Historian Baroness Lola Young and Archivist Anne Barrett Honoured by All Party Parliamentary Group on Archives and History
Historian Baroness Lola Young and Archivist Anne Barrett to be Honoured by All Party Parliamentary Group on Archives and History
The tenth annual ‘Lifetime Achievement Awards’ were presented on 1st May 2024 in Westminster
The committee of the (UK) All Party Parliamentary Group on Archives and History honoured the work of historian Baroness Lola Young and archivist Anne Barrett with its annual ‘Lifetime Achievement Awards’.
The winners received their certificates formally at a special lunch in the House of Commons on Wednesday 1st May 2024.
Lola, Baroness Young of Hornsey with Anne Barrett, holding their Lifetime Achievement Award certificates and enjoying the moment!
About the winners of the Lifetime Achievement Awards:
Baroness Lola Young
Baroness Young is a former actor, an author, campaigner and peer. Her writing includes a book and numerous essays on culture, heritage, museums and representation.
After a career in academia, after she became Professor of Cultural Studies at Middlesex University in 1997, she was seconded to the Black Cultural Archives, where with her academic background and practice-based experience in culture, she worked on supporting the organisation prior to its move to Windrush Square. In 2000, Lola was awarded an OBE for services to Black British History. Other award include the Legacy Awards 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award for championing human rights, culture and politics, and the Drapers Sustainable Fashion Award for Sustainable Fashion Champion, 2023.
Lola moved from academia to the GLA, where she served as Head of Culture, after which she established her own consultancy, writing a series of reports and policy papers for Arts Council England, and other national cultural bodies.
She became an independent Crossbench member of the House of Lords in 2004 where she works on legislation to eliminate modern slavery and is the founding co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion and Sport, Modern Slavery and Human Rights.
In addition, she has also championed the rights of access to care records for care-experienced people of all ages and recently wrote the forward to the Chief Archivists in Local Government Group of ARA’s report and guidance on the records of care and adoption experienced people, published in March 2024.
Lola has served on the boards of several national cultural organisations, including The National Archives, the Southbank Centre, the National Theatre, English Heritage/Historic England; she chaired the Young Review and Agenda, addressing racial disproportionality and the vulnerability of traumatised women in the justice system, and currently Co-Chairs the Foundation for Future London: she is also a NED on the Board of environmental sustainability change innovator, Futerra. (See full biography here)
Jenny Moran, former ARA Board member who nominated Lola, with Lola Young holding her Lifetime Achievement Award.
Jenny Moran, former ARA Board Member and Information Management Officer at Sheffield City Council who nominated Baroness Young said:
“I first met Lola when she was just Professor Young, at meetings of the Black and Asian Archives Working Party in about 1999. I was relatively newly-qualified and representing the Society of Archivists as we were then. Meetings were in London, with a large group of fearsomely intelligent and knowledgeable people so I was quite nervous. Lola was one of the people who encouraged my contributions and made me feel welcome. I doubt she would remember me – we lost touch when the group disbanded – but I have remembered her thoughtful approach and ability to disagree constructively. She was able to make her voice heard, but without drowning those of others.
Lola has been involved with archives and heritage work for many years in a variety of ways, but she has championed those causes rather than promoted her own voice. At a time of great division in our country and the wider world, Lola is someone who has brought people together and it is hard to keep ‘plugging away’ when the results are hard to see. I feel she is an unsung hero and I would like her continuous commitment to British and especially Black British history to be recognised and celebrated.”
Anne Barrett
Anne Barrett holding her certificate.
Nominated by Chris Evans MP, Principal Chair of the APPG History and Archives, Anne Barrett AIC, MA, BA Hons, Diploma Archival Administration, Diploma Librarianship is the College Archivist and Corporate Records Manager at Imperial College London and a Freeman of the City of London.
Anne Barrett says that her job as Imperial College London Archivist & Corporate Records Manager is ‘as much about looking forward as looking back, collecting today for tomorrow. If I don’t know what is happening in Imperial’s life today, I can’t ensure we have a full record of Imperial, its work and culture to inform Imperial’s future life.’
Anne has worked at Imperial College London since 1982, coming from 2 years at the Radcliffe Science Library in Oxford, she worked in Imperial’s library, creating the conservation style book repair system and becoming the Preservation Officer. This experience led her to being recruited to lead Imperial’s Archives in 1988, and also to being one of the few people who have taken both the Librarianship and the Archive Administration Diplomas at University College London, in 1985 and 1992 respectively. She gained her MA on George Eliot’s Reading whilst undertaking her Diploma in Librarianship, and continues to work on a PhD relating to an aspect of Imperial’s 19th century archival collections.
In 2017 Anne’s seminal 484 page book: Women At Imperial College Past, Present and Future, was published, having been asked write it by senior academic women as part of her work on women in science. Anne also runs an annual Women Wikithon with external colleagues in engineering and culture. Now wholly online since the pandemic, a wider audience is reached, introducing editing of Wikipedia pages to participants who can update or write new pages about women.
Throughout her career, Anne has been involved in an astonishing number of archival and history related committees both national and international, leading a former Keeper of the National Archives to remark ‘that’s a lot of volunteering’. Anne takes this remark positively, as without volunteers so much would not happen, and she has been fortunate in being able to persuade others to join her voluntary ventures, and is very grateful to those colleagues. She has taken or found opportunities to make a difference and lead in archival and record keeping interests, seizing some which would otherwise have been lost such as the saving of a national scientific cataloguing organisation. She has encouraged and mentored early career members of the profession both in her role at Imperial, and also for ARA. (See Anne’s full biography here)
Anne Barrett receiving her certificate from Lord Clark of Windemere (sitting to her right) whilst Chris Evans MP (who nominated Anne) looks on.
Chris Evans, MP – Principal Chair of the Group – who nominated Anne Barrett said:
‘Works like Anne’s Women at Imperial College Past, Present and Future are vital in ensuring the scientific contributions of women are recognised in the history of our longstanding institutions, and not forgotten.
She has volunteered an incredible amount of her time to make a difference to projects, both nationally and internationally, that preserve and share knowledge of women’s important work at Imperial College and around the world.
This is why I am so glad that the APPG for Archives and History can recognise and celebrate Anne’s decades of commitment, as an example of excellence in the archival profession.’
About the APPG Archives and History
The (UK) All Party Parliamentary Group on Archives and History is a cross-party, non-partisan body that aims to support the record-keeping sector and promote the study of history. The Group was established in 2010 under the chairmanship of the (now-retired) Dr Hywel Francis, MP. It is been co-chaired by Chris Evans, MP and Lord Clark of Windermere, PC.
About the APPG Archives and History Lifetime Achievement Awards
This is the tenth All Party Group Lifetime Achievement Awards to honour the work of record-keepers and historians. Previous recipients are:
- Eric Hobsbawm and Lord (Hugh) Thomas in 2011
- Lord (Asa) Briggs and Sarah Tyacke CB in 2012
- Professor José Harris and Gerry Slater in 2013
- Lord (Kenneth) Morgan and George Mackenzie in 2014
- Sir Keith Thomas and Patricia Methven in 2015
- Professor Sir Michael Howard and Heather Forbes in 2016
- John Dunbabin and Michael Moss in 2017
- Sir Tom Devine and Bruce Jackson in 2018
- Margaret MacMillan and Jeff Cargill in 2019
- Due to COVID 19 no awards were made in 2020/21/22/23
Photos in this news item all by Simon O’Connor for the Archives and Records Association