Over the past few years, Hampshire Archives Trust has awarded £178,000 in grants for 32 projects that satisfy its criteria, and wants to give more, writes Barry Shurlock…

HAMPSHIRE is one of the richest counties in the country for stories of the past that need to be researched and told. Often all that is needed get a project off the ground by one of the many local history and heritage groups with promising ideas is a little money.

This is where the Hampshire Archives Trust – a member-led charity that works to support and promote Hampshire’s rich archival heritage – has frequently stepped in to make things possible. Its grants have varied from as little as £260, up to the maximum of £10,000.

In the belief that stories from the archives are a vital part of a healthy and dynamic society, its mission is to help people preserve memories for the future.

The grants have therefore supported a wide variety of activities, especially the publication of books and booklets and increasingly measures to digitise archives. Other areas have included staging exhibitions and heritage-related performances, as well as projects involving film and oral history, cataloguing and conservation and the purchase of archival material.

HAT secretary Sue Woolgar said: “We have a number of criteria for giving a grant. Most importantly, it must be of public benefit. This often means making collections more accessible in various ways. It might be cataloguing a local archive so that items are properly described and can be located.

“Or it might be purchasing material – such as a collection of rare postcards – but with the proviso that they are made publicly available. Then there is the digitisation of records, so they can be accessed more easily, perhaps online. And we also support a number of oral history projects, to record people’s first-hand memories.”

Examples of grants include one of more than £8,000 given to the East Meon History Group to publish Farming the Valley, a richly illustrated history of the village published in 2019. Milford-on-Sea Historical Records Society was given £2,600 to help it mount the Cornwallis Remembered exhibition at the St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Lymington. King John’s House, Romsey, received £2,800 to enable it to conserve and display a ‘bargain and sale’ of the House in 1571.

Stanmore Primary School, Winchester, were given £500 to purchase display boards for celebrating its 90th anniversary. Hyde900 was enabled to digitise its photographic collection with support of more than £1,000 from HAT. And the Hampshire Constabulary History Society received £3,300 for digitising fragile microfilm

Skate Southampton digitised a collection of photographs of the origins of skateboarding in the city with the help of £500, whilst Petersfield Museum has received the maximum and highest grant of £10,000 for preserving more than 100,000 negatives of photographs of the area taken by press photographer Don Eades.

Other grants of £860 have enabled Winchester-based 2TimeTheatre to present performances of Lewd Women and Female Felons, based on the records of women imprisoned in the County Bridewell in Winchester and more recently the hilarious play Pies and Prejudice drawn from Jane Austen’s writing.

Commenting on its website on its approach to telling history with the aid of drama, it says: “Our productions aim to tell the hidden stories of women, both the professional and personal, often using historical figures to illuminate and debate their cultural and societal positions.”

Another example of how a developing project was brought to fruition with the help of HAT is the recently published book, Telling Other Histories: Early Black History in Southampton, c1500-1900 by University of Winchester Honorary Fellow Dr Cheryl Butler. It developed from a talk she gave online based on the idea of reflecting on “responses to migration” following the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower from Southampton in 1620.

Research uncovered a large number of case histories of BAME people who had come to Southampton. To capture their stories for all time, The United Voice of Africa Associations (TUVAA), based in the city and chaired by Dr Abdoulie Sanneh, successfully applied for a grant of £8,000. Covering 50 cases of all kinds, Telling Other Histories is now available from SeaCity Museum and Waterstones online.

In a report of the launch of the book in Southern Daily Echo, Cheryl said: “This book is a massive resource not only for black people but for all interested in Southampton stories. It includes buildings and places related to case studies in the book, as well as poetry and artwork from TUVAA’s children’s workshop inspired by the Black Lives Matter protest and

112 full colour images of the city’s past and is a great read too.”

Another project enabled by HAT with a grant of £3,500 is Ropley’s Legacy, recently published by Dr Chris Heal. It tells how the village of Four Marks was created by progressive enclosures of common fields between 1709 and 1850. The book highlights the impoverishment of the people that these changes led to, and does not pull punches on those responsible!

The grant was given to the publishers, Ropley History Society, rather than the author, to satisfy a condition of the HAT scheme, which is that funds are not generally available to stand-alone individuals. The book is available online from Abebooks, and Amazon and locally from Ropley Village Shop, Medstead Handy Store, Oxley’s bookstore in Alresford and Waterstones in Alton.

Some local history groups have at various times started to digitise their records, but for various reasons the project has stalled – software changes, people move on! About 10 years ago, to ensure that their archives were secure, the Worthys Local History Group started to scan all its records – documents, photographs and printed material. They now have thousands of digital files that are accessible only on request.

With a HAT grant of £500 WLHG has now taken professional advice from the Hampshire Record Office on how better to organise and catalogue the material and make it more easily accessible. The work will lead to generic advice on the process that can be used by other groups facing similar problems.

Archives are not just about the distant past, so a bid from the Wessex Film and Sound Archive to create a 2-year contemporary collection project, Making History, Making Movies, was successful. In particular. it includes people’s experiences and memories of lockdown. Also funded by the British Film Institute, it was only made possible by a top-up grant of £3,000 from HAT.

Commenting on the HAT grants scheme, Sue said: “Since we launched the scheme in 2018, we have awarded £178,000 in 32 separate grants to local history groups and organisations, and have made a real difference to bringing archives to the fore.

“Full details for application are on our website, but we are always happy to discuss ideas with potential applicants in advance. For grants up to £500 we offer a year-round telephone process, but for larger sums, up to £10,000, a committee meets twice a year to consider applications.

“The next deadline is December 31, and after that the end of June – so, we encourage any groups with ideas than needing funding to download a form from the website and get cracking!’

For more details, visit: www.hampshirearchivestrust.co.uk.

barryshurlock@gmail.com