Staff stories from the V&A Archive: Henry Sylvani Proctor and the lost briefcase

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Have you ever lost something important on public transport? In this blog post, I share the story of a historic workplace mishap preserved in the V&A Archive.

On the evening of Monday 21st June 1920, 35-year-old Henry Sylvani Proctor was travelling home with his wife and young son from Wandsworth Common to Streatham Hill in south London. Henry worked as a Second Division Clerk in the V&A’s Circulation Department, earning £167 and 19 shillings a year.

As he boarded the crowded train, Henry put his brown leather attaché case (a type of briefcase) onto the luggage rack. Inside the case was a batch of official V&A papers relating to the War Memorials Exhibition, which ran from July to October 1919.

This exhibition aimed to provide artists with ideas for designing war memorials in the wake of the First World War. It presented historical objects from the V&A’s collections as a sourcebook of “suitable forms” for new memorials – including photographs of ancient Greek gravestones, examples of lettering and illumination, tapestries and stained glass. These were displayed alongside modern memorials by living artists.

By June 1920, the modern memorials loaned in for the exhibition had all been returned to their owners. Henry was taking the loan papers home to finish arranging them before handing them to the Registry – the V&A’s central file-keeping department – to be put away in long-term storage.

The train was crowded. Henry’s wife and son found a seat, while he stood in the aisle. As they arrived at Streatham Hill station, a man stood up abruptly to exit the train. Henry had to step out of the carriage to let him pass. He then took his son from his wife and carried him up the stairs, balancing a walking stick, a glove and a book in his other hand.

It was only when he reached the top of the staircase and put down his son that he realised – he no longer had his attaché case.

He rushed back down again to the platform, but the train had gone.

In a later report of the incident, Proctor described the briefcase as expensive and potentially a “desirable capture for an unscrupulous person”. It had “no initials or other marks of identification” and was unlocked. Aside from the V&A files, it contained some of his personal possessions:

1 Book, “The God of Philosophy” (Aveling)
1 Key (private)
Several private letters
Portion of M.S. “Sanctuary” by Laurence Hay.

Henry immediately told the booking office at Streatham Hill that he had left his briefcase on the train. Then he “took the next train to the Crystal Palace, enquiring at West Norwood, Gipsy Hill & the Palace for [his] case but without any success.” (The Crystal Palace, still standing in 1920, was famously destroyed in a catastrophic fire 16 years later.)

The stationmaster at Crystal Palace informed Henry that the train had gone directly to Victoria station, and “kindly had the train searched on its arrival there”. Henry travelled back down the line to Victoria, only to learn that the search for his briefcase had been unsuccessful. He informed the railway police at Victoria and London Bridge stations and “spent most of [his] two days leave enquiring at these places & the intermediate stations, but in vain”.

But he didn’t give up yet. Henry put up posters around his local area, and placed an advert in the Streatham News, offering a reward of £1 – roughly £39 in today’s money – for the return of the briefcase and its contents, or the V&A papers by themselves.

He even returned with the police to Streatham Hill station, hoping to identify the man who had “bundled [him] out of the Carriage”. Henry suspected that this man might have been working with someone else in a plot to steal his briefcase. But though he thought the man’s attitude in the carriage was “peculiar”, he recognised there was “no evidence to show that he took the Case”.

At the end of the week, Henry was supposed to be going on holiday to Shanklin, a seaside resort on the Isle of Wight. With the V&A papers still missing, he was concerned that he might be required to stay and continue the search. He wrote a solemn, detailed report of the incident and sent it to a Mr Fullerton at the V&A – possibly the head of the Registry.

Mr Fullerton discussed the lost papers with the Director, Sir Cecil Harcourt Smith. Thankfully, they decided that Henry had done all that he could. The search was called off.

A couple of weeks later, Henry wrote to Mr Fullerton again with good news.

Mr Fullerton,
I am pleased to say that my attaché case & the lost papers were brought (by a person who alleged that his own case had been taken in place of mine) to the advertised address during the last days of my leave.
I have checked the official documents recovered, & found all in order, & none missing.

This was likely a huge relief. Henry’s letters suggest a conscientious personality – misplacing the files must have been mortifying, especially given that the Director had to be informed of his error. He had only been promoted from Assistant Clerk to Second Division Clerk a few months earlier.

And he had worked hard to climb the ranks of the Civil Service, starting in 1902, aged seventeen, as a Boy Clerk in the General Post Office. In 1911 he transferred to the V&A as an Assistant Clerk, and from June 1916 to May 1919 he served in the Navy.

There is no evidence in the archive that Henry got into any trouble over the (temporarily) lost papers. And thanks to his diligence, many of these letters are still available in the V&A Archive today as part of the War Memorials exhibition file (MA/28/25). We applaud his efforts!

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Where did this story come from?

I discovered the story of Henry Proctor’s lost briefcase whilst cataloguing MA/121, a series of files about the history and management of the V&A’s Registry – it was tucked away between discussions of filing systems and procedures. Henry’s highly detailed report of the incident enabled me to reconstruct this snippet of everyday life.

To find out more about Henry, I looked him up in our historical staff lists and found his full name and career history in the Civil Service. He worked at the V&A until 1923, when he disappears from the staff lists. It is amazing to be able to bring his story to life over a century later using the V&A Archive!

Sources

To make an appointment to view archive items, please get in touch with the V&A Archive team using our online enquiry form.

Henry Sylvani Proctor’s report and correspondence about the misplaced files: RP/1920/4743 in archive file MA/121/1/1, “Registry Services: Policy and Precedents”, 1897-1968

Exhibition file for the 1919 War Memorials Exhibition: MA/28/25/1-2, “War memorials, July – 1 Oct 1919”

List of all members of staff working at the V&A in 1920: A0997, “Establishment List (Part V.), Victoria and Albert Museum, 1^st July 1920″

Published catalogue of the War Memorials exhibition: Victoria and Albert Museum et al., Catalogue of the war memorials exhibition, 1919, 1919 (This catalogue is available to view in the National Art Library at the V&A – to request items, create an NAL account.)