Celebrating our collections dating from 780AD to the present day
Many of you may have read about the ‘Sussex Declaration’ in the past few months. You may have heard about the record on the radio, you may have even seen it broadcast to millions on morning television! The story behind how this parchment copy of the US Declaration of Independence ended up in Chichester is…
Continue reading ➞ The US Declaration of Independence and West Sussex Record Office
Chichester City Treat Committee (ChiCity/CAL1) On Tuesday 21st June 1887, the nation celebrated Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. Events were held up and down the country to mark the occasion, and Chichester was no exception. The archives of Chichester City Council – held at the Record Office – feature a beautifully illustrated and detailed minute book…
Last Sussex Day, 16th June 2016, West Sussex Record Office launched our 70th anniversary celebrations with our very first blog post. We asked our users, depositors, volunteers, supporters and staff to explore the archive and nominate their favourite document. Over the following months, 70 of these unique records featured on this blog, each with its own story…
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…
West Sussex Record Office 