Celebrating our collections dating from 780AD to the present day
By Jenny Bettger, Archives Assistant (Research) Researching family history is often searching through increasingly hard-to-read documents, trying to find more than just the basic facts about our ancestors. Beyond the first few generations, you are unlikely to have any photographs or idea of what the people looked like. Photographs can help us to connect to…
By Victoria Evans, Searchroom Archivist, in collaboration with Jennifer Mason, Senior Archivist (Collections Manager), and Linda and Catherine, WSRO cataloguing volunteers Within our Episcopal Records, the miscellaneous court papers (MCPs) are a set of documents that have remained largely unknown to us, as they have been in too poor a condition to enable them to…
Continue reading ➞ Cataloguing the Miscellaneous Court Papers
By Nick Corbo-Stewart, Volunteer Coordinator & Archivist In the week that celebrates and recognises the contributions of volunteers around the country, we at the West Sussex Record Office (WSRO) would like to thank all our volunteers from the local community who continue to make a positive contribution towards the services WSRO provides. Our volunteers come…
By Victoria Evans, Searchroom Archivist On a recent walk down the Chichester Canal heading towards Hunston, I was told about the Carmelite Convent that housed a closed-order nun community between 1872 until 1994 which I had not heard of, even after living in Chichester for three years now! This sparked inspiration to see what we…
By Imogen Russell, Archives Assistant We all tend to have a favourite seat in places we visit frequently but invariably sit somewhere else when it's occupied. But what would happen if someone sat in a seat you legally purchased, and they refused to move when asked? Would you find somewhere else, or would you complain?…
Continue reading ➞ I believe you’re in my seat: a Horsham church pew scandal
By Victoria Evans, Searchroom Archivist Inspired by April's Explore Your Archive theme of crime, we have delved into a police charge register (POL/W/HQ/4/1) dated between March 1857–February 1866 from the headquarters of the West Sussex Constabulary. Many crimes that appear in this register were theft and the destruction of clothing provided by the workhouse to…
Continue reading ➞ A Victorian Crime in Washington, West Sussex
By Summer Parker, volunteer, and Alice Millard, archivist MGM 2/3, prospectuses, 1884-1891 In late 2024, the archive of the Marine and General Mutual Life Assurance Society was catalogued and made accessible to researchers. This project was made possible by a grant awarded by Lloyds Register Foundation. Known as MGM, the company was founded in London…
Continue reading ➞ Life and Death at Sea: Marine and General Mutual
By Louise Conway, Archives Assistant PH 32684/25 Over collection care fortnight 2025, the team added over 2000 new records to our collection database, many of these relating to the Uppark collection, in turn uncovering even more stories around the infamous estate. Situated in South Harting, West Sussex, Uppark, as it is recognised today, was built…
By Nick Corbo-Stewart, Archivist and Volunteer Coordinator In this series of blogs looking at new collections at West Sussex Record Office (WSRO), I will continue to guide you, the reader, through the variety of work undertaken by the volunteers. Through a culmination of sorting, listing, ordering, cataloguing and packaging, their completed collections are now open…
By Victoria Evans, Searchroom Archivist For this year’s International Women’s Day, the theme is ‘Give to Gain’. Throughout the Second World War, the women of Britain and beyond sacrificed a lot, and some their lives, to ensure that our nation maintained its freedom from the impending threat of Nazi invasion. Additionally, the acts of brave…