A Cheshire County Councillor has called for special measures to ensure ‘a legacy’ of 150 years of historical documentation is safeguarded for future research.
In just over six months time, Cheshire County Council will be abolished together with six district councils, Chester City, Crewe and Nantwich, Congleton, Ellesmere Port and Neston, Macclesfield and Vale Royal and replaced by two new unitary authorities, East Cheshire and West Cheshire & Chester.
Now County Councillor, Mrs. Dorothy Flude has raised concerns that valuable county records, one day of interest to future academics and family historians, will be lost.
She has called on the County Council to identify as a matter of urgency the location of important working documents and how they can be listed and archived.
“It’s all too easy for paperwork, ledgers, maps and such to be forever lost. For instance I recently discovered at Backford Hall two ledgers listing ‘frontages’ owners in Crewe from 1890-1920.
The county councillor for Crewe South, an active member of her local history society said, “Staff need to be aware of what they are sitting on, we need to ensure documentation of historical importance is listed and conserved. Staff may be using such material on a day-to-day basis without appreciating the worth of the records to future historians, maybe 150 years from now,” said Mrs Flude.
Cheshire’s County Archivist, Jonathan Pepler said, “Cllr. Flude’s concerns are truly helpful, her intervention certainly gives the archive service more clout aiding us to promote the idea that records in current use which have historic value should be transferred to the Record Office, where they can then be available to both the two future authorities.
It is currently proposed that the County Record Office should continue as a County-wide service after next April, serving both new unitary authorities.
In the final months of the existing County Council departmental managers will be urged by Record Office colleagues to identify potential historic records and place them in their safekeeping.
