CALS searchroom will be openMonday 23 December from9.00am-5.00pm.

Cheshire Record Officewill then close at 1.00pm onChristmas Eve and remain closedacross the Christmas and New Yearperiod, in line with other services in the Cheshire West and Chester and Cheshire East Council areas.

CALS searchroom will re-openThursday 2 January 2014.

Mon 23 Dec 20139.00am-5.00pm (special opening)

Tue 24 Dec 2013 (Christmas Eve)9.00am-1.00pm (early closing)

Wed 25 Dec 2013 to Wed 1 Jan 2014Closed

Thu 2 Jan 20149.00am-5.00pm (open as normal)

Those amazing Anfieldersand their cycling machines Cheshire Archives and Local Studies(CALS) is committed to supportingcommunities in developing anddelivering their own heritage projectsand has been working with the AnfieldBicycle Club (ABC) to make the treasuresof one of the world’s earliest cyclingclubs accessible for new audiences.

Lottery funding successDavid Birchall from ABC was the guestspeaker at CALS Olympic Sports event, to promote our sporting collections. David’s audience was struck by the depthand value of the Club’s archive, as were the Heritage Lottery Fund, awarding ABC a “Your Heritage” grant of almost £16,000 in March this year.

Oldest cycling eventABC, formed in Liverpool in March 1879,spans the history of cycling, pioneered long distance cycle racing, and numberedprolific record breaker George PilkingtonMills, one of the sport’s early trail blazers,among its members. As Victorian Liverpoolboomed, many Club members moved to theWirral and Cheshire so ABC moved withthem, continuing to prosper and promotingcycling in Cheshire. The Club’s annual 100 mile time trial, dating from 1889, is the world’s oldest surviving cycling event.

War serviceThe ABC records resemble a diary kept by many. The Circulars, Year Books,photographs, minute books and Race Cards tell remarkable stories of record-breaking racing and distinguished service in two World Wars. The WW1 Roll of Honour records 41 members – a third of the membership – who served, four of whom were killed.

Digitisation and OCRA team of volunteer Club members began digitising ABC records in earnest, at the Cheshire Record Office, following anintensive CALS project training day in June.By mid August 900 issues (16,000 pages) ofmonthly Club circulars had been completed.Optical character recognition (OCR) hasmade the digital version searchable, and is proving fast and accurate in locatingreferences to people and places – which has helped date and place the 1,000 newlydigitised photographic images dating back to 1879. The next stage of the project will put the collection online. On completion theoriginal records will be handed to CALS forconservation, cataloguing and safekeeping.

Visit: www.anfieldbc.co.uk

Christmas opening hours –Special Monday Opening

Issue 8Autumn 2013

Cheshire Archives & Local Studies NewsletterDuke Street, Chester, Cheshire CH1 1RL Tel: 01244 972574 Visit: http://archives.cheshire.gov.uk

CALS holds records of over 900 schools and other educational establishmentsthroughout Cheshire. Most are “board”, local authority or Church of Englandschools but we are also asked occasionally about records of independent schools.Until recently our main collections of independent school records were those ofMacclesfield’s King’s School, and Sandbach School. These have now been joined byrecords of Mostyn House School at Parkgate on the Wirral.

Recent Accessions Mostyn House School records

Explore Your Archive is a nationalcampaign established by the Archives and Records Association(ARA) and the National Archives. It aims to raise awareness of archives in society, recruit ambassadors tochampion collections and encouragenew audiences to explore and discoverwhat archives have to offer. So CALS has put together a Medicine Chestcontaining copy documents which tellthe story of local health pioneer Dr JohnHaygarth, and public health in Cheshire.

Smallpox strategyYorkshireman Dr John Haygarthstudied medicine at Edinburgh butworked as a physician at ChesterInfirmary for 30 years from 1766. He helped set up a smallpox societywhich met to discuss treatments andstrategy and measures for diseasecontrol. As a result of Haygarth’spioneering work Chester Infirmarywas among the first in the country to have specialist fever wards and a successful strategy to control the smallpox epidemic threateningChester in the late 18th century.

Explore the Medicine ChestThe Haygarth Medicine Chest willlaunch Saturday 16 November andcan be examined during surgeryopening hours 9am to 4pm at theCheshire Record Office. Learn aboutHaygarth’s story, his work at theChester Infirmary, the eradication of fever and smallpox and healthrecords for family historians.

The Haygarth Medicine Chest canalso be explored 18 November at the University of Chester’s AnnualHaygarth Public Health lecture andwill be appearing at Cheshire widevenues, and Halton and Warringtonsoon afterwards.

Explore Your Archive Examine Dr Haygarth’s Medicine Chest

Mostyn Arms Hotel

What became Mostyn House Schoolopened in Tarvin in 1854 but when EstherBriscoe of Parkgate’s Mostyn Arms Hoteldied in 1855, the school transferred fromTarvin to the hotel buildings. The originalfounder, Edward Price, moved on afterseven years but his wife's nephewAlgernon Sydney Grenfell continued incharge. The school was then run by theGrenfell family until closure in 2010.

Dreadful Doggerel

A G Grenfell, who took over as headteacher at Mostyn House in 1890, was wellknown as an educationalist. He pioneeredthe teaching of sloping script and the starsand stripes system of reward and

punishment. The collection containsexamples of these but also includes copiesof other instructional booklets such as'Unconventional Prayers for Boys' and'English Dates in Dreadful Doggerel'.

Former pupils

The Mostyn House School collectionincludes “joiners and leavers” registers,though many of these are subject to DataProtection restrictions. However, there are also outstanding runs of schoolmagazines, leaflets, prospectuses andphotographs which tell of former pupilsand illustrate life at the school. A fullcatalogue of the Mostyn House Schoolcollection (reference SP 5) can be foundonline at our website.

New home for CALS?Over the Autumn/Winter periodCALS will be working withcolleagues in Cheshire East and Cheshire West and Chester Councils to identify possible sites for new premises for the service. Sites will be assessed against key factors, such as access (by road and publictransport), size, fire or flood risk and theirpotential for stimulating regeneration inthe surrounding area.

This complex process requiresconsultation with customers, staff andcouncillors but by the end of it we hope to have identified the sites with mostpotential. The next stage will begin to build a clearer picture of what a buildingmight look like and its likely cost beforemoving on to seeking funding for newpremises.

We hope to report on further progress in the next Newsletter. Please contactPaul Newman on 01244 973391 or emailpaul.newman@cheshiresharedservices.gov.uk with any questions or comments.

Chester’s 18th century Infirmary

CALS is a partner in Cheshire’s GreatWar Stories (CGWS), a HeritageLottery funded, Cheshire wide project to commemorate the GreatWar. The project works with the localcommunity to record stories of theimpact of the Great War in Cheshire,focusing especially on those recruitedand the families left behind.

Community Collection Roadshows (CCRs)welcome people bringing photographs,documents, collections and memories to berecorded, or wishing to volunteer to gatherand upload information to digital kiosksaround Cheshire, Halton and Warrington

CGWS Digital Kiosks are both fixed andtouring, and display material from existingcollections (including CALS) and the growingcommunity collections gathered at CCRs.

Meet us at Chester Library’s WW1Reminiscence Roadshow, 11 Novemberfrom 11.00am to 4.00pm. (Joint event with CALS and the Grosvenor Museum.)

Learn about Cheshire’s involvement in the ‘war to end all wars’. Bring alongphotographs, artefacts or stories, funny or sad, of your Cheshire ancestors to build the community collections.

CALS will also be working with CheshireLibrary on Poetry Workshops from May2014. See: : http://archives.cheshire.gov.ukand www.facebook.com/ChesterLibrary

Keep up with Cheshire’s Great War Stories at:www.greatwarcheshire.blogspot.co.uk

Commemorating World War I

CALS Open Days andtwo white feathersCALS held a Cheshire West Open Dayat the Cheshire Record Office and a Cheshire East Open Afternoon at Crewe Library during July. The eventswere intended as “prequels” ahead of next year’s centenary and over 100 representatives of voluntary and

communitygroups planningcommemorativeevents attended.

Pictured left: The Mayor ofCheshire East at Crewe Library.

Delegates ranging from the Hooton ParkTrust to an Ellesmere Port tapestry group heard “taster talks” on researchingwar memorials and CALS resources. A scrolling PowerPoint provided a movingbackdrop, but at the centre of both eventswere original documents telling the stories of Cheshire’s war.

White feathersThe WW1 open events showcased CALS’ extensive collections of Great War memorabilia including photographs, family letters, medals, army records - and two white feathers. The story ofteenage soldier Sydney Upton ofBirkenhead featured in the ChesterChronicle, the Liverpool Echo and on BBC Radio Merseyside and will soon be available at the CGWS website:www.greatwarcheshire.blogspot.co.uk

The white feathers – symbols ofcowardice- were given to Rifleman Uptonmisguidedly, by two different women eventhough he was medically unfit for militaryservice at the time.

Given to CALSSydney Upton keptthe white feathersand they were withthe documents andphotographs given to CALS by his lastsurviving daughter in 2010. When wewrote to Miss Uptonrecently to tell her of interest in her father’sstory for work with drama students at alocal school, we found that she had died.However a lifelong friend told us that asMiss Upton spent her career in education,this idea would have delighted her. SydneyUpton’s own involvement in amateurdramatics and conjuring also makes thisparticularly fitting.

Positive feedbackFeedback from both WW1 open eventshas been very positive. Some groups havealready booked the full length versions of the taster talks. CALS can also loanscrolling PowerPoint presentations andposters to groups holding commemorativeevents, and bring original documents outto suitable venues.

Tell us how we can help, contact:recordoffice@cheshiresharedservices.gov.uk

Preserving and conservingWarrington’s civic historyFor the past three years CALSarchivists and conservators have worked on a project forWarrington Borough Council,targeting the records of thehistoric borough (1847-1974) andits successors. This has involvedcataloguing records held atWarrington Library but alsolooking for historic records heldelsewhere to add to the collection.

Town HallSubstantial quantities of historic recordswere, until recently, held at WarringtonTown Hall. With assistance fromWarrington’s Democratic and MemberServices, these have now been brought out,catalogued and, where necessary, cleanedand repaired. 19th century council minutes,property records, and registers relating tothe financing of gas and water provision inWarrington were amongst them.

ChartersThe real stars however are Warrington’s1847 Charter of Incorporation and the 1897Grant of Arms. The documents, both withimpressive seals, were still in their originalcases – plain wood for the charter (picturedabove) and a red leather finish with goldlettering for the grant of arms. The caseshave been retained, but both charters now have custom made cases, having been flattened, cleaned and mounted by specialist CALS Conservation staff. The charters form part of the WarringtonBorough Council collection (LBWa) and are now held at the Cheshire Record Office.

Railway Staff: A further 8000 records,indexed by John Dixon, from the survivingregisters of Crewe railways worksemployees have been added.

Military service: 7000 extra records,indexed by Hilary Morris, have been added.This brings the number of records ofmilitary service by Cheshire men, in ourdatabase, to over 21,000, from 15 separatecollections, dating from the 16th to the19th century.

Chester City Gaol: Over 2000 additionalrecords of inmates of Chester City Gaol,opened 1808 and closed in 1872, can now be searched online. Wendy Bawn has single handedly indexed 1808-1865leaving only 1866-1872 to go!

Runcorn crew lists: Until recently, anyonewanting to search the index to over 30,000seamen serving on vessels registered atRuncorn 1863-1913 had to ask searchroomstaff for access to a spreadsheet.

However, we are pleased to report that the index, compiled by volunteers fromRuncorn Family History Society, can now be searched at our website.

Search our databases of Cheshire Peopleand Places through the Search and Shopfacility at: http://archives.cheshire.gov.uk

Aldersey of AlderseyThe Aldersey family of Aldersey are lesswell known but CALS holds three depositsrelating to them. ZCR 469 has attractedmost interest as it includes a manuscripthistory of the Mayors of Chester by wellknown Chester antiquarian WilliamAldersey (1543-1616). This scholarly work may have been eclipsed however by another item in the same collection.ZCR 469/550 has attracted interest fromthe University of Edinburgh and otherinternational students of 17th centurydrama as it casts new light on playwrightBen Jonson’s three month walk fromLondon to Scotland in 1618.

Travelling companionJonson was thought to have made the trek alone, but 'My Gossip Jonson his foot

voyage and myne into Scotland' suggests a companion. That unknowncompanion’s account found its way into the Aldersey collection, and wascatalogued by a Chester archivist in the1980s. It remained unresearched until2009, when the description on the A2Awebsite captured the attention of aProfessor of Early Modern Literature.

Archivists facilitateCataloguing is a fundamental skill taught to all archivists in training, as the descriptions in catalogue entries are what guide and facilitate research. The University of Edinburgh has recreated Ben’s journey between July and September this year in an online blogwhich can be followed at: www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk/ben-jonsons-walk

Staff changes

New faces and new rolesThe appointment of Siobhan O’Brien andJoy Buckley (Joy Laverty since September)as full time Archives Assistants brings the Reader Services team back up to fullstrength. (Reader Services staff work inthe public searchroom and also deliver ourcopying and digitisation service behind thescenes.)

Joy is a familiar face as she previouslyworked for us as an Archive Assistant onThursdays and Fridays, spending the rest of her week at the Grosvenor Museum.Siobhan has moved downstairs to thesearchroom from behind the scenes,however. She has worked as a part-timetechnician in CALS Conservationdepartment for several years.

Congratulations also to Lisa Greenhalghwho is our new Senior Archivist and Paul Newmanwho is now Archives and Local Studies Manager.

Welcome to Janet Gidman our TemporaryLocal Studies Librarianwhile Katie Owenis on maternity leave. Janet also works atWilmslow Library and is a former SchoolLibrarian at Northwich Academy School.

Any comments? If you have any comments or suggestions relating to the newsletter or Cheshire Archives and Local Studies service please email the editor at: recordoffice@cheshiresharedservices.gov.ukor contact: Cheshire Record Office, Duke Street, Chester, CH1 1RL. Tel. 01244 972574

STOP PRESS: DigitisationSchool Records: Over 200 admissionsregisters for Cheshire schools 1870-1910will soon be digitised as part of a nationaldigitisation consortium. The images willbe available on Findmy Past in due course.

Parkside Asylum patient notes 1870-1900: CALS has been able to fundthe digitisation of these records as a resultof a bequest. The images will be availablein our online catalogue next year.

Portrait of William Aldersey – Grosvenor Museum permanent collection.

Additions to databases

Soldiers, trains, boats and criminals

CALS holds many family and estate collections, mostly containing title deeds and otherproperty records, but they can also include documents reflecting the personalinterests of family members. Maurice Egertons’s travel journals and his files onwireless transmission at Tatton Park, in Egerton of Tatton (DET) are a case in point.

We are very grateful to volunteers who continue to expand and extend databases available at our website.