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Social History of Medicine 2000 13(3):515-533; doi:10.1093/shm/13.3.515
© 2000 by Society for the Social History of Medicine
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Documents and Sources

Sources in the History of Occupational Health: The Turner & Newall Archive

GEOFFREY TWEEDALE*

* Centre for Business History, Management Faculty, Manchester Metropolitan University Aytoun Street, Manchester M1 3GH, UK. E-mail: G.Tweedale{at}mmu.ac.uk

SUMMARY Sources in the history of occupational health are scanty—reflection perhaps of the contentious nature of the documentation. In the UK, asbestos company records have until recently been unavailable and consequently historians and policy-makers have been hindered from exploring a major public health issue. In 1995, however, Chase Manhattan Bank in New York sued the leading British asbestos producer, Turner & Newall, in a property-damage claim. During pre-trial discovery, Chase had copied a large proportion of Turner & Newall's vast archive and under American law was able to put the records in the public domain. This article describes how this collection of records—perhaps the largest anywhere on the history of an occupational health hazard—was generated. It also suggests ways of navigating the documents; discusses the nature of the material; and the archive's uses to medical and industrial historians.

Keywords: asbestos; asbestosis; mesothelioma; archives; Turner & Newall


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