Blog / Archives

Posted on March 17, 2021 by Fay Curtis.

British Empire & Commonwealth Collection: Introducing the new online catalogue

by Frances Davies, Documentation Assistant Making our collections accessible and available globally is a key focus for us right now. With most of our objects and archives in storage and far fewer people visiting the museum due to lockdown, using the int…

Posted on January 19, 2021 by Fay Curtis.

Listen to the past: spectacular new podcasts!

By Katie Scaife, Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project manager. Monday 18 January saw the launch of an amazing new series of podcasts called Bristol Schools. They’ve been created by local people with the help of BCfm community radio and Bristol Muse…

Posted on November 24, 2020 by Fay Curtis.

Flares, fires and destruction: The air raid of 24 November 1940

by Graham Tratt, Archivist 24 November 2020 marks 80 years since the first major devastating air raid on Bristol during World War Two. The raid and the damage it caused was recorded by local shipping inspector Leonard Pitman. Thanks to funding from the …

Posted on October 29, 2020 by Fay Curtis.

UOSH changes the law!

by Katie Scaife, project manager, Unlocking Our Sound Heritage, Bristol Archives Unlocking Our Sound Heritage started off with many laudable aims, but changing the law of the land came as a surprise! One of our main aims for Unlocking Our Sound Her…

Posted on October 27, 2020 by Fay Curtis.

A day to celebrate: World Day for Audiovisual Heritage

by Katie Scaife, project manager, Unlocking Our Sound Heritage, Bristol Archives Get out the bubbly! Today – 27 October – is the UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage. This year’s theme is Window on the World, and couldn’t be more apt. …

Posted on October 26, 2020 by Fay Curtis.

Advice from the Archives: Caring for cassettes

Top tips to preserve your old cassettes by David Brookfield, Audio Digitisation Engineer at Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH) Believe it or not, cassettes are back. And chances are, you might have a few cassettes from a few years ago – if you…

Posted on August 14, 2020 by Fay Curtis.

Unlocking Our Sound Heritage: A day in the life of an audio cataloguer

by Philippa Lewis, Project Cataloguer Since October 2018 I’ve been working as an audio cataloguer for the Unlocking our Sound Heritage (UOSH) project team based at Bristol Archives. This has been my first experience of working solely with audio mat…

Posted on June 22, 2020 by Fay Curtis.

Princess Campbell: a unique voice in Bristol’s Black history uncovered at Bristol Archives

by David Brookfield, Audio Digitisation Engineer I’m part of the team digitising audio recordings for the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH) project at Bristol Archives. This has given me the chance to hear stories from countless people on a wide ran…

Posted on June 15, 2020 by Fay Curtis.

To understand racism, we need to understand empire: The British Empire and Commonwealth Collection

By the British Empire & Commonwealth Collection team The British Empire and Commonwealth Museum was an independent museum in Temple Approach, Bristol, which was open to the public between 2002 and 2008. In 2012, following the museum’s permanen…

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Fay Curtis.

Penelope Chetwode and ‘the perfect ADC’ (personal assistant)

by Pat Ellingham, Archives volunteer Our volunteer, Pat Ellingham, found this story of the young Penelope Chetwode (later Lady Betjeman) in the photograph albums of Geoffrey Kellie, part of the British Empire & Commonwealth Collection. There’s a defin…

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