Finding Aid: MS 509 - Sir George Williams Papers

Materials within the MS 509 - Sir George Williams Papers relate primarily to an address given by Sir George Williams to the students of the International YMCA Training School, now Springfield College, during the Golden Jubilee celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the YMCA. When Golden Jubilee plans were being made by YMCAs throughout the world in 1894, the directors of the School invited Sir George Williams, the founder of the Movement, to address the Jubilee graduating class. Sir George was unable to travel to America (he was then seventy-three years old) but he wrote an address to the class and recorded it onto a wax cylinder at Edison House in London on May 23, 1894. The wax cylinder was shipped across the Atlantic to the college, where it was played at the commencement exercises. The wax cylinder and its original shipping box have been preserved in the Springfield College archives ever since. Accompanying the cylinder are a hand-written, signed transcript of the address by Williams and an explanatory letter by W.H. Mills, Secretary of the YMCA’s National Council in London. The collection also contains an article about the address and the Jubilee from Training School Notes written in the same year. In addition there are a number of photographs and images of George Williams, his childhood home, images related to the earliest locations of the YMCA, and images honoring him. Of interest is a Silver Etching of a famous portrait photograph taken when he was young done by an unidentified Dutch Artist and a series of images showing materials that have been preserved from his life, of him, and places that relate to the founding of the YMCA. It is worth noting that this collection also contains an earlier hand written letter from Williams to the YMCA Training School Class of 1888. There are also several photographs and lantern slides of and related to Williams, photocopies of newspaper articles from the Jubilee year (1894) and the years surrounding Williams’ death (1904-1907), and some later correspondence about the wax cylinder and the copies that have been made of it.To learn more about Sir George Williams, see: https://springfield.as.atlas-sys.com/agents/people/71