Ally McConnell, Principal Archivist, writes: Swindon Town Football Club was founded in 1879 as Swindon AFC. In 1883 it was renamed Swindon Town, turning professional in 1894.
The banking book is a fairly standard type of book detailing deposits made into the Club’s bank account. It is a small vellum bound book, with the expected slight marks to the binding over time but a readable interior.
The book, sold by a private collector, has been added to the existing collection for Swindon Town Football Club at the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre (WSHC; collection reference 2367) as 2367/12, accession number 2367 Add 1. The book complements official reports and accounts for the Club, already held by the archive as 2367/2.
The purchase was important for several reasons. While it appears at first glance to cover a few years of accounts several decades after the Club’s founding in 1879, the accounts in fact cover a significant episode in the life of the Club: the election into the Football League (now the English Football League) in 1920.
Secondly, it covers the time when the Swindon Town Football Club Museum was in the process of being founded. Enthusiasm for the Club’s history has made the collecting of archives and objects a focal point of local pride and interest in a town rooted in its local history. The museum, based at the Club’s premises in Swindon, immediately covered the remainder of the cost for the book and added a high quality digital copy of it into their collections.
The relationship thus formed between the museum, the WSHC and Swindon Central Library, which facilitated the introduction, has become a fruitful collaboration. Professional advice has been offered to the museum by the WSHC and historical and topical advice on the Club’s history from the museum to the WSHC. The later private purchase of official accounts by Swindon Library and the WSHC to fill gaps in the aforementioned 2367/2 was made possible by a pooling of resources brought about by this strengthened relationship.
The growing interest in football memorabilia continue to provide an exciting opportunity for private collectors and enthusiasts to sell items that might otherwise be deposited with archives or loaned to museums. However, we are now working with Club enthusiasts on a more proactive level to encourage the donation or long-term deposit of items that would otherwise be unavailable to the public.
