12 Jun 2013
It has been a while since Item of the Month made an appearance on the Library Blog, but June sees its return! As the centennial commemoration of the events of the First World War approaches, the Manuscripts team has been evaluating our holdings relating to this conflict. The anticipated public interest in the First World War during the coming months will place demands on our provision of access to relevant resources in the Caird Library. More significantly, in partnership with other departments at the NMM, we hope to showcase some material that has come into the collection in recent years and not been catalogued in detail.
Some personal collections feel particularly poignant because they relate to individuals who were killed on active service. One example is JOD/186, consisting of the journal and photograph albums of Charles Douglas Simmons. Simmons was drowned whilst serving in the Royal Naval Reserve just a few weeks before the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet in November 1918. He was 37. He is remembered on the Naval Memorial at Chatham, a memorial in the High Street at Penge in the London borough of Bromley, and in the roll of honour for cadets from the training ship HMS Worcester (1860).
June's Item of the Month looks at Simmon's career in photographs held in the Caird Library's collections. See for yourself here