https://mulberry-bush.epexio.com/records/CROCKET
From the Catalogue entry (the full entry, as saved by the Internet Archive, is at the url above)
| CORRECTIONS/EMENDATIONS | |||||
| Reference number |
CROCKET |
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| Level of description |
Collection |
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| Date(s) |
1897-2006 (Creation) |
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| Extent and medium |
131 boxes (approx) |
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| Category |
Personal Papers |
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| Scope and content |
Personal Papers of Richard Crocket including diaries, manuscripts and papers alongside papers relating to he Ingrebourne Centre. |
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| History |
Richard Crocket was a medical doctor and psychotherapist. In 1941 he published "Observations on the Incidence of Neuroses in R.A.F. Ground Personnel" co-authored with RD Gillespie. In 1954 he was appointed consultant in charge of a psychiatric unit located within St. George's District General Hospital at Hornchurch in Essex, an outpost of the local mental hospital, Warley Hospital at Brentwood. Crocket renamed the unit ‘The Ingrebourne Centre for Psychological Medicine’ and oversaw the development of a therapeutic community led by Hamish Anderson. Crocket published his first reflective paper "Doctors, Administrators, and Therapeutic Community" in 1960 before retiring from his post at Ingrebourne in 1979. In 1977 he was appointed to the lead psychiatrist at the Paddington Day Hospital. |
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| Name of creator(s) |
Richard Crocket |
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| Access status |
MIXED |
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| Conditions governing access |
Some materials are closed to public access. |
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| Language |
ENG |
Title |
Richard Crocket Archive |
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| Date(s) description was created |
May 2020 |
Comments
For a more extended description of Richard Crocket's life and career, please see here.
What I am primarily calling attention to in this Appendix is the pdf document which precedes the catalogue description, and the questions it raises.
The internet Archive has often not saved these pdfs in the catalogue descriptions it has preserved, although it does appear to have done so on this occasion. Generally, when included by the Mulberry Bush archive, these pdfs are of catalogues as such. What we see here is rather the initial listing of materials which were picked up from Dr. Crocket's home on April 26, 2000. A list is not a catalogue: it is, as it indicates, a list, and in this case a descriptive initial listing of items picked up on that particular day, retaining insofar as possible context and order. The accession number for these materials is 2000.24, and the list runs to 22 pages.
The relationship between the Archive and Study Centre and Richard Crocket became a fairly close one, beginning with an introduction to Dr. Crocket via Malcolm Pines and David Millard in 1998, and continuing beyond Dr. Crocket's death at the end of 2006, via his family, through to the handover of the Archive and Study Centre to the Mulberry Bush Organisation at the end of 2018. Accession 2000.24 was just one of numerous accessions both before and after 2000, which continued after Dr. Crocket's death. 2000.24 is a shapshot of one moment in a long relationship, and a long gathering.
That long gathering, and the aggregate of all the accessions, including the significant additions from his family after Dr. Crocket's death, were fully and professionally catalogued in the 2010s by a qualified archivist with the substantial financial support and cooperation of the Crocket family. The completed catalogue revolutionised access to Dr. Crocket's archive. It was used extensively by Tom Harrison during his PhD research on the Ingrebourne Centre, and by others.
That this complete and detailed catalogue has not been used in support of the catalogue description of the Crocket Archive, while a 2000 snapshot of an initial listing has, raises several questions. The principal one is: Is it possible that the cataloguer was not aware of the existence of the complete and detailed catalogue? And if not, how is that possible? And if they weren't aware of it, does this mean that they were not aware of the substantial financial support given by the Crocket family to make the cataloguing possible, which would have been captured in the Archivist's correspondence, in the reports of the Archivist to Trustees, and indeed in the Trust's minutes and financial accounts?
Alarm Bells
Have these sources not been used because they no longer existed at the time of cataloguing? Or - Was it because the cataloguer wasn't aware of them (in which case, Why not?). Or - Is there another explanation?
1. ACCESSION REGISTER - for details of accessions before and after Dr. Crocket's death (digital and physical)
2. CATALOGUES - for the detailed and complete Richard Crocket catalogue (both digital, as a pdf on the FreeNAS digital storage system, and in the Cataloguing database, and in a hard copy print out)
3. ARCHIVIST'S REPORTS (digital and hard copy)
4. ARCHIVIST'S CORRESPONDENCE (digital)
5. TRUSTEE MINUTES AND FINANCIAL RECORDS (digital and hard copy)
6. FORMER ARCHIVIST, RESEARCHERS, DR CROCKET'S FAMILY
