Religious Archives Group

The Religious Archives Group (RAG) is a voluntary association, founded in 1989, for anybody interested in the collection, preservation and use of religious archives, and personal papers of religious leaders, in the UK. This includes archives created and used by private organisations and individuals and those in public repositories.

We support the archives of all faith communities, including those of secularist organizations. We cover all forms of record, including digital media, which are preserved in the UK and which concern religion or irreligion, even if they relate to foreign countries.

The group aims to advance education, research, scholarship and stewardship by working, separately and collectively with others, to promote awareness of religious archives and enhanced levels of access to them and of collection care.

We maintain a directory of religious archives in the UK and produce guidance on looking after archives. We also host an annual conference.

To find out how to become a member and join the RAG mailing list, visit Membership. For more information about how RAG works, visit About RAG.

It was with the utmost sorrow that I learned of Chris’s death on 19 November. Although we had not seen each other in person recently, in this post-Covid world, we had been periodically in touch via email to exchange news and views on topics of mutual interest relating to the University of Birmingham and special collections in general.
Our last two contacts over the summer were when Chris sent me greetings on my birthday, as she had always done in recent years (she had a fantastic memory), and when Chris broke the news of the return of her illness, a burden which she had accepted with such grace and carried with such fortitude.

I first met Chris in 1990, when I came to the University of Birmingham as Deputy Librarian. Chris was a valued member of the (then) very small special collections team. She had joined the University as University Archivist in 1971, after her first professional post as Assistant Librarian at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust from 1967 to 1971.
For the remainder of my time at Birmingham, until 2001, Chris proved to be an indefatigable ally in building up and promoting the University’s special collections department, extending its accommodation, increasing its staffing, growing its collections, automating archival cataloguing, and overseeing a campus-wide modern records management programme. A particular highlight in the mid to late 1990s was Chris’s immense contribution to the University’s considerable success in bidding for grants from the higher education funding councils’ institutionally-based Non-Formula Funding of Special Collections in the Humanities and the subsequent consortially-based Research Support Libraries Programme.

On the retirement of the then Head of Special Collections, the University had absolutely no hesitation in appointing Chris as his successor in 1995. She held that role, combining it with University Archivist, with considerable distinction until her own retirement in 2005, also engaging energetically with regional and national special collections colleagues. In 2007, when I was invited to be President of the Religious Archives Group, I found myself working closely with Chris again. She had been involved in RAG from its beginnings, serving as a member of its committee since 1991 and its treasurer since 1993, the latter role also entailing considerable administrative support for the annual RAG conferences. During my time as RAG President and committee member, she was an enormous help in facilitating the committee’s ambitions for enhancing RAG’s profile and value to religious archives and their users. She was centrally involved in securing small charity status for RAG and establishing its small grants programme.

Retirement saw no let-up in Chris’s devotion to special collections. Besides her service to RAG, she was treasurer of the Historic Libraries Forum for many years. She was a freelance cataloguer of rare books for the National Trust. She was a member of Hereford Cathedral library Committee and honorary consultant to Worcester and Lichfield Cathedral libraries. In later years, an increasing proportion of her time was devoted to the Hurd Library at Hartlebury Castle, a neglected late eighteenth-century gem. It was her passion. Chris was formally designated Hurd Librarian in 2009. She promoted the library through tours, talks, and research and fought tirelessly for a securer future for it and the Hartlebury estate. For those unfamiliar with the Hurd Library, Chris’s various articles about it are well worth reading. The easiest to access are probably those in The Book Collector, vol. 60, no. 3 (2011), Library and Information History, vol. 32, nos. 1–2 (2016), and, especially, in Princes of the Church: Bishops and their Palaces, edited by David Rollason (2017).

Chris was a consummate professional, with deep technical and subject expertise and a wide circle of contacts. She was a caring manager of staff and a person of the highest integrity. She was unfailingly courteous and helpful to users, receiving much positive feedback from them. She was undoubtedly one of the finest UK special collections librarians of her generation. I shall miss her greatly, both as a person and professional, and for her wisdom and campaigning zeal. However, I shall be uplifted by the legacy she leaves us and by the privilege of having known her.

Clive Field
President of Religious Archives Group, 2007–16
8 December 2023