A transatlantic team member

This autumn will see an exciting new development for us as we welcome a new member of our team, who just happens to be over 3,000 miles away.

Linda MacIver at Boston Public Library during Neil and Allyson's visit last summer

Linda MacIver at Boston Public Library during Neil and Allyson’s visit last summer

Linda MacIver will be working for us based in Boston, Massachusetts, to help people in New England who want to trace their English, and especially Essex, ancestors. Linda has many years of experience as both a librarian and as a teacher of local history and genealogy, so we are excited that she will be working with us.

Linda will be available to give talks and attend genealogy fairs (and anything else you might want to invite her to!). She will be introducing people to the historical documents from our collection which can be accessed online anywhere in the world through our subscription service, and to talk about some of the connections between Essex and New England.

We first met Linda last summer when two of our number, Neil Wiffen and Allyson Lewis, paid a flying visit to Boston to meet American researchers who use our collections. Linda was then working at Boston Public Library, one of the venues Neil and Allyson gave a talk, and it was from that visit that the idea of her being our representative in New England emerged.

As has become traditional with new members of our team, we thought we would get to know Linda a little better:

 

Hello Linda, tell us a bit about yourself.

My professional career started as a high school teacher of U.S. and Modern European History.   Unexpectedly I was recruited to serve as the school librarian and my career would take a “librarian train ride” through stops in academic, corporate and, finally, a public library with research library status, one of only two such public libraries in the U.S., New York and Boston.  That move brought all of my intellectual background together, using subject expertise in business and social sciences areas, as a frontline librarian and as a researcher.  It was my original interest in history that turned my attention to local history and, finally, family history.  For the past five years I have developed the Library’s genealogy program, not only through two very successful lecture series, but by teaching genealogy classes for our patrons, bringing me back full circle to my teaching roots.

 

What is your favourite period of history?

As a teen I was enthralled with ancient history and the rise of civilization, partly because I thought I wanted to be an archaeologist and partly because I had great teacher in the subject.  Then I took Modern European History and had another great teacher.  Both had taught with the Socratic method, making us think through the reasons that caused cultural development and change.  This critical thinking process made history come alive.  As a young teacher myself, I started travelling, mostly to England a baker’s dozen times.  London became my home away from home, and my favourite period became the evolution of the constitutional monarchy and democratic movements in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

Do you know if you have English Ancestors yourself?

From my “Mac” name, we know I have mainly Scottish and Irish DNA.  Historically, the MacIvers left Uig in the Hebrides in the early 1800’s for Quebec province, my direct line crossing the border to northern New Hampshire just before 1900.  My maternal heritage is Anglo-Saxon.  Today the surname is Arlin, deriving from Harland or Hoarland.  Family folklore says we come from the Great Migration immigrant George Harland of Virginia, but I have yet to make the connection.  It is more likely that I do, in fact, have Essex connections since the 1891 census actually finds more Arlins in Essex and Suffolk than in any other part of England!  My English connections are many:  one of my favourite spots in the world is Salisbury Cathedral; I spent a summer in England studying the “History of the Book” and visiting many English libraries and printers; and I was born in Manchester, New Hampshire, the “Manchester of America.”

 

How are you going to be helping people in New England discover their English and Essex ancestors?

It is no secret that there is great interest for New Englanders to make connections to their English roots.  Neil and Allyson’s whirlwind visit last year was proof of that.  I hope to further encourage that interest by bringing them news of the ways they can make those connections as I lecture around the region, exhibit at genealogy conferences and perhaps even do some “hands on” training of the free and subscription services of ERO.

 

What do you like to do outside of work?

Actually, what I do outside of work is quite similar to what I do for work.  Working on my own family history can sometimes be a rare event since I am so often working on others or teaching them how to research.  I hope to do more of my own.  I am also Secretary of the Massachusetts Genealogical Council. In the fall I will start to volunteer at the Boston Registry where I will be surrounded by Boston civil records from the 1600s on.  Not quite as old as some of ERO’s holdings, but impressive from this side of the pond.  Otherwise, from Boston, one MUST BE a sports addict!  We tend to live and die with our teams; for me especially the Red Sox and New England Patriots.  But I am fortunate to live in one of the cultural meccas of the world and enjoy the Boston Symphony and Pops, musical theatre, and folk and “Big Band” concerts.

 

If you are in the Boston, Massachusetts area and would like to book Linda for a talk on Tracing Your English Ancestors, get in touch with us on ero.enquiry@essex.gov.uk

Sound and video recordings now available on Essex Archives Online

Did you know that the Essex Sound and Video Archive at the Essex Record Office holds over 30,000 recordings of oral history interviews, music, local radio and television broadcasts, and much more? The best way to discover all the treasures in the Archive is to search Essex Archives Online – and now you can also play a sample of the recordings directly from the website.

Screenshot of video player on Essex Archives Online

With the latest update to our online catalogue, we can now embed audio and video recordings from hosting websites such as Soundcloud and YouTube. This means you can listen or watch our recordings without having to go to a different site – recordings like this ‘Haunted Essex’ clip from an EastWard Hospital Television programme.

You can also search specifically for items that have audio or video recordings attached to the catalogue entry. From the main search page, choose ‘Audio Visual’ from the ‘Refine your search’ drop-down box.

Screenshot showing option to find a-v material on Essex Archives Online

Why not try it now? For example, try searching for ‘school’ – and remember to first select ‘Audio Visual’ in the ‘Refine your search’ box.

This is also an option on the Advanced Search page. Please note that this will only return results where we have uploaded digital copies of the recordings. There are many more amazing treasures in the Archive yet to be digitised, so do get in touch if you cannot find what you are looking for.

A-v icon

Maybe you are not specifically looking for audio or video material, but, as you search the whole catalogue, you might come across some relevant recordings. You can quickly spot which results have audio-visual content, because you will see this icon on the results page.

You will need to create an account on Essex Archives Online and log in before you can view or listen to the content. However, you do not need to purchase a subscription: the material is absolutely free to play, and can be played as often as you like. So you can scrutinise, frame by frame, this 1980s video of St Cedd’s School Choir performing at the Chelmsford Cathedral Festival to see if you recognise anyone.

Or perfect your Anglo-Saxon.

This means you no longer have to travel to the Essex Record Office to use Essex Sound and Video Archive material (but of course we would be happy to help you with your research in the Searchroom if you do want to visit). Instead, you can play recordings from the comfort of your own home – or in the library, or an Internet café, or your garden if your Wi-Fi is strong enough (but please be considerate of others when listening).

Demonstration of finding and playing sound and video recordings in Essex Archives Online.

This material is being made available for free thanks to our Heritage Lottery Funded project, You Are Hear: sound and a sense of place. The material available online will continue to grow as we digitise more of our recordings over the next two years of the project. Follow us on Soundcloud or YouTube to be alerted to new uploads.

For more information about You Are Hear, you can go to the project blog site or the Essex Sounds website, or you can sign up to receive news updates.

We would love to hear what you think about the content we have added so far. Please also let us know if you experience any problems using the site.

All these recordings are being made available under a Creative Commons (Attribution Non-Commercial) licence. If you wish to use any material for commercial purposes, please get in touch. You can also contact us about recordings that have not yet been uploaded.

For more information about the Essex Sound and Video Archive and the digitisation and consultancy services we provide, please visit our website.

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Historic sounds of Essex – coming to a town near you

Sarah-Joy Maddeaux, You Are Hear Project Officer

If a bench could talk, what would it say? The listening benches being installed across the county by the Essex Record Office do talk, and they tell you stories and play you recordings of local history past and present – recordings like these memories of growing up on Marks Hall Estate by Pearl Scopes and Bill and Daphne Carter (SA 51/2/5/1, full interview available on the Discovering Coggeshall YouTube channel).

 

Thanks to National Lottery players, eight sound benches are being installed across the county this summer, with two others touring country parks, towns, and villages as part of You Are Hear: sound and a sense of place. At the same time, two interactive audio-video kiosks will tour public places, with a third installed at the Essex Record Office (ERO).

You Are Hear is a three-year, £276,800 project to digitise, catalogue, and make available many of the historically significant sound and video recordings in the ERO’s Essex Sound and Video Archive (ESVA). The project is mainly funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), with additional support from the Essex Heritage Trust and the Friends of Historic Essex.

The sound benches will be loaded with recordings that tell the story of the location in which they are placed. You will be able to choose which recording you’d like to hear, and it will be played to you through the in-built speakers.

Permanent benches will be located in Basildon, Castle Hedingham, Colchester, Great Dunmow, Great Waltham, Harwich, Kelvedon, and Saffron Walden.

Cartoon map of Essex showing location of benches

Location of the first eight benches being installed this summer

The first bench was launched in Castle Park, Colchester, on Saturday 4 June.

Picture of Cllr Young cutting ribbon on bench

Cllr Julie Young, Mayor of Colchester, opening the listening bench in Castle Park

You can find the bench near the entrance to the Castle. It features clips from oral history interviews recorded by the Colchester Recalled Oral History Group, who also selected the clips and put them together for the bench. Councillor Annie Feltham, Colchester Borough Council Portfolio Holder for Business, Leisure and Opportunities, said:

“This bench is a great new way for the people of Colchester and visitors to learn about local history through a shared social experience. Hearing real audio clips of voices and sounds, of people who have lived and worked in Colchester over the years, will really bring their stories to life.”

Two more sound benches will be touring the county from June, starting at Stansted Airport and Belhus Woods Country Park. See if you can visit them all! Send us a picture of you with each bench, and tell us which clip was your favourite.

Image of the touring kiosk

The touring kiosks that will visit libraries and museums across the county (image courtesy of blackbox-av)

Two audio-video touchscreen kiosks filled with a selection of recordings from the Essex Sound and Video Archive will also be touring from 4 July. The kiosks will first visit Chelmsford Museum and Loughton Library, before embarking on a tour that will take them the length and breadth of Essex.

A third kiosk will be permanently installed at the Essex Record Office in Chelmsford.

The project is working with community groups in villages and towns throughout Essex, helping them to reflect upon where they live by engaging with the recordings. Each group created a montage of clips about their community from recordings in the Archive, which will be played on the sound benches.

Councillor John Spence, Essex County Council Cabinet Member for Finance, with responsibility for Heritage, Culture and the Arts, said:

“So often we rely on the eye to bring archives to life; creating this aural dimension not only lets blind people like me have the experience, it actually immerses you in the sounds of the period, or place.”

Robyn Llewellyn, Head of Heritage Lottery Fund East of England, said:

“this is a fantastic way for local people and visitors to get a sense of the history of these places, and what life was like for local communities over the years. We are delighted that, thanks to National Lottery players, we have been able to fund this project to bring local history, and local benches, to life!”

The two listening benches will visit the following locations this year:

  • June – August 2016: Stansted Airport and Belhus Woods Country Park
  • September – November 2016: Hatfield Forest and Cudmore Grove Country Park
  • December 2016 – February 2017: intu Lakeside Shopping Centre and Thorndon Country Park
  • March – May 2017: Battlesbridge Antiques Centre and Cressing Temple

The two audio-video kiosks will visit these venues this year:

  • July – September 2016: Chelmsford Museum and Loughton Library
  • October – December 2016: Zinc Arts, Ongar and Fingringhoe Wick Visitor Centre
  • January – March 2017: Canvey Island Library and Brentwood Library
  • April – June 2017: Jaywick Martello Tower and Caxton Books and Gallery, Frinton-on-Sea / The Naze Education and Visitor Centre

For the latest news on tour dates and community installations, keep an eye on our Essex Sounds website.

We are still taking bookings for the second year of the tours, and looking for volunteers to help with the second round of community bench installations. Please get in touch by e-mail or on 033301 32467 if you have any suggestions.

To find out more about the project and subscribe to receive updates, visit http://www.essexrecordofficeblog.co.uk/you-are-hear/

You can also listen to our recordings as they are being digitised through our Soundcloud channel.

What Essex sounds like: soft launch of Essex Sounds audio map

For the past six months, the You Are Hear project team at the Essex Sound and Video Archive has been asking you what Essex sounds like. Whether stopping innocent passers-by in shopping centres, appealing to the public through newspapers, or calling for suggestions through e-bulletins, we have been asking you what noises you hear in your daily routine, what noises you associate with the county, what sounds represent your community.

Now we have the answer! Well, to a point. We have compiled the results with our Sound Recordist, Stuart Bowditch. Based on your suggestions, he has been venturing into the far corners of the county, braving all weathers, to capture those soundscapes. And now you can hear some of the results on our audio map, Essex Sounds.

Horse riding through busy Maldon street, 1 Jan 2016

The hunt parade through Maldon, 1 January 2016. Image courtesy of Stuart Bowditch.

From church bells to firework displays; the annual New Year’s hunt parade through Maldon to the sounding of ship’s horns at Tilbury to bring in the New Year (yes, he managed to capture both, and more besides that day!): see if your suggestion of an Essex sound has been recorded.

In our public surveys about Essex sounds, many people commented on a perceived difference between the north and south of the county. Commonly, people considered the southern part of the county to contain more industrial noises, more hustle and bustle, more crowded atmospheres: with more people speaking with a London or ‘TOWIE accent’. The north was depicted as quieter, more rural, where the people are more likely to speak with a ‘traditional’ Essex accent.

A cow wading in a stream in Dedham Vale

Peaceful Dedham Vale in north Essex. Image courtesy of Visit Essex.

Is this an accurate depiction of the county, or is it over-generalised? Why not consult the Essex Sounds map to see if it reflects this north-south divide?

The map also enables comparisons between old and new sounds of the county. We have uploaded some historic recordings from the Archive. For example, you can listen to an auction at the Chelmsford cattle market in the 1950s.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/228652756″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]
You can then compare it with a recording made on that site in 2015, capturing the busy atmosphere of High Chelmer on a Saturday. Try it out here.

If your sound suggestion has not yet been added, do not fear: our site is still a work in progress. Stuart will continue to record Essex sounds over the next few months, gradually uploading them to the audio map. We will also keep adding historic recordings as they are digitised, as part of this Heritage Lottery Funded project. We are also happy to continue to receive suggestions of places and events to record, though we will not be able to include everything within the scope of the project.

In the meantime, why not contribute your own recording to the site? We want the map to fully reflect your experiences of what Essex sounds like. You will find instructions on the ‘contribute’ page, but please get in touch if you have any questions.

We would love to hear any feedback you have, so that we can continue to improve the site and pass on your comments to our website developers, Community Sites. Please be gentle with us, though: we are still in the development phase! We would also be grateful for any volunteers to test the map more extensively, particularly if you are using accessibility software. Please get in touch to find out more.

For more information about the You Are Hear project, you can visit the project site.

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Essex Sound and Video Archive releases first recordings online

The Essex Sound and Video Archive is delighted to announce that we have started to post a selection of our recordings online for anyone to listen for free – recordings such as this clip from a Harold Wood Hospital Radio programme about the old manual telephone exchange in Brentwood (SA 19/1050/1).

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/213793408″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”250″ iframe=”true” /]

 

Image of Essex Youth Orchestra 45rpm lacquer disc from 1960

Example of an original recording in our collection that has been digitised for preservation and access

Thanks to funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund for our project, You Are Hear: sound and a sense of place, we aim to digitise and catalogue 1900 of the 30,000 fascinating, diverse sound and video recordings in the Archive.

Once the material is in digital form, we can upload it to the sound sharing website, Soundcloud. Researchers no longer have to travel to the Playback Room at the Essex Record Office to listen to the material – though you would still be welcome if you want the experience of listening to an actual cassette or cd. Instead, you can listen on your computer at home, or download the Soundcloud app and listen on the go with your mobile or tablet.

We will be adding material gradually over the next three years – material such as this oral history interview with Ann Chapman (SA 13/7/2/1). It was recorded in 2010 at Fryerns Library, as part of their fiftieth anniversary celebrations. In Part 2 of the interview, Ann describes her childhood delight at jumping in muddy puddles when her family first moved to Basildon after living in crowded, built-up London. She then describes the many shopkeepers that offered door-to-door deliveries – though she also enjoyed trips to the shops with her mother.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/185390342″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”250″ iframe=”true” /]

 

From summer 2016, we will be showcasing a selection of our recordings on interactive touchscreen kiosks and listening benches that will tour public locations across the county. Our Essex Sounds website will provide an opportunity to compare the sounds of Essex, past and present: historic sounds of places in Essex from the Archive will be pinned together with new recordings made by our Sound Recordist, Stuart Bowditch. People will also be able to pin their own sound recordings to the map, to help create a representative range across the county.

All these recordings are being made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial licence. If you wish to use any material for commercial purposes, please get in touch. You can also get in touch if you are interested in listening to recordings that have not yet been uploaded to Soundcloud.
You Are Hear banner showing cassette tapes
To receive updates about the You Are Hear project, sign up to our mailing list.

For more information about the Essex Sound and Video Archive and the digitisation and consultancy services we provide, please visit our website.

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Registered wills – filling in the gaps

Wills can tell us all sorts of things about the lives of people in the past, and are a brilliant resource for genealogists and social and economic historians alike.

As we have mentioned before, our collections include some 70,000 original wills made by people in Essex between 1400 and 1858. These wills have all been catalogued and digitised, and can be searched for by name and viewed on our online subscription service Essex Ancestors.

We have now begun work on an additional set of records which can help to fill in any gaps in our series of original wills, which will ultimately result in about 10,000 more wills being added to Essex Ancestors.

Decorative I

A decorative initial ‘I’ from a book of registered wills dating from 1500-1515 (D/ACR 1)

Before 1858 when somebody died leaving a will, their executor would take the original will to the relevant court so that probate could be granted. The original wills would be kept by the court and filed; it is these wills proved in the ecclesiastical courts in Essex which have been digitised and are available via Essex Ancestors.

Clerks at the courts would also usually write out a copy of the will into large volumes called will registers (references beginning D/ABR, D/ACR, D/AER and D/AMR). There are approximately thirty 16th and 17th century registers for the courts in Essex where there are no original wills surviving.

Registered wills 1500-1515

The will registers are books into which clerks copied wills being proved at the ecclesiastical courts. Sometimes a will might survive in the book when the original copy of it has been lost, providing a useful second chance for researchers.

The wills in the registers are listed in the three volumes of Wills at Chelmsford, but do not currently appear on Seax. To make these records easier to find, we have started a project to add the details of individual wills in the registers to Seax, so they will be searchable by name. To begin with, only a written catalogue description will be available, but in the long term we plan to add digital images too. In the meantime, registered wills are viewable on microfiche in the Searchroom, or copies can be ordered through our reprographics service.

The first register for which details have been added to Seax is that for the archdeaconry of Colchester (D/ACR 1) which covers the north of the county for the years 1500-1515. 

Some of the wills in the volume are in Latin and as it dates from before the Reformation, the testators would all have been Roman Catholic, evidenced by the use of Catholic phraseology such as ‘I bequeath my soule to almyghte god and to our blessed lady saynt mary and to the holy all hallowes’, which appears in the will of Roger Burgon of Colchester below. Following the English Reformation and the invention of the Church of England references to Mary and the saints all but disappeared.

Roger Burgon’s will is dated 16 December 1507 (D/ACR 1/127/1).  After bequeathing his soul to God he went on to request that his body be buried in the Church of St. Francis within the Convent of the Friars Minor [Greyfriars] in Colchester.

Roger Burgon will

The beginning of the will of Roger Burgon, 1507 (D/ACR 1/127/1)

The majority of the wills are for men, but a number of women do appear, such as this one for Agnes Tomson of the parish of St Leonard in Colchester, dated 8th December 1502 (D/ACR 1/50/5).

Agnes Tomson will

The beginning of the will of Agnes Tomson, 1502 (D/ACR 1/50/5). The heading to the will reads ‘Testm Agness Tomson de High’ – Testament of Agnes Tomson of the High, then a new area of Colchester

Agnes’s bequests included a ‘blake gowne’ (black dress), a ‘petycote’, a ‘greene gowne’, a ‘russet gowne’ a ‘floke bed’ (flock bed), pots, plates and a kettle, a ‘blankett’, a ‘bolster’, and a ‘long knyff’ (knife), all of which helps us build up a picture of Agnes’s life.

Agnes Tomson will

The section of Agnes’s will leaving a ‘blake gowne’ (black dress)

Examples of English HandwritingIf you would like any further advice on using wills in your research, please ask a member of staff in the Searchroom or contact us on ero.enquiry@essex.gov.uk. If you would like any help with reading old handwriting, our publication Examples of English Handwriting 1150-1750 by Hilda Grieve is a very useful guide. It can be purchased for £6 (+P&P) from the Searchroom or by phoning 033301 32500.

If you get really stuck, our Search Service can transcribe wills for you – please contact ero.searchroom@essex.gov.uk for details.

New team member: Valina Bowman-Burns

The ERO’s collections offer infinite educational possibilities, and we are excited to welcome Valina on board to explore these and bring them to students across the county.

 

IMG_7835Name: Valina Bowman-Burns

Role: Learning from History Manager

 

 

 

 

Why did you want to work at ERO?

I was introduced to the Essex Record Office as a student and spent many happy hours researching for my dissertation. It would have taken considerably less time if I was better at reading Tudor handwriting. I’ve also introduced friends and co-workers and always had positive experiences treasure hunting in the Searchroom. I’m very education focused, so when a job came up that used my skillset I jumped at it.

 

Describe an average day at ERO for you:

I’m still meeting people and trying to work out how the teams fit together.  I hope in the near future that I’ll be working much more closely with schools and bringing some new learning sessions online.  I’ll try and keep you posted.

 

What do you do when you’re not at ERO?

I like trying new things. So far this year I’ve tried screen printing, had a trial flight in a Tiger Moth biplane and given Tunisian crochet a go. In the evenings I am a regular at Zumba, yoga and Aikido.

 

Can you tell us about an interesting document you have come across while at ERO?

  1. The records from a mental institution in Colchester had some very sad stories.
  2. Jane Barnard’s will was my prize find when researching my dissertation – I could read it and it contained good detail that I was looking for.
  3. Some Victorian photographs of a man in full, fashionable Victorian ladies garb – corsets and all! I was very envious of his dress and style!

Essex Sound and Video Archive secures Heritage Lottery Fund investment

You Are Hear banner The You Are Hear: sound and a sense of place project has secured a grant of £276,800 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), the Essex Record Office announced today.

Over the course of three years, starting this autumn, the project will digitise and catalogue many of the historically significant sound and video recordings held in the Essex Sound and Video Archive. The recordings will then be used to help people in Essex develop and enhance their sense of place. Focussing primarily on oral history interviews, these recordings reveal the remarkable experiences of everyday people over the last century.

The project will work with community groups in villages and towns throughout Essex, helping them to reflect upon where they live by engaging with the recordings. Each group will create a sound montage of clips about their community from the Archive. The montage will then be installed on a sonic park bench. Whether placed on a village green, by the seaside, or in a shopping district, at the press of a button anyone will be able to listen to recordings from the past tell the story of where they are sitting.

Example sonic bench

Example of a sonic bench, installed at Llanyrafon Manor. Image courtesy of blackbox-av.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/212465939″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”200″ iframe=”true” /]

In this clip, Ronald Poole recalls the institutions that lined Baddow Road in the days when he journeyed along it to and from school, comparing buildings long gone with current landmarks. Interview recorded by Chelmsford Museum in 1990 (SA 15/705/1).

The You Are Hear project team will also consult the public about which sounds of twenty-first-century Essex should be captured and archived. Based on these suggestions, an online audio map will enable comparisons between the historic sounds in the Archive and new sounds recorded during the project.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/212468198″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”200″ iframe=”true” /]

The excitement running through this excerpt from the commentary of the memorable 1971 Colchester United v Leeds United FA Cup fifth-round match immerses the listener in the moment. What would a recording from this location sound like today, now that the old Layer Road stadium has been replaced by a housing estate? Recording courtesy of Micon Recording Company (SA 27/12/1).

Lastly, tours of interactive audio/video kiosks and sonic benches will showcase more recordings from the Archive, reaching every corner of the county.

County Councillor Roger Hirst, Cabinet Member for Customer Services, Libraries, Planning and the Environment said: “Digitisation of these irreplaceable records will safeguard them for future generations. Once digitised, they will be posted online for all to freely enjoy, without having to travel to the Essex Record Office in Chelmsford to hear them.”

Open reel tape

Open reel tape in the Essex Sound and Video Archive Studio: just one of the many formats we will digitise as part of the project

The digitised recordings will be accessible through the Essex Record Office online catalogue, Seax. From there you will also be able to browse the catalogue descriptions to see the rich variety of content in our collections.

Robyn Llewellyn, Head of Heritage Lottery Fund East of England, said: “From local accents to a nationally significant collection of folk music, the Essex Record Office holds the key to over a century of our county’s sounds. Thanks to National Lottery players we’re delighted to support this project which will enable even more people to benefit from this immersive connection to Essex’s heritage and ensure these sounds can be heard by generations to come.”

The Essex Heritage Trust and the Friends of Historic Essex will also contribute grants towards the project.

Essex Heritage Trust logo

Friends of Historic Essex logo

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/156092427″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”200″ iframe=”true” /]

Recordings like this music hall song by T. W. Connor, ‘Father Went Down to Southend’, can help people appreciate the county’s long heritage as a popular destination for a fun day out. Our dedication to preserving the original means we add little processing to the digitised recordings, trying to keep the end result as faithful to the original sound as possible. Recording released by Edison Bell in 1911 or 1912 (Acc. SA710 part).

There will be many opportunities for the public to get involved over the course of the project. Right now, we are looking for groups to adopt a sonic bench for the following communities: Burnham-on-Crouch, Chelmsford, Clacton-on-Sea, Coggeshall, Epping, Great Baddow, Southend-on-Sea, and Witham. We are also trying to trace past oral history participants to confirm our permission to use the recordings. Check our list of participants here to see if you recognise any names.

Please get in touch (sarahjoy.maddeaux [@] essex.gov.uk) if you want more information, or sign up here to receive updates on the project.

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New team member: Rachael Smith

Name: Rachael Smith

Role: Archive Assistant

IMG_5078

Why did you want to work at ERO?

I have always had an interest in history and my previous job with Essex Libraries gave me lots of skills that transfer well to ERO. I was first introduced to archive services whilst I was studying architecture at university; the vast resources available on historical buildings aided my studies immensely which gave me a real appreciation for archives.

 

Describe an average day at ERO for you:

I’m only just starting to experience what an average day is like as I started working at ERO during the annual stocktake, during which I met the rest of the ERO team and was introduced to the various tasks that are required to keep the Searchroom and the repositories in running order. I helped with jobs such as the creation of a photographic catalogue of the ECC art collection, and checking the physical contents of each shelf location against the digital record we have on Seax. My favourite day was when I spent time in conservation helping to clean the Fred Chancellor plans.

 

What do you do when you’re not at ERO?

I am a keen long distance runner, regularly running cross country. My passion is architecture and I love travelling to study buildings. I am from a family of artists so you’ll mostly find me drawing or painting, but I do also enjoy technical 2D and 3D drawing on various CAD programs. What most people don’t know about me is that I am on a darts team!

 

Can you tell us about an interesting document you have come across while at ERO?

This would have to be the Arbitrator’s Award map of Epping Forest (Q/RDe 1) that is due to be included in an outreach event in 2015. This is the largest map that I have ever seen at 30’6” by 12’9”. It was created in 1882 following the Epping Forest Act of 1880. It is fascinating to think about how long it must have taken to draw this map by hand.

 

Secrets from the Asylum

Tonight on ITV the inimitable pub landlord, Al Murray, amongst others, will be discovering the secrets of their ancestors’ lives. One of Murray’s ancestors was committed to an asylum and the show will follow his discovery of what that meant for her and the other asylum “inmates”.

1st Edn OS Map 25" showing the County Lunatic Asylum in 1975

1st Edn OS Map 25″ showing the County Lunatic Asylum in 1875

After The Asylum Act of 1845 it became a requirement for each county to have its own asylum. The Justices of the Peace in Essex opened their County Asylum at Warley near Brentwood in 1853 at a building cost of some £66,000. It was then designed to hold 450 inmates. The institution finally closed its doors in 2001 and much of the site has now been re-developed into luxury flats. To get a flavour of what the asylum was like at the end of its life this website has a number of very good pictures.

A/H 10/2/5/18 - A page from one of the female case books. The words used to describe her illnes are somewhat different to how we would describe them today. "Acute melancholia, morbidly despondant..."

A/H 10/2/5/18 – A page from one of the female case books. The words used to describe her illness are somewhat different to how we would describe them today. “Acute melancholia, morbidly despondent…”

Those documents which had survived the passing of time and the closing of Warley Hospital have now been passed to us at the Essex Record Office. These include Managers’ Minutes, Reception Orders, Case Books and Patient Indexes. We also have a range of Burial Registers which were kept by the Justices of the Peace. The majority of these documents fall under our A/H 10 reference and many of these can be searched in the Record Office, though it is worth bearing in mind that most records less than 100 years old are closed to the public and will have to be searched by one of our archivists (the exception to that being the Burial Registers which are held under references Q/ALc 12/1 to Q/ALc 12/5 and these are currently available to view on our catalogue Seax).

Q/ALc 12/1 - This is the first of 5 burial registers for the graveyard at Warley Hospital. They run from 1856 to 1935. Some burials of patients from Warley are also recorded in the parish graveyard of St Peters, South Weald.

Q/ALc 12/1 – This is the first of 5 burial registers kept by the Justices of the Peace for the graveyard at Warley Hospital. They run from 1856 to 1935. Some burials of patients from Warley are also recorded in the parish graveyard of St Peter’s, South Weald

Q/ALc 12/1

Extract from Q/ALc 12/1

If you are interested in what you discover with Al Murray tonight and want to find out more about life in the asylum or if you think you may have a relative who may have been in the County Asylum, please feel free to visit us or get in touch to discover the secrets that our records might hold.