DISPLAY CASE

Firsts

The Berkshire Echo was the service newsletter from 1997 until 2021. It was published quarterly.

When it began, the Echo was focussed on news for visitors to Shire Hall. Articles included exhibitions, highlights from the archives, and the ‘Just Catalogued’ section. The first issue informed users of the upcoming closure of the County Council but assured readers that the archives would remain where they were for a short time longer. It also announced the upcoming user survey.

Over the years, the Echo changed to include more stories from the archives. This reflected its increasing consumption away from the building.

As the service more frequently used its website and social media feeds to update visitors, the Echo was retired on its 97th issue, not quite making its centenary. It was replaced with a quarterly e-bulletin.

First Record Accessioned

Reference: D/EX827/1

This account of expenses for a five-night stay at the Bear Inn, Reading, 1832 was the first item officially accessioned by the Berkshire Record Office on 10 August 1948. Accessioning is the process of taking physical and legal custody of a record. Prior to this, Berkshire County Council had been gathering items for an archive service since the 1930s.

The Bear Inn on Bridge Street was one of Reading’s main coaching inns. It had several famous visitors, including Oliver Cromwell in 1648. However, its importance declined after the advent of the railway in 1840, and it closed in 1938.

The account lists expenses item by item. The traveller seems to have been particularly partial to a glass of brandy, having purchased it eight times between 21 and 26 July. He also purchased ale, port, sherry, punch, tea, sugar, cold meat, and bacon, as well as his dinner, dessert, and lodging. Over the course of the five nights, he spent 15 shillings, 15 pounds and 5 pennies. His final purchase was of horses to Bracknell, which was clearly his next destination.

First User Guide

Reference:

One of Felix Hull’s first goals as County Archivist was the creation of a guide to the records under his care. He achieved this in 1952 with the publication of the Guide to the Berkshire Record Office.

The copy shown here has remained in the office and contains several handwritten notes added by County Archivists throughout the years.

The guide is separated into several classifications. Where significant collections were no longer in Berkshire, the Guide directed researchers where to find them. Many of our bigger collections are recognisable by their catalogue reference.

First Visitor Book

Reference: BCCuncatvol829

This is our first visitor book, dating back to August 1948. It is described as a ‘register of students and searchers.’

There is a set of ‘regulations for the use of documents’ at the front of the register. These regulations were adapted from those at the Essex Record Office.

The rules were quite different to those of today for example, pens were permitted and those who were not accredited students had to pay to visit. If visitors were not known to the County Archivist, they had to obtain a letter from a Justice of the Peace, Councillor or other such person, certifying ‘that the applicant [was] a proper person for admission as a student.’

The first visitor was a High Court Judge from Upton near Didcot on 13 August 1948. Beside his name is included what he consulted – the Upton enclosure award. It was common at the time to list each document consulted by a visitor. Today we ask visitors to let us know the purpose for their visit; document tracking is logged separately.

First Record Uploaded to our Digital Storage

Reference: D/EX2599/4/11

The first electronic records we took in were digital copies of photographs from Faringdon County Grammar School for Girls, taken between 1937 and 1948. This was in 2020. They include images of the school buildings as well as the pupils.

Since then, increasing quantities of digital records have been deposited with us. These present different challenges compared to paper records when it comes to preserving them for future use, though the principles of protection from degradation remain.

Using a piece of software called Preservica, digital files can be safely preserved and viewed. Files on DVDs or CDs are converted for cloud storage to remove the risk of hardware obsolescence.

First Record Conserved In-house

Reference: D/EX332/8

This handbill advertising a benefit concert for Mr E Bartley, Jnr., at the King’s Theatre in Richmond, Surrey, 1820 is part of a collection of Warfield papers and was the first item to be repaired by our own staff. Prior to this, conservation had been outsourced, usually to the British Library or the former Public Record Office (PRO) (now The National Archives (TNA).

In January 1973, a trainee repairer was appointed. He repaired this handbill in one day (on 5 January 1973). It was packed and pressed using a quarter sheet of repair paper. It was chosen as a relatively simple first job for the new repairer.