Institutionalising the Poor
Almshouses, Infirmaries, the House of Correction and the Asylum Workhouses were not the only institutions that housed the poor, particularly before 1834 when paupers were dealt with by the community. Other institutions where you might find them include: Almshouses/Parish Poorhouses Almshouses relied on charitable donations and were usually run by religious houses or organisations. You […]
Stories behind the stones, 6 Nov 2018
Discover the Stories Behind the Stones. The Beautiful Burial Ground project is offering a FREE training session at Shropshire Archives for those interested in the stories told by our burial grounds. The burial grounds in the midst of our communities tell us about changing fashions and traditions, immigration and lives both long lived and tragically […]
National Survey
If you are visiting Shropshire Archives between 17 October and 4 November 2018, you will be invited to take part in the Survey of Visitors to UK Archives. Even if you have filled in a survey form at another archive we still want to hear your views about us. Your help is appreciated as this […]
Meet the Owens
A blog post written by Archivist, Sara Downs…. Last year, my colleague, Ivar Romo, and I were fortunate to be able to catalogue the Owen family records. The collection when deposited came with funding from the owners to catalogue the collection. The Owen family are well known internationally through their company Rubery Owen. Rubery Owen […]
House history, starts 22 Jan 2019
Every house has a story; tracing the history of your property and finding out about the people who lived there can be absolutely fascinating but can also be time consuming and possibly frustrating. Old buildings have often been altered and since documents rarely give a date of construction, it is unusual to be able to […]
Ted Picken and Bucknell
A blog post written by Anthony Price, volunteer researching photographs at Shropshire Archives. Tony was featured when Midlands Today visited Shropshire Archives (6 Sep 2018) and talked about the Picken photographs. He’ll be researching and writing more about this fascinating photographer in the future and at the same time we will be digitising the photographs. […]
Stepping into the future
This blog was written by Heather Mager, a student who worked with our photographs for her A level photography project, merging old with new… For my A level photography coursework, I picked the given title ‘Changing Landscapes’ out of the options available. I wanted to look into how my home town of Shrewsbury has changed […]
Wilfred Owen centenary
Following a successful launch at Shrewsbury Abbey on Saturday 4th August, the programme of events commemorating the centenary of Wilfred Owen’s death in 1918 is well and truly underway. The Abbey event saw almost 140 guests listen to speeches by the Mayor of Shrewsbury, Cllr Peter Nutting; the Mayor of Ors (the town in France […]
Finding Old Poor Law records
Parish collections Most of our Old Poor Law documents can be found in the parish collections under ‘L’. For example, ‘P68/L’ is the reference for Poor Law administration for Claverley. Records found within the parish collections may include: Overseers’ accounts (if you can’t find these under ‘L’ it is worth looking to see if they […]
Escaped hot air balloon
In August 1906 at Shrewsbury Floral Show, held in the Quarry, a Mr Spencer was offering a ‘bird’s eye view’ of Shrewsbury from his tethered hot air balloon, for which he was charging 50 shillings (£2.50). On a Wednesday evening the tether and retaining rope broke. The balloon with its occupants, including Mr Spencer, flew […]