Current projects

Grants awarded 2024

Royal Pavilion Museums Trust – Brighton and Hove Museums

The unique Royal Pavilion Archive has developed over 200 years and is an incredibly well-recorded history of a Royal Palace, transferred to civic ownership in the mid-19th century. It includes items relating to the building, grounds, contents and people living and working onsite, since the late 18th century, as well as records detailing how the city museums, originally sited in the Royal Pavilion, were set up. While they have detailed information and digital images regarding some of the collection, a huge amount has not been recorded to recognised archival standards and is very hard to access for their own staff, let alone the wider public. This grant will inform the best methods for cataloguing and preserving this special collection, to make it more accessible to researchers and wider audiences interested in the history of Brighton & Hove. 

Hedley Swain, CEO of Brighton & Hove Museums says, “We are delighted to have been awarded an Archives Revealed Scoping Grant, which will help us take the first steps towards making the Brighton Royal Pavilion Archives more accessible into the future.”  

Topolski Memoir Ltd.

The archive of Feliks Topolski’s drawings, paintings and writing is a unique and indispensable personal visual record of the last century’s radical changes and shifts, incisively observing cultural, political and social movements and events throughout the globe. Receiving the scoping grant will allow them to fully understand not only the contents of this archive, but also how best to publicise it and open it to a wider audience. Topolski strove for an ‘impartial’ recording of his time, and what he left behind is an engaging visual history on a human scale. They are a small organisation, but hope to use the archive to nurture and promote reportage and documentary artwork, providing a space for discussion, practice and research. As a chronicler, Topolski saw his work as an “historical document”, and it is up to Topolski to make it speak.

“The Archives Revealed Scoping Grant is a hugely important step towards reopening Feliks Topolski’s unique view of the 20th century to a new generation of artists, researchers and the public. It is hoped that it will allow for its significance to be properly recognised.” Lucien Topolski.  

Action with Communities in Rural England (ACRE) 

ACRE, Action with Communities in Rural England, is a national network of mainly county charities whose origins reflect responses to rural poverty after WW1.  Its centenary in 2021 highlighted the special story of how it has supported local groups and initiatives and acted as advocate for issues affecting them. That story is a vital part of the fabric of their national history. but the evidence is being lost.

‘The material covers every aspect of village life, how it changed, how it adapted to meet new needs. It is an important resource for historians as well as those seeking examples of good practice today’ said James Blake, Chairman, ACRE, ‘We hope that the Scoping Grant will help ACRE and the Friends of ACRE Network to identify and save important records and personal testimonies, while developing a practical plan for a national archive’.

Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) 

Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) charitable object is to advance the science and art of planning (town and country and spatial planning) for the benefit of the public. They’re also a learned society, which means they have a responsibility to host, assist and represent the work of planning scholars and researchers.

This scoping grant will allow the RTPI to assess the scope, quality, condition and quantity of their historical records. It will help them to understand the amount of time, work, and money needed to establish a usable, accessible resource for planners, scholars and the public. Such a resource will help to further embed long-standing leadership within the planning community at large.

Archives of IT (AIT) 

Archives of IT will use their grant to scope the custody, conservation and digitisation of the archive of Dennis Blackwell (1929-2016), a key figure in the British computer industry for more than 50 years. Dennis contributed to some of the most important commercial initiatives of the period and his archive provides them with a better understanding of government policy, commercial competition, employment conditions, leading personalities and life in the IT industry in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. AIT is a volunteer led organisation and this project has the potential to impact significantly their future development and ability to save and share stories of IT working lives and the history of tech. 

Club Cheoil – Manchester City Council: Archives+ 

The Club Cheoil collection was established by Lynne Percival a Manchester musician who is still actively involved. The collection is well-known among Irish musicians and associated heritage organisations.

It charts the development of Club Cheoil. (Irish: Music Club) from 1990 to 2002. It includes:

• Young Irish musicians promoted via regular concerts featuring International Artists.
• Over 60 recorded concerts and photographs.
• Annual Club Cheoil On Tour festival took Irish music to new audiences and venues in Manchester.
• Oral history project. Volunteers interviewed about the stories of older musicians.
• 1997 CD ‘In Safe Hands’ recorded local musicians under 25yrs.
• Dormant website

This collection is far more than a set of recordings, photographs, videos, interviews and newspaper cuttings – it represents a commitment to community development, making lasting connections for the benefit and continuity of the traditional music medium.

This scoping assessment will recommend how to make the Club Cheoil collection available both online and in Manchester Central Library’s exhibition areas.

“We are absolutely delighted to have been successful with this Archives Revealed scoping grant  to hire a consultant to assess the Club Cheoil collection. It is a highly significant collection containing some fascinating material relating to the Irish music scene in Manchester.”  Philip Cooke, Manchester Libraries and Archives. 

Belfast Library and Society for Promoting Knowledge (The Linen Hall) 

Founded in 1788, the Linen Hall is the oldest Library in Belfast, and an archive and accredited museum with collections of national significance. The Northern Ireland Political Collection at the Linen Hall began in the late 1960s with one civil rights leaflet, and today contains some 350,000 items. The definitive record of the Northern Ireland ‘troubles’, peace process, and post conflict society, the collection encompasses all shades of opinion, and contains material from all perspectives. It includes a wealth of insightful and expansive archive material, a significant aspect of which relates to the movement for civil rights in Northern Ireland. This includes the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) which formed to achieve reform by publicising, documenting, marching, and lobbying for an end to discrimination. Significant societal issues such as equality, housing, employment, and justice are spotlighted in correspondence, flyers, minutes, news sheets, policy documents, photographs, posters, press cuttings, reports, and statements, and the grant provides the foundation to ensure the long-term future of this fascinating and valuable resource.

‘The collections at the Linen Hall have a pivotal role to play in understanding all of Northern Ireland’s past, and crucial to this is the material we hold on civil rights. A people’s movement, at a momentous and climactic time in our recent history, the importance of this material cannot be overstated. The grant will encourage, support, and empower our work to preserve and make the archive accessible, and we are grateful to the National Archives for supporting this unique archive, by and for the community.’ Samantha McCombe, Librarian.

Ulster Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (USPCA) 

Siobhan McHaffie, Director of Operations and Development with the USPCA says ‘We are absolutely delighted to have been awarded a grant through this programme, to enable us to properly scope out our archive materials. The USPCA has been in operation since 1836 and is the second-oldest animal welfare charity in the world. There is a range of materials in our warehouse, ranging from newspaper articles to annual reports and accounts, as well as photographs, paintings, and awards. It is currently in no particular order unfortunately and is all looking very unloved. We are excited to be starting this process, with a view to making it accessible to the wider public and any interested researchers.’