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Martin Hayes County Local Studies Librarian Area Office Library Service Worthing Library (01903) 704811 (Direct) Richmond Road (01903) 704839 (Fax) Worthing [email protected] West Sussex www.westsussex.gov.uk BN11 1HD WARTIME WEST SUSSEX 1914-18 PROJECT ACTIVITIES, OUTCOMES & EVALUATION REPORT 1. Main Aims Agreed by HLF Compared to Actual Outcomes AIM OUTCOME Complete at least 30 educational case 103 case studies completed and studies on individuals or themes published online Digitise complete runs of at least 8 local 10 newspapers digitised covering newspapers 1910-1920 1914-25 Digitise all available Royal Sussex All available RSR battalion war diaries Regiment battalion war diaries (official digitised and published online, plus daily accounts) many more sources – see Appendix 2 Digitise at least 100 photographs and 173 photographs, plus numerous documents in private hands for use in the documents, were digitised and used in case studies, exhibition or website case studies, exhibition, website and book Train and manage at least 15 volunteers to 150 volunteers took part in the project participate in the project and 200 people (including additionally book authors & contributors, donors/lenders of material and staff) in total – see book Train and manage at least 5 students to 5 BA History undergraduates took part participate in the project in the project Work with partner schools to develop at Working with 3 partner schools, we least 5 of the case studies for use in the created 4 case studies of Royal Sussex classroom; to be used as 'ideas templates' men and showcased work by fourteen year 9 pupils Create a new on-line learning resource, a Our Great War West Sussex 1914-18 West Sussex 1914-18 website, as a website went live on 22nd June 2013 platform for much of the above material and comprises over 300 documents, 3,000 pages and index references to 10,000 topics & 14,000 people Organise a small travelling exhibition to Our travelling exhibition, composed of public libraries & County Record Office of 20 panels, has toured 18 venues from case studies and research material on June 2014 to May 2015 with further 1914-18 during summer 2014 venues planned Publish a book on West Sussex and World Great War West Sussex, Remembering War One 1914-18 was published on 4th August 2014 1 2. Preparing the Content September 2012 to December 2013 Initial publicity was issued in the form of a news release and feature article in West Sussex County Council’s free magazine West Sussex Connections delivered to every household during September & October 2012, and three public meetings were held at key geographical points in the County: Chichester, Crawley and Worthing. These were attended by 151 people (see Activities record below) and through the winter a total of 150 volunteers signed up to take part in the project. Emma White was appointed as Heritage Project Manager in January and designed, created and tested documentation for three volunteer functions: digital camera capture, case study creation and newspaper indexing. Some volunteers asked to work on more than one task and we delivered 29 training sessions between 7th March and 24th October, most during the spring and early summer 2013. See Appendix One for details of all training sessions and other activities. Newspaper digitisation was carried out at Microformat’s state-of the-art centre at Lisse in Holland in three separate phases, covering the years 1914-18, 1919-22 and 1923-25. Ten titles were captured: Bognor Observer, Chichester Observer, East Grinstead Observer, Horsham Times & West Sussex Courier, Littlehampton Observer, Mid-Sussex Times, Sussex & Surrey Courier, West Sussex County Times, West Sussex Gazette and Worthing Gazette. Tif master files are now stored an external hard drives and a server. Working pdf files were created for volunteers and staff to use. A digital camera team, consisting of 9 volunteers, was trained in three sessions from 7th March to 19th March. They started work on 26th March and finished on 5th June and captured around 19,000 images from the Royal Sussex Regiment archives at the County Record Office. The initial objective was to photograph only the RSR battalion war diaries but these were all completed within 2 days of the team starting! They went on to capture all general records relating to the battalions and the only RSR archival excluded were records of individual soldiers which were done very selectively. Appendix two is a list of the documents captured. Sarah Wilson, ex County Council staff with scanning experience, was another volunteer trained in image selection and digital capture. She found some 173 WWI images in the County Library Service’s collections of photographs & postcards and scanned them using the sophisticated scanner at Worthing Library’s Digitisation Unit. They are now available on our online photo database West Sussex Past Pictures: http://www.westsussexpast.org.uk/pictures/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Arch ive2&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=(Period='World War One') Some five case study training sessions for volunteers were delivered between 18th March and 30th April involving 73 volunteers. Alan Readman, County Archivist and military records specialist, played a key part in this training programme. The volunteers worked on case studies of individual servicemen, nurses, civilians and topics related to West Sussex and the Great War, and each is an illustrated pdf document varying in length from 5 to 77 pages, with the average being around 10 to 20 pages with some 3,000 words. Some 103 case studies have been published and can be viewed and downloaded on-line on the new website (see below): https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/learning/learning_resources/great_war_west_sussex_1 914-18/people_at_war.aspx 2 Five B.A. History students from the University of Chichester completed a 6 week placement with us from February to April 2013. They were asked to choose one or more individuals affected by the War, use primary and secondary sources to research them, their family background and how the war impacted on their lives. Their research was written up in a branded Word template and to guidelines supplied by us. The resulting case studies may be viewed on our Great War website (see section Three below) of them have completed a case study, a fourth is imminent and the fifth hasn’t produced one. The topics completed are: the 4 Victorian Cross winners 1914-18 from the Royal Sussex Regiment; RSM W.F. Rainsford a Cockney soldier probably born out of wedlock who rose through the ranks; Capt. Eric A.C. Fazan (a doctor from Wadhurst) & the disastrous Battle of Aubers Ridge in 1915; three sisters (Watson family) from Steyning who became military nurses. View the case studies here: https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/learning/learning_resources/great_war_west_sussex_1 914-18/people_at_war.aspx Some 21 newspaper indexing training sessions at Chichester, Crawley & Worthing for 75 volunteers, plus 11 staff, were completed between 10th May and 11th July. Volunteers used a Word table to record significant events in 8 of the titles covering 1914-18 and an Excel spreadsheet to index people involved in the war mentioned in 8 of the local newspapers. Each volunteer was asked to complete one quarter of a year (January to March etc), with some completing more than one, such that around 130 of the 144 quarters were successfully indexed. The event indexes were very important research tool for the team of 12 authors writing the book and played a crucial part in making the volume so effective and well received (see section on the book below). The people index may also appear online and have asked Capita/OSD team for a quote. https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/learning/learning_resources/great_war_west_sussex_1 914-18/people_at_war.aspx With the aims of sharing information, training experiences and co-ordinating activities, we invited organisations from across East Sussex, West Sussex and Brighton to join a Great War Centenary Sussex Group. Five meetings were held from May 2013 to May 2014 across the region. Around 30 representatives of library & archive services, museums, Royal Sussex Regiment, countywide societies, large public schools etc were members and over 100 attended meetings in total. A master list of 2014 Great War events was compiled and shared with members and the public. Finally a research and writing team was formed in September 2013 comprising 12 specialists in various fields to research and write the text, and source the illustrations, for a book. See Appendix Three for the authors’ CVs. Following interest from three publishers, the History Press was selected to publish the book. Research and writing continued throughout the winter and the manuscript, at 72,000 words almost double the original size requested by History Press, was delivered on schedule on 7th March 2014. 3. Outcomes January 2014 to May 2015 3.1 Launch Event The Great War West Sussex Roadshow was a free drop-in event, held at Edes House in Chichester, on 22nd June. Its purpose was to launch the project exhibition, the 2014 talks programme and website. Appendix Four is the programme for the day. Essential to the success of the event were 20 volunteers who acted as stewards and guides throughout the day. The 20 panel exhibition (see below) filled the largest room of this 17th century mansion in the heart of the City. A research panel comprising Library & Record Office staff, 3 offered advice on military and more general family history research and some laptops set up to demonstrate the new website. A programme of 10 talks and poetry recitals continued throughout the day, offering samples of talks to be delivered at venues throughout West Sussex during the rest of 2014. A marquee housed stands from the Royal Sussex Regimental Association and from the Royal Sussex Living History Group.