Chichester Cathedral Archives Reach New Audiences in Sweden

In 2017 the Sussex Record Society published a fascinating volume of church court proceedings taken from the Diocesan Archives held at the Record Office. Depositions, which can be found in the Ep/I/11 series, are the accounts of cases held at the Bishop of Chichester’s Consistory Court. These courts covered a plethora of local issues and disputes including quarrels over wills, tithe disputes, matrimonial disagreements, and the ever amusing defamation cases.  However they can be difficult to read and interpret for the modern reader, which is where the Sussex Record Society and Peter Wilkinson got involved.

2018/2019 Accessions

By Abigail Hartley, Searchroom Archivist One of the most crucial aspects that our volunteers tirelessly work towards is the accessioning of our smaller collections.  AM (Additional Manuscripts) contain some of our most visually interesting and varied documents.  Within the last 12 months, here is a quick overview of just some of the items we have…

A Day in the Life of…A Searchroom Archivist

By Alice Millard and Abigail Hartley We are beginning a brand new blog project, which will continue over the next year or so on this page.  We hope to have each member of staff talk about their role in the Record Office to reveal what it is we do, and why we do what we do.  First…

L’Alouette, Bognor, and the run up to D-Day

It's a year of important anniversaries for World War Two, as later in September it will be 80 years since the start of the war, and, of course, the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day landings is also upon us.  It is only fitting, therefore, that the Record Office will be highlighting our fantastic Second World War records throughout the year.  To help commemorate, let's look at one of our most impressive photographic collections - L'Alouette.  

D-Day: The West Sussex Story

By Alan Readman “Okay, we'll go!” With these words, spoken to his Chiefs of Staff at Southwick House, near Portsmouth, at 4.15 on the morning of 5 June 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, set in motion the greatest armada the world had ever seen. The day following…

Bees, Falcons, Gothic Alterations and Collapsing Cathedrals – the Story of Chichester’s Fallen Spire

By Abigail Hartley, Searchroom Archivist I, like many others, watched heartbroken as the roof and spire burned during the recent fire at Notre Dame de Paris.  Thankfully, many of the artworks and relics were rescued, no visitors were harmed, and the facades and majestic bell towers are structurally stable.  I took this as a sign…

Faculties @ WSRO Continued…

By Katie Bishop, Searchroom Assistant Along with my colleague Imogen, I am undertaking the task of box listing church Facilities 1947-2002 (Ep 1/98).This means going through parish by parish and making a list of all the facilities we hold. Imogen discusses this work in more details and, crucially, explains what a faculty is in on…

An intro to Faculties @ WSRO

By Imogen Russell, Searchroom Assistant Though it is more the norm to write blogs on individual documents, I thought I’d talk about a series of records listed under our Episcopal collection, known as faculties. Faculties are permissions from the Diocese for parish churches to alter the fabric of their buildings. As the Diocesan Record Office,…

The anti-slavery movement in West Sussex

“Father came, in a great bustle for some slavery papers which he has to distribute,” wrote Rhoda Hack, from Chichester, in April 1824. This domestic update in her surroundings came as she penned the latest letter in her regular correspondence with her sister-in-law, Priscila Tuke (nee Hack). “What are you doing with this subject at…

International Women’s Day: The story of Nancy B. Birkett; an early Aviatrix in Shoreham

The 1920s and 1930s saw a huge advancement in flight engineering. With that, aviation mania swept Europe and America. Usually thought of as a male pursuit, flying planes quickly garnered fresh attention from the media as increasing numbers of women took to the skies. Amy Johnson and Amelia Earhart were just two of a number…