Sumner Railway Collection

By Katherine Slay, Archive Assistant The biggest collection of black and white railway photographs held at the Record Office is now available to search via our online catalogue. Bill Sumner was a very keen photographer, taking thousands of images, all of which came to the Record Office in 2009. William George 'Bill' Sumner was born…

Building, Acting and Relaxing: A brief dip into new collections at West Sussex Record Office

By Nick Corbo-Stewart, Archivist and Volunteer Coordinator The volunteers at West Sussex Record Office (WSRO) work with a wide variety of collections. They sort, list, order, catalogue and package. Once ready, these are opened for use to our researchers. Within this, the first of a series of blogs, I will introduce you, the reader, to…

National Volunteers Week 2022: Volunteers at West Sussex Record Office

By Nick Corbo-Stewart, Volunteer Coordinator and Archivist Volunteers working in the searchroom once more! In April 2022, after two years of having been kept away from the Record Office due to social distancing restrictions imposed by the pandemic, volunteers were allowed to return. Many of our volunteers have supported the Record Office throughout this difficult…

Finding stories in property deeds: A history of The Midhurst Club

By Georgia, Record Office Volunteer Spanning the years 1771 to 2003, the collection of deeds relating to The Midhurst Club tell the history of a long-standing property on Midhurst’s North Street. Although the collection is titled ‘Deeds relating to The Midhurst Club, Midhurst’, there is almost two hundred years of deed history before the Club…

2018/2019 Accessions

By Abigail Hartley, Searchroom Archivist One of the most crucial aspects that our volunteers tirelessly work towards is the accessioning of our smaller collections.  AM (Additional Manuscripts) contain some of our most visually interesting and varied documents.  Within the last 12 months, here is a quick overview of just some of the items we have…