Innovation in Gloucester in the mid-20th century: cataloguing the records of the Corporation of Gloucester

Since April 2022 I have been working on a project to catalogue the 20^th century records of the Corporation of Gloucester, which cover a crucial period for the development of the city up to 1974. Along the way I’ve discovered all sorts of things about how new technologies such as the motor car and telephones affected the city from the 1920s onwards, how the Corporation promoted Gloucester as a suitable site for industry, and how an early aviation pioneer inspired the creation of what is now Gloucestershire Airport.

Corporate Archive Project

From June 2013, two members of the Collections Management Team and a small number of volunteers have been working on the Corporate Archive Project. This involves the reorganisation of all records produced by or associated with Gloucestershire County Council. It is a large collection consisting of over 5000 boxes worth of material. However, the size of the archive clearly reflects the importance of the Council’s role in the lives of all Gloucestershire residents since 1889 up to the present day.

Annual stocktaking week

During 16-19 December 2014, we held our annual stocktaking week. This is when we provide a limited service in the searchroom to free up as many staff as possible to work in the strongrooms. We use the time to improve the storage of the collections we have, and to assess and identify material we don’t need to keep permanently.

We would like to thank all our customers for their understanding while our service was restricted to enable us to get on with all of this!