Elisabeth Bennett is former University Archivist of Swansea University. Appointed in 1993, Elisabeth has developed the archives from a one-person, limited service, to the first university archive in the UK, and the first in Wales, to attain Archives Service Accreditation.
Elisabeth has been consulted by archivists and academics both nationally and internationally. She was a member and former chair (2005-2007) of Archives and Records Council Wales (ARCW) and has worked with Museums, Archives and Libraries Division, Welsh Government (MALD) on a number of collaborative projects.
Elisabeth retired from Swansea University in 2017.
Education and early career
Elisabeth attended University College London and obtained a Diploma in Archive Studies in 1980. After qualifying, Elisabeth worked as Assistant Archivist in the West Devon Record Office, Plymouth and as Archivist in Charge of West Glamorgan Area Record Office, then a branch of Glamorgan Record Office in Swansea. The latter moved into purpose built accommodation in 1983 and Elisabeth was involved in setting up the service.
Development of Swansea University Archives
In 1993, Elisabeth joined the staff as part-time Library Archivist at Swansea University (then University College of Swansea) and later became University Archivist. Elisabeth succeeded first University Archivist David Bevan, who had been employed between 1965 and 1993. David had set a firm foundation for the Archives, particularly in organising and cataloguing the collections, which Elisabeth would go on to develop throughout her career.
Elisabeth worked to establish a service that was run on professional lines and to establish standards that were widespread in other professionally run archive services. Along with colleagues in the University Library, Elisabeth established a supervised reading room, and introduced an Archives Collection Policy which provided a strategic and integrated approach to archive collections management. Elisabeth subscribed to the Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC) ‘Standard for Record Repositories’, and worked with HMC and later the National Archives to develop the archive collections at Swansea University. In the 1990s Elisabeth began to work with academic departments to run teaching sessions and encouraged students and researchers to access the archive collections for their research.
From the outset Elisabeth's priorities were to improve the physical conditions of storage of the archive collections and to gain accommodation that met BS5454:2000 standards (superseded by BS4971:2017). Elisabeth led the relocation of the University Archives to new accommodation in 2009. The new accommodation consisted of purpose built archival strong rooms, an isolation room, staff offices, reading room and reception area. For the first time in the university's history, the Archives had its own identifiable space which resulted in increased visibility and access to the service for students, staff and the general public. The project amounted to £1.3 million from Higher Education for Wales (HEFCW) funds that had been received by Swansea University.
The new accommodation gave the Archives the opportunity to develop its work with teaching and learning. In 2013 Professor Louise Miskell, Department of History introduced a module on the history of the Students' Union at Swansea University. The module was run from the Archives, and enabled students to access the archive collections of the university to research the history of the Students' Union. In recent years the university's archive collections have been widely used as part of modules, both within the College of Arts and Humanities and across academic departments,
In 1998, Elisabeth was asked to undertake a project to organise the inventories of Swansea University's art collection. As well as operating a lending system for works of art, Elisabeth aimed to improve the preservation of the works within the collection. This has notably included the conservation of watercolour panels by Sarah Vivian, along with Sir Kyffin Williams' ‘Snowdon Snow, Penrhyn Ddu’ and Percy Gleaves 'The Foundation Stone Ceremony, 19 July 1920’.
In 2005 the archive collections of the actor Richard Burton were deposited to the University Archives by his widow, Sally Burton. In 2010 the service was renamed the Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University.