Our ‘Into the Archives’ document of the month is a photograph published in the Wiltshire and Gloucestershire Standard on 12th August 1922 of a luncheon party at Watermoor House, held in honour of the Prince of Wales when visiting Cirencester for a polo tournament.
The Prince visited on 3rd August to take part in a gymkhana and polo match arranged by the Cirencester Polo Club. It was a private event, and the Prince requested there be no public reception.
However, word had got where “the welcome accorded him was most enthusiastic and showed once more the great popularity of the Prince. Other members of the Royal Family have been seen in Cirencester in the past forty or fifty years, but never has there been a greater gathering of all classes of the community to give a welcome than that witnessed yesterday … After luncheon the Prince, accompanied by Earl Bathurst, drove through King Street, Victoria Road, Dyer Street, and the Market Place to Cirencester Park, and was greeted by thousands of people with their cheers.”
The polo tournament continued all week, but a special gymkhana was also arranged for the Prince’s visit. The Prince took part in the “Half-mile Scurry” and won. He later played in a polo match and was on the winning side.
The photograph can be found within the Bingham Archive inside a Cirencester parish scrap book of news cuttings, 1909-1930, reference D10820/P1-6/a. There are several scrapbooks in the Bingham Archive and not just those of general news cuttings.
There are scrapbooks of tickets, handbills, posters, and news cuttings that specifically relate to the Bingham Library and date from the Library’s opening in 1905.
Other examples include a scrapbook of the Cirencester Women’s Institute Golden Jubilee in 1965 and a scrapbook of Cirencester Grammar School. Gloucestershire Archives holds hundreds of scrapbooks outside of the Bingham Archive including several more containing materials on Cirencester.
Scrapbooks are an extremely useful archival source. Their content is often made up mainly of printed and published material. However, this does not lessen their value. Where they contain items such as posters and programmes these can be the only surviving copies. Even when they are dominated by news cuttings, they have great value. There are often other sources for newspapers, such as local Archives, the British Library, and online sources like the British Newspaper Archive. However, these sources frequently have gaps in their holdings and their content is rarely indexed in full. A themed scrapbook for a particular place, person or subject is a rich resource of material all in one volume.
To explore and find out more about the treasures in the Foundation’s archive visit www.danielbinghamfoundation.org.uk/archives/
