Diverse Histories
In 2020 Historic England awarded Northumberland Archives a grant to develop Diverse History educational resources. Working with local teachers and Historic England, Northumberland Archives will uncover documents that can be used in the classroom to teach students about the early Black Presence in Northumberland, local links to the International Slave Trade and Northumberland’s relationship to the British Empire. The teaching resources developed by this project will be made available on the LEARN online platform. Archives staff and teachers will design a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) workshop which will be offered to teachers to complement these resources.
COVID Collecting
The primary function of Northumberland Archives is to collect and preserve records relating to the history of our wonderful county. As well as collecting historic records our remit extends to contemporary collecting – collecting records of current events that will be of interest to researchers of the future. We are currently in the process of recording the testimonies of twelve members of Northumberland County Council staff who have been working on the frontline during the current crisis. Details of the recordings will be added to our catalogue and made available to listen to in our searchrooms. We are hoping to extend this project to make recordings with members of Northumberland communities and are currently discussing a potential project with colleagues in Northumberland County Council’s Culture Team.
Archives Testbed
In February 2020 Northumberland Archives was awarded a grant of £5000 from The Collaborate and Innovate: Archives Testbed Fund. The funding together with a contribution from Northumberland Archives will allow us to work collaboratively with colleagues from Northumberland County Council’s Digital Inclusion Team to develop a new interactive cross-curricular educational platform for schools and lifelong learners. The platform will provide access to a range of digitised archival sources relating to three subject areas – Crime and Punishment, Medicine and Health and World War I.
Reading Room
Reading Room allows users to access digital copies of records – principally electoral registers, parish records and Quarter Sessions records at present – by viewing them on public PCs as well as enabling users to print high quality copies. Previously this content was available via microfilm copies many of which were old and worn and any copies generated were generally of poor quality. In total there are more than 2500 volumes available to view on Reading Room with further content to add.
Twixt Thistle and Rose
Berwick Record Office has been awarded £31,000 by Archives Revealed (funded by the National Archives and Pilgrim Trust) to recatalogue the Berwick Borough Archives. With additional support from the Berwick Guild of Freemen and the Friends of Berwick & District Museum and Archives, we will run a concurrent volunteer and outreach project to promote the collection.
Everyday Life In A Northumbrian Manor
In February 2019 we were awarded a grant of £73,100 by the National Lottery Heritage Fund for an outreach project that will encourage wider usage of manorial records as a source for community and family history, engage volunteers in the transcription of core manorial records, allow us to develop an online tutorial and work with a Northumberland First School to develop an exemplar schools education activity.