USEFUL INFORMATION FOR USERS
OF THE BRISTOL RECORD OFFICE ONLINE CATALOGUE
BRISTOL
RECORD OFFICE: What is it?
Bristol City Council
(and its predecessors) has a centuries-old tradition of record-keeping
which led in 1924 to the establishment of its own Record Office. At this
time there was only one other local record office in existence in the
country.
The Record Office
is based at 'B' Bond Warehouse, one of three former bonded warehouses
which were built in the early 1900s to store tobacco at Cumberland Basin,
the entrance to Bristol's historic Floating Harbour.
BRISTOL RECORD OFFICE: What does it do?
The primary function
of the Record Office is to preserve and care for the records of Bristol
City Council and make them available to its officers and members. However,
it also offers a service to everyone by making not only Council records,
but also those of the large number of individuals and organisations which
it has in its care, accessible in its Public Searchroom. This is a free
service.
The staff sort records
into their proper order then catalogue and index them so that people are
able easily to access them.
Staff offer tours
of the office to visiting groups by arrangement and go out and about in
the Bristol area to give talks on the work of the office to groups as
well.
BRISTOL RECORD OFFICE: What does it keep?
In our air-conditioned
strongrooms we keep thousands of documents which help to form a picture
of Bristol's past. We have:
- records of Bristol
City Council from around 1189 to the present day, including minutes
of committees, apprenticeship and burgess registers, maps and plans
of the city (even plans of individual buildings, 1852-1947).
- records of the
Diocese of Bristol from 1542 to the present day (which include wills
up to the 1940s, marriage licence documents and tithe maps - large scale
parish plans showing the owners and occupiers of land in the mid 19th
century).
- records of the
parishes in the Archdeaconry of Bristol from around 1140 to the present
day (which include registers of baptisms, marriages and burials - some
from as early as 1538).
- records of courts
and hospitals, ships and their crews.
- records of individuals
(letters and diaries), businesses (eg WD & HO Wills, JS Fry and
Sons), trade unions, schools, societies, charities, landed estates (eg
Smyth of Ashton Court, Harford of Blaise Castle), churches and chapels
(eg Methodist, Baptist and Roman Catholic).
and much much more
besides!
BRISTOL
RECORD OFFICE: What do we mean by records?
We like to say that
the records we have tell "800 years of Bristol's history ".
A record can be anything which helps to show us how the people of Bristol
lived their lives and carried on their business from the earliest surviving
document to today's computer disk.
The collections in
our care contain title deeds, letters, diaries, minute books, accounts,
parish registers, registers of admission to schools and hospitals of all
kinds, maps, plans, photographs, films...They have just two things in
common: they all relate to people or places connected with the Bristol
area, and they are all unique or at least very rare. They are vital because
they are the raw material of History and without them we cannot understand
why things happened in the past, why things are happening in the present,
and why things are likely to happen in the future. They are put in our
care to ensure that they survive for all to learn from.
BRISTOL
RECORD OFFICE: Who uses it?
Over 7,000 people
from all around the world visited us last year and the figure grows all
the time. We see:
- Family Historians
- people with Bristol roots, either still living in the city of their
ancestors or returning from as far afield as Australia or the USA, use
parish registers, wills and many other documents to piece together their
family trees.
- Local Historians
- people studying the history of their city or a particular area within
it. By making their research available they enrich their community and
stimulate an interest amongst others in their surroundings.
- Archaeologists
- many archaeologists, particularly those of BARAS (Bristol and Region
Archaeological Services) use documents to study the site at which they
are digging.
- Students
- people of all ages who are following courses of study, from A-level
students to those at Universities and Colleges as undergraduates, postgraduates
and trainee teachers. The Record Office is committed to the principle
of Lifelong Learning and don't forget, learning can be self-directed
- it can be undertaken for its own sake without any thought of a qualification
at the end of it.
- Teachers and
Academics - teachers use historical documents to prepare lessons
or courses of study; academics (from all over the world, including Japan)
undertake historical research here.
- Architects
- those restoring old buildings use the records held here to build up
a picture of how their projects should look.
- Council Officers
- those doing the many and varied jobs which are the responsibility
of the City Council (everything from legal work like conveyancing and
litigation through the administration of the Council's properties to
pollution control) use the records at the Record Office.
- The Media
- Television and Radio often use our resources to make programmes. In
particular, television companies round the world make use of our wonderful
film archive.
What
is the current status of the Online Catalogue?
This cornucopia of
archival material cared for by Bristol Record Office is reflected in the
online catalogue which has been created over the last four years from
the old handwritten and typed catalogues and accession cards compiled
by Record Office staff since 1924. Please note, though, that what you
will find on the online catalogue are verbal descriptions of documents,
not actual images of them; the exception to this being the Bristol Record
Office Picture Library - the catalogue entries for which have images attached.
Also please bear in
mind that although the online catalogue contains a vast amount of material
it is not yet complete: work continues daily to ensure that all our 'legacy
data', ie documents catalogued in previous years, is to be found listed
online, and we are confident that this will be achieved by 2005; but in
addition we recognize that, like most record offices throughout the country,
we have a cataloguing backlog. If you do not find what you are looking
for in the online catalogue don't just assume that it does not exist -
contact us by telephone, fax, letter or e-mail and double-check.
Bristol Record
Office, 'B' Bond Warehouse, Smeaton Road, Bristol, BS1 6XN, UK
Tel: 0117 922 4224
Fax: 0117 922 4236
Email: bro@bristol.gov.uk
All new collections
of documents are now catalogued electronically and will be found almost
as soon as they have been catalogued in the online catalogue.
Can
I order copies of documents I find on the Online Catalogue?
If you find a document
that you are interested in we would always recommend that you visit the
Bristol Record Office searchroom to have a look at it in person; copying
always causes a document stress and can lead to damage, no matter how
carefully it is handled. However we realize that the very nature of the
Internet means that you could be using the Online Catalogue anywhere in
the world and a visit may not be a realistic option for you.
In this case, should
you wish to have a document copied, please contact us by letter, fax or
e-mail, stating the document's reference number. Do not send any money
yet: a detailed quotation and copyright form will be provided. Please
note that at present we are unable to accept credit card payments. Please
ensure that when applying for a copy you let us have a full postal address.
Because we have a
duty of care to the documents we look after we reserve the right to refuse
to copy any that in our professional opinion would suffer damage from
the process. To this end, we do not copy all or part of any volume. However
a great many documents have been microfilmed and it is often possible
to provide copies from volumes such as parish registers because of this.
Always contact us if in doubt and we will be happy to advise you.
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Record Office opening hours
Monday
Closed
Tuesday to Friday
9.30am - 4.30pm
Open first two Thursdays of the month until 7pm
Also first two Saturdays of the month 10.00am to 4.00pm
(unless one of these clashes with a bank holiday or Bristol Doors Open Day)
Please note that the Record Office closes for two weeks at the end of January each year for its annual stocktake.
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