Celebrating our collections dating from 780AD to the present day
A two year oral history project, Military Voices Past and Present, organised by West Sussex CC Library Service and supported by the Record Office, has seen some 95 audio interviews recorded with West Sussex veterans from World War One, World War Two and Post 1945 conflicts to the 1990s, published in a new book Military…
Continue reading ➞ Project Book Launch: Military Voices Past and Present
A two year oral history project, Military Voices Past and Present, organised by West Sussex CC Library Service and supported by the Record Office, has seen some 95 audio interviews recorded with West Sussex veterans from World War One, World War Two and Post 1945 conflicts to the 1990s, published in a new book Military…
Continue reading ➞ Project Book Launch: Military Voices Past and Present
Aerial Photography of Chichester (APH 126, 1904) A type of record not mentioned in our 70th Anniversary booklet or previously on this blog is aerial photography; In particular early aerial photographs, like this one from 1904. According to the caption it was taken at 1500ft in a hot air balloon by Aeronaut Percival Spencer on 4th…
2017 marks not one, but two very special anniversaries for West Sussex Constabulary. They were formed on 4th April 1857 as a result of the County and Police Act 1856 which made it compulsory for counties to have their own police force. The earlier County Police Act of 1839 enabled Justices of the Peace to…
Continue reading ➞ ‘On The Beat’ – The History and Archive of West Sussex Constabulary (1857-1967)
Par 193/7/2 West Tarring Market Charter (11 June 1444) The West Tarring market charter is the oldest document that I have had the pleasure of cataloguing in my twenty seven years at West Sussex Record Office so, as I am retiring at the end of the month, I thought that it deserved a mention as…
Alan Green ‘If you can remember the 1960s you weren’t there” runs a well-known maxim. Whether you were there or not, it was a decade irredeemably associated with permissive attitudes and the ripping out of the hearts of so many towns and cities in the name of modernisation, often as a result of dodgy dealings…
Continue reading ➞ Sense or Insensibility : Chichester in the 1960’s
Lauren Clifton Born in 1884, Gertrude Denman (neé Pearson) was the daughter of Weetman Pearson, Liberal MP and supporter of women’s suffrage, and Annie Cass, a charitable worker and active member of the Women’s Liberal Federation. Being raised in such a politically active and openly feminist home, it is little wonder that the influence of…
Continue reading ➞ Remarkable West Sussex Women – Lady Gertrude Denman
Add Mss 2857 Estate Map of the Manor of Prinsted (1640) In previous blog posts on West Sussex Record Office map collections, we have touched on a number of estate maps, and I feel that the Prinsted Manor Estate map of 1640 is definitely worth an entry as Record of the Month. On it you can see houses are…
Dr Caroline Adams One of the best things about archives is that they are about people – both the researchers in the present, and the men and women who wrote or handled the document you are looking at. I joined the Secrets of the High Woods project as a consultant on the advisory committee when…
Continue reading ➞ Secrets of the High Woods project; An Archives Consultant’s View
The origins of Valentine’s Day are widely disputed, with several Saint Valentines claiming feast days during Lupercalia, an ancient fertility festival celebrated by the Romans from the 13th-15th Feburary. The two Saint Valentines most commonly associated with the 14th February, were both martyred in Rome. Valentine of Terni in roughly AD 197, and Valentine of…
West Sussex Record Office 