In 2018 it will be 100 years since the Duke of Richmond and Gordon gave Priory Park to the people of Chichester for their leisure and as a perpetual memorial to those who lost their lives in during WWI. Priory Park 100 is an initiative run by the Friends of Priory Park to celebrate this centenary…
Tag: sussex
100 years of the RAF – Staff Stories
The Royal Air Force (RAF) was formed on 1 April 1918 and was the world’s first independent air force. It was the result of the merger of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service which was deemed to be necessary due to the growing importance of aviation in the war. The Women’s…
International Women’s Day: West Sussex Women and the Centenary of Suffrage
Between the centenary of the Representation of the People Act on 6th Feb 2018, which granted the first women the right to vote, and International Women's Day on 8th March, we have been using Twitter and Instagram to share some of the notable West Sussex women involved in the campaign for suffrage. Using the tag #WestSussexWomen you can follow…
Continue reading ➞ International Women’s Day: West Sussex Women and the Centenary of Suffrage
The Women of Bishop Otter College and the University of Chichester
The University of Chichester (previously known as Bishop Otter College) has a rich history of female leaders - starting with Sarah Trevor, the college's first female principal in 1873, to Professor Jane Longmore, the University’s present day Vice-Chancellor. Sarah Trevor (1873-1895) became principal when the Bishop Otter College reopened as one of the country's first…
Continue reading ➞ The Women of Bishop Otter College and the University of Chichester
Queen Victoria Hospital Archive Project: the history of the hospital
The story of Queen Victoria Hospital (QVH) begins in 1863 with its founding as a cottage hospital on Green Hedges Avenue, East Grinstead, in the home of Dr John Henry Rogers. It was only the fifth cottage hospital to be established in England – from its earliest days the hospital was a…
Continue reading ➞ Queen Victoria Hospital Archive Project: the history of the hospital
A Slice of Life – The Quarter Sessions records
Back in January 2012, West Sussex Record Office Conservator Simon Hopkins and I thought up a plan to make the Quarter Sessions rolls more accessible. These are local government records: essentially the business of the courts which ran the administration of the county before the advent of the County Council. The earliest ones are fascinating…
Continue reading ➞ A Slice of Life – The Quarter Sessions records
Queen Victoria Hospital Archive project: Introducing the project
As regular readers of this blog will be aware, since 2016 WSRO has been engaged in a major project involving the archive of the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, which became known during the Second World War as the centre for the treatment of the ‘Guinea Pig Club’, the RAF…
Continue reading ➞ Queen Victoria Hospital Archive project: Introducing the project
Women’s Suffrage in West Sussex
This month sees the centenary of a major success for women’s suffrage. When the Representation of the People Act became law on 6th February 1918, women over 30, who were occupiers of property or married to occupiers, became entitled to vote for the first time in British history. West Sussex Libraries have been finding out…
In Remembrance – Driver George Slater – Graylingwell War Hospital – WW1
I had assumed that every patient who died in a UK war hospital during World War 1 would have a Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) headstone, but I was wrong….. I am cataloguing the records of Graylingwell Hospital in Chichester, among which are some items about Graylingwell War Hospital (1915-1919). There are no existing formal…
Continue reading ➞ In Remembrance – Driver George Slater – Graylingwell War Hospital – WW1
Witchcraft and the ‘Wicked Women’ of Sussex
Prior to the British Witchcraft Act of 1735, the infamous witch trails of the Early Modern period saw widespread moral panic sweep through a religiously unstable Europe, resulting in the horrific punishment of individuals for their supposed sorcery. Although no instances of witch drowning or burning have been evidenced in West Sussex, accusations of witchcraft still led to the persecution…
Continue reading ➞ Witchcraft and the ‘Wicked Women’ of Sussex
West Sussex Record Office 