The overwhelming majority of the over 300 accessions (archive-speak for acquisitions) we receive each year are donations from families and individuals, transfers from other parts of the county council or local schools, or deposits from local businesses and organisations. As we do not have a budget for purchasing items, we often have to rely on obtaining external funding to purchase archives to ensure they can remain – or indeed become – publicly accessible now and in the future.
You may have seen in the news recently that we were able to purchase a very impressive collection of records for the Derby coach-making business of Holmes & Co. (later Sanderson and Holmes, motorcar body builders). This wonderful collection of accounts, photographs and beautiful carriage designs was purchased with generous grants from the Friends of the National Libraries and the ACE/V&A Purchase Grant Fund. We hope to complete the catalogue for this material soon and will be posting more about it then.
Unlike the Holmes archive, most archival items that become available on the open market are individual items rather than whole collections and we were very pleased to take receipt of three accessions last week following a generous financial donation to the record office. This is what we bought:
D3942/13/1 Minute Book for Ilkeston Primitive Methodist Circuit, 1842-1864
Records for this Circuit were first deposited with us back in 1976, including baptism registers from 1823, some minutes from 1839 as well as preaching plans from 1847, but there were quite a lot of gaps in the survival of some of these series of records. These days the Methodist Church in particular has a network of volunteers dedicated to ensuring historic records are identified and preserved in local record offices.
But historically, different types of records may be kept in different places, often a church member’s homes, e.g., the Treasurer’s home, and the Secretary’s home. It is not uncommon, therefore, for there to be gaps in a series of records, so it always good news when historic material is found and can be reunited with the rest of the archive. We first became aware of a stray minute book for the Ilkeston Primitive Methodist Circuit last summer when it came up for auction in Nottingham. We were able to submit a bid at the time but were unsuccessful in being able to save this item for the public. We were very pleased, then, when it came back on the market just after we received a very generous financial donation enabling us to buy the item directly from a book dealer.
Often stray books can be “slotted in” to the existing archive catalogue quite neatly because they fill a very specific gap. That was not the case with this particular minute book as the dates overlapped with a minute book already in the collection. Both books contained minutes of committee and quarterly meetings, the existing item in the archive is dated November 1843 to March 1867, but the “new” book covered September 1842 to September 1864. By comparing the two books, it transpired that the catalogue description for the existing item (ref: D3942/2/1) was not entirely accurate as it did contain committee minutes from 1843, but only contained quarterly minutes from December 1864. It was very satisfying to be able to add to the catalogue that the earlier minutes back to 1842 were also now available.
D8530/1/1 Derby Midland United Order of Oddfellows Cash Account Book, 1846-1933
If I’m completely honest, I find most financial accounts a little underwhelming, although this is almost always because I struggle to understand the intricate financial dealings that the accounts explain. This book, however, was immediately more interesting because at the front it includes ‘A list of benefit members, and the year of entrance’ and ‘Honorary Members’. Both lists appear to have been compiled in the late 1840s or early 1850s, and include details of members who joined as early as 1789. As both lists presumably relate to individuals who were still members at the time the list was compiled, it is not a complete list of all members since 1789. Each list includes some updates to at least 1862.
The accounts themselves, which run for more than 85 years in this one volume, include monthly contributions as well as payments, so it ought to be possible to compile a more complete list of members during the period of the accounts.
This Oddfellows Lodge was one of many across the country and the world that was established as a friendly society to support members and their families. Members would pay a monthly subscription and be entitled to a financial allowance if they became ill, for example. Most friendly societies and Oddfellows lodges also arranged various social activities for their members.
A list of other similar collections we hold at the record office can be found in our online catalogue. As this item is the only original record we hold for this lodge, we will be doing a little more research about its history so we can add further context to the catalogue for this new collection.
DA/L/Gre/1824 Legal papers and correspondence relating to a dispute between Sir Roger Gresley and Jonah Deane against John Pycroft, 1824-1831
Amongst this small bundle of papers is the 1824 Agreement between Sir Roger Gresley of Drakelow and John Pycroft of Drakelow, farmer and miller, for renting a water mill, dwelling house, with appurtenances including 225 acres of land, already in the occupation of Pycroft.
As archivists, our job is to describe the records and so enable historians and researchers to identify material that helps them uncover the truth about what happened in the past – or at least to write a story based on the best available evidence (which is all any history can ever claim to be, and of course, a lot of histories don’t even meet this standard, but that, too, is for another day). I mention this because this limited description is as much as we currently know and we won’t be doing any further research to determine exactly what the dispute related to, how it arose, or what the outcome was. As with all the records we hold, the full story will be for someone else to discover and perhaps make public in some way.
Since before Derbyshire Record Office officially existed, the county council has cared for nine centuries of historic archives of the Gresley family of Drakelow (ref: D77). You may have noticed, however, that these “new” papers have not been added to the Gresley archive collection, but instead to what we call an artificial collection. This collection consists of records that have been acquired from a wide range of different sources and for which the original creator of the archive cannot be firmly identified.
In this case, it is not certain that they are the Gresley family’s own record of the dispute. It could be that the papers are from Pycroft and perhaps descended through his family. At least two of the letters have been written by local solicitors, but do not appear to have been sent to either Gresley or Pycroft – in fact one of the letters is unfinished and may not have been sent to anyone. Whilst the provenance of these papers is unclear, they do have research value when used with other records relating to the Gresley family and their Drakelow estate, any surviving court papers (perhaps at The National Archives), and perhaps other records referring to the Pycroft family held across various collections also available at the record office.
A selection of other views of the records.
Derbyshire Record Office is grateful to Michael Hanson of Carshalton for his generous donation that enabled these records to be purchased, preserved and made publicly accessible.
Derbyshire Record Office 