Celebrating our collections dating from 780AD to the present day
By Mia Curtis-Mays, Archives Assistant I am currently part of a digitisation project scanning the glass negatives from the Chichester Photographic Services collection (CPS). Through wanting to find out more about the collection I was working on, I discovered that the founder of Chichester Photographic Services has a legacy in the realms of film and…
Continue reading ➞ Harry Guermonprez: Founder of Chichester Photographic Services Ltd
By Louise Conway, Archives Assistant In this first part of a two part blog series we will be exploring the history of Shoreham's Bungalow Town. To begin we will look at Shoreham pre Bungalow Town and the moving onto the early days of the site, the bungalows themselves and what life was like. This blog…
By Tim Hudson, guest speaker What is the largest building in Chichester after the cathedral? Most residents will know County Hall, tucked away behind West Street. A public right of way runs past it; and whenever a news item about the County Council appears in the press it is likely to be accompanied by a…
Continue reading ➞ Tuesday Talk – County Hall and its architect
By Alice Millard, Archivist To mark the recent upload of the Graylingwell Hospital Archive catalogue to our website, this blog will dip into the vast history of this significant hospital through its archives. Founding Before the establishment of lunatic asylums in the mid-19th century, people living in poverty with mental health issues were dealt with…
Continue reading ➞ The story of Graylingwell Hospital through its archives
By Alice Millard, Archivist If you haven’t read part one of the Tommie and Betty Archive blogs, you can catch up here. Just as we used the archive to delve into the early lives of Tommie and Betty in part one, we are going to explore what the collection can tell us about the significant…
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 Victoria Evans, Searchroom Archivist Building further upon a blog post written six years ago we are delving back into the history of fascism in West Sussex. Specifically, we will be focusing on the British Union of Fascists (BUF), also known as the Blackshirts, and their summer camp of 1937 which saw thousands flock to…
By Nichola Court, Archivist In 2024, WSRO hosted a visit from students at The Academy, Selsey, who were involved in a project guided by Millstream Productions to create a documentary film about the history of Selsey Pavilion. The film forms part of the restoration project led by Selsey Pavilion Trust. Following on from their initial…
By Alice Millard, Archivist Figure 1 Tommie (L) and Betty (R) planning a road trip, 1958. (AM 1768/2/2/3/86) In May 2023, we were delighted to take in the archive of two Worthing women, Myra ‘Tommie’ Thomas and Betty Hakesley. Known affectionately as ‘Tommie and Betty’, the couple lived together in Worthing from the 1980s until…
By Victoria Evans, Searchroom Archivist As the archivist in charge of our social media at WSRO, I am always trawling through documents and photographs to share with our following. This led me to stumble across a comprehensive photographic collection (PH 28906-29041) of a woman’s service in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). Her name was (Kathleen)…
Continue reading ➞ The Auxiliary Territorial Service in West Sussex – Part One
West Sussex Record Office 