Celebrating our collections dating from 780AD to the present day
By Nichola Court, Archivist The theme for 2021’s International Men’s Day is ‘building better relations between men and women’ and few men embodied this mantra more than the barrister and one-time Liberal MP for East Grinstead, Charles Corbett. Today’s blog explores the life and work of this now little-known campaigner and politician. Portrait of Charles…
By Jennifer Mason, Assistant County Archivist (Collections Management) Acc 14373 - Guinea Pig Club Christmas Magazine, 1948: Drinks with McIndoe! ‘The entrance fee is something most men would not care to pay and the conditions of membership are arduous in the extreme’ These words from renowned plastic surgeon Sir Archibald McIndoe describe the famous Guinea…
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
In the first Tuesday Talk of 2019, Alan Green will be talking about the fascinating histories of what became known as The Little Churches of Chichester. Chichester was once the most pious of cities. In Pre-Reformation times there were nine parish churches, three chapels, a cathedral and two friaries all within its walls. Of these…
Like most people I like baking and cooking, so when Lauren (our Searchroom Archivist) set the challenge to try some historic recipes from the archives, I jumped at the chance to have a go. One thing I noticed when going through the recipe books held at the Record Office was that over the centuries, there…
My name is Lucy Maguire, and I worked on the Queen Victoria Hospital Archive Project as a Preservation and Digitisation Assistant between August 2016 and September 2017. As the title suggests, my job was broken up into two main parts but within each there was a wealth of surprises, which made every day its own unique…
The history of Queen Victoria Hospital and the Guinea Pigs can often seem a very male-dominated narrative. McIndoe and the other star plastic surgeons of the day were all men; the Guinea Pig Club was unquestionably a ‘boys’ club.’ Yet often behind the scenes women were making vital – and memorable – contributions to the…
Continue reading ➞ Queen Victoria Hospital Archive Project: ‘Women in the Wings’
On hearing about Lauren’s idea for a blog series based on trying out historical recipes, I was keen to sign up – as a lover of both history (which rather comes with the territory as an archivist…) and, well, food in general it seemed right up my street. After a week or two of procrastination…
The name of Sir Archibald McIndoe comes – deservedly - to the fore in any retelling of the history of Queen Victoria Hospital. As this series of blogs has highlighted, there can be no doubt of his influence in transforming the fortunes of both the hospital and of a multitude of patients through his…
Continue reading ➞ Queen Victoria Hospital Archive Project: Beyond McIndoe – staff at QVH
Susie Duffin, Searchroom Assistant and former Midwife The National Health Service (NHS) was introduced by Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health, on the ‘appointed day’ of 5 July 1948. It was born out of the ideal that good health care should be available to all, regardless of wealth. There were three core principles: that it should…
West Sussex Record Office 