News from the archives

Ian Mason, Senior Archivist

(First published in 1991 in volume 5, pp. 78-81, of the third series of The Bradford Antiquary, the journal of the Bradford Historical and Antiquarian Society.)

Since the News from the Archive Service in the previous issue of the Antiquary there have been several important developments in the office. Many of these have occurred in the area of microfilming of records. The saddest news was the demise of the Bradford History Microfilming Unit, which along with all other Manpower Service Commission projects, was wound up in January 1989. This unit has produced some splendid work for the Bradford District Archives. microfilming all the Bradford Borough building plans, the Undercliffe Cemetery registers and many parish registers. The work on the building plans, a series of over 100,000 documents covering the period 1850-1974, was invaluable and has enabled access to this extremely important archive which otherwise would have been on closed access because of the fragility of the original plans. The filming of the remaining parish registers has been completed at Wakefield so that now all the Bradford Diocesan registers deposited at Bradford are available on microfiche. The archives has inherited one of the cameras from the unit and this means that some microfilming can be undertaken on site.

Family historians are amongst the main beneficiaries of these microfilming programmes. Permission has been granted by the Provost of the Cathedral for the microfilming of the Bradford Parish Church registers from the earliest register up to the latest registers deposited in the Cathedral's muniment room. It is anticipated that this fiche should start becoming available to the public towards the end of 1990. This will fill what has been over the previous years a significant gap in the holdings of the archives.

In addition to this the Leeds Roman Catholic Diocese approached staff at Bradford with a view to doing survey lists of the registers and records held at Roman Catholic churches in the Bradford District. So far, seven churches have been surveyed including Bradford St Mary the oldest Catholic church in Bradford itself with registers dating from 1822 and also the Myddleton Lodge registers at Ilkley which date from 1759. In addition to this, approval has been given to a microfilming programme which is being undertaken on the camera in the archives. It is anticipated that the registers of St Mary's, subject to a 100 year closure period agreed with the Diocese of Leeds, should be available in the archives towards the end of 1990. This means that the public will be able to consult the registers of the two largest places of worship in Bradford.

The Bradford District Archives has made efforts to improve its finding aids over the last few years. The most important development in this field has been the creation of an entirely new card index system built up almost from scratch. This is complete for subjects and places and has been based on the personal names, places and subjects that appear in our catalogues. It enables staff or members of the public to look up detailed references more or less instantly The personal name index, by far the biggest task, still has a large backlog of work. Even so, the name index already provides much better access to collections and we have noticed how since its growth, family historians have been finding and using a much wider variety of documents from family and estate collections than was formerly the case.

Alongside this card index the West Yorkshire Archive Service is still developing its computer data base of collections for the whole of the service. Work on the Bradford collections has only started in earnest in June 1990 since it has been possible for staff here to input directly rather than via our Wakefield office. Our target is to catch up with backlog of our deposits by spring of 1991 so that the data base will be in a position to help us produce a published Guide for the archives, similar to those already published for the Kirklees and Leeds District Archives, later in 1991.

Staff have also made a concerted attempt to catch up with the back log of cataloguing. It is estimated that nearly 90% of unofficial deposited collections have now been listed. Much of this important work of sorting, listing and indexing goes on behind the scenes but, without the production of such finding aids, access to archive collections for the researcher and general public would be impossible. The guide to new accessions listed below provides examples of the kind of discoveries that can be made as a result of this vital work.

Selected list of new accessions

Bradford Borough Board of Health plan and surveyor's plans (BBD 9). An important collection of working plans from the Surveyor's department of the former Bradford Borough are being listed. Amongst this huge collection of plans and drawings an important discovery was made the survival of the Board of Health plan for Bradford. This plan was surveyed by local surveyors and land agents, Thomas Dixon and William Ellison, in 1853, 1854 and 1855. The plans were awarded a first class certificate and stamped by the Board of Health in 1857. The plan is divided into 125 sheets covering the whole of the Borough, although sheets covering large parts of the townships of Horton and Bowling were found to be missing. The survey is on the very large scale of 10 yards to 1 inch and is extremely detailed. The plans show all churches, chapels, schools, public buildings, dwelling houses, mills streams, railways and quarries. Many other details are given, including: cow houses, wash houses, coach houses, green houses, privies, cisterns, dust bins, rain spouts, fire plugs, cess pools, sewer grates, sink stones, pumps, troughs and gas lamps. Unfortunately many of the sheets are in a very fragile condition and require repair before they can be produced for the public.In addition to the Board of Health plan the collection includes several thousand working plans of the surveyor from the 1850s to the mid 20th century including some for allotments, air raid precautions, transport, parks, recreation grounds, private estates, bridges and viaducts, hospitals, baths, public conveniences, public buildings, markets, cemeteries, sewers, waterworks, and street and road improvements. Although most are working plans, some are attractive and detailed coloured plans.

Vint, Hill and Killick, Bradford solicitors (10D76). Work on sorting the papers of the Bradford solicitors, Vint, Hill and Killick has been completed and several interesting discoveries have been made. Frank H. Hill. one of the partners in the solicitors firm, acted as law clerk for the Leeds and Liverpool Canal Company around the turn of the century. As a result the records from the solicitors contain a large collection of material about the Leeds and Liverpool canal. Although the majority of the documents are in the period 1880-1920, there is one box of 18th-century documents including a later transcript of the first minute book of the Proprietors of the Canal 1764-1816. Other papers include director's minute books 1889-1944, letter books and original bundles of legal papers.

The main part of this archive consists of the firm's financial records and a large collection of drafts of deeds. leases and wills relating to the Bradford area. Vint, Hill and Killick acted for a number of important families including George Baron of Woodhouse in Leeds, James Atkinson Jowett of Idle and the Clockhouse estate in Manningham and also the Countess of Rosse who owned estates in Shipley and Heaton. Perhaps the most interesting documents are a series of business partnership agreements dating from 1803 to 1900 which read like a Who's Who of the Bradford textile industry.

Collections transferred from Bradford University (56D88-65D88). Bradford University Library has transferred most of its non-University archive collections to the Bradford District Archives. These include records of the following: The Worsted Committee of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Chester 1777-1951 (56D88), Bradford Sanitary Association 1881-1923 (57D88), Cleckheaton Industrial Co-Operative Society 1855-1963 (58D88), Bradford Typographical Society 1854-1969 (59D88), F.H. Bentham Ltd. of West End Comb Works 1859-1944 (60D88), Bradford Engineering Society 1899-1933 (61D88), National Union of Distributive and Allied Workers 1932-1935 (62D88), Bradford Dyers Association 1901-1904 (63D88), Bradford Chemical Society 1948-1953 (64D88), title deed of lands belonging to the father of Frederick Delius in Great Horton 1852-1905 (65D88).

Other collections. The Bradford District Archives gets nearly 100 deposits a year and some of the more outstanding collections received since the last issue of the Antiquary are: the papers of the historian and author of The Great Paternalist, Jack Reynolds, whose obituary appears in this issue (52D88); a letter book of Samuel Cunliffe Lister 1879-1883 (82D88); the records of the Bradford Medico-Chirugical Society 1874-1934 (40D89); the papers of Harry Eaddie, who was a prisoner in a Japanese Prisoner of War Camp 1942-1947 (16D90); the records, including registers, of Baildon Parish church 1621-1979 (31D90).