Celebrating our collections dating from 780AD to the present day
By Nick Corbo-Stewart, Archivist and Volunteer Coordinator In this series of blogs looking at new collections at West Sussex Record Office (WSRO), I will continue to guide you, the reader, through the variety of work undertaken by the volunteers. Through a culmination of sorting, listing, ordering, cataloguing and packaging, their completed collections are now open…
By Mia Curtis-Mays, Searchroom Assistant CPS 1485/5 - 1 Nov 1962 The beloved department store is something that is sorely missed in the current climate of high street shopping. In Chichester, West Street lost House of Fraser in recent years. This was, surprisingly, not the only department store St George’s House hosted. Before House of…
Continue reading ➞ J D Morant Ltd – West Street’s forgotten department store
By Victoria Evans, Searchroom Archivist PH 15815 - A chilly wintery scene of the cathedral from Westgate fields, c. 1900 The usual images that come to mind when thinking of workhouses will resemble that of Oliver Twist, and rightly so. The conditions for those who relied upon the unions would have been implacable, degrading, and cruel…
By Alan Green, Guest Speaker Visually Chichester did not alter substantially under the Victorians, so its character remained – and remains to this day - essentially Georgian. PH 12594 - Chichester: East Street and the Cross In this illustrated talk Alan Green explores the Victorian era in Chichester including the coming of the railway, new…
Continue reading ➞ Tuesday Talk: What did the Victorians do for Chichester?
By Dr Caroline Adams - Guest Speaker In the late 16th century, the estimated population of Chichester was about 4000 residents (now it’s about 33,000). Four thousand is about the same population as some of the present-day villages around Chichester – Tangmere or Fishbourne, for example. When you walk around those villages, it feels quite…
Continue reading ➞ Tuesday Talk: The material culture of life in Elizabethan Chichester
By Alice Millard, archivist Toussaint Louverture on horseback, 1802, anon. The Met. Before Haiti was so named it was called Saint Domingue, having been colonised by the Spanish in the 15th century then controlled by the French in the 17th century. As with most other Caribbean islands at the time, Saint Domingue's economy was dependent…
Continue reading ➞ The Mysterious Truth of Toussaint Louverture Jr in Chichester
By Victoria Evans, Searchroom Archivist Sunset over Cavendish Street, taken by author Having moved to Chichester recently to take up the role of Searchroom Archivist at the West Sussex Record Office, I have been developing my different branches of research that our researchers utilise. Although doing such exercises enables me to provide a better service,…
Continue reading ➞ A Brief History of Cavendish Street – using maps
By Alan Green - Guest Speaker In this talk local historian and author Alan Green will, with the aid of Stella Palmer’s slides and some others, take you on a tour of the city as it was fifty years ago; a city preparing for pedestrianisation but still ruled by the motor car. You will see…
By Nichola Court, Archivist Extract from the anonymous Flapper's diary, noting her journey down to Chichester and various activities in the area (ref AM 75/1) Last week's blog explored the story behind an 'anonymous "flapper's" diary', bought by WSRO at auction in 2008 and later catalogued as AM 75/1. Thanks to the meticulous research carried…
Continue reading ➞ ‘Who’s that girl?’ The anonymous diary of a 1920s flapper (part 2)
By Nichola Court, Archivist Extract from the anonymous Flapper's diary, noting her journey down to Chichester and various activities in the area (ref AM 75/1) In 2008, WSRO purchased at auction an item listed as ‘a “flapper’s” social diary’ (catalogued as AM 75/1). Although the diary is short, covering barely three months, the auctioneers noted…
Continue reading ➞ ‘Who’s that girl?’ The anonymous diary of a 1920s flapper (part 1)