Report from the chair (July/August 2024)
Dear all, and welcome to our July newsletter.
Sukriti, who is doing a one-year internship with us and has been working with our marketing team on updating our website to give us much better search engine optimisation, gave a presentation of her work to date at our latest trustee meeting. It was amazing how so many key searches relating to what we are about now appear on the first page of search results. All of this marvellous work is certainly paying dividends for we are now getting about two offers a week of donations from people who have found our website through searches.
Another of the upgrades to our website will see photographs and descriptions of donations appearing on the “Make a Donation” page:
This will give a clear indication of the sorts of items that fit with our collections policy and give people confidence that what they want to donate will be welcomed at the archive.
David, who had attended one of our open evenings and saw some old bottles on display, turned up with his own collection to donate to us. David told me that as Clerk of Works on a project in Bolton a number of years ago he was responsible for digging out an old Victorian tip and lining it with plastic to make it usable in modern times. These bottles came out of the old residue that was removed during the lining process. There are some fascinating bottles in the collection and I look forward to discovering the stories behind some of the companies named on them. All we need now is a volunteer to come forward and photograph the collection so that it can be displayed on the website.
My old Bridge teacher, and regular donor to the archive, Jenny Morris, contacted me to collect her latest stack of magazines and catalogues. Even though these are modern items they are fantastic to have in the collection and will provide a valuable tool to fashion researchers of the future.
Having established a connection to the National Trust archive team through our links with Stockport Heritage Library, we took delivery of over 1,000 gardening magazines which are currently being catalogued into the collection by our volunteer Paul Niblett. As a follow-on Darren Beatson (the National Trust archivist) has sent us a pack of about twenty brochures for pianos and gramophones going back to the 1860s. This exciting new addition to our collection will expand the musical instrument material we hold.
Our volunteers never seem to go off duty and this month has seen donations of beer glasses and beer mats from two of them. Dickie Grenfell brought in items with a Scotland theme while Evelyn Shepherd found a number of beer glasses with a beer festival theme.
One of the recent contacts we had through the website came from Euli Muntal who had come across a box of paperwork and wanted to find a good home for it. Euli came to the archive with her mother to hand over the paperwork and after the “grand tour” of the archive we sat down and looked through the papers. We discovered that the paperwork related to a Dorothy Bernhardt and came with photographs going back to 1910. There is a clear link to Germany as there was an envelope dated 1987 relating to a passport issued by the Federal Republic of Germany. There is a fascinating story in here and we are now looking for a family historian who can help us to find out more information about Dorothy and her life.
On the same day as Euli’s visit Michael Edwards (of de Dion Bouton book fame) dropped off his donation of automotive magazines. Among the many boxes there was a bound run of “The Autocar” Magazine (with covers and adverts) from 1953 to 1967; a bound run of “Old Motor” magazine; loose copies of “Old Motor News”; the Bulletin of the Alvis Register; a bound run of “Brooklands Society Magazine” and a box of Sotheby’s auction catalogues.
Aside from receiving donations we have been busy with work on getting the Austin Ruby back on the road. The engine is now completely disassembled and the crankshaft has gone off for repair. Parts have also been ordered for the rebuild (gaskets etc.) and the process of cleaning and inspecting all the parts is underway.
The building work on strengthening part of the upstairs floor is now complete and a very big thank you goes out to Lucy from Cheadle Skips for enabling this to take place through providing the finance and the labour to carry out the project.
We had seven attendees at the July open evening and a very interesting mix of people and conversations took place.
Our plans for the Heritage Open Day at the archive are well under way and we look forward to welcoming new and old visitors to the archive on Saturday 7th September.
As per last year we were invited by the Triumph Motor Cycle Club (Manchester branch) to have a stand at their concourse event held at the Navigation Inn, Woodley on Sunday the 29th July. It was a beautiful sunny day with over 150 motorcycles on display. We had planned to take the Ruby but that will have to wait until next year so we settled for our gazebo where we had on display a selection of motor cycle and brewery items. Many thanks to Evelyn Shepherd who helped me put up the stand and man it during the day. For me the highlight was talking to a couple who were looking at our collection of Belle Vue Speedway programmes. They explained that on their wedding day (12th July 1975) they went to Belle Vue to watch the speedway. Looking through the box of programmes I pulled out the one for that day and they spent the next ten minutes looking through it and commenting on the many memories it brought back to them about their wedding day.
At the end of the day the landlord of the Navigation was introduced to me and he handed over a pile of beer towels, drip trays and pump clips as a donation to the archive.
And on that happy note and until our next open evening and newsletter, have a great time and enjoy life to the full.
Take care and all the best.
Richard Roberts and the team at the Richard Roberts Archive
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Collection Statistics
The Richard Roberts Archive collection statistics
Tuesday 30th July 2024
Collection database
Total items 160,308
- of which Magazines 136,239
Product folders
Total folders 169
- circa number of adverts 20,787
Breweriana
Total folders 438
Beermats 25,960
Transport photograph database
Total items 883
Volunteer hours
Total 72,479
- of which this month 440
