An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar, delivered by Dr Karen McAulay (Heritage Collections Research Fellow, 2025)
Perusing the Papers from Thomas Nelson & Sons’ Parkside Works
The nature of archival research makes this very much a progress report. Thomas Nelson & Sons were an Edinburgh-based publisher with international offices. In their early days, they focused on religious materials – bibles and hymnbooks – and attractive reprints of novels. Later, they specialised in educational materials, and it is their provision of music materials for classroom use that particularly interests me.
My research has for a number of years has been into Scottish song books and amateur music making, but my second monograph concentrated more on Scottish music publishers, with only a secondary interest in book publishers who also published music. My main focus whilst in Edinburgh, is a modest four-volume set of Scottish song books published between 1948 and 1952. This research entails sifting through large quantities of correspondence during that era, in search of communications between the editors of Nelson’s Scots Song Book, and the editorial department at Thomas Nelson & Sons. As I progress, I am learning more about other key music titles in their lists, but the main difference between the Scots Song Books and these other books is that the other classroom books were intended for general British use, whilst the former would have had a more geographically limited audience, and could also, arguably, have been used beyond the classroom. I believe I know the impetus for these books – though I’d like to find written confirmation that my theory is correct. Moreover, despite the status of the editors, there are few copies surviving in libraries, so I would desperately like to find mention of contemporary reactions to these books.
I shall give some insight into the realities of archival research, and will share some of my findings to date.
Please join in-person, or click the link below to join the webinar:
https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/83015772676
Passcode: b1QpaAD7