Celebrating our collections dating from 780AD to the present day
Today, we mark International Women’s Day by taking a look at one of the lesser-known but no less important political groups which advocated women’s suffrage during the early 20th century. The activities of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) and the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and their leaders – Millicent Fawcett…
By Kim Leslie (with an Introduction by Nichola Court) In his first blog, Kim Leslie introduced us to some of his more colourful ancestors, whose lives – at times, dramatic - are revealed in his family papers – The Corfield Papers. In his second blog, Kim focuses on his grandfather, Dr Carruthers Corfield, whose papers…
Continue reading ➞ THE CORFIELD PAPERS – A New Accession: Part Two
Today Crawley is a thriving town of over 110,000 people and is the largest inland town in West Sussex. However, what is now a bustling metropolis started life as the quiet rural villages of Crawley, Ifield, and Three Bridges. Read on to find out how and why this changed. Crawley on Film Queen Elizabeth II…
Continue reading ➞ West Sussex Unwrapped II Month 1: Crawley New Town
By Abigail Hartley, Searchroom Archivist Maps are one of the most useful resources for family, local, and house historians. They can tell you about the age, changing shape and structure of properties, as well as shifting land usage and ownership. They are also worth looking at in more depth as records in of themselves. Moving…
Continue reading ➞ Mapping West Sussex – Part Two: County Orienteering and Plotting Estates
By Kim Leslie (with an Introduction by Nichola Court, Archivist) One of the joys of working at a county record office such as WSRO is the wide variety of collections we hold and the individual documents that can be found within them. Collections of family papers can hold a surprising array of documents concerning a…
Continue reading ➞ THE CORFIELD PAPERS – A New Accession: Part One
By Jo McConville, Project Archivist "United States Capitol, Washington, D. C." by Boston Public Library is licensed under CC BY 2.0 The day finally arrives for Joe Biden’s inauguration as 46th president of the United States, following an extraordinary few months of controversy and division since his election victory in early November, culminating in the…
Continue reading ➞ Transatlantic Ties: January 2021 Update – Inaugurations, MPs and Presidents
By Abigail Hartley, Searchroom Archivist Maps are one of the most useful resources for family, local, and house historians. They can tell you about the age, changing shape and structure of properties, as well as shifting land usage and ownership. They are also worth looking at in more depth as records in of themselves. Moving…
Continue reading ➞ Mapping West Sussex – Part One: Military Maps and Tithe Tiffs
By Alice Millard, Research Assistant. In the archive, there is a report from 1806 (Add Mss 2610) which its author endorsed as "a most stupid, bombast report drawn by me for Captn. Lepper touching Smuggling." It's author, Job Gipps, was the Commander of the "Hawk" Revenue Cutter moored at Littlehampton. Gipps spent his days patrolling…
Continue reading ➞ The (futile) war on smuggling: Accounts from the archives
By Nichola Court, Archivst A few weeks ago, a series of remarkable photographs cropped up in some of my social media feeds. Dating from the 1840s, the photographs captured the inhabitants of Horsham and their surrounds and were taken by Captain Thomas Honywood, a local man with a keen interest in archaeology as well as…
Continue reading ➞ A Mystery Snapper’s Sojourns Through Sussex
By Tim Hudson (guest blogger) What types of historic documents do architectural historians use? Continuing with our guest written series, the once Editor of the Sussex Victoria County History and co author of the updated Pevsner guide to West Sussex, Tim Hudson, will be exploring the types of records used when researching built heritage. Each…
Continue reading ➞ Historic records and architectural histories: Estate Brochures
West Sussex Record Office 