Primary School records
At long last our catalogues for primary (elementary) schools in Shropshire are online! These lists were previously only available as printed catalogues. School records reach us in a piecemeal way – from the Local Education Authority, from the school itself, from retired head teachers or from local churches. In the case of Ellerdine school, […]
The Census Enumerator
This year most households will be filling in the census online. In the past, the responsibility for collecting information fell to enumerators. Between 1801 and 1831, overseers of the poor and parish clergy had provided statistics on the number of households in their parishes and baptisms, marriages and burials recorded in parish registers. They followed […]
Unexpected birth places
A native of Moldavia in Church Stretton The census shows to us the unexpected by revealing the birthplace of all residents. One unusual example is the Zrinyi family resident in Church Stretton in the later 19th and early 20th centuries. Arthur Edward Demetre de Stourdza Zrinyi was born in Iasi in Moldavia, now part of […]
The Rowton Meteorite
A meteorite landing on a driveway in Gloucestershire has been an unusual event, but Shropshire too, has a claim to an exceptional meteorite. We are fortunate that the events on the afternoon of the 20th April 1876, were reported in some detail in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 1882. Above the […]
The ‘surplus woman’
Archivist, Sara Downs considers the single woman question, emigration and the 1851 census… The data from the 1851 census highlighted that there were approximately 500,000 more women than men and there were two and half million unmarried women. Single women had always existed in the population, but for the first time the census provided statistical data to confirm […]
Introducing Charlotte, Countess of Bridgewater
For International Women’s Day on 8 March this year, Archivist Sara Downs considers the life of Countess Charlotte Catherine Anne Egerton…. Whilst researching the Bridgewater family for the talk to the Friends of Shropshire Archives and the Shropshire Archaeology Society in November, I became acquainted with Countess Charlotte Catherine Anne Egerton, wife of the 7th Earl of Bridgewater and sister-in-law to the eccentric 8th Earl. I learned that the Countess continued to live at Ashridge, the family mansion of the […]
Census month
As the next census takes place on Sunday 21 March 2021, we are bringing together research tips and information about historic census returns. The census returns are a fantastic resource. You can learn more about individuals as part of your family history, check former inhabitants of your house or build up a picture of the […]
Shropshire’s LGBTQ+ history
As part of LGBTQ+ history month, which is celebrated throughout February, staff at Shropshire Archives have investigated some of the resources we hold. These are a couple of examples from our collections. We are very aware that there will be many other examples of LGBTQ+ material within our holdings and plan to investigate this further […]
My experiences as the intern at Shropshire Archives
I joined Shropshire Archives just over three years ago in November 2017 as the new intern. As a history graduate, a career in archives suited me perfectly (I wasn’t keen on the other option a lot of history graduates take of becoming a teacher!) and this job provided me with the ideal introduction to it. […]
Two women papermakers
While searching for other records I came across this apprentice indenture showing that William Nock was apprenticed to Sarah Falkner, a paper maker, in 1768. This made me wonder how widespread papermaking was in Shropshire and how unusual it was for a woman to be involved in the industry at this time. The first confirmed […]
