A bridge to our steel heritage

Funding to develop Teesside-based British Steel archive secured by the Social Futures Institute.

The University of Teesside has secured a £250,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery fund (HLF) to allow us to open and make public the contents of a local archive that has until now been unexplored due to lack of resources.

The British steel archive is an extensive collection of materials and artifacts that, once conserved and catalogued, will together provide a detailed documentation of the activities of over 40 Teesside iron and steel companies between 1840 and 1980.

The project is led by Dr Joan Heggie, a research fellow in the University's Social Futures Institute. She says: 'This collection tells the story of how the iron and steel industries shaped the growth of Teesside. It emphasises the historical importance and influence of this region both nationally and around the world.'

The archive contains over 600 feet of material, including more than 25,000 photos and negatives, over 70 cine films of industrial processes, employee wage books, social welfare records and artwork, and over 2,000 engineering plans, including the original plans for the world famous Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia.

The grant will also enable the archives to be displayed digitally via an online virtual museum, which will be accessed through a website (www.britishsteelcollection.org.uk) due to be launched alongside the project in April. This website will also act as a virtual community, where people will be able to log on and share their memories of working in and living amongst the renowned Teesside industry.

Dr Heggie is keen to stress that the archive will not only be developed and shaped by the research team, but also by those members of the public who use it. 'It will be built on the sense of pride and identity which already exists in this area and give the people of Teesside and the wider public the opportunity to become involved.'

'This collection belongs to the people of Stockton-on-Tees, Hartlepool, Redcar & Cleveland and Middlesbrough. There's absolutely no point in thinking we know what we're going to do with this archive if people out there have other ideas.'

Dr Heggie also highlighted how vital is it that the project captures and shares the archive's living local history in the here and now: 'So many of these things are time-limited. If you don't grasp the nettle, you lose this information not just there and then but for the next generation because these people are no longer with us. The memories are lost, and that's really sad.

'Everyone in the team has worked very hard to make this happen and now we can begin to put the plans into action.

---

Read Dr Joan Heggie's biography