Dr Alistair Dougall was recently elected as Hampshire Archives Trust’s Chair at our recent AGM on Saturday 11th October. Alistair has been a longstanding Trustee of Hampshire Archives Trust and is passionate about encouraging and educating young people about using Hampshire archives. We’re so excited to have Alistair as our Chair and for the wonderful things he has planned.
We’d love for you all to get to know Alistair better, and our Social Media Fellow Dr Daniella Gonzalez recently interviewed Alistair to find out more about why he became involved in Hampshire Archives Trust, what it is he enjoys about local history and archives, and what are some of the ideas he’ll be bringing to the organisation as Chair.
Daniella: The first question I’d like to ask you Alistair is about your background? Prior to becoming involved in Hampshire Archives Trust, what was your career path? Did this influence you to join Hampshire Archives Trust?
Alistair: I have a rather quirky career path. Ever since I was quite a small child, I had wanted to be a barrister. I’m not sure why as we didn’t know any barristers. I think I had just overdosed on things like Rumpole of the Bailey and Crown Court! My A-levels were in History, English Literature and Government and Politics but I then went on to read Law at UCL (many, many moons ago!) and then did the Bar Finals. I qualified as a barrister but had already decided by then that I didn’t actually want to practice as a barrister, so I never did pupillage. Instead, I went into businesses connected with the legal world: first with Butterworths, the legal publishers, and then in legal recruitment recruiting lawyers for City law firms and corporations. After several years working in business, I wanted a change and so decided to go back to university to study History. I did a history degree and then a Masters at Southampton University and was then persuaded to stay on and do a PhD. I specialised in early modern English history. I taught parttime at the university while I was doing my doctorate and discovered that I really enjoyed teaching. I then got a job at the Godolphin School in Salisbury as a History teacher and later became Head of History there. I taught there for over 20 years and absolutely loved it.
I retired from teaching 2021 and then became a Trustee of HAT.
Daniella: What is it about Hampshire Archives Trust that drew you to the organisation? Why did you choose to become a part of the organisation?
Alistair: As you can probably tell, I’ve always been interested in History. I enjoy studying it and I loved teaching it. I think it is important that people understand their own history. Archives are crucial to teaching us about our history whether they are letters, diaries, legal or other documents, photographs, film footage or recordings. Preserving archives, using archives and deepening people’s understanding and appreciation of archives really matters. Over many years, the Hampshire Archives Trust has given grants to all manner of fantastic projects, both large and small, and has helped people and organisations to do exactly that: preserve archives and use them to make sense of our past and to tell others about our history. Through its Grants programme, events, webinars, and website, HAT has made an important contribution to promoting an understanding of the people, events and places of Hampshire’s past. I was therefore very pleased to join the Board of Trustees in 2021 as I was impressed by what HAT had achieved and I wanted to help in its great cause. I was particularly interested in promoting the understanding of archives among young people and encouraging them to use archives to become better historians and to develop valuable transferable skills.
Daniella: And how did you come to archives and local history? Why is it important to you that Hampshire’s archives and rich history is preserved for future generations?
Alistair: I had done some research years ago into my own family history and, like many people do, had looked at records of births, marriages and deaths in my family. But it was not until I did the History degree, Masters and doctorate that I really used archives in a big way. I spent many, many hours (mostly happy but some tedious!) in various record offices, the British Library, the Bodleian Library and places like that pouring over all manner of records … and almost indecipherable manuscripts trying to get to grips with seventeenth-century handwriting! Each trip to the record office or library was like a voyage of discovery. It was always so fascinating and satisfying to learn something knew about an historic person or event, and particularly satisfying to discover something that previous historians may have missed. I later went on to co-author a book about the history of my village (with, no less, our outgoing Chairman, David Livermore) and that is when I really began to study archives relating to Hampshire. Indeed, I spent many hours researching at the HRO in Winchester. I think most of us love finding out about where we live, about who was here before us and what they did in terms of work and lifestyle and to find out about how our town or village has evolved or changed. It all goes to a sense of identity and belonging and, at the end of the day, history is all about people: who they were, what happened to them, why they did the things they did and the impact on others of what people did. Local history can really bring all of that to life.
Daniella: Since you joined Hampshire Archives Trust, what has been a particular highlight for you?
Alistair: I think that my particular highlight so far has been setting up and running the History competition for schools in Hampshire. We are now in the fourth year of the competition, and I continue to be really impressed by both the range and standard of projects that the students produce each year. The competition is open to all secondary and sixth form students studying in Hampshire and there are both individual and group prizes. We are deliberately non-prescriptive in terms of topics or format, and all manner of entries have been made: essays, posters, PowerPoint presentations, films, podcasts, websites … you name it! All we ask is that the project must relate to Hampshire’s history in some way: a person, an event, a place, etc. Also, the students must be able to demonstrate the use of archives in their project. You can find out more information about the competition and the previous entries and winners by looking at the Education section of HAT’s website.
Daniella: What plans have you got as Chair? Can you give us any sneaky spoilers?
Alistair: I have to confess that I found the prospect of becoming Chair quite daunting. I and all my fellow Trustees owe a huge debt of gratitude to our outgoing Chairman, David Livermore. David has led us and has steered HAT brilliantly over the past few years and HAT has achieved great things under his leadership. So, he is going to be a hard act to follow! However, although I do feel somewhat daunted stepping into David’s shoes, I am also excited about what we can do in the future. One of the main priorities is, of course, to continue HAT’s wonderful work of granting funds in order to enable various groups to preserve, use and promote the amazing range of archives in Hampshire. Our grant programme will remain a top priority.
I also want to continue with the schools’ programme and to promote the understanding and appreciation of archives among young people. Although it is still somewhat in its infancy, each year more schools and more students have become involved in the competition and we want it to continue to grow. The feedback from the teachers each year is that the students love doing their history projects and that, as well as increasing their interest in and understanding of history, working on their entries has helped them to develop their research and presentational skills. I very much want that to continue.
Under the leadership of my fellow Trustee, David Spurling, HAT has also put together a wealth of information to help advise local history groups on how to digitalise their archives and to create online searchable databases. This is an exciting and important project and it should mean that HAT can become a ‘go to’ place for local history groups seeking help on building and publishing online databases for their members and the wider public to use. So, this will be another priority.
I would also like to do even more to publicise the Hampshire Archives Trust and all the good things we do. So, with my colleagues, I will be looking at more ways to do that and to increase our membership even further. Our cause is a very good and important one and I think we can all agree on how important it is for us to not only preserve but also to understand, publish and promote archives relating to Hampshire’s history. If anyone has any ideas on what else we can do to further this cause and to get our message out there, then I would love to hear from them.
Members already enjoy your fabulous series of webinars and podcasts, and my colleague, Barbara Gibson, organises some fantastic visits to historic sites and buildings in Hampshire. Again, if anyone has ideas about what else we could do or offer to members or would-be members, then please let me know.
Daniella: Lastly, and this is a bit of a big question, but if you had a time and place that you could travel back to in Hampshire’s history, what would it be? And why?
Alistair: Gosh, yes, that is a huge question. Hampshire has so much history and I am conscious that I only know about a fraction of it. Given my own particular interest in late sixteenth and early seventeenth history, although I am certain that it would not be a pleasant experience at all, I would be fascinated to be in Winchester during the time of the English Civil War. That period was one of enormous turmoil and hardship, but it would just be so interesting to see how people faced the challenges and upheaval and to find out more about how ordinary people’s lives were affected. The ordinary, uneducated people of those times are usually silent. We only usually hear about them when they are mentioned in registers of baptisms, marriages or burials or if they appear in court documents. There is no correspondence between or diary entries made by the ordinary people of the time. I have researched the period and think that I know quite a lot about the many ways that the Civil War affected people but it would be fascinating to actually be there, and particularly when the parliamentarian soldiers ran riot in the cathedral. I fear, though, that it would be a traumatic experience. Delving into archives is itself a way of time travel in itself and, luckily, it carries far less risk!