Knowsley ARK – Making an exhibition of ourselves…

Archive materials are generally kept in environmentally stable, secure conditions which ensure that the documents, photographs, maps and other items that make up the collections are maintained and preserved for the future. 

The difficulty with this is that these treasures are not immediately available to view by researchers and interested members of the public; they have to be carefully produced on request for researchers to examine in controlled conditions such as an archive search room.

In Knowsley, that means a trip to the ARK repository in the Kirkby Centre, where Knowsley’s repository for archive materials is located. 

Based in the heart of the Kirkby community, the collections held in the ARK represent the heritage of the entire borough, creating a collective memory recalling the people, places and activities whose interwoven stories create a backdrop to our modern lives. 

In our mission statement, we say that we aim to ‘…promote Knowsley’s rich heritage, sharing an understanding of the history of the communities that make up the borough of Knowsley’.  

One of the ways we go about achieving this is by hosting visits to the archive for school and community groups: we offer sessions based on an aspect of our shared history and, as part of the visit, show off some pieces from the collections which are connected to the theme. 

This can have a huge impact on those present – it is truly awe inspiring to view the oldest document in the collections, a 14th century grant of land rendered on parchment, as perfect today as the day it was written…

Exhibitions and displays, meanwhile, give us an opportunity to share collections with a wider audience; to generate interest and conversation about the subject, and to tell the stories behind the people and places whose records make up the collections. 

Importantly, exhibitions help us to interpret collections and to make sense of the information that they hold, whilst creating a narrative that pulls all of the information together and places the collection within the context of the time and place that it represents.

Since the ARK opened on 3 March 2014, we have had our own exhibition space in Kirkby Library which has enabled us to explore aspects of Knowsley’s rich heritage. 

Using archival display cabinets to showcase original materials, text panels, copies of original documents and photographs, audio and film recordings and large scale imagery, we set out to provide a narrative for some of the stories which are central to our Borough’s life story.  

The first exhibition held, supported by the then Heritage Lottery Fund, was created as a result of the combined activities of the Kirkby University of the 3rd Age [U3A] and Knowsley Adult Disability Service. 

Whilst participants from the U3A recorded local people’s memories of Kirkby from the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s, creating a wonderful oral history record of the development of the town, folk from the Adult Disability Service undertook a photographic survey of the changes that Kirkby has seen over recent decades. 

The results – audio recordings ‘Talking Kirkby: From small beginnings to the making of our town’ and photographic project, ‘What’s not here anymore’ – combined to create a wonderfully evocative exhibition of art, photographs and sound that not only added a significant body of information to the archive, but also prompted many memories and conversations about Kirkby’s transition from rural idyll to bustling New Town. 

Huyton Library was the venue for an exhibition which shared another of our Heritage Lottery Fund supported community engagement projects. 

The ‘Huyton Camps’ project explored the town’s involvement in World War II, when it was the site of three wartime camps – Internment Camp 009, a United States Army Transit Camp and a Prisoner of War camp.

This project brought together residents, former internees and former Prisoners of War to share their stories of events that took place during a most pivotal time in world history. 

The exhibition itself was ambitious, spreading over both floors of the library and using original art, photography, archival records, audio and film recordings to create a thought provoking and immersive revelation of Huyton’s wartime past and the lived experiences of people who witnessed these historic events first hand.  

However, not all exhibitions are based on large collections. A single diary, created by a sailor serving during World War I, inspired ‘The Diary of a Dude’, shown in the Kirkby exhibition space in 2019.  

John Victor Pulman (1887-1960), known as Jack, signed up for the Royal Navy in October 1914, following service in the Merchant Navy. 

It was as he signed up with the Royal Navy that he began keeping the diary, which covers the period 1914-1918 and describes Jack’s time serving in South-East Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and the East Africa coast. 

A keen photographer, he took many photographs and over 100 of these have survived with the diary. He was also a musician, entertaining his crewmates with his band, the ‘Deolali Dudes’. 

In addition to the diary itself, the exhibition featured photographs, excerpts from the diary and some stunning original art work based on Pulman’s photography and writings, created by collaborators from Comics Youth.

Our most recent exhibition, ‘Underneath the Hazels: Unravelling the Past of C F Mott College’, proved very popular with former students of the college and featured a collection which centres on the former teacher training college, which occupied the site now given over to the King’s Business Park on the Huyton/Prescot border. 

The collection contains many photographs, architectural plans and documents relating to its history as a progressive institution with a reputation for academic innovation. 

The exhibition combined photographs, publications, plans and college records to bring to life a timeline of events leading from the College’s establishment in 1945, to its merger with Liverpool Polytechnic (now Liverpool John Moores University) in 1983. 

Exhibitions are a fantastic way of opening the archives up to a greater number of people, enabling an exploration of the showcased collections with a narrative that creates context and understanding. 

We hope that in exploring our exhibitions, visitors can learn about their communities and in so doing, develop a sense of pride in our shared heritage.

So what’s next? We can’t say too much just now – it’s still under wraps – but our next exhibition is one that will  feature a very popular sport which has many participants locally and which has given the world many champions over the years… watch this space!

You can visit the ARK at the Kirkby Centre, Norwich Way, Kirkby, L32 8XY.