Sophie Anstee de Mas, Grants and Funding Officer, November 2023
This blog looks at the Archives Revealed Cataloguing Grants, a programme of funding awards offered by The National Archives in partnership with the Pilgrim Trust and the Wolfson Foundation. We take a look at who the grants have supported and the positive impact they are having on archives across the UK.
Sophie works in the Grants and Funding Office at The National Archives supporting all areas of granting work, internally and externally.
From healthcare to historical figures
At The National Archives, we are proud to support cataloguing efforts across the archive sector. One of the many ways we do this is through our funding programmes.
In partnership with the Pilgrim Trust and the Wolfson Foundation, we administer the Archives Revealed fund which offers Scoping and Cataloguing grants to archives throughout the United Kingdom in order to foster research, access, and enjoyment.
This year we made 11 awards to archives which will help them to ensure that significant archival collections, representing the lives and perspectives of people around the country, are made accessible to the public. The variety of collections to be catalogued covers subjects ranging from healthcare to the arts and from natural science to politics and notable historical figures.
In this year’s round of funding, The Dorset History Centre were awarded a grant to catalogue their UNESCO-inscribed Thomas Hardy collection, and The National Library for Scotland will work on five collections created by women active in campaigning for peace, democracy, and against nuclear proliferation in Scotland.
Beth Junor Archive, The National Library for Scotland
A long-lasting impact
This round of awards brings the total number of cataloguing projects supported by the Archives Revealed programme to over 50, many of which have already made enormous progress in opening up their collections. The Archives Revealed funding programme continues the legacy of the National Cataloguing Grants Scheme, which began in 2008. Since then, The National Archives has made over 150 grants to archives to support cataloguing, in partnership with other funders.
These grants have a long-lasting impact on the archives beyond the lifetime of their cataloguing projects. For Holocaust Centre North, their 2022 Cataloguing Grant enabled them to catalogue around 30 collections of personal papers of Holocaust survivors and Jewish refugees who rebuilt their lives in the North of England. Building on this work, they enhanced their schools’ and adult education offering with new stories and material, particularly in relation to the Kindertransport scheme and refugees who were interned on the Isle of Man. In addition to educational activities, the catalogued collection was used to facilitate artistic responses to the stories discovered, resulting in the ‘Memorial Gestures’ artist residency and exhibition.
Artworks inspired by the collections of Michelle Green, Rachel Mendel, and the Kubie family, created by Laura Fisher. Courtesy of Holocaust Centre North.
Similarly, Aberlour Archives used their grant to catalogue collections that preserve a detailed record of almost 150 years of the charity’s work caring for children across Scotland. Part of a wider collaboration with the University of Stirling, the archive opened up access to their collections for the care-experienced and supported research to improve record-keeping across the care sector. Jennifer Roach, the project archivist for Aberlour, said that ‘through this project, they have been able to provide a voice to the children of Aberlour and guarantee that their experiences are no longer silent or at risk of being forgotten, but instead can be heard, retold, and inform us for many years to come.’
Funding such as the Cataloguing and Scoping Grants can also enable further fundraising, development and growth within the archives sector. Archives Revealed helped Holocaust Centre North, for example, to secure over £200,000 further funding from a range of trusts and foundations, including the Pears Foundation, National Lottery Heritage Fund, and The Claims Conference.
To find out more about the lasting impact of the Archives Revealed funding, you can read through three case studies in the ‘Featured Projects’ section of our website and explore our past awards.