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Closed period: Christmas 2017-18. Appointments for archives & manuscripts research at St Cross church will resume in the week of 15 January 2018. However, you can request and book appointments for the new year during the closed period - plan ahead and get your place booked early.

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June 2015: Unlocking Archives talk

Nicholas Dennys: ‘Given to me by Mr Greene: Graham Greene, a personal view’

Monday 8 June, 1-2pm

In autumn last year Balliol College was pleased to acquire for its research collection the books and papers of a remarkable woman called Josephine Reid, relating to her employer, the writer Graham Greene (Balliol 1922).  Josephine Reid was Greene’s secretary and literary typist from 1958 to 1992. Nicholas Dennys, bookseller and nephew of Graham Greene,  will be in conversation with Naomi Tiley, Balliol’s Librarian,  giving a personal insight into Graham Greene’s writing and Josephine Reid’s collection.

Nicholas Dennys, a partner in the rare booksellers Dennys, Sanders, & Greene, patiently negotiated the sale of Josephine Reid’s books and papers to the College and prepared the collection’s sale catalogue, which proved an invaluable starting point for Balliol’s recent listings of the books and papers.  As the son of Graham Greene’s sister, Elisabeth, he is also Greene’s nephew.

All welcome! Feel free to bring your lunch.

The talk will last about half an hour, to allow time for questions and discussion afterwards and a closer look at an exhibition of the Cherry Record Collection of Josephine Reid’s papers and books relating to Graham Greene.

All Unlocking Archives talks take place at Balliol’s Historic Collections Centre, St Cross Church, Manor Road OX1 3UH (next door to Holywell Manor).

Map & directions: http://archives.balliol.ox.ac.uk/Services/visit.asp#f

Enquiries: library@balliol.ox.ac.uk

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March 2015: PUBLIC OPEN DAYS & EXHIBITION

“Given to me by Mr Greene”: An exhibition of The Cherry Record Collection of Josephine Reid’s papers and books relating to Graham Greene. Sat 25 & Sun 26 April 2015, 11am – 4pm both days, at Balliol College Historic Collections Centre, St Cross Church, St Cross Road, OX1 3UH. All welcome!

Graham Greene attended Balliol College in the 1920s before embarking on a career as a writer and publisher. Josephine Reid was Greene’s secretary 1959 – 1992. Despite those thirty-three years working alongside him, she makes only a footnote appearance in his official biography. This public exhibition of her letters, books and papers from Graham Greene, showcased in Balliol’s award winning Historic Collection building, tells the story of how Josephine Reid put the secret into secretary and reveals the working practices of one of the twentieth-century’s best known writers.

Directions to St Cross Church

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February 2015: a new description of Balliol's holdings of Harold Nicolson's Diaries is online here.

January 2015: the list of letters within JEC Bodley's Memoirs (MS 442) is newly online.

January 2015: Appointments to consult archives and manuscripts at Balliol's special collections centre in St Cross Church are available from Monday 12 January 2015.

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December 2014

The archives will be closed for the holidays from 19 December 2014. Appointments to consult archives and manuscripts at Balliol's special collections centre in St Cross Church will be available from Monday 12 January 2015. If you receive an 'out of office' autoreply, your enquiry has been received and there is no need to repeat it. Emails will be answered in order of receipt when the office reopens in January.

October 2014

Unlocking Archives, a series of lunchtime talks about current research  in Balliol College’s special collections, resumes this term with two events:

1) Anna Sander: ‘The Balliol Boys’ Club and WW1.’ Friday of 4th week (7 November) at 1pm
2) Naomi Tiley and Fiona Godber: ‘Buried Treasure? Hidden Early Printed Books at Balliol.’ Friday of 7th week (28 November) at 1pm.

All welcome! Feel free to bring your lunch.

The talks will last about half an hour, to allow time for questions and discussion afterwards and a closer look at some of the Balliol books and manuscripts discussed.

All Unlocking Archives talks take place at Balliol’s Historic Collections Centre, St Cross Church, Manor Road OX1 3UH (next door to Holywell Manor). Map & directions: http://archives.balliol.ox.ac.uk/Services/visit.asp#f

September 2013

Balliol's Historic Collections Centre at St Cross Church will be open to the public as part of Oxford Open Doors Days, Saturday and Sunday 14-15 September 2013, 12-4pm both days. It will also be welcoming participants in the Oxfordshire Historic Churches' Trust's 'Ride and Stride' event on Saturday 14 September, 12-4pm. For a map of the area, please see our Visit page.

In celebration of the college's 750th anniversary, there will be a major exhibition of historic College treasures at the Historic Collections Centre in St Cross Church in September - October 2013: DOMUS SCOLARIUM DE BALLIOLO 1263 - 2013. Admission is free and all are welcome.

Public opening hours:

• Thurs 26/9, 11.30 – 2.30
• Mon 30/9, 11.30 – 2.30
• Sat 05/10, 12 – 4.30
• Wed 09/10, 11.30 – 2.30
• Sat 12/10, 12 – 4.30
  

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September 2012 In celebration of the 200th anniversary of his birth, an exhibition of the poet Robert Browning's correspondence, poetry manuscripts, photographs and personal items held in Balliol College's modern manuscripts collection will be open to the public Monday-Friday 1-5 October, 2-4pm at Balliol's Historic Collections Centre, St Cross Church, Holywell, Oxford. All welcome. The door will be open; no need to book. There is no entrance fee.

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September 2012

Balliol's Historic Collections Centre at St Cross Church will be open to the public as part of Oxford Open Doors Days, Saturday and Sunday 8-9 September 2012, 12-4pm both days. For a map of the area, please see our Visit page.

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June 2012

Balliol Archives & Manuscripts will be celebrating International Archives Day (9 June) by participating in #archday12 on Twitter, organised by @AskArchivists . The day itself is a Saturday, so like many archivists around the world Anna Sander will be taking questions and posting content (links on twitter to content here on the blog) on Friday 8 and Monday 11 June.

Of course, you don't have to wait for an occasion like this to make an enquiry to Balliol's archivist, but the event is an opportunity to ask lots of archivists questions about their work, their collections and research using all kinds of original source material, from medieval manuscripts to early modern maps to photographs and film. Come and join in!

If you are not on Twitter, you can also ask questions for this event via the Facebook page or by email .

http://twitter.com/#!/balliolarchives
http://balliolarchivist.wordpress.com/

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March 2012 Dr John Jones' St Cross Church, Holywell: its history, architecture, people, and conversion into an Historic Collections Centre is out of print, and is now available in print-ready PDF format here.

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October 2011

More ways to stay in touch with Balliol Archives and Manuscripts:

blog http://balliolarchivist.wordpress.com/

flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/balliolarchivist/

twitter https://twitter.com/#!/balliolarchives

facebook https://www.facebook.com/balliolarchives

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01 October 2011 The college archives and all manuscript collections are now open to researchers by prior appointment in the new facilities at St Cross Church, Holywell. They are no longer stored or available for consultation in the main College Library in Broad Street. Contact Anna Sander, Lonsdale Curator of Archives & Manuscripts, for more information or to request an appointment to consult the collections.

For more information about the St Cross Church project 2008-2011, please see http://archives.balliol.ox.ac.uk/Archives/stcross01.asp

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October 2010

• the Balliol College Register 1833-1933 (2nd ed) is now available on flickr - not word-searchable, but indexed and easy to browse
• first sets of images on flickr: photos of building works progress at St Cross Church through 2010
• images from the archives and manuscripts will appear on our new page at flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/balliolarchivist/ - we hope the gallery and slideshow functions will be much easier to use than previous attempts to post images on this site.
• follow the new Archives & Manuscripts blog at http://balliolarchivist.wordpress.com/

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June 2010 - now available online:

• images of documents relating to St Margaret Pattens (Archives B.14 and B.16) here
• catalogue of TH Green papers here
• images of the minute book of the Hanover Club (1911-1914) here.
• photographs of Francis Fortescue Urquhart here
• photograph each of Thomas Hill Green and Arnold Toynbee here

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Several key publications about the history of Balliol College are now available online via the Internet Archive and other internet book sites. Books are available in full, free and in several different searchable formats. A few of the Balliol titles:

• Balliofergus By Henry Savage, 1668. The first history of an Oxford college.
• Early History of Balliol College. By Frances de Paravicini, 1891.
• Balliol College (University of Oxford College Histories series). By HWC Davies, 1899.
• Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol. By AL Tollemache, 1904.
• Balliol College Register, 1st ed (1914)

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A leaflet about the St Cross project is available here.

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advance warning of suspension of service during the move to St Cross

There will have to be a period when the logistics dictate that access to the collections or enquiry service will be limited or entuirely suspended. This may occupy most of the calendar year 2011; updates will be posted as far in advance as possible. The period of reduced or closed service will of course be minimised as far as we can; a major purpose of the project after all is to make the College’s treasures more easily available. But in the meantime scholars who know that their research is going to involve Balliol’s original resources are advised to plan their programmes accordingly, and, if they can, to advance their approach to Balliol.

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October 09 Archives Annual Report 2008-9 as published in the Annual Record

October 08 Archives Annual Report 2007-8 as published in the Annual Record

October 07 Archives Annual Report 2006-7 as published in the Annual Record

October 06 Archives Annual Report 2005-6 This report was cut off at the bottom of a page of the 2006 Annual Record , so here is the full illustrated version.

October 05 Archives Annual Report 2004-5 as published in the Annual Record

- Anna Sander