Clare, our Collections Assistant in Digital Preservation has decided to move on at the beginning of November. Over the course of the last four years, she has contributed to a wide range of projects and helped us with processing a lot of our digital records. Before she left, we asked her to write us one… Read more Goodbye from Clare: Four Years of Highlights
With expected fanfare, Beales department store was set to end its 139 year tenure in Bournemouth’s town centre in April 2020. However, the Covid-19 pandemic intervened. The institution was instead quietly shuttered by a nationwide lockdown in March. While Poole still boasts a Beales store, the organisation founded by James Elmes Beale had ceased to… Read more A Local Institution Quietly Closes
Bournemouth suffered a devastating aerial assault when 23 May 1943, a German ‘Tip and Run’ raid attacked the town. The incident is well recorded as the cost in human lives and physical destruction was severe with a reputed 130 deaths and the levelling of over 50 buildings. Amongst the premises badly affected were two large hotels, the Metropole and Central, as well as Beales Department Store where… Read more Beales, bombs and evidence within the archives
It’s fair to say I didn’t expect my first three months at Dorset History Centre to turn out quite like this… I’m Owen and I’m the new Collections Archivist at Dorset History Centre. I joined the team at the end of January, having previously worked as a Records Manager at the European Central Bank in… Read more Welcome to DHC!
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!
Recent Comments