Celebrating our collections dating from 780AD to the present day
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…
Continue reading ➞ A Day in the Life of…A Searchroom Archivist
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.
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…
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…
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…
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,…
“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…
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…
In two earlier blog posts we talked about the ongoing project to catalogue Southern England Railway employee cards. We're very happy to announce that the railway employment cards for employees whose surname begins with the letter ‘A’ are now online in the Record Office catalogue http://www.westsussexpast.org.uk/searchonline/default.aspx and can be found by typing SEREC into the…
In September 2017 I was asked if I would like to be involved in a project to catalogue information about Railway employees. As someone with a lifelong interest in and passion for the Railways, initially as a young trainspotter at Surbiton on the Southern Region of BT and then at various times during my professional…
West Sussex Record Office 