We have both been busy with our final assessments for this year, including a presentation for this project, which you can watch in our memorialisation section.
Update
We have both been busy with research recently. So – what have we been up to?
Ellie has been to the Cornwall Record Office, getting quotes from the diary and letters etc. for us to be able to use on our website and for our future Twitter page (all will become very clear soon).
Update with our sponsor and goals
Today we are meeting with our sponsor (Kirsten, education officer at Truro Cathedral) to discuss the final outcomes of the project. We are hoping this will give us more focus in regards to what we are working torwards.
Ellie’s visit to Kew National Archive
Ellie at The National Archives
Over the Christmas break, due to my closer proximity to London, I was lucky enough to pursue Richard’s story through a trip to the National archives at Kew! It was a thoroughly interesting visit that not only developed my understanding of how an archive can be utilised effectively in research of this kind, but equally proved extremely fruitful in furthering our understanding about, not only Richard’s story, but the experiences of his widow Muriel after his death. It was therefore a somewhat unlikely outcome to the day but nevertheless one that has allowed us to perceive other potential outcomes for the project from the entirely new perspective of loss and those left behind.
Coming soon
Over Christmas we’ve been to Kew National Archives and have been looking into secondary sources on museums and war, so watch this space…
Decisions
When we first started this project, we set out to research two historical figures: Richard Charles Graves-Sawle and Joseph Hunkin. We have decided to carry on focusing on only one of the stories – Graves-Sawle’s. Although Hunkin is equally interesting, we feel that we have retrieved more information on Graves-Sawle, and Hunkin has been slightly neglected. That is not to say that Hunkin did not play a role in the First World War, we just have not managed to piece together a great deal of his story. But perhaps future students (or anyone interested in his life) will do so…
Our research so far
We started this investigation into the lives of two intriguing individuals around two months ago. Since then we have started to accumulate information on their role in the historic conflict.
So where did we start?