When we can physically see smoke from chimneys and smell fumes from cars it’s clear that they are polluting our environment but when we can’t see the smoke for ourselves it’s easy to forget about the environmental impact. Invisible, yet all around us, the internet is quickly becoming one of the major contributors to our… Read more The Internet, the Environment, and Storing Records
Conservation Trainee Helen has been working on various things during her period with us at Dorset History Centre. In this post, she takes a look at some interesting glass plate negatives… — Dorset History Centre has recently acquired a new set of glass plate negatives, mainly of Thomas Hardy. As part of my placement here… Read more Conservation Tales: Glass plates of Thomas Hardy
We have records in our archive from 1900s, 1800s, 1700s and even as far back as 965 AD, over 1000 years old. These records are stored in our strong room and will be safely preserved there for many years to come. Interestingly, it is items which were created in the 21st Century which are at… Read more Keeping Your Bits Safe
The purchase in December 2020 of a collection of important documents and printed books relating to Thomas Hardy was one of the highlights of last year – a year in which it was at times difficult to feel optimistic. In an earlier blog, parts of the collection were described and we will now examine other items which cast… Read more Thomas Hardy – exploring a new collection (part 2)
Wills are basically a statement of how you wish your property to be disposed of following your death. The 1540 Statue of Wills laid down that a will should deal with real estate (i.e. land and buildings) and personal property (e.g. goods, money). The main change was that through a written Will a landowner could… Read more A Guide to Wills, Admons and Inventories
Following the huge success of my previous attempt at making a recipe from one of the old recipe books held here at the archives, I thought it best to give it another go. As most people are still home schooling, here’s an easy recipe with a dash of history added for flavour (although you might… Read more Cooking the Books (part 2)
In January, and despite all that is currently happening in the world, we welcomed a new member of staff to our team… — Hi everyone! My name’s Eimear and I am one of eight trainees in the third and final cohort of The National Archives Bridging the Digital Gap scheme. The eight of us have… Read more Meet our new Bridging The Digital Gap Trainee!
At DHC our trained volunteers are usually collecting oral history interviews and we are usually working with several community projects which are planning a project or recording. However, with the advent of Covid these activities ceased. We have followed advice from the Oral History Society and The British Library and have thrown the efforts of remote volunteers into transcription and analysis. The volunteers have done… Read more To Record or Not to Record…
In the local studies library at the Dorset History Centre you can find a large collection of journals. These journals are packed with fascinating articles and are often an underused resource. In this new series of blogs we will be highlighting some of the interesting articles within them! This is the fifth in our series… Read more The Journals of DHC: 1940s
One of the largest but least used collections at the Dorset History Centre is the records of the Dorset Quarter Sessions. The Quarter Sessions were local government and local justice rolled into one until the County Councils were established in 1888 and Magistrates and Crown Courts took over local court cases in 1971. Every English… Read more Quarter Sessions: What are they?
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