We are proud to share the completion of a fantastic recent project: the digitisation of the J.A. Baker archive, held by the University of Essex.
The University of Essex was named a winner of our 2025 digitisation grant, and the Baker archive was the collection selected for digitisation as part of that award. The result is a remarkable story - one man's decade-long study of a single bird, and the visionary book it became.
John Alec Baker was an Essex-born writer, based mainly in Chelmsford, best known for The Peregrine and The Hill of Summer. Decades before “climate crisis” and “biodiversity loss” entered everyday conversation, Baker was already writing about the environmental damage caused by pesticides and their devastating effect on birds of prey. The Peregrine, published in 1967, is the record of ten winters of watching a single bird - condensed by Baker into one. Sixty years on, it still remains a landmark of nature writing.
The archive comprises Baker’s handwritten manuscripts, bird-watching diaries, proofs, correspondence, personal effects, and photographs - an intimate and, until now, largely inaccessible collection.
It’s often the physical objects within an archive, not just the documents, that bring a collection to life. Two objects stand out from the Baker archive: his field binoculars, worn at the edges from years of use, and a 1940s map of Chelmsford and the surrounding area, its top panels weathered from exposure, and its seams softened from being folded and unfolded on countless outings.
“There’s something really interesting about archives,” Sarah Demelo, Curator of Special Collections at the University of Essex, leading the project, explains, “because it’s the trace of a person within them that makes them fascinating. The map and the binoculars are both very intimate - a real show of his presence in the archive.”
They’re a real reminder of the invisible labour behind the finished book: the years of standing in the rain, learning how to look, long before a single word was written.
Among the archive’s treasures is a field scribbling diary from 1955, marked simply “1955 Birds” on the cover. Baker called his method “systematic watching” - recording temperature, latitude, longitude, and fine detail on every journey.
These diaries challenge the popular image of Baker as a single-minded obsessive defined only by the peregrine. In fact, he was a wide-ranging, dedicated birdwatcher, and the diaries hold real scientific and literary value, documenting species, numbers, and locations across Essex, including sites like Abberton Reservoir, where peregrines can still be found today.
One entry reads:
“Borham House. It was probably a kestrel, possibly a sparrowhawk or a peregrine. Behind the pylon, in the same field, I found a peregrine killed wood pigeon on base earth.”
Mentions like this are, in fact, rare in the archive. After The Peregrine was published, Baker faced criticism from some quarters, which he took particularly hard. And unfortunately, in the aftermath, he went back through his other diaries and removed almost every mention of peregrines from his writing being torn out.
It’s a small, striking detail: a writer quietly editing his own history in response to how his masterpiece was received.
Watch the full interview video below.
The Baker material needed careful handling before it could be safely digitised - manuscripts, diaries and correspondence that had to be captured without risk to fragile, decades-old paper.
“Working with TownsWeb has been incredible,” Sarah mentioned. “It’s been such a smooth process - incredibly organised, shown every step of the way, with great communication that made the whole process easy and straightforward.”
Which is wonderful for our team to hear because for us, digitisation is never just about creating images. It’s about working collaboratively with an institution to preserve a collection while making it genuinely accessible.
The University of Essex receives enquiries about the Baker material from all over the world, with researchers and admirers who may never have the chance to visit in person. The goal of this project is to move that access online, so that anyone, anywhere, can explore Baker’s original manuscript, see his corrections and revisions in his own handwriting, and read his diaries in full.
The University is aiming to launch its online catalogue in 2027 - the 60th anniversary of The Peregrine’s publication - alongside a programme of events and speakers to mark the occasion.
We’re proud to have played our part. Resources are often scarce for institutions holding collections of this importance, and being entrusted with digitising one of the most well-loved archives in English nature writing was a genuine privilege.
Sixty years after it was written, The Peregrine still feels visionary. Soon, thanks to this project, the archive behind it will be too - open to readers, researchers and admirers around the world.
So watch this space!