FRIENDS OF CUMBRIA ARCHIVES [FOCAS] Registered Charity No 1011624

Hours of Opening:

New Opening Time from 7th August 2010
First week
Frst Saturdays in the month: 10.00–1.00, 2.00–4.00
Monday following first Saturday in the month: CLOSED
Tuesday – Friday: 9.30 – 1.00, 2.00 – 5.00
Wednesday evening: Local Studies and searchroom sources only 5.00 -7.00pm

Weeks 2-4
Monday: 9.30 – 1.00, 2.00 – 5.00
Tuesday – Friday: 9.30 – 1.00, 2.00 – 5.00
Wednesday evening: Local Studies and searchroom sources only 5.00 -7.00pm

We will be OPEN on the following Saturdays in 2010/2011: 4th December, 8th January, 5th February, 5th March, 2nd April, 7th May, 4th June

We will be CLOSED on the following Mondays in 2010/2011: 6th December, 7th February, 7th March, 4th April, 9th May, 6th June

Notice required:  No prior notice needed for general or routine research. Previous letter or email may be advantageous for more specialised topics.

Disabled access:  via Central Library (adjoining) or via delivery yard at rear of building.

Copying facilities:  Staff make photocopies subject to condition of the document and copyright restrictions.  It may not be possible to complete bulk orders immediately.  Reader/printer machines available for self-service printing from microfilm and microfiche.

Cataloguing system/guides to records:  There are hard-copy catalogues available for archive collections in the searchroom.  Some subject and place indexes are available. See also Catalogues and Guides.

Scope of collection:  The record office broadly collects unpublished material from Barrow, Ulverston, Dalton-in-Furness and the surrounding villages, with a limited amount of material from the Millom area.

Books/Periodicals/Journals:

A large collection comprising most local titles for the Furness area, 18^th-21^st centuries.  More limited coverage for other parts of Lancashire and south Cumberland.

 

Barrow Naturalists Field Club Annual Reports 1876-1971 (the last published edition); Cumbria Family History Society newsletters 1976-present;

Cumbria 1947-present;

Cumbrian Railways 1976-present;

Fell and Rock Climbing Club Journal Vol. 1 1907-present;

Furness Family History Society newsletters 1993-present;

Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 1848/49-present;

Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society 1883-present;

Lancashire Life 1954-present;

Northern History Vol. 1 1966-present; 

Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 1874-present.

 

Newspapers:

Barrow Citizen 1904;

Barrow Guardian 1910-1947;

Barrow Herald 1864-1914;

Barrow Leader 1924-1927;

Barrow News 1883-1985;

Barrow Pilot & Furness Advertiser 1871-1877;

Barrow Pioneer 1905-1908;

Cumberland Pacquet 1774-1779; 

Lancaster Gazette 1801-1850;

Millom Gazette 1892-1933;

North Lonsdale Herald & Dalton Advertiser 1895-1910 (with gaps);

North West Daily Mail/North West Evening Mail, 1898-present;

North West Daily Times 1871-1884;

Northern Beacon 1919;

Soulby’s Ulverston Advertiser 1848-1914;

South Cumbria Star 1986;

South Lakes News 1986;

The Vulcan 1871-1886 (with gaps);

Ulverston Mirror & Furness Reflector/North Lonsdale Mirror 1863-1885;

Vickerstown Chronicle 1902-1904; 

West Cumberland Labour Gazette 1920-1921.

Other non-paper based holdings (NB mostly on microfilm):

General Register Office indexes of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales, 1837-1996 (microfiche version);

Census returns for Furness and for the Millom area, 1841-1901;

International Genealogical Index (IGI) for Great Britain (1991 version);

Protestation Returns for Cumberland and Lancashire (the reel also includes Kent) 1641 (a petition against the arbitrary government of King Charles I.  A source which names significant numbers of individuals from each parish, during an age when other comparable population listings are simply not available);

Hearth tax returns for Lancashire, 1662-1673 (many gaps);

Port of Lancaster shipping registers, 1786-c.1900;

Ulverston Canal Company minute books, 1793-1850;

Furness Railway Company minute books, 1844-1923 (also smaller absorbed railway companies);

Diaries of William Fleming of Rowe Head, Pennington, early 19^th century;

Diaries of William Cavendish, 7^th Duke of Devonshire, 1838-1890.

Manuscript/archive collections: 

Ecclesiastical parishes around Barrow, Dalton, Ulverston and Millom, two of which date back beyond 1550, including parish registers of baptisms, marriages and burials; vestry books, and occasional records of the highways and poor law administration;

Local authority archives: Barrow Borough Council; neighbouring local authorities (now superceded) and local educational institutions (including school boards and individual schools).  Quarter Sessions records are held at Lancashire Record Office at Preston;

Estate collections: include records from the Duke of Buccleuch’s Furness Estate office (formerly based at Dalton) which is particularly strong on sources of the iron mining industry, generally dating from the 19^th-20^th centuries; the Duke of Devonshire archives.  However as neither duke had his principal residence within the Furness area, there are no family collections on quite the same scale as often found in other county record offices;

The Manor of Broughton-in-Furness, 17^th-20^th centuries, is a good estate collection showing the administration of a manor which formerly passed through several different families, before the title to its lordship passed (uniquely) to the County Council of Cumbria;

Solicitors: Hart Jackson of Ulverston; Kendall & Fisher of Ulverston; Thomas Butler of Broughton-in-Furness.  These include title deeds; clients’ papers on civil and criminal matters, and records of local manors (since latterly the solicitors often assisted with manorial administration);

Business records: Vickers Shipbuilding & Engineering, Barrow: technical drawings, mainly of gun mountings, together with more general historical items, originally assembled by the company librarian.  Many of these are really only for the technical specialist.  Whilst several books have been published describing Barrow’s main employer, it must be said that other aspects of the town’s social and industrial history are not easy to research, due to the frequent limitations of sources available.

Maps/plans:

Ordnance Survey, complete coverage of larger scales for the Furness area of Lancashire, late 1840s-1945 and for the area of Cumberland south of Eskdale, 1860s-1920s.  More limited large-scale coverage for post-1945.  A few local estate maps, 17^th-19^th centuries.  Most local enclosure maps and all produced local tithe maps from 19^th century.  Some county maps for Lancashire, 1786-19^th century and separate town maps for Barrow, 1875 to the 20^th century.

Photographs/audio-visual: 

There are two established collections of mainly local photographs, comprising items originally gathered by the Local Studies Library or else deposited with the Cumbria Archive Service.  There are numerous incidental pictures within many of the individual archive collections, as well as thousands of illustrations within printed books but finding aids are far from complete.