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The archives and museums of the ancient County Palatine of Durham contain a wealth of material about the region’s industrial past,
Trace your County Durham kin with our top tips
County Durham was an industrial powerhouse which, in the 19th century, experienced a massive increase in population. The area was dominated by coal mining, iron mining, lead mining and steel production. It was also home to the world’s first public railway to use steam locomotives – the Stockton & Darlington Railway, which opened in 1825.
This rich industrial heritage is reflected in the holdings of the county record office. You can delve into mining records that document not only processes and production, but also the workforce that powered them. You can find records of workers’ unions and employers’ associations, as well as ephemera and photographs, often recording events and social gatherings. For example, there are numerous photos from the annual Durham
Miners’ Gala organised by the Durham Miners’ Association, which was founded in 1869. The first gala took place in 1871 at Wharton Park, Durham, and the event continues to this day. All these sit alongside useful online finding aids such as Mining
Durham’s Hidden Depths, which includes an index to Durham Miners’ Association records containing hundreds of thousands of names. The next few years look set to be busy for the archive team as they work towards the creation of a brand new Durham History Centre. County archivist Liz Bregazzi says: “We carried out further consultation in the summer on proposed designs, activities and exhibitions. We are currently developing our digital strategy and exhibitions/café area, and we are aiming to apply for planning permission towards the end of 2019. Our timetable is to be fully open in late 2022. We’re working on our website development as part of our digital strategy in preparation for the new History Centre.”
The record office is home to the vast Durham Light Infantry (DLI) collection, which includes all kinds of material relating to officers and men, from citations, medals and registers, to photographs, diaries and telegrams, although it does not have service records. Happily for remote researchers, in June 2019 it won an Archives Revealed grant from The National Archives worth £38,734 to fund the ‘Durham Light Infantry: The Whole Story’ project.
Liz says: “This is to catalogue additional DLI archives – one of our most significant and most popular collections – and identify potential content for digitisation, particularly the rich photographic material. We appointed project archivist Victoria Oxberry on 1 October, and Victoria will work on the project for the next three years, so that the archives are catalogued and available for research in time for the opening of the History Centre.”
Alongside the DLI archives, the allied object collection is cared for by Durham County Council and kept at the DLI Research Centre at Spennymoor ( durham.
in ‘The DLI archives will be available time for the History Centre’s opening’
gov.uk/dlicollection). In the long term the aim is to unite objects and archives under one roof in the new History Centre.
Detailed Registers
The record office also looks after Church of England parish registers dating back to the 16th century, as well as various nonconformist registers, most available to view on microfilm. These include the unique ‘Barrington registers’, when the incumbent bishop ordered that more details should be noted in both baptism and burial registers. These run from 1798 to 1812, and burial entries from the period give the name and abode of the deceased, as well as their parentage, occupation, date of death, date of burial and age. These sit alongside cemetery and crematorium registers, census returns, electoral registers, hearth tax returns, newspapers and quarter sessions records.
In addition, there are 18th- and 19th-century land tax schedules – until electoral reform in 1832, annual land tax assessments had to be deposited with the Clerk of the Peace to form a record of freeholders eligible to elect members of parliament. The records are of value to genealogists because they often list both property owners and tenants, placing them in both a parish and a year. An index to these and other quarter sessions material is available via the online catalogue.
Also, Durham University
Library Archives and Special Collections holds records of significance to the county, including records of the bishop of Durham and the dean and chapter, and has recently acquired the significant archives of 19thcentury politician John ‘Radical Jack’ Lambton.
The library looks after enclosure, tithe and land tax records, and via the dedicated