Progress Against the Alan Walker Collection

:

The Hockey Museum » 2024 News Items » Progress Against the Alan Walker Collection

January 25, 2024

A man working through archiving the Alan Walker Collection at The Hockey Museum

Archiving volunteer Suhrud at work on the Alan Walker Collection.

January 2024 is the anniversary of The Hockey Museum (THM) acquiring the lifetime collection of prominent Royal Navy hockey historian, and hockey coach/manager Alan Walker.

Many boxes of hockey memorabilia being stored.

Part of the Alan Walker Collection when it was initially brought to Woking in January 2023 and temporarily stored.

It took six years after Alan’s passing for his material to arrive with THM in all its jumbled glory. It took us six more months of planning and relocations before we were ready to begin the work to scope, rationalise, undertake initial conservation of and re-pack the archive elements of his collection. Another six months on, we find ourselves a little over halfway through this mammoth project.

Boxes of hockey memorabilia from the Alan Walker Collection on shelves

Some of the Alan Walker Collection on shelves at The Hockey Museum.

The Hockey Museum curator Shane Smith showing the Alan Walker Collection of memorabilia to camera

“Six months in and we’re still going?” Curator Shane gets to grips with the Alan Walker Collection.

The project has been generously supported by private donations and by grant funding from the Surrey Museums Partnership, as well as a huge amount of volunteer time. The Surrey History Centre have also been incredibly helpful and supportive in lending advice and space.

We have enjoyed a very good response to our advertisements for archival volunteers for this project, attracting 12 volunteers since we began working on the collection in July 2023. These volunteers have tended to stick around for several months at a time, usually giving one or two days per week. They are trained and directed by our volunteer Archivist Marcus Wardle who is currently managing an impressive roster of eight volunteers!

The breadth of information coming out of the Alan Walker Collection is extremely good. At the end of this lengthy process, we should have an excellent source of information covering various fields of hockey as well as having taught strong archiving skills and provided valuable experience to students and aspiring museum professionals.

Please make a donation to support the cost of conservation materials for our archive and collections projects.