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.

Gloucestershire Archives accessions, July-December 2022

Happy New Year from all at Gloucestershire Archives and our Heritage Hub partners.

This blog details accessions received at Gloucestershire Archives during the second half of 2022. These can be from any place, person or organisation in Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire.

In that time we added 226 new accessions onto our online catalogue. This includes oral reminiscence recordings with members of different communities in Gloucester; documents concerning the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the Proclamation of King Charles III; research papers of local historians; Gloucester Rugby Football Club matchday programmes; cinema and theatre programmes; short films and other material concerning the Kindertransport hostel in Gloucester; records of the Ducarel family of Newland House; and Witts family papers, including correspondence and papers relating to the army and estate and finance, 20th century.

Innovations in Gloucester

On Friday September 9^th why not attend part or all of our History Festival/Voices Gloucester event, Innovations in Gloucester, in the Dunrossil Centre at Gloucestershire Heritage Hub?

It’s all free, although donations to Voices Gloucester are welcomed.  Bring a picnic to enjoy in the Hub’s community garden.  The building is fully accessible.  There is some on-site parking (£3) – we’re also close to NCP car parks.   For further details and to book a place see https://voicesgloucester.org.uk/events/innovations-in-gloucester/.     

Locating and dating a Three Choirs Festival photograph, by Simon Carpenter

Simon is the volunteer archivist for the Three Choirs Festival and has written this blog to coincide with the Hereford festival 2022.

Gloucester’s Bishops Court records unlocked, Or All human life is there…, by Judy Kimber

On the 5th December 1628 George Beard made his way to Gloucester from his home in Whaddon. A dispute had arisen concerning the will of his friend John Copp and he was going to give his testimony at the Bishop’s Court. There he was asked how old he was and he told them that he was 90.  Yes, 90! Just think about that for a minute. He had lived through the reigns of six monarchs from Henry VIII to Charles 1. He was alive when the Spanish Armada threatened England. He was in his sixties when Guy Fawkes and his gang had tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. And now he was mentally and physically fit enough to give evidence in court. So much for the notion that no-one lived past sixty in “olden times”.

An example of a Bishop’s Court case book (GDR/168)

Gloucester City Council and the City War Memorial, by Jonathan Hoad

As Remembrance Day approaches, I thought I would share my findings in the Gloucester Borough Records (GBR/L6/23/B5018), on how the names of World War Two fallen on the Gloucester City War Memorial, in Gloucester Park, were collected by the Council using official sources and a public appeal.

Its Festival time again!

Next week is the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester.  If you carry out a search of the phrase Three Choirs Festival on our online catalogue you get 579 hits, including programmes, musical scores and printed histories of the Festival and its key performers.  The Festival was originally called the music meeting and was in existence by 1718.  If you’re visiting it don’t forget that you can see any of the items listed on the catalogue here at the Heritage Hub, as long as you give us prior notice of the items you wish to see.  You can either order documents directly through the catalogue, or by emailing archives@gloucestershire.gov.uk.

The Heritage Hub is making its own contribution to the Festival by hosting two talks, both of which are free to access without prior booking, and are specifically timed to avoid events on the Festival programme.

Another website returns!

We blogged recently about the Barton and Tredworth website going live again after its designers, Community Sites, had converted it to a more accessible WordPress platform.  The same process has been happening to another of our partnership sites, celebrating the Gloucester engineering company Fielding and Platt. Fielding and Platt was founded in 1866 on the site of what is now the Quays retail outlet, and two blue plaques on the site commemorate its previous use.  This photograph from the 1950’s shows the rail entrance to the site from Southgate St (can you spot the poster for the Ealing comedy the Ladykillers?).

It’s back!

Barton and Tredworth website home page

The “It” is the Barton and Tredworth community heritage website, an outcome of the Hidden Lives project of 2011-12 in which the Archives was a partner.  The site was created using a bespoke platform designed by Community Sites, who specialize in assisting local communities to create their own web sites.  However the format wasn’t ideal for the wider range of devices that can now access web sites, so Community Sites have just converted it into a WordPress based site.

Lucky 13 for Gloucestershire history

Founded in 1899, the Victoria County History (so named because of its dedication to Queen Victoria) aspires to create a scholarly history of every parish in every County in England.  It is organised on a County basis and the first Gloucestershire volume was published in 1907.  There was then a gap in production until the 1960s, but volumes have since been produced on a regular basis.