All the latest news from the Record Office - forthcoming talks, exhibitions,
recent deposits.
Scroll to see the articles below.
Archive Awareness Month - September 2003
The Record Office will be running a number of events for Archive Awareness
Month.
There will be free guided tours behind the scenes on every Thursday in
September at 6.00 p.m.
On Saturday 4th October there will be 'Discover Durham
History Day' at the Record Office, a series of 1 hour sessions on topics
including: learning to read old documents, using real documents to discover
facts about Durham's past, how to get started with your family tree, First
World War soldiers' records, what maps and plans can tell you about past
landscapes.
There will be a charge of �10 for this event, and you can book a
place by completing the
Discover Durham History Day Booking Form
.
Black History Month - October 2003
October is Black History Month, a part of the Diversity Festival 2003.
To
celebrate, the Record Office will show an exhibition on 'The Story of Jimmy
Durham' in County Hall, with copies in the County's libraries and with the
Darlington and County Durham Racial Equality Council.
Jimmy Durham (1885-1910) was a Sudanese soldier with the 2nd Battalion The
Durham Light Infantry, who married a girl from Bishop Auckland and whose
daughter lived there all her life.
The Record Office will also be launching a new education project on this
website.
The Record Office and the DLI Museum have worked together to
illustrate Jimmy Durham's fascinating life story, using archives and museum
objects.
Supporting commentary and teachers' notes accompany the images,
together with suggested activities for classroom use.
Jimmy's story is
particularly useful for Key stage 3 History and Citizenship.
Funding towards this project was obtained from a NEMLAC Cultural Diversity
Grant.
Wesley Tercentenary
A new exhibition concerning Methodism in County Durham is now on display in the
Durham Room in County Hall, Durham.
The exhibition is designed to mark the
tercentenary of the birth of John Wesley on 17 June 1703.
It features Jacob
Rowell, a Methodist preacher who travelled the throughout North-East from his
conversion in 1748 until his death in 1783; the building of the Bethel Chapel
in North Road, Durham, in 1853; and the Methodist Big Meeting which was held
every year between 1947 and 1997.
The records of the Durham Light Infantry
Since September 1998, the Record Office has received 225 boxes of papers,
volumes, albums and loose photographs from the D.L.I.
Museum.
A temporary brief box list of albums of photographs, loose photographs, war
diaries and army lists was produced at the beginning of 1999 and this is
currently used by visitors to the Record Office's searchroom and online.
A detailed structured list of the material is being compiled by one of the
Record Office archivists.
In addition to the records mentioned above, there
is also a great deal of material relating to individual soldiers.
Where
possible, it is planned to include in the final catalogue background and career
information on each individual soldier.
It is estimated that the manuscript version of the catalogue will be completed
by December 2002 and the final typed version should be available sometime in
2003.
(( Durham Light Infantry photograph ))