News

# Wind in their sails: £750,000 grants boost for archives

Design plans for Titanic, sketches by Raymond Briggs and gig posters by Martin
F. Bedford will all be more accessible thanks to cataloguing grants.

Published 18 August 2025

Archives Revealed has just awarded more than £750,000 in 16 separate grants to
archives across the UK.

Recipients range from the Harland and Wolff Ship Plan Archive in Belfast to the
Raymond Briggs archive, held by East Sussex County Council.

The grants will help organise records about disabled people’s fight for rights
held at The Disabled Peoples Archive in Manchester and at Deaf History Scotland.

Records about plant collectors held at Kew Gardens and the maintenance of
windmills and watermills will also be catalogued for public access.

## Full list of grants and projects

Bertz Associates – Discovering Lisel Haas

Birmingham Botanical and Horticultural Society – Propagating Birmingham
Botanical Gardens’ Story

The Bluecoat – Cataloguing the Bluecoat Archive

Deaf History Scotland – Scottish Deaf Archives

East Sussex County Council – Archive of Raymond Briggs

Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People – Choice and Control: A history
of disabled people’s fight for Independent Living

The Historic England Foundation – Imagining England: the Janette Rosing
Photographic Collection, c.1853-1950s

Holocaust Survivors Friendship Association – Homeward Bound

London Borough of Brent – Cataloguing the Brent Trades Council Archive
Collection

The Mills Archive Trust – The Wright Records: Preserving Millwrighting Heritage

National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland – From Drawing Board to
Slipway: Discovering the Harland & Wolff Ship Plan Archive

The National Museum of the Royal Navy – Fairey Aviation Company Archive

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew – Plants and Empire: Unlocking the colonial archive

Sheffield City Archives – Stick ‘Em Up: The Poster Art of Martin F. Bedford

Topolski Memoir Limited – Feliks Topolski Archive: Cataloguing and Preserving a
Visual Chronicle of the 20th Century

University of Bristol – Dead Good Guides: The John Fox and Sue Gill Archive
Project

Archives Revealed is a partnership between The National Archives, the Pilgrim
Trust, the Wolfson Foundation and The National Lottery Heritage Fund. It helps
unlock collections across the UK and build the skills needed to care for them
into the future.

> These awards open up rich and wide-ranging archival collections from different
> communities, expand access and deepen understanding of the stories they hold.

Paul Ramsbottom, Chief Executive of the Wolfson Foundation

This is the second round of cataloguing grants awarded since [The National
Lottery Heritage Fund invested £5
million](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/news/major-national-lottery-investment-to-unlock-uks-archives/) in
the Archives Revealed partnership programme.

[The next round opens on Monday 1
September](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archives-revealed/).

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