To celebrate School Archives Day on Thursday 12 March, we caught up with Tom Bennett (12) who is Sector Development Manager at the Scottish Council on Archives in Edinburgh. We asked him about his career journey since leaving Churcher’s and the fascinating work of a full time Archivist… 

The road to becoming an archivist

Tom credits his love of History from his time at Churcher's College, following which he obtained an MA in History at the University of Glasgow where he specialised in colonialism and post-colonialism. He found he was drawn to public and cultural spaces and decided to study further, choosing a two-year distance learning MA in Museum Studies whilst living in Copenhagen for which he achieved a distinction.

When studying and living in Copenhagen, Tom interned as a Curatorial Assistant at the Centre of Art on Migration Politics (CAMP). His varied role included planning, setting-up and helping to run the successful ‘Decolonising Appearance’ exhibition amongst other events with talks held by CAMP and Trampoline House - a partner organisation committed to providing a community space for refugees. Tom explains, "People would come to Trampoline House, they would cook together, learn languages, share knowledge, play instruments, have movie nights and CAMP was sort of the art space."  Contemporary artists would give lectures whilst Tom ran a programme of refugee-led tours of the exhibition. 

In 2019, Tom returned to Scotland, choosing Edinburgh where lots of his friends lived and where he could enjoy the city’s cultural hub, its museums, galleries and cultural spaces. Tom managed to find work as an intern in the Archive at the National Galleries of Scotland and St Cecilia’s Hall at the University of Edinburgh. In November 2019, Tom secured an internship at George Watson’s College, as an Archives Assistant – however, a week before he began, the Archivist left! "I ended up coming into it pretty green and I didn’t have a huge amount of guidance. I had a lot of support from other school archivists, especially from Hutcheson’s Grammar School." Tom felt this support helped launch his career and eventually put him on the path to his current job. Together, with Hutchesons, Tom resurrected the Scotland and Northern England School Archivists Group a year later.

The role of an archivist

"Being an Archivist is a very varied role, however, working for a school archive can be a little tricky as the primary focus is on education rather than the preservation of the cultural heritage."  At George Watson’s College, Tom oversaw an archive collection of circa 20,000 manuscripts, printed materials, photographs, rare books, fine art, decorative art and furniture. The collection spanned 2,500 years of global history; "it was a big, complex and wide-reaching collection." His day would entail some cataloguing, engagement with pupils and alumni. Tom planned displays and exhibitions, deciding which items could be used for certain anniversaries and events throughout the course of the school year. 'It's a little bit of everything – you’re wearing a lot of hats!  You are an archivist, collections manager, curator, registrar, education engagement officer etc… you are doing a huge amount of different things - I was also working in the Development Office, so Alumni Relations was also very important!". 

Career highlights

Tom describes two of his highlights during his time as a school archivist. When looking into the history of George Watson School, he went to the National Archives at Kew to look up the Shipping Register to find the ship that the school's founder, George Watson (1674-1723) was investing in to profit from empire and the trade in enslaved people. His research led him to discover the stories behind two of his school’s alumni - Agnes and Richard Savage of West African descent. Agnes was most likely the first person of West African origin to qualify as a doctor in Scotland through the University of Edinburgh. Richard Savage was found to potentially be the first West African officer commissioned in the British Army. Although further research is needed, it demonstrates how discovering one thing can lead to another - Tom describes his Archivist role as being "like detective work. You must follow every lead. Hours of work can lead to nowhere, but then you can find something immensely rewarding!" 

A second highlight was Tom’s final project at George Watson's - taking 26 items to Hong Kong from one of the school’s collections. They are now on display at the 'Museum of History' in Hong Kong.  For this multi-million pound exhibition Tom had to travel through customs, condition checking the items, overseeing the installation within the gallery and chat to the curators, making sure everything was up to standard. "It’s just great to see that these archival items that are so often forgotten about are actually really important historical and cultural documents and they get their moment in the spotlight." The exhibition is for three years with a possibility of being extended to six. 

Tom's current role 

Tom is now the Sector Development Manager for the Scottish Council on Archives which he explains is more focused on sector advocacy and leadership - looking at the more structural issues in the archives and records sector. For example, facilitating connectivity, leadership, advocacy and communication. Tom says "I don’t have a collection to look after anymore, but I am working on trying to establish a national strategy for the Scottish Archives. One of the things I am looking into at the moment is disaster response preparedness.’" 

Tom has undoubtedly forged a unique and interesting career path as an Archivist since leaving Churcher’s College and we would like to thank him for telling us all about his career journey so far and for the support he has given to our school archive recently. We wish him all the best in his new role with the Scottish Council on Archives and we look forward to staying in touch and hearing from him further.