Charging for historical research by the hour
sir – Northamptonshire Archives and Heritage Service is restricting free access to historical documents to limited times and introducing an hourly charge of £31.50 to view archival material at all other times.
Not only will such a decision render archival research prohibitively expensive for amateur or professional historians, it is a betrayal of every donation made in the understanding that the material would be freely available to the public.
Furthermore, it sets a dangerous precedent of only making historical knowledge available to a privileged elite that can afford it.
Jonathan Allard
Oundle, Northamptonshire