Archive

On Remembrance Day we thought we'd share a story about local soldiers using sources within the Archives The starting point was a photo in Berrow's Pictorial Supplement of six brothers who had gone off to war.

19th July is the 100th anniversary of Peace Day, which was declared a bank holiday in Britain by a committee chaired by then Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon. Although 11 November 1918 saw the end of fighting, the Treaty of Versailles was signed in June (which is why many war memorials have 1914-19 on them). A...

Here is the second instalment of a piece researched by our recent work experience placement, Chris Rouse. You can find the first post here.  In an earlier piece, I wrote about research I’d been doing into the habitual offenders of Edwardian Worcestershire. Most cases seemed simple: a crime was committed and the perpetrator was easily...

This summer Worcestershire Archive Service was lucky enough to host the talented and enthusiastic Chris Rouse on one of the hundred-hour work experience placements we offer. During his time with us he had the opportunity get involved with a wide variety of the sort of jobs one might encounter in the archive profession, including some...

“Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat…” It’s not just geese which got fat, lots of animals would be fattened up ready for Christmas. Therefore in December Fat Stock Shows were held to sell animals, and also reward farmers by offering prizes for the best animals in a similar way to summer agricultural shows....

For the final instalment of our Explore Your Archive feature we are looking at a very well known painter, Joseph Blackburn. Whilst Blackburn’s artistic works are famous across the world, details of his personal life are less clear; to date there appears to have been no confirmation of the details of his later life and...

For this week’s Treasure Julia Pincott, Archive Assistant, has chosen one of our most popular resources used by customers in our Self Service Area at The Hive – our microfilmed newspaper archive. Here, Julia tells us more about a particular feature in Berrows, which focused on the effects of the First World War on the...

For approximately 25 years from 1909 Berrow’s Worcester Journal produced a pictorial supplement to accompany the weekly newspaper. Photos in the newspapers themselves were quite rare at this time because of the reproduction difficulties and the supplements enabled Berrows to produce relatively good quality images to accompany the news.  These photographs record local people and...

Our series of archive film screenings, run in conjunction with the Media Archive for Central England, have always been popular. Over 3,500 people have come to events across the county over the past few years, and the annual screening at The Swan Theatre, Worcester, usually sells out. There’s often a buzz as people reminisce about...