At over 33,000 records and counting, the Bankes collection is rich with stories about all sorts of things relating to Dorset, Britain, and the wider world. Following its cataloguing between 2015 and 2018, the collection has gone on to regularly be one of our most popular collections; with hundreds, if not thousands of documents from this collection being looked at each year by customers.
There is enough material within this collection to inform hundreds of blog posts, however, we wanted to shine a brief light on some of the ‘related collections’ that exist tangentially to the main Bankes archive. These are collections, often small in size, which have come to us here at Dorset History Centre separately, from other sources to the main collection.
Why are they separate?
The first question, obviously enough, is why these collections are kept separately to the overall D-BKL collection when the material is obviously associated?
The answer lies in the provenance of these smaller collections, where they have come from, and (as is often the way) the terms of their deposit with us here at Dorset History Centre. The main collection is owned by the National Trust, and we hold it on deposit on their behalf.
However, the smaller collections are often donated to us by other parties. The terms of a donation are different to those of a deposit, and mean that we are able to exercise more control over the collection or document, as it becomes permanently and officially ‘ours’, unlike material held on deposit. For many reasons, we would prefer to take in donated material rather than deposited material, but we fully accept that some people or organisations would prefer to deposit things with us, rather than donate them.
The Bankes archive lists nine associated collections of material. These are generally small in size, usually one or two items, occasionally rising to 20 or so things.
We wanted to point out these associated collections, in an effort to both make people more aware of what else there might be, and to encourage visitors to look ‘outside the box’ of the Bankes collection.
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The Family
Six of the nine associated collections relate to Bankes family members. Of these, particularly noteworthy are the letters sent by William John Bankes to Henry Hyde Nugent Bankes, his nephew. The letters are much like other letters from William, in that they discuss elements of his building works at Kingston Lacy, revealing William’s fear of nagging Anne, his sister about the progress. However they often, typically, give a forceful opinion on something, usually artwork. The letters in D-3051 are no different in this sense.
We also hold a scrapbook of letters relating to the family of Georgina Charlotte Bankes (who married George Bankes in 1822); mother of the aforementioned Henry Hyde Nugent Bankes. Scrapbooks of letters were not uncommon things, and this scrapbook has a wide range of material from variety of people, including, perhaps most notably, Ernest Augustus (Duke of Cumberland), and Princess Sophia Matilda. Georgina was well known in Royal circles, and the letters in this scrapbook reflect this element of her life.
Other collections are from ‘non-direct’ Bankes family members. We typically suggest that the ‘main’ line of the Bankes family were those who inherited the estates of Kingston Lacy and Corfe Castle, but clearly there were plenty of other people who were Bankes’ as well. People such as William George Hawtrey Bankes VC; Wynne Albert Bankes; Lalage Hall (daughter of Viola Bankes); or John Bankes (technically John Bankes V in the main family line, but ultimately he didn’t inherit the estates as his father left them to the National Trust instead). All are reflected in these other collections.
The Staff
The most significant ‘other’ collection is that of Beatrice Christopher. By 1910 Beatrice was employed as a servant by the Bankes family of Kingston Lacy, and in 1912 she began to keep a diary in which she recorded poetry, prayers, recipes and proverbs together with brief entries recalling some of her experiences.
There is obviously much interest in the ‘upstairs-downstairs’ of life at Kingston Lacy in the early part of the 20th Century, and this collection is hugely significant in helping us to understand what life was like for the staff of the household. It includes diaries, letters and photographs, all of which reflect the nature of Beatrice’s life and provide a snapshot of life at Kingston Lacy and beyond.
The Estates
Clearly there was lots happening across the Bankes estates throughout their 350+ year tenure. There are likely to be many collections which therefore relate to the Bankes’ in some way due to the size of these estates and the number of people who called them home. However, there is one associated collection which demonstrates how the land at Kingston Lacy was used in the Second World War. It is well-known that there was an American Army Hospital at Kingston Lacy, and this collection gives us some wonderful snapshots of life at this camp, with a range of photographs of people stationed there, and a brief history of the camp.
The Researchers
The Bankes’ have been studied for a long time. Their collections of artwork for example, the tales of William John Bankes in Egypt and the Middle East; and their impact on communities in Dorset, Wales, or Cumbria – all are important parts of their tale. In 1981 H.J. Ralph Bankes left this history to the National Trust, who spent time working out what they had been given. Anthony Cleminson, the National Trust’s Historical researcher at the time, undertook a lot of this research work, and we have some of his notebooks, alongside various secondary resources, held as part of the Cleminson collection. These small notes give us an idea about how the Trust approached their task of understanding Kingston Lacy, the paintings and history.
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In essence, there is more to Bankes than just the Bankes collection! Dorset History Centre hope that as a result of cataloguing the main collection, and considering it alongside some of these smaller collections, we can help researchers contribute to the ongoing study of the family, estates, and this significant part of Dorset history in the future. Some of the items mentioned above remain a work-in-progress, but if you are interested in finding out any more information about them, please do get in touch: archives@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk