Celebrating the British Steel Archive

A celebratory event is planned to mark the work of the British Steel Archive Project which has been led by Teesside University.

The project, a partnership between Teesside University and Teesside Archives, came to an end in December 2010.

The aim of the three-year project has been to increase awareness of the British Steel Collection, an extensive collection of photographs, maps, ledgers, deeds and other documents relating to the area’s iron and steel industries.

The British Steel Archive Project’s work will be celebrated at Middlesbrough Town Hall Crypt on Friday 28 January. Entry is by invitation only.

A similar event is due to take place at the House of Commons in London on Tuesday 15 February.

Although the British Steel Collection has been housed for many years at Teesside Archives in central Middlesbrough, it was not accessible as there was no catalogue to help people understand what it contained.

Making the British Steel Collection accessible involved sorting and listing the entire archive by company name and type of record.

These lists were then entered into an electronic cataloguing system which can be seen online at www.middlesbrough.gov.uk/teessidearchives. All the digitised images currently housed on the project’s website will be gradually transferred into the catalogue.

A sustainable legacy for the people of Teesside A volunteer programme was set up in 2008 to involve local people in the project. Around 90 volunteers were trained to assist the project team in cleaning and re-packing records, digital photography, indexing, cataloguing and carrying out small research projects. In addition, 16 qualified engineers helped to mentor students in schools.

Dr Joan Heggie, British Steel Archive Project Manager, said: 'This has been a fantastic project which has really made a difference to the future of the British Steel Collection and produced a sustainable legacy for the people of Teesside.'

She said the volunteers were vital to the success of the project and the value of their time amounted to over £100,000 in match funding.

Dr Heggie added: 'Around 20 of these volunteers wanted to continue and so the volunteer programme is being transferred to the Friends of Teesside Archives, a charity which exists to support the work of Teesside Archives.'

Many activities were also developed by the outreach team for use in schools, museums, libraries and community groups. The team delivered over 200 events to more than to 5,500 participants and has produced a School Resource Pack which will shortly be made available at www.britishsteelcollection.org.uk.

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