How to Access the Archive
To use the archives email Christine Wilkinson or call 01524 593770.
Please note: the archive can be used by appointment only.
List of Archives held by the Centre for North-West Regional Studies
- The Elizabeth Roberts Archive
- The Lune Valley Architectural Survey
- The Penny Summerfield Childhood and Schooling Archive
- The Muriel Humphries Inghamite Archive
- Slaidburn Oral History Archive
- Now the War is Over
- The Aldcliffe History Archive
Further details of the archives
The Elizabeth Roberts Archive
Elizabeth Roberts was a postgraduate student when she undertook her first oral history project, 'Social Life in Barrow and Lancaster, 1870-1925' in the mid-1970s. Later in the same decade, whilst working at Lancaster University, Dr Roberts undertook a second related project, 'Social Life in Preston, 1890-1940'. These archives form one of the most important collections of oral history testimonies collected in the 1970s when oral history was a relatively new form of data collection. They are an important source for the history of working-class life in north-west England. In the 1980s Dr Roberts undertook a third oral history project, working with Dr Lucinda Beier on a project entitled 'Family and Social Life in Barrow, Lancaster and Preston, 1940-1970'. The archives formed the basis for Dr Roberts'ground-breaking work on working-class life in industrial towns, which has been published in various forms, including books and articles.
In total the archive contain 545 tape recordings, questionnaires and transcripts of interviews. The transcripts are all fully indexed by subject and the main indexes can be viewed below:
The following extracts give an indication of the contents of the tapes and transcripts. They are samples of the material used in the lectures given by Dr Elizabeth Roberts to students and local and family history groups. Please note: these extracts are subject to copyright laws and should not be used in writing unless prior permission has been sought from the Centre for North-West Regional Studies.
Upgrading and digitisation of the Elizabeth Roberts Archive (ongoing)
Staff at the Centre for North-West Regional Studies recognised that it was essential that the tapes and typed transcripts created in the 1970s and 1980s were upgraded and digitised. In recent years we have been actively seeking to identify funding to ensure the survival and wider use of the archive. Work began on digitising the reel-to-reel tapes in 2006. This work is being undertaken by staff at the North West Sound Archive at Clitheroe, where the original tapes are now stored. This work is being funded by The Research Support Libraries Programme.
In 2006 the Centre for North-West Regional Studies was awarded a grant from the Lancaster University Friends Programme to have the indexes from the archives digitised. This work is now complete and the indexes are available on this website (see above). A number of the earlier transcripts were also digitised with funding from the Friends' Programme. In the longer term, we hope to obtain funding to have the whole of this valauble archive digitised.
The Lune Valley Vernacular Architectural Survey
The Lune Valley Architectural Survey was funded by the Manpower Services Commission in 1978. A team of field workers led by Jonathan Ratter under the aegis of Marion McClintock, measured and photographed vernacular buildings in locations along the Lune Valley, including Lancaster, Halton, Caton, Arkholme, Gressingham, Melling and Kirkby Lonsdale, as well as parts of the Fylde and the outskirts of north Yorkshire. The fieldwork was completed and a high quality archive of photographs assembled, backed by a complete set of negatives. Some drawing work was undertaken, but this was piecemeal, relating to the time and talent available, and the written analyses of the sites were not continued after the funding of the project terminated. The photographic collection, now thirty years old, records buildings of historic interest that have been radically altered or subsequently disappeared, and is therefore an archive of growing regional importance.
Cataloguing and digitising the Lune Valley Vernacular Architectural Survey (ongoing)
The archive was not catalogued during the course of the project, however, in 2006 the Lancaster University Friends Programme provided funding to catalogue the collection and to digitise the material for use on the website. The catalogue is now available via the Lancaster University Library Catalogue, and it is hoped to have the images added to the entries in the next few months.
The Penny Summerfield Childhood and Schooling Archive and
Oral History of Childhood and Schooling in Lancashire, 1910-1950
Interviews with c.100 males and females who attended secondary schools in six Lancashire towns: Morecambe, Lancaster, Preston, Blackburn, Burnley and Clitheroe Collected in 1985-6.
Project funded by the Manpower Services Commission.
Contents of the archive:
- Background information on the project
- Includes materials used for an exhibition in 1986 (with photographs)
- One box of transcripts of interviews (females). Separate files for each school
- One box of transcripts of interviews (males). Separate files for each school
- Labelled tape-recorded interviews (c.100)
- Card Index
Now the War is Over
The Archive was created by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the 1980s for a series of programme of the same name It includes transcripts and tapes of interviews with c.188 people.
Copies of all materials were deposited with the Centre for North-West Regional Studies in 1986.
The Muriel Humphries Inghamite Archive
Muriel Humphries collected the materials for this archive for her research on the Inghamites in the 1980s. Her family deposited the archive in the Centre for North-West Regional Studies for the benefit of students of religious history in 2006
The archive contains:
- A bound manuscript entitled A History of The Inghamites by Muriel Humphries
- A hand-drawn map of chapels and the location of meetings without chapels in NE Lancashire, the West Riding, and Westmorland
- An album containing photographs of Inghamite chapels, including their interiors, all taken by 1983 (plus the slides and negatives)
- A further deposit of booklets, photographs, press cuttings and other materials was made by Cliff Humphries made in July 2008.
View materials deposited in July 2008
The Slaidburn Oral History Archive
Interviews carried out by Elizabeth Roberts, with 11 respondents at the beginning of the 1980s. The transcripts are currently not indexed.
The Aldcliffe History Archive
Reproduced by permission of Nick Webster and Robert Bellis.
Contents of the archive:·
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