MPhil Diary: Weeks 5 and 6, 26 September-9 October

View of Parade Square and the Rodney statue in Spanish Town, from the archives lunch room.

This blog post sees two weeks rolled into one, for economies of scale. I have had plenty of work to keep me busy - for seminars over the past two weeks I've read Higman's Writing West Indian History, Goveia's A Study of the Historiography of the British West Indies, Trouillot's Silencing the Past, Higman and Hudson's Jamaican Place Names, and Shepherd's Maharani's Misery.

On Thursday 29 September I made my second visit to the Jamaica Archives in Spanish Town, which was entirely spent transcribing the 1745 Kingston parish and barracking tax list (and only about 75% was completed). Unfortunately, the Jamaica Archives charge $500 per photograph taken, so the only economic way to work there is by transcribing on site. This does, at least, mean I can't put off my transcriptions. The tax list is a huge mine of information about property owners, occupiers, and values. My aim is to transcribe all the parish tax lists that survive up to 1807 and use this as a basis for a quantitative study.

I also started doing a little paid work in the West Indies and Special Collections at the UWI Mona Library, where I have been asked to help catalogue the Hugh Shearer papers. Shearer was the third Jamaican prime minister, from 1967 to 1972, and was also Deputy PM in the 1980s under Edward Seaga. He is certainly a controversial figure in modern Jamaican history. In addition, one of the future tasks for WISC is digitising the microfilm collection, something I am particularly keen to help with.

Pretty much all my days are taken up with studying or working, but that is not a problem and as I've previously discussed, it is pretty much all good in the run-up to my thesis. I am also in quite a good rhythm. My first assignment is due this week - a grant proposal. I am finishing a proposal for an Eccles Centre Visiting Fellowship at the British Library, and if I have spare time I might write one or two for American universities. I also have to submit a revised budget and research plan to the Leverhulme Trust at the end of the week.

Not much else to say about the past couple of weeks. I am still having moderated fun in sanctioned quantities. The MPhil continues unabated.

The moon. A view from College Common.