John Henry Pyle Pafford
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6 March 1900
John Henry Pyle Pafford | |
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| Born | . 6 March 1900 Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, United Kingdom |
| Died | 11 March 1996 (aged 96) Dorchester, Dorset, United Kingdom |
| Known for | Librarian and Soldier, joint Instigator and team Leader of The Standard Army Unit Library |
John Henry Pyle Pafford (6 March 1900 – 11 March 1996) was an English librarian of the University of London Library from 1945 to 1967 and – as Major J H Pafford, the Wiltshire Regiment ‒ joint Instigator and team Leader of The Army Standard Unit Library Project of the AEC, later the Royal Army Educational Corps, from 1942 to 1945.
He acted as an editor of The Year's Work in Librarianship from 1939 to 1950. He worked as an editor of literary texts, including the Arden edition of William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale.
Sources for the following account are:
Obituary: 'John Pafford' by George Kane, The Independent, 26 March 1996;[1]
Pafford: Books and Army Education, 1944–1946: Preparation and supply, by J. H. P. Pafford, London 1946;[2]
Milne: Prefatory memoir by A. T. Milne, 'Dr J H P Pafford' in Librarianship and Literature: Essays in honour of Jack Pafford, ed. A. T. Milne [for Pafford’s 70th birthday], London 1970.[3]
‘Jack’ Pafford ‒ "a leading international figure in the advancement of library science"[1] ‒ had a distinguished middle age and later life. In 1993, at the age of 93, he completed his last book, John Clavell, 1601–43: highwayman, author, lawyer, doctor. He was Goldsmiths' Librarian, University of London for 27 years, having begun as pupil-teacher at Trowbridge Elementary School.
Accepted at the age of eighteen into the Inns of Court Officers' Training Corps, he gained a commission in the Wiltshire Regiment and a silver medal for boxing. He was also an excellent shot.
He did not see active service in the World War of 1914–1918, and was demobilised five months after the armistice on his 19th birthday. An ex-service grant enabled him to enter University College London. After voluntary teaching at the Working Men's College in Camden, he went on to take a London MA under R. W. Chambers, editing seventeenth-century texts.
In the inter-war years, Pafford proved himself to be an enthusiastic European: his Library Cooperation in Europe, 1935, continuing to be a valued work of reference (according to George Kane, in 1996). He played a major part in evacuating the National Central Library from London.
World War II
In September 1940 was recalled by the Wiltshire Regiment, though once more confined to the Home Front on account of imperfect hearing.[1] Promoted Captain, he commanded a company, becoming adjutant of the Wiltshire's training battalion. He continued to find connections between the lives of his men and our literary heritage, even during army exercises. He observed that his men – singing as they marched – were doing so to a variation on the ancient 'Lord Randall'. Having discussed this matter with them, he wrote to the English Folk Song Society about this interesting survival.[4]
The Standard Army Unit Library
In 1943, seconded to Southern Command, and promoted Major, he began long discussions with fellow professional librarian Captain Mainwood of the Army Education Corps (AEC). The two librarians came up with a radical idea: 'The Standard Army Unit Library'. It was to be complete, in place, available to all ranks, and in all army locations by the end of the war ‒ preferably before the end of the war; re-settlement into civilian life being a priority. It would provide purposeful leisure reading and a measure of self-education through real books, written by acknowledged practitioners or experts. It would also furnish an introduction to literature and the other arts. And the project went beyond self-education: its devisers saw the library as a resource for group-teaching and correspondence courses. The standard library stock would be augmented as required, from regional ‘Command libraries’.
All British Army Units [each comprising 400 or more troops ‒ with their own established base, camp, garrison, or barracks] were to be given charge of the same 400 volumes. That would be helpful to soldiers who moved between units in the UK or were posted overseas.
This, the standard unit library, was the key element in a project which ultimately involved 3.3 million books, selected and despatched to around 3,000 locations. It would be, as Pafford put it, 'a study and a lending library of first line value in every Unit, both at home and abroad.’
After a short period conferring with civilian institutions which had offered part-time adult education, such as 'night schools', Pafford and Mainwood set to work. The complex process of selection, prioritising, improvising, and ordering was completed in a little over two years: by seven soldier-librarians (and one civilian), from March 1944 to June 1946.[5]
Pafford provides a brief explanation of how the 400 key books were chosen, and how to extract other information from his alphabetical lists. On this basis, Donald Measham reconstructs the Standard Unit Library’s Initial order of 24 August 1944 and discusses the balance and purposes of the library as a whole.[6] The list is reproduced below. The typography of the original is retained: that was probably standard format for army requisitions.
