family-owned sugar plantations in Jamaica at the height of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Both sides of the family acquired sugar plantations that used the forced labour of enslaved people of African and Caribbean descent. Many of these papers relate to enslavement, which include lists of enslaved people; documents recording their births and deaths; account books containing details of income and expenditure, including payments for enslaved people, their provisions and healthcare; and correspondence that provides insight into the living and working conditions on the plantations, as well as notes of revolts, escapes and liberations.

Content advice: This collection documents the oppression and enslavement of people of African and Caribbean descent. Papers within this collection may contain offensive terms or terms that have changed meaning over time.

Find out more about this collection on the online catalogue under the reference numbers EUL MS 44EUL MS 44 add. 1EUL MS 130.

Letters of John Bishop Estlin relating to the abolitionist movement (EUL MS 55)

The collection is a series of transcribed letters concerning the efforts made by John Bishop Estlin (1786-1855), an opthalmic surgeon in Bristol, and his contacts and colleagues to aid the abolitionist cause during the period 1844-1866.

Find out more about this collection on the online catalogue

Our Reserve Collection of post-1700 rare books includes books relating to the enslavement of Black people, Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Abolition of Slavery that provide contemporary views of the Slave Trade:

  • An Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade by Thomas Clarkson (1788) [Reserve 326 CLA]
  • Memoirs of the Reign of Bossa Ahádee King of Dahomy: An Inland Country of Guiney to which are added the Author's Journey to Abomey, the Capital and a Short Account of the African Slave Trade by Robert Norris (1789) [Reserve 966.83 NOR]
  • The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies (in four volumes) by Bryan Edwards (1807-1819) [Reserve 972.9 EDW]
  • Poems on the Abolition of the Slave Trade by James Montgomery (1809) [Reserve 828.7/MON-4 X]
  • Thoughts on the Necessity of Improving the Condition of the Slaves in the British Colonies with a View to their Ultimate Emancipation by Thomas Clarkson (1823) [Reserve 326.1 CLA]
  • Journal of a West India Proprietor: kept during a residence in the island of Jamaica by M.G. Lewis (1834) [Reserve 972.9204 LEW]
  • Slavery in the United States by James Kirke Paulding (1836) [Reserve 326.973 PAU]
  • The West Indies: The Natural and Physical History of the Windward and Leeward Colonies (1837) [Reserve 972.904 HAL]
  • Observations on the Present Condition of the Island of Trinidad, and the Actual State of the Experiment of Negro Emancipation by William Hardin Burnley (1842) [Reserve 972.98303 BUR]
  • A brief history of the Wesleyan Missions on the Western Coast of Africa: including biographical sketches of all the missionaries who have died in that important field of labour, with some account of the European settlements and of the slave-trade by William Fox (1851) [Reserve 276.6 FOX]
  • Proceedings in Relation to the Presentation of the Address of the Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends on the Slave-Trade and Slavery (1854) [Soc. of Friends Coll. Pamphlet 1854/SOC]
  • The Spanish Conquest in America: and its relation to the history of slavery and to the government of colonies (4 volumes) by Arthur Helps (1855-1861) [Reserve 972.02 HEL]
  • Ismailia: a Narrative of the Expedition to Central Africa for the Suppression of the Slave Trade Organised by Ismail, Khedive of Egypt by Samuel W.Baker (1874) [Reserve 967 BAK]
  • The Water Highways of the Interior of Africa: with notes on slave hunting and the means of its suppression by James Stevenson (1883) [Reserve Pamphlet 916.7 STE]
  • The Rise, Progress and Phases of Human Slavery: how it came into the world, and how it shall be made to go out by James Bronterre O'Brien (1885) [Reserve 326 OBR]

Local History

A pamphlet in our Edmund Collection of Local History entitled 'Local Black History: A beginning in Devon' by Lucy MacKeith (2003) provides an overview of initial research into Black History in Devon, as well as helpful guidance on where you can look for further archival sources.

Find out more about this item on the Library catalogue

This item is also available to borrow via the Forum Library and St Luke's Library.

The Anti-Apartheid Movement

Papers relating to the Exeter and District Anti-Apartheid Group (EUL MS 216)

The Exeter and District Anti-Apartheid Group was one of the longest established and most active groups in the UK anti-apartheid movement, and was established as the Exeter and District Anti-Apartheid Committee in c 1966. The Group was non-political and was affiliated to the national London-based Anti-Apartheid Movement which traced its origins following the Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa in 1984. Although primarily concerned with South Africa, the Group also addressed problems associated with racism and human rights elsewhere in the world.

The collection includes seven boxes of material relating to the administration of the Group, including correspondence, promotional literature, DOMPAS newsletters, lists of members, financial records, press releases, presscutting scrapbooks, artefacts (badges, flags, banners, collecting boxes etc.), pamphlets, leaflets, newspapers and periodicals.

Find out more about this collection on the online catalogue

Papers of Mervyn Bennun relating to anti-apartheid (EUL MS 112) 

Mervyn Bennun was originally trained at Cape Town University and subsequently practised as a lawyer in South Africa until his departure for Britain in the 1960s. He became lecturer in law at the University of Exeter from 1969-1970 until his retirement in the 1990s when he returned to South Africa. During his time at Exeter University, he was an African National Congress (ANC) activist in the period when the ANC was in exile in Britain, and was involved with the activities of the Exeter and District Anti-Apartheid Group as Chairman and Secretary.

The collection consists of papers accumulated by Bennun during his period at the University of Exeter. These are mainly printed materials; included are: press clippings, correspondence, flyers and leaflets, typescripts of articles and other writings (including on the trial of the 'Sharpeville Six'). Some books, pamphlets, and periodicals are also included.

Find out more about this collection on the online catalogue

Mervyn Bennun collection of journals and pamphlets relating to Anti-Apartheid, 1950s-1990s
Journals and pamphlets relating to Anti-Apartheid are catalogued and can be found on the library catalogue

David L Perrott papers relating to Sudanese law (EUL MS 184)

David L Perrott (1936- ) was a lecturer in law at the University of Exeter from 1965-2001. He was previously lecturer in private law at the University of Khartoum. He has held the position of legal advisor to the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, and was also a member of the Data Protection Tribunal. This collection consists of research papers relating to Sudanese legal cases, 1898-1964.

Find out more about this collection on the online catalogue

Bill Douglas Cinema Museum collections

The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum has a collection of over 80,000 items on the history of the moving image from the seventeenth century to the present day. The collection includes a number of items relevant to studies in Black history, including extensive collections on Paul Robeson and the representation of Black people on screen. There are also items that highlight the history of racism and imperialism and how this has been perpetuated through visual culture. These items are used extensively in anti-racist teaching at the University.

We also hold the full production archive for the 1980 film Babylon in the archive of its producer Gavrik Losey. Babylon was one of the first films to look at the realities of life for young Black Britons and is today regarded as a prescient and seminal text. The image above is a still from the film.  

Find out more about the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum collections

Jean Trevor research papers relating to the Hausa women of northern Nigeria (EUL MS 79)

Jean Trevor began working on the sociology of the Hausa women of northern Nigeria in the late 1960s. Based at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, her research included a series of interviews with Hausa women. The papers consist of record cards and notes, plus an offprint of her chapter 'Family change in Sokoto: a traditional Moslem Fulani/Hausa city' in J.C. Caldwell et al (eds.), 'Population growth and socio economic change in West Africa' (Columbia University Press, 1974), and a copy of her thesis.

Find out more about this archive on the online archives catalogue

William Harding King photographs relating to his explorations of the Libyan Desert (EUL MS 11)

William Joseph Harding King (1869-1933) was an explorer and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He travelled extensively in the north African deserts; in 1900 and 1908 he was in the Western Sahara, and from 1909-1912 he explored the central portions of the Libyan Desert. This collection comprises a series of 508 black and white photographs taken by William Harding King in the Libyan desert in the early 20th century. They include many images that capture the local people and culture, including photographs of the Tuareg people.

Find out more about this collection on the online catalogue

Archive of Nubian Language and Culture (EUL MS 183)

The Archive of Nubian Language and Culture is a planned artificial collection of material relating to a group of related languages spoken by the Nubians in Sudan and Southern Egypt, which was collected by Professor W Herman Bell, a former Visiting Professor in the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Studies. The collection consists of of field recordings and notes made by Dr Peter Shinnie (Department of Archaeology, University of Calgary, Canada) in the 1970s and 1980s, and a large genealogical chart from Nubia drawn up in the 1950s and collected by Muhammed Jalal Hashim, a PhD student at Portsmouth University. The collection includies key word lists relating to the Mahas (or Nobiin), Kunuz (or Kenzi) and Dongalawi languages. Some of the tapes and their transcripts relate to taped sentences translated into Mahas by the family of Ali Osman in Mishakeili, who worked with Dr Shinnie on the project in the 1980s.

Find out more about this collection on the online catalogue

Collections from the Imperial Institute

The Imperial Institute was an educational and cultural organisation founded in London in 1887, which promoted and collected information about industrial and commercial developments in the British Empire. 

  • Glass plate negatives and photographs from the Library of the Imperial Institute, London (EUL MS 61)

This collection of photographs was primarily used for teaching purposes by the staff of the Imperial Institute, and were mainly taken by amateur photographers during the 1920s to 1930s. The photographs cover an extensive range of subjects and activities from all parts of the Empire, with an emphasis on India and the African continent. A number of photographs feature scenes of everyday life, but many more relate specifically to work, industry and the exploitation of regional resources. 

Find out more about this collection on the online catalogue

  • Imperial institute: sets of photographic cards and leaflets about products and industry of the British Empire (EUL MS 61 add. 1)

This collection comprises sets of photographic cards and leaflets about products and industry of former British colonies, including Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka), Trinidad, British Malaya, British Guiana (present-day Guyana), British East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Zanzibar, Tanganyika), British West Africa (present day The Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone), Jamaica, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

A small selection of items from this collection have been digitised and are available to browse via the Open Research Exeter Portal. View digital copies of items from this collection.

Find out more about this collection on the online catalogue

Online databases for Black History research available through the University of Exeter Library

Use the tabs to discover the different online databases available to you.

To access the full range of databases, use the Database A-Z List.

Online archives

Newspaper Collections

Proquest: African American / Black Historical Newspapers Collection

Black newspapers were on the frontlines of the civil rights movement. Organizing boycotts and nationwide protests, fighting discriminatory housing and employment practices, launching community clean-up campaigns, and advocating for improved health services for minorities, they gave voice and strength to communities often ignored by other media. The newspapers in this collection provide unique perspectives on local, national, and international events:

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