Archive Material August 2002 Newsletter

Church Plans Online Project Derek Spruce

The Incorporated Church Building Society (181 8 to 1982) was a major fund provider for the building and restoration of Anglican churches in England and Wales during a very active period of church building and restoration. To qualify for support parishes had to make written application normally including plans of the proposed changes. 

This archive, now mainly held in Lambeth Palace Library in London, contains 15,000 grant application files with over 11,800 plans and drawings. Many of the plans provide the only evidence of the layout of churches before a Victorian re-ordering and therefore provide valuable evidence of the evolution of church building.

The Church Plans Online Project has a vision, ’To encourage remote users to appreciate the architecture of the past and to use the ICBS records for personal and communal education and development.’ The project has been supported by the National Lottery’s New Opportunities Fund.

The project will digitise and make available online all the drawings and plans. It will be launched in December 2002 and it is anticipated that all the digital images will be available online by March 2003.

Searches for specific parishes will be easily made from an associated finding aid database. This means that people who find it difficult to get to the Library will be able to access this information at any time. Low resolution images will be available on the web for printing for research work only but high resolution colour images can be obtained from the Library for a fee.

The finding aid database development was funded by the Leverhulme Trust. It provides information about the church, the date, reasons for applying, details of plans and photographs, names of architects, outcome of application and page references to the Society’s minute books. This, with the evidence of any plans and drawings, will give key information.

However the detailed information provided in the files, often on the form required by the Society, provides a wealth of additional information. The sheer volume of the archive (it occupies 21 cubic metres of space) precludes digitising it all and a visit or postal application to the Library will be necessary to see the full documentary record.

Contacts. The website http://www.lambethpaIaceIibrary.org  has a link on its home page to the project pages. The Library is open from 10 a.m. to 5 00 p.m. Monday to Friday but is closed on Bank Holidays and for 10 days at both Christmas and Easter. Potential users of the ICBS archive should contact the Library by post or fax (020 7928 7932) but not by e-mail.

Case Study. A discussion of application number 1954 of February 8th 1836 for All Saints’ Odiham illustrated the value of source material available together with comments about interpreting the data.

This material is used in the following book available at £6.50 including postage from Longfield, The Firs, Odiham, Hook, RG29 1 PP (cheques payable to Odiham PCC)

Bums on Pews: the 1851 Religious Census Christine Jones

This paper will explain how to access the schedules of the 1851 Religious Census in the Public Record Office at Kew. It will also describe the original tabulations made by Horace Mann. The main part of the paper will illustrate the three types of schedules issued to the churches. Using actual examples, it will show what information was gathered and suggest how community historians might use these statistics. It will point out the problems and pitfalls as well as the possibilities and potential of such work.  Read more 

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PROJECT Updates Stella Evans (project co-ordinator) 

The first project was The Arithmeticke Project, instigated by Pauline White, with Peter Wardle of the University of the West of England as academic adviser. This project asked volunteers to use a variety of sources (mainly probate inventories) to research the change from Roman to Hindu Arabic numerals. Pauline and Peter pioneered the methods of co-ordinating researchers in various parts of the country, and the use of a spread-sheet format for reporting the results of their research. The research confirmed that, taken over a period of 150 years, the changeover followed a similar pattern all over England, with the major change occurring in the first 60 years of the seventeenth century. 

The second "SWING" Project is now coming to the end of its initial stage It is the second research project undertaken by FACHRS members, and, once again, has proved very successful, thanks to the interest and enthusiasm of the participants. I took over from Jacky Cooper as co-ordinator in January 2002, and most of the contact with other participants has continued to be via e-mail. This medium has meant that Michael has been able to have a very "hands on" approach to the project, and his support and advise has been invaluable. 

 The SWING Project has become a much larger affair, and will give our academic adviser, Michael Holland of the University of Essex, several years of work now that he is receiving the research results that he asked for. Thanks to the initial hard work of Jacky Cooper, the SWING Project involved over 40 members of FACHRS in 35 different counties in England, the Scottish Borders and South Wales. FACHRS researchers have searched newspapers in their local libraries and Record Offices for the period 1829 -1832, looking for instances of "Swing" protest: that is instances of riot, arson, strikes etc. by agricultural workers. 

The research period officially ran from September 2001 to July 2002, but it has generated a self-continuation! One member was unable to continue after September 2001, but completed her research between Conference of that year(April), when the idea was first suggested, and the following September. Others will, of course, still be putting their research together, and Michael Holland has made it clear that he will continue to welcome any information on the subject. 

The conference for 2003 is to be based round the theme of "Protest". Specifically in the early nineteenth century. FACHRS researchers involved in the SWING Project are encouraged to give members' presentations to inform how the research was undertaken and the challenges overcome!

Your committee is looking into the possibility of future research projects. We need to find a way to advertise the fact that our society has a resource of historical research assistants. Either on a nationwide basis or in a more restricted geographical area. We hope that as this knowledge spreads other academic historians will make use of the potential offered by what has proved a very worthwhile experience.