(County Archivist of West Yorkshire 1974–86; Hon. General Editor, YAS Record Series 1986–87)
Elizabeth Berry came to Yorkshire in 1974 as a result of the reorganisation of local government of that year. While the abolition of the Ridings was widely regarded with dismay throughout the county, in West Yorkshire it did have the advantage of establishing a new metropolitan county council which, unlike its forerunner, the West Riding, was keen to exercise its archive powers. The new archive service was based in the former West Riding Registry of Deeds in Wakefield, and its remit was to serve the whole of the new county. Elizabeth was appointed its first County Archivist, and her task was a challenging one. In 1974 archival provision in the West Riding, the only county in England, apart from Rutland, without a county archive service, had developed in a piecemeal fashion, and resulted in the existence of five separate metropolitan district archive services, all opposing the idea that the new County Council should take over responsibility for their records.
Elizabeth Kathleen Gillan was brought up first in Northern Ireland, and then in Birmingham. She was a graduate of Birmingham University, where she also completed a postgraduate teaching certificate, and subsequently achieved her MA, with a prize-winning thesis on the Borough of Droitwich and its salt industry, in 1956. She gained the Diploma in Archive Administration at University College London in 1950, and worked first as an assistant archivist in the Manuscripts Department of Birmingham Reference Library, moving to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1953. It was while at Stratford that she met Ervin Berry. Their marriage proved long and happy, and his support formed a strong bedrock to her career. After Stratford, and a two-year spell at Warwickshire Record Office, she was in 1965 appointed City Archivist of Chester.
Here Elizabeth became responsible for a superb collection of city records, but a service that was under-resourced and in need of development. During her nine years in the role Elizabeth, with characteristic determination and charm, succeeded in expanding both the accommodation and the staffing of the Record Office. She built up useful relationships with holders of archive collections, many of which were subsequently deposited in the office. Of particular note was the major transfer to the city archives of the manuscript and library collections of the Chester and North Wales Architectural, Archaeological and Historic Society, whose journal she edited for eight years from 1966.
This experience in Chester meant that Elizabeth was sympathetic to the idea of collaboration between the Yorkshire Archaeological Society and the West Yorkshire County Council in the administration of the society’s major holdings of archives from the whole of Yorkshire. There were clear advantages for both parties: for the society, the provision of the professional staffing and support which it desperately needed but could not afford, and for West Yorkshire County Record Office, a ready-made portfolio of major family, estate and manuscript collections to complement its own important, but largely local government-derived, holdings. The negotiations resulted in a successful and happy relationship between the society and the archive service under which, from 1976, the service administered the society’s archives at Claremont, and provided staff to look after them. Reduced financial circumstances for local authorities brought an end to this official responsibility in 2002, but an amicable collaboration is still happily maintained.
Further, through Elizabeth’s dogged persistence, lobbying and persuasion, there came to be a gradual acceptance by politicians and others of the idea of a joint committee of all six West Yorkshire authorities to administer an archive service for the whole county, its primary aim being to provide an equal level of service in all parts of West Yorkshire. In 1982 all districts except Calderdale finally agreed to pool their archive powers in the West Yorkshire Archive Joint Committee. Calderdale joined in 1983.
The new joint service still faced serious problems of accommodation, but initially the county council was able to give a budgetary boost which resulted in improved capacity in Bradford, Kirklees and Leeds. Elizabeth was also quick to realise the potential of computerisation as a unifying element. However, no sooner was the joint service up and running than a major threat arose to its very existence, in the form of the Local Government Bill, 1985, which proposed the abolition of the Greater London Council and the six metropolitan county councils. Elizabeth led the joint working group of the Society of Archivists and the Association of County Archivists in a major effort to lobby Parliament, to ensure that the needs of local archive services were not trampled underfoot in the course of the changes. (The YAS, with Elizabeth’s encouragement, played an active part in the London forum organised by the Historical Association on 8 December 1984 to highlight the seriousness of the threat to archive services in metropolitan areas.) That the campaign was ultimately able to wring from Government a sentence expressing the wish that successor authorities would continue to cooperate in the provision of archive services after the abolition of the metropolitan counties was in no small way due to Elizabeth’s persuasiveness and relentless persistence.
For Elizabeth, March 1986 was the moment when she decided to retire, having secured as far as possible a satisfactory outcome in the establishment of the new West Yorkshire Joint Archive Service. She and Ervin had for many years spent leisure time at their house in Reeth. Now they settled there permanently, and Elizabeth devoted herself to the cultural life of the area, singing, playing music with friends, and helping to organise the Swaledale Festival. She did not, however, abandon the YAS. In retirement she became Honorary General Editor of the YAS Record Series, and subsequently published in the series a fine edition of Swaledale wills and inventories, 1522–1600. She and Ervin were enormously kind and hospitable, and were always delighted to see friends and former colleagues. They developed a particularly close relationship with Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby, spending Christmases together in their later years, and being active in organising the exhibition to celebrate Marie’s hundredth birthday in 2005.
Elizabeth always kept an eagle eye on her staff, and set them a daunting example to live up to, whilst at the same time supporting, encouraging and helping them to develop their potential to the full. She was a staunch supporter of the YAS, and her impact on it over the years has been considerable, with many of those she recruited to the archive service going on to play prominent roles in the society. She was an extraordinary person, both formidable and charming, steely and kind. Her influence on the world of archives was immense, and her loss is keenly felt by family, friends and colleagues, both in the wider archive community and in the Yorkshire Archaeological Society.
Sylvia Thomas
President from 2010; YAS Archivist 1976–97