One of our latest accessions is a visitors' book from Derbyshire's School Museum Service. It was a pioneering institution, established in 1936 following a Carnegie Trust grant. Small wonder it attracted visiting students from the Institute of Education in London, now part of UCL. Some of the students were from today's Ghana, Zambia, South Sudan … Continue reading 1947: Some illustrious Nigerians at the School Museum Service
Wage Forfeits at Strutt Mills
Whilst cataloguing the D6948 collection relating to Messrs W G and J Strutt, the cotton mill owners in Belper and Milford, there have been some interesting records to look at, including lots of employee records. You may have seen some previous blog posts relating to the child mill workers, which are part of this collection. … Continue reading Wage Forfeits at Strutt Mills
#PhotoFriday – February Digest
February seems to have flown by, so once again it's time for our monthly round up of #PhotoFriday tweets, where we look at images from the local studies collections across the county, which you can find on www.picturethepast.org.uk . February's theme for both History Begins at Home and Explore Your Archive was 'Love', so our first tweet … Continue reading #PhotoFriday – February Digest
February Twitter Digest
Good morning, and welcome back for February’s Twitter Digest! https://videopress.com/v/BtTZnb6h?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true For February, our Archive of The Week tweets went all 20th Century! First there were sample books from the special colour range created by Joseph Mason & Co Ltd, Derby in the 1970s: Buttermilk bathroom, Crustacean Pink porch, anyone? Then there’s this beautiful plan of … Continue reading February Twitter Digest
Lead, Lime, Coal is now open!
Lead, Lime, Coalis now available to see at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery until Wednesday 7 June 2023.
Lead, Lime, Coal explores how thousands of people living in the Buxton area have, throughout time, worked as miners or quarry men, obtaining and transporting stone as well as contributing to the changing of the landscape completely.

Paintings, artefacts, and photographs of Derbyshire’s industrial heritage from our collection are on display, including new acquisitions such as a picture showing eighteenth-century quarrying with men climbing the quarry faces lacking safety gear, by an unknown artist. This was purchased with help from the Art Fund’s New Collecting Award.
Additionally, a selection of workers’ memories of the industries are detailed, allowing you to consider and compare the differences time…
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#PhotoFriday – January Digest
It's time once again for our monthly round up of #PhotoFriday tweets, where we look at images from the local studies collections across the county, which you can find on www.picturethepast.org.uk . January's theme for History Begins at Home was 'the 1960s', so for our first #PhotoFriday tweet of 2023, we travelled back to Buxton to 1965. … Continue reading #PhotoFriday – January Digest
Necklace of Stars exhibition
Between 2020-2022 arthur+martha, a Community Interest Company specialising in arts and health, worked with housebound, isolated older people in Derbyshire to make “a necklace of stars” – an embroidered quilt with a poem border and a poetry/song soundtrack inspired by lullabies. The project was a collaboration between the artists and Arts Derbyshire, Derbyshire County Council … Continue reading Necklace of Stars exhibition
Buffalo Bill and His Wild West Show in Derbyshire
If you mention the name of William Cody, aka Buffalo Bill, then it might conjure up images of America’s Old Wild West, rather than the rolling hills of Derbyshire. Whilst touring around Europe the famous Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show made many visits to Derbyshire, including Derby, Chesterfield, Glossop, and Ilkeston. With cowboys, stagecoaches, horses, … Continue reading Buffalo Bill and His Wild West Show in Derbyshire
January’s Twitter Digest
A Belated Happy New Year to everyone, and welcome back for the first rundown of our Twitter highlights of 2023! Our Archive of the Week tweets are still proving popular. We’ve started receiving requests for research following this one: “Do you have policemen in your family tree? Or were your ancestors on the other side … Continue reading January’s Twitter Digest
‘A gang of desperate persons poisoned by revolutionary doctrines and obsessed with an insensate and vile hatred of their own country’
On the anniversary of the arrest of Alice Wheeldon, Archives Assistant Vicky takes up the story of a dramatic tale ... The title of the blogpost is not a modern newspaper quote, but the description applied to one Alice Wheeldon and her family and friends by an Old Bailey court prosecutor in 1917. Alice was … Continue reading ‘A gang of desperate persons poisoned by revolutionary doctrines and obsessed with an insensate and vile hatred of their own country’