Externally Funded Projects

This was a 3 year project, completed in July 2009. It was funded by a grant of £196,100 from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Rolling out the Archives was a project that improved access to the unique and irreplaceable archives that the Service holds for the people of Rotherham. 

The project had three areas of work: preservation, cataloguing and outreach.

Preservation

After the first year the preservation work was completed. This involved the refurbishing of the strongroom, where the archives are held in secure, environmentally controlled storage whilst they are not in use by customers. New mobile shelving was installed, a large programme of secondary protection for the material, and other work to the lighting and decorations was carried out.

A team of 12 volunteers also undertook a Preservation Assessment Survey which helped to establish priorities for further preservation work on the collections and for in depth conservation work on individual items.

Cataloguing

The cataloguing work lasted for the lifetime of the project. The project focused on the major sources for the history of Rotherham, and on the largest uncatalogued collections. These catalogues are now available online, alongside already completed catalogues covering some of the holdings of the service.

Completed Catalogues

41-UD - Rawmarsh Urban District Council
367-N - Rotherham Methodist Circuit
363-G - The Feoffees of the Common Lands of Rotherham
185-B - Hart Moss and Copley (accountants)
15-C - Rotherham Police
63-B - Parker Rhodes (solicitors)
307-B - Beatson Clark (glass manufacturers)
301-F - Verelst of Aston Hall
58-N - Dearne Valley Methodist Circuit
33-B - Guest and Chrimes (brass founders)
595-Z - Mountforth of Kilnhurst.
89-F - Dorothy Greene (local historian)

The other archives to be fully catalogued following the Rolling out the Archives project are Rotherham County Borough Council and the Urban District Councils of Maltby, Swinton and Rotherham Rural District Council; British Steel; estate records of the Earl of Effingham

Online Catalogue

As part of this strand we also developed a new online catalogue to improve access to Rotherham Archives and Local Studies Service material. We hope you will like the look of the catalogue and enjoy using the increased range of material that is now searchable.

We are keen to hear your views on this new service so please contact us if you have any questions, comments or suggestions for improvements. Not all our collections are available, but we will be adding new material regularly - so keep coming back to visit us!

Archives

The main types of records that are searchable include:

• Official records
• Local Government
• Churches and chapels
• Business and industrial
• Family and estate
• Solicitors' collections

Local Studies Material

Types of records include:

• Books and pamphlets (from 2006 onwards, earlier titles to follow)
• Directories
• Newscuttings volumes
• Index to newspaper articles
• Journals and newsletters
• Photographs (to be added at a later date)

View our online catalogue here

Outreach

The third strand of the project was promoting the use of the newly catalogued archives through outreach activity. Learning materials for schools and local groups have been produced, in addition to workshops, talks, community history days and other activities to promote the use of the archives.

Please browse our Learning Resources page which gives access to learning materials.

Rolling out the Archives project leaflet