Institutional Archives

Robust Information Retrieval

I have experienced some instances of being able to reconstruct a narrative easily if the institutional archives are well organised. The most recent example that comes to mind has to do with the archives of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

When I was searching for information about Dr LM Sanghvi, I wrote to the School on 26 December 2012 querying them about an Indian student who was the recipient of the Duncan Medal in 1939. Obviously, the School was closed for the Christmas-New Year break that week. On the 3^rd of January, as soon as the School reopened after the break, I received an email from the School’s alumni association in-charge, telling me that the query had been forwarded to the archives department and that I would be hearing from them shortly. By the 11^th of January, the then archivist Matthew Chipping sent me an email with all the details about the student, including his residential address in London when he was with the School, his faculty, his detailed courses and, best of all, a group photograph of his class!

That facilitated my task of developing the entire section of Dr Sanghvi’s student days in London. This was in such a sharp contrast to my experience of getting any information about him from the Indian schools and colleges where Dr Sanghvi had studied.

The email reply received from the archives of London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is reproduced below to give an indication of how robust their archival search systems are that these details could be retrieved  with such speed and the prompt response of their archives department to a query from an unknown researcher.

An Example of Family Archiving: Dr LM Sanghvi and the Duncan Medal

The narrative illustrates the role of archives, and the role of a social historian, in writing a biography. It illustrates how the availability of an archival article, or resource, leads a social historian to contextualise the object, or the resource, that enhances the biographical narrative.

Among the archival materials that I examined while researching the book Healing the Body: Touching the Heart was a medal that Dr LM Sanghvi had preserved carefully. It was the Duncan Medal on which Dr Sanghvi’s name was engraved. My exploration into the significance of the Medal revealed that it had become one of those objects that get hidden in the mist of times. And, unless I documented the story, the object – the Medal – would probably end up with some kabadiwallah, as few would know its worth.

My father, Dr LM Sanghvi,received the Andrew Duncan Medal in 1939. He was only the fourth Indian to receive the Duncan Medal. He was the last Indian to be awarded the annual Duncan Medal. Hence, perhaps, this is a rare medallion in the family’s collection.

The Medal was instituted at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in 1913. According to information received from the archives of the School, The Duncan Medal was first awarded in 1913. It was bestowed in memory of Andrew Duncan MD, BS, FRCS, FRCP, Physician to the Seaman’s Hospital Society and Lecturer in Tropical Medicine, who died in 1912. It was awarded to the student obtaining the highest marks in the examination for the Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

It was awarded annually (usually to two or three individuals). In 1946, it was decided to award it once in two years, perhaps because the endowment amount for the purpose became inadequate. In the alternate years the Duncan Medal was not awarded, the Lalcaca Medal & William Simpson Prize was awarded to student obtaining the highest rank in the Diploma exams. For 1961-62 and 1963-64, it was awarded jointly with the William Simpson Prize. It is still awarded today but not as a medal. It is called the Duncan Prize and it consists of a monetary prize of £60. The Medal does not seem to have been awarded from 1942-1945, probably due to the Second World War.

Among the Indians who received the Duncan Medal before Dr LM Sanghvi were:

BL Taneja (1928), R Sivasamtandan (1931) and MJ Shah (1935). Of these three recipients of the Duncan Medal, a Google search could obtain information only on Dr BL Taneja. He was the Director General, Indian Council of Medical Research from 1964 to 1969. The surgery block of Irwin Hospital (now renamed LokNayak Hospital), Delhi, is named after Dr BL Taneja.

The present generation may not fully appreciate what such an achievement by an Indian student meant, not just for the person getting the award, but for the entire community, nay, even for the national psyche! Remember, India was under British rule then; and for an Indian to secure the highest marks in the class which comprised, mostly, British students, was to achieve something unimaginable!

About Duncan Medal

The Medal was created by John Pinches. The online archives of the British Museum had the following information on John Pinches.

He came from a family of London die-sinkers and medallists. The company was founded circa 1841 by Thomas Ryan Pinches and his younger brother John Pinches who ran the business from 1856. John Harvey Pinches, eldest son of John Pinches (9 April 1916 – 2 July 2007), who would have created the medal that Dr LM Sanghvi received in 1939, was an English rower, Royal Engineers officer, medallist and author. After two years’ engineering training, JH Pinches joined the family firm and continued to run the family medallion business after the death of his father in 1905 and turned it into a limited company, John Pinches (Medallists) Limited, in 1940. The firm crafted badges and insignia in Britain. It also made commemorative medallions for much of the Commonwealth and decorations and orders for overseas governments. John Pinches (Medallists) Ltd was taken over by the Franklin Mint of Philadelphia, USA, in 1969.