By Judy Moody-Stuart, founder of the Centre
The Expatriate Archive Centre in The Hague had its roots in a group of women laughing at the suggestion of a ‘statue of the Shell wife’ being set up in their honour as part of Royal Dutch Petroleum Company’s centenary celebrations in 1992. They laughed – but the idea had been born to recognise the existence and worth of expatriate families. The main issues of a lifetime ‘on the move’ were common to most expatriates: children’s schooling; health of grandparents; domestic servants; medical care; foreign languages; new cultures and friends; severed friendships; bridge; golf; sailing; climate; gardens; dual-careers; politics – a rich mozaic of life spread around an increasingly interconnected globe.
Conditions of oil exploration, production and marketing during 20thcentury developed from proxy-marriage, home-leaves every two or three years and boat travel, to the internet, cheap flights and teleconferencing. The families’ support for workers was taken for granted throughout – although their dependents in the expatriate community were never under any contractual obligation to the Company. Even in 1992 the idea of allowing or even encouraging such dependents to speak out and tell their stories seemed risky and unnecessary to some in the Company. Nonetheless the word went out.
Hundreds of handwritten stories and reminiscences came pouring in from around the world in different languages: the earliest dated 1928. The ‘Shell ladies’ translated and catalogued and edited these contributions into two significant anthologies published in the mid-nineties : Life on the Move and Life Now.
By 2001 the original scripts had been carefully filed – in limbo! The writings were certainly not Shell company property, yet were impossible to return to the authors who had all moved on. American professor of social history Dewey White recognised their unique value, and it is this collection of original writings which was the inspiration and formed the basis of the Expatriate Archive. Initially housed in Stichting Outpost, it became clear when the Stichting morphed into Shell’s Global Outpost Services that something separate should happen to the Archive. The Stichting was revised and reduced and ultimately renamed to deal solely with the preservation and expansion of the growing collection of expatriate writings to give access of a professional and academic standard. British Shell couple Moody-Stuart donated twin premises in the historic Archipel district of The Hague in March 2007. Shell came up trumps with a generous endowment to the Stichting. And the Expatriate Archive Centre, now freely independent from Shell, was formally launched by the Mayor of The Hague in April 2008.