Inside West Sussex Record Office – and how it got to where it is today

Since its establishment in 1946, WSRO has been collecting, caring for and providing access to historical records relating to the present administrative county of West Sussex. These records date from as early as 780AD to the present day, and span over 1,200 years of history.

While WSRO’s collecting policy is focussed on West Sussex, the material held there reaches far beyond the county’s borders, with archives that shed light on national and international history.

WSRO was set up in 1946 by West Sussex County Council in the basement of County Hall in Chichester. The conditions of these rooms were very poor and unsuitable for archival storage as they were unventilated and lined with most of the cables and pipework for the building.

Additionally, these rooms were connected by a low tunnel that required a person to bend over to walk through, and were lit by a single ceiling lightbulb, creating an overall bleak and unsavoury environment for the original WSRO staff.

In 1968, the WSRO was relocated to Edes House. This relocation proved a massive upgrade for archival storage and also allowed the record office to start growing the visitor services. As there was a growing interest in family history at the time, visitor numbers began to climb as awareness of the service expanded.

The years at Edes House allowed WSRO to expand the range of its work beyond the storage and preservation of records, becoming a facilitator for community research and engagement.

However, by the 1980s, WSRO had outgrown Edes House. As the building became increasingly full and visitor numbers continued to rise, the reception room was now functioning as an additional research room, and the modern records were having to be stored offsite at the former RAF base in Tangmere.

In 1983, the county archivist, Mrs Patricia Gill, began to petition the council to fund and construct a dedicated purpose-built facility that could accommodate all of the records under one roof, with sufficient room for research facilities and future growth. This resulted in the construction of the building on Orchard Street, where WSRO moved to upon its completion in 1989 and where it remains today.

The building in Orchard Street was one of the first purpose-built repositories in England, and has allowed the record office to continue to grow and develop its services. WSRO has made it its purpose to bring the archives to life, and engage people with the history of the county they call home.

WSRO is open to the general public, offering a variety of services and community engagement, providing a little bit of something for everyone. Beyond local records, registers and indexes, the record office also has many other sources of information and access to a variety of external resources such as Aancestry.

Any question you might have, from personal queries about family history or house history, to broader queries about local and social history, WSRO has the resources available to help you find answers or start your research.

Additionally, WSRO has regular events, such as talks and workshops. Talks on Tuesday are held the last Tuesday of the month between January and April and September to November, and welcome specialists to present on a wide range of topics relating to West Sussex. They also offer family history workshops on the first Wednesday of every month that cover helpful research topics such as tracing your family history, researching the history of your house, and reading old handwriting.

Throughout the years, WSRO has accumulated a number of notable archives. Two popular collections include the Garland photographic collection and the Shippam’s archive.

The Garland Collection is one of the largest and most important photographic collections in the county. Comprising more than 70,000 glass plate negatives capturing scenes from Petworth’s past, it serves as a great visual record of our changing society and times during the 20th century.

The Shippam’s archive preserves the history and legacy of Shippam’s, the much-loved Chichester company. The Shippam’s advertising collection is also held locally by the Novium Museum. Other notable collections include the John Fletcher Wanderings in Sussex albums, the Ronald Shephard Railway Photographic Collection, the L’Alouette Collection, and the Goodwood Archive.

Interestingly, WSRO also holds a manuscript parchment copy of the American Declaration of Independence, also known as the Sussex Declaration. This is one of the only two contemporary ceremonial parchment copies of the document that exist in the world, the other being the original Matlack Declaration, which is held at the National Archives in Washington DC. The discovery of this document in 2017 directed a massive amount of national and international attention toward West Sussex Record Office.

For those interested in learning more about WSRO and its collections at home, there is a searchable online catalogue available through their website, and a regularly updated blog where they write about fascinating documents found in the archive.

The West Sussex Record Office celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2021.