Sheffield Archives
Sheffield City Archives collects, preserves and lists records relating to Sheffield and South Yorkshire and makes them available for reference and research.
Sheffield City Archives is a joint service with Sheffield Local Studies Library. They are part of the Sheffield Libraries Archives and Information Service delivered by Sheffield City Council
History of archive collecting in Sheffield
Up to 1939
was officially opened in 1934. In planning it Mr J. P. Lamb, who was then City Librarian, gave considerable thought to the accommodation and expansion of the local history and 'special' collections. A large reading room was provided to accommodate readers and house the local collection of printed material; there were storage facilities for maps and special collections in an adjoining room and two small strongrooms in the basement, providing about 700 feet of shelving for manuscripts.During the previous twenty-five years the beginnings of a local collection of archives had been brought together, particularly through the assistance of a Sheffield solicitor, T. Walter Hall, himself a competent antiquary and from 1910 to 1926 a co-opted member of the Libraries Committee. Through his good offices the Library in 1912 acquired the Jackson collection, consisting of many original documents and a large amount of genealogical material. This was followed by two fine solicitors' accumulations, subsequently added to, and a number of smaller groups. Finally in 1933, in anticipation of the opening of the new building, the Fairbank collection of several thousand draft maps and plans, accumulated by a local family of surveyors between c. 1740 and 1840, was given to the Library. About the same time the executors of Edward Carpenter, the socialist writer who had lived at Holmesfield near Sheffield, presented the Carpenter collection comprising Carpenter's library, editions of his works, and manuscript material. In 1926 the Library had been recognised by the Master of the Rolls as a repository for manorial records.
The nearest institutions collecting documents and archives at this time were at Leeds, Manchester and Derby. Though the Yorkshire Archaeological Society aimed at covering the whole of Yorkshire, it was not very active in the southern part of the West Riding and the other three scarcely impinged on the Sheffield region. From the first Sheffield therefore aimed to cover an area roughly within thirty miles radius of the Town Hall, including North Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.
1939 – 1945
The outbreak of hostilities in 1939 and the heavy air-raids on Sheffield in December 1940 affected the development of the archive collections in several unfortunate ways. Staff shortages soon meant that only routine attention could be given them, and in December 1941 they were removed for safety to a comparatively rural branch library where premises had been specially strengthened to protect them. More disastrous, the Sheffield Union offices in West Bar, where the Guardians' records still remained, together with the surviving records of the old overseers of the poor, were completely destroyed by enemy action. At the same time business firms were turning out their old records for salvage; the Library does not appear to have taken any steps to save such records from destruction and much was undoubtedly lost at this period.The war years were not, however, entirely devoid of interest, for 1942 saw the purchase of part of the antiquarian collection of Bacon-Frank of Campsall, the gift of family records from Beauchief Hall and silver-plating records and catalogues of the firm of Thomas Bradbury & Sons.
1945 – 1960
After the war the collections were brought back to the Central Library and the reading room, which had been closed for the duration, was re-opened in November 1947. A turning point came about a year later on 31 October 1948 when, with the City Librarian's active support, a meeting of the National Register of Archives was held at the Central Library with the late Lord Scarbrough in the chair; at the meeting it was decided to set up a South Yorkshire committee of the National Register.Colonel G. E. G. Malet, the Registrar of the National Register, was faced with a particular South Yorkshire problem at this time. The great Fitzwilliam mansion of Wentworth Woodhouse was about to be let to the West Riding as a college. There was an immediate need to find a repository willing to receive the whole of the family archives many of which lay stacked in the corridors there. The City Librarian and the Libraries committee agreed to accept them into custody on loan deposit and on 26 and 27 January 1949 three large furniture vans transported the archives to Sheffield. It is difficult to remember how they were housed until two new strong rooms with 1800 feet of shelving were made ready for use early the following year. During the summer of 1949 a document repairer was appointed and given a period of training at the Public Record Office.
Following the announcement in the press of the deposit of the Fitzwilliam archives, scholars from both sides of the Atlantic began to make their way to the Library, initially to study the Rockingham and Burke papers. Professor T. W. Copeland arrived in May 1949 and five Americans were working on the papers that summer. Two years later Chicago University Press undertook to sponsor a new and full edition of Edmund Burke's correspondence, with Professor Copeland as general editor. For the next 18 years the 'Burke factory' was working in part of the Sheffield Local History and Archives Department on this project.
The ten years following 1949 saw the deposit of several large family and estate archives, including the Duke of Norfolk's Sheffield and Worksop estate records, as well as other types of records. The full-time appointment of an archivist as the National Register of Archives, South Yorkshire committee's representative for about eighteen months during 1953–4 was a great asset at this time. Early in 1956, as part of the City Libraries' centenary celebrations, a Guide to the Manuscript Collections was published.
1960 – 1974
By 1960 most large family collections were already in custody and in the following years a wider range of records was received from varied sources. Several smaller family collections came from London solicitors. In 1962 came the first official deposit of parish records of the diocese of Sheffield and the same year the first deposit of Methodist chapel and circuit records. In 1964 the Library was recognised by the Bishop as the diocesan repository for parish records.Documents from Sheffield solicitors' offices have been prominent from the start; in the 1960s several similar accumulations were received from solicitors over a wider field — Barnsley, Wath, Snaith and Sherburn-in-Elmet. Archives deposited by industrial firms increased during this period. In 1960 the Library was recognised as the official local repository for certain categories of public local records and a large deposit of colliery records was handed over by the National Coal Board as a result, making a very substantial modern addition to older colliery records from private sources.
Further strong room accommodation became essential and a small room, 15 feet x 16 feet, was added in the Central Library in 1963 and a larger manuscript store, built onto one of the branch libraries was ready for use in 1969.
By the 1960s most counties had established record offices, the West Riding being one of the few exceptions. Working through the local committees of the National Register of Archives, the two city libraries of Leeds and Sheffield aimed at making some provision for records other than official county records in the north and south of the Riding, respectively.
1974 – 1986
In 1974, with the creation of a new tier of local government for South Yorkshire, the South Yorkshire County Council established a county record office service. For 12 years, until the abolition of the metropolitan county councils in 1986, the South Yorkshire County Record Office based at Ellin Street in Sheffield, acquired material relating to the county. This was in addition to the existing archive services at Sheffield and Doncaster.1986 – date
In 1986, following abolition, the SYCRO collections were transferred to the custody of Sheffield City Council. The ‘county’ service was funded and managed under a joint arrangement between all four local authorities – Barnsley, Doncaster, Sheffield and Rotherham. Sheffield Archives continued to acquire county archives from 1986. In 1989 the archives moved into a former car showroom premises on Shoreham Street. The building was converted to house all the documents from the Central Library.The collections
The records preserved by Sheffield Archives date from the 12th century to the present day and relate to Sheffield and the rest of South Yorkshire and parts of North Derbyshire.Local Government records
Local government records derive mainly from Sheffield City Council and its departments, including Council and Committee minutes, building plans and school records, and from superseded authorities such as Urban and Rural District Councils, Poor Law Unions, civil townships and the former South Yorkshire County Council. Sheffield was created a corporate borough in 1842 and a city in 1897. The old parish, which was coterminous with the new borough until boundary extensions took place in the 20th century, consisted of six townships.There is a good series of rate books comprising continuous runs of collectors' books from 1755 for Sheffield township and from the 1780s for four of the other townships. From 1891 borough rate-books for the census years only have been retained. Valuations date from the 1820s and 1830s. These records were kept in the vestry halls of the several wards of the city and thus escaped the destruction by enemy action which befell the records stored in the Union offices in West Bar.
Vestry minutes for several townships from the early nineteenth century have also survived, together with some highway surveyors' records. All the records of the old poor law together with the Guardians' records for both the Sheffield and Ecclesall Unions were destroyed in the West Bar offices. Most of the old workhouse records have likewise disappeared. Apart from runs of Guardians' printed minutes, this important side of local life is very sparsely represented among the official records. A good deal of information about the old poor law can however be gleaned from private collections, especially solicitors' collections.
Practically all of the current council departments and directorates are represented in the Archives collections. Worthy of note are council and committee minutes from 1843 onwards; registers of children's homes from 1894; school records from many hundreds of schools, a full series of claims for damage and loss on account of the Sheffield flood of 1864 caused by the bursting of the Damflask reservoir, through to modern papers on the World Student games of 1991 and the recent urban renaissance project – Heart of the City.
Other public bodies whose records may be mentioned are the Doncaster and Mexborough Joint Hospital Board from 1900 – 1948, the Sheffield Gas Company from 1818, and the Coal Board's pre-vesting date records for this area.