The fonds originated in Haultain’s office in the Department of Mining Engineering at the University of Toronto, in his capacity as one of the Ritual’s proponents and as a key player in its creation. Although he did not attend any obligation ceremony except his own, Haultain served in numerous official capacities: as Secretary of the Seven Wardens (1930-1939); and as a Warden of Camp One (1926-1961), for which he was also the first chairman. He was also co-opted as a Corporate Warden (1939-1961). It is difficult to draw too fine a distinction between the records of the Kipling Ritual as a whole and those pertinent to Camp One as a subsidiary body of the Corporation of the Seven Wardens. In effect, the documents of the fonds are Haultain’s records of the Ritual first and then gradually emerge as the records for Camp One.
The research value of the records is significant regarding the origin of the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer and the social interaction between the major figures responsible for its implementation and enfranchisement in Canada. The fonds includes substantial documentation about Haultain, Kipling, Fairbairn, Ross, and most of the major figures in the EIC. Also the records offer a fairly comprehensive portrait of the interactions between mining and engineering professionals between 1920 and 1950. The material is primarily of historical value and spans the creation of the Ritual, the development of the Camps and the efforts of the Wardens to control the text and dissemination of the Ritual. The material after the 1950s concerns mainly the day to day administration of the Ritual, the ordering of rings and the preparation of ceremonies in the Camps.
Most of the routine administrative documentation has been arranged in the first four series of the fonds, all of which also include some correspondence. Series 1 contains legal documents pertaining to the copyright and incorporation of the Ritual and the Wardens; Series 2 is for documents related to the drafting of the Book of Authority; Series 3 includes extensive meeting minutes for the Camp Wardens and for the Corporate Wardens; and Series 4 includes detailed financial reports and accounts. The correspondence in Series 5 includes a large number of copies and often conveys both outgoing and incoming mail. Series 6 contains primarily informal lists, ceremonial documents and various forms or texts used in actual ceremonies. Series 7 and 9 include documents that are primarily external to the main operations of Camp One, such as collected publications concerning the Ritual and correspondence with other camps. Series 8 contains the documentary record of the various attempts at historicizing the Kipling Ritual undertaken by the Camp and Corporate Wardens for the information of the obligated engineering community (see Note on arrangement).
Records after 1950 tend to be more related to the activities of Camp One than to the intricacies of the Corporation of Seven Wardens. Newer accessions are also less delineated than those of the first accession B1982-0023. Generally, most files created after 1965 will be found in Series 5. These more recent files often include minutes and other material rightfully belonging to other series, which, however, have been arranged in Series 5 to preserve the original chronological file order of the Camp One records and because there are typically many fewer records in these later accessions. The exception to this trend is in Accession B2009-0029, which includes comprehensive meeting minutes arranged as part of Series 3.
The fonds does not include the original Kipling letters, which were returned to the Kipling estate in 1960 at the request of Kipling’s daughter Elise Bambridge (1896-1976). The letters were added to the Wimpole Archive, which was deposited with the University of Sussex Library in 1978 on behalf of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty (UK). The ancient landmarks are kept by the individual universities affiliated with Camp One, as are the official obligation lists. The Book of Authority for Camp One is in Series 2. All of the ancient landmarks have historical origins. The original anvil for Camp One was donated by Fairbairn, but was lost in a fire in the Sandford Fleming Building at the University of Toronto in 1977. The current anvil used at the ceremonies at the University of Toronto has a cutting attached taken from the hatch coverfrom the sunken Ocean Ranger drilling platform. The 1935 ‘Peter Wright’ anvil used at the Ryerson University ceremonies have a sheared rivet attached taken from the failed Pont de Quebec. At the University of Ontario Institute of Technology the landmarks are a five-decades anvil from Windfields Farm and a chain from the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station.
Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer. Office of the Camp Wardens
