Together Trust Archive

Next week sees the gathering of archivists and conservators from all over the UK and beyond, to London, for the annual Archives and Records Association (ARA) conference. For the lone archivist working in the north of England, it’s a chance to travel to the bright lights of the capital city and mix with other like minded professionals. This creates an opportunity to share new ideas, receive advice from your peers and hear about some of the wonderful work going on in archive repositories across the country and beyond.

We’ve had our archaeologist caps on at the Together Trust campus this week. The summer holidays often results in building work to the schools in preparation for a new academic year. The modern age mixes with old as the ground has been dug up to create a 35 metre trench to install fibre optic cabling. It’s this manual work that can lead to surprising discoveries and bring up questions as to how this site used to be. Digging a trench

The vast majority of children who entered the Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges and Homes were from Manchester and the surrounding areas. The charity began with the intention to take boys, and later girls, out of the city slums and give them safe, warm accommodation, where they could learn a trade and create a better life for themselves. A look at the admission books for the charity however, revealed that it was not just Mancunians who passed through the Refuge door.  Of course Manchester appealed to people from all over. The Industrial R evolution meant people had swarmed to the cities looking for work. Certain areas therefore became well known as settlements for different nationalities. Ancoats, for example, became well known as ‘ Little Italy ’, as poverty caused many Italians to move away from their homeland. Ancoats was also home to a large population of Irish workers, many of whom lived in the cellars of the small, cramped houses. Up in Salford and Prestwich,...

Last week’s blog centred round the will of Leonard Kilbee Shaw and the distribution of his final assets. A portion of this went to his adopted son, Robert , who we have mentioned once before in this blog. Robert is an interesting character, not least because of his mysterious beginnings and unknown connection to Mr. and Mrs. Shaw, prior to being adopted by them. We know little about his upbringing and consequent life. However, the release of new documents can often start a new trail to discovery.  Records