archives

Beales – archives of an iconic retailer saved for posterity!

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Beales department store in Bournemouth in Hampshire, now Dorset, was founded in 1881 on the Old Christchurch Road.  Initially know as the ‘Fancy Fair and Oriental House’, the shop grew into one of the landmark buildings and brands in Bournemouth.  Generations of Beales headed up the company, one of whom, Frank Beale (d. 2001) went to train at Macy’s in New… Read more Beales – archives of an iconic retailer saved for posterity!

25 People Speak Out!

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In partnership with volunteers from Bournemouth’s LGBTQ+ community, Dorset History Centre is adding twenty-five queer stories to the Dorset Sound Archive. DHC has worked carefully over eighteen months to shape a project and are delighted with the results. Trained volunteers, who collaborated on the design of the project, spoke with people from their early twenties… Read more 25 People Speak Out!

Dame Elisabeth Frink at Christie’s Lates

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David Johnston-Smith, the project archivist currently cataloguing the Dame Elisabeth Frink archival collection, was delighted to be invited to speak at a recent Christie’s Lates event on 13th January in London.  David was due to be introducing the archival collection to the large and enthusiastic crowd these popular evening events encourage, whilst Annette Ratuszniak, former… Read more Dame Elisabeth Frink at Christie’s Lates

Archiving the Archive

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As well as collecting archives from all around the county we are keen to preserve materials from a little closer to home. For many years archivists have been adding to the Dorset Record Office collection (D-1931). Yes – we archive ourselves!

As with other organisations, we are interested in keeping records which reflect the activities we are engaged in and the decisions we make. This includes projects we have led such as the Unlocking the Bankes Archive project and the Diary of RSM George Beck.

A recent office tidy-up revealed a rather fun group of photographs of the Record Office of yesteryear. We think they were taken in the 1980s – when the Record Office was based at County Hall. The service moved to the current Dorset History Centre building in 1991.

The searchroom of course looks slightly different – then featuring drawers of index cards rather the computers we use now. However the interest in curious documents – whether they be long, small, holey or nibbled – remains to this day!

Keep an eye on our Twitter account (@DorsetArchives) for more from this collection and how things look now!

The Dame Elisabeth Frink Project – an update

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The exciting one-year project to catalogue the collection of sculptor Dame Elisabeth Frink, who spent the last 16 years of her life in Dorset at Woolland, near Blandford Forum, has now been running for three months.  Project Archivist, David Johnston-Smith, has now designed a catalogue structure and is currently working his way through the approximately… Read more The Dame Elisabeth Frink Project – an update

The Diary of John Foss – January 1851

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We regularly take in new accessions, ranging from parish registers to glass plate negatives. Last June, we received an innocuous looking notebook. Whilst not particularly exciting from the exterior, it is in fact a detailed diary, written in 1851 by farmer John Foss. It gives a daily account of life on a dairy farm in… Read more The Diary of John Foss – January 1851