Amongst the Dorset Council records is a small section of Civil Defence records, Ref: DCC-CD, dating primarily from the Second World War. Following the first World War it was acknowledged that any future conflicts would involve aerial attacks and a committee was set up to establish what could be done to protect the public from… Read more Collection Spotlight: Civil Defence records
“When I could finally come out to my parents – that was when I felt liberated, and that I could live openly” In February, we told you about twenty-five oral history recordings we had developed, in partnership with LGBTQ+ volunteers. These recordings involve Dorset residents talking about their experiences around coming out, their views on… Read more LGBTQ+ Histories Now Available!
Recently, we have been exploring the work of Dame Elisabeth Frink, as part of our project to catalogue the Frink collection held at Dorset History Centre. However, Frink’s is not the only collection of artistic material we hold… — “It is a quiet region, without drama in either landscape or architecture; yet although each of… Read more The Rena Gardiner collections
The Baskett Family collection, D-719, is spread over three boxes, two containing documents and one full of photographs. The documents were clearly collected by someone who was interested in history and many of them contain notes about family history and pedigrees of families related to the Basketts. When you find an entry for the pedigree… Read more Collection Spotlight: The Baskett Family Collection
If we look closely, archival documents can tell us so much more than that which is written in their pages. Even the most unassuming volume, such as these accounts of the church wardens and constables of Beeby, can tell us a great deal about how the volume was used, some of the personality of its… Read more Conservation Tales: The Accounts of Beeby
At Dorset History Centre, we have a team of highly knowledgeable and eager volunteers, all of whom we haven’t seen for some considerable time now! That doesn’t mean that they haven’t been in touch with us though, and one of our keen volunteers has written this blog, exploring how parchment was made… — D-GIM is… Read more The Fabric of Life…
DHC houses the Local Studies Library, a reference library which houses publications about Dorset’s past, and we are always keeping an eye out for new books to add diversity and depth to the collection. This summer we have added “The Gypsy Camp” by Raymond Wills, the local ‘Gypsy Poet’. Ray is an author and poet from… Read more “The Gypsy Camp” by Raymond Wills
Whilst Dorset History Centre is primarily known for its archive of historical documents, we also hold the Local Studies library, packed with books on places, people and subjects relating to Dorset as well as titles by the local authors, such as Thomas Hardy, William Barnes and the Powys family. We even have some sheet music!… Read more Archives A-Z: L is for Local Studies Library
The fourth and final volume of ‘Royal Weymouth’ contains perhaps the most unusual addition of any of the books by Broadley that we have looked at in our blog series – some of Lord Cathcart`s hair, which was in an envelope that had been stuck into this volume. Lord Cathcart was a Scottish general who… Read more Royal Weymouth Volume 4: Horatio and Hair
In recent weeks the Black Lives Matter movement has shone a spotlight on the importance of making sure that history reflects the lives of all people and we have found stories of black people in the records from our archive that may surprise you. It is easy to think that in a predominantly white rural county such as Dorset there are few stories to discover, but we were able to… Read more Black Voices Matter
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